Our little solar system gets even more complex…
Reshared post from +SETI Institute
Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered an enormous ring around Saturn — by far the largest of the giant planet’s many rings. The ring itself is tenuous, made up of a thin array of ice and dust particles. Spitzer’s infrared eyes were able to spot the ring's glow. http://buff.ly/1eiXv1k
Every time you learn something, you realize just how much you don't know
+Olav Folland honestly its frightening how little we know.. and how concerned we are about things that do not even matter..
I don't think it's truly comprehend-able. I mean, look at most scientists – that have very narrow focus that they drill down and drill down into, but seldom do they pop up out of their holes to see what scientists are doing in other areas. Sometimes we all get lucky, and they're able to figure out how one hole relates to another.
The average layman though has no real understanding of the ground the holes are being drilled in, so when a scientist pops out and announces "lookit what I found" the layman doesn't understand it, is probably a little frightened by it (because he doesn't understand it) and tromps off to look for something in a hole he can comprehend. Unfortunately that's often something akin to Oprah or one of the star search shows.
I find most people immensely shallow in understanding on any topic. I try to pride myself in all topics – at least a bit of knowledge in many many things..
Nope its not easy but I would be damn bored and feel like a complete idiot daily if I was not aware of what happens in the world around me…
I cannot tell you how many times I have had conversations that come down to – "seriously? you do not know this? How can you not want to know these things?"
Argh. My tablet has eaten my comment twice now. Ill be back tomorrow 😛
Ha do you mean when you try to hit the submit arrow and it just removes the post.
(on my laptop for a sec before bed) I've had that happen at least once tonight, but in this case I touch an unidentifiable spot and I'm back looking at my stream again with the notification sidebar, only your post was down in the previously viewed section 😛
Has happened to me also
Somehow that makes me feel better 🙂
And back on the tablet I think I've figured it out. Don't let your fingers graze outside the confines of the keyboard and the text you're typing 😛
Yep.. Also not sure if not using the stock keyboard makes a difference
(recollects thoughts)
Thing is, most people can't comprehend the size of the world, let alone the internet. And I'm not even talking about the fundies and the flat-landers. I honestly think a lot of people can't comprehend 7,045,999,999 other people out there let alone that shit up there in the sky.
If we skip the fright-tactics the news dishes out, I don't think people can really understand how we can't control the climate, or talk each other into behaving for that matter. Hell, I've met far too many people that can't comprehend the distance between SF and London, let alone that people are different there.
Jack that up to stellar distances – enough people got the news story that Voyager left the solar system. But many of those, even our seniors, can't comprehend that that thing has been flying through space for 30 years, and should have been dead long ago. If you told them how many objects come dangerously close to Earth every year…they'd probably shit their pants.
Really it comes down to most people can 'get' the world around them. But the really big and the really small…not so much. I mean, ask a man on the street about finding the Higgs-Boson particle, which actually get some evening news play.
I hear it everyday – the words – what and I do not get it, followed by me asking are you going to go look it up…
I had an employee the other day trying to describe something about astronomy he heard on the news.. he got it totally wrong, but as I told him, hey at least you are talking about things that are difficult to understand.. I am proud of you as I try to instill thinking in my employees and trying to get them to think on their own about things that are bigger than they are or at least to try to figure out how the door knob works before just giving up and asking me to open it for them.
I was trying to explain to someone the other day that gamma ray bursters are the most powerful explosion and event in the known universe and that they can travel across the entire universe with amazing amounts of power and potential devastation. They did not comprehend the vastness of the universe and most confuse the universe with the solar system.
I guess this is one reason I have always hung around the "smarter people" the people I can both comprehend and talk too in a way that makes my mind actually work.. because if not I have those days that I am pretty sure half my brain just shuts off and does daily tasks..
Sum up – I have a few people I have beers with, and otherwise I hang out with the internet 😉
+Olav Folland well said…!