What I'm Reading

What Time Is It??

We think we know what time it is – and our comfort reflects partially our belief that Time is inviolable, permanent.  But, in the 2011 Best American Science and Nature Writing essay by George Musser (originally published in Scientific American), the almost-unthinkable question is asked: “Could Time End?”

The essay explores the nature of time as presently conceived by physicists and other scientists (and philosophers). Musser describes Time: its directionality, its duration and scale, its spatial separation. These are all ways that Time serves to make sense of our universe and allow us to function. As he says, for instance, about directionality (the past, the future): We depend on the directionality of time as children grow into adults, as matter degenerates. If there is no directionality, there will be no change, and only ceaseless equilibrium = death.

“Might there come a point sometime in the future when there is no ‘after’?” Musser asks. “… Modern physicists believe the answer is ‘yes’. Time itself could end. All activity would cease, and there would be no renewal or recovery. The end of time would be the end of endings.”

The end of Time might be, as some suggest, comparable to the end of life as we know it – where internal timed and timing structures (cell genetic markers and so on) fall apart, resulting in a disintegration of the most essential of qualities. This could happen slowly or quickly. If slowly, our human lives will become more and more difficult, as things break down or no longer make sense.

If quickly, some scientists speculate the end of Time as equivalent to its beginning – so, the opposite of a Big Bang or Big Bounce could occur and everything would just. Stop.

Many physicists believe, on the other hand, that the dilemma is not resolvable. “For them,” as Musser notes, “the boundaries of time are also the boundaries of reason and empirical observation.” In some ways, the question of the beginning and end of time resolves in the viewpoint of many psychologists – and, again, philosophers – who posit that there is no objective reality. There is only what each of us perceives through our individual lens of history, experience, current condition, values, and emotional valence. So, in the ‘little’ sense, time certainly ends with our individual deaths. And, perhaps, the whole question is meaningless anyway if my Time is different than your Time which is still different from his Time. What time is it, anyway?

The Weather

Dense fog advisory. Lovely words to read, see, and even drive through in the land of drought! Up to 80 today w/light drizzle. Possibly one more freeze before the end of our very warm and short winter. My 3 types of onion plants  (white, sweet yellow, red) are all thriving and I'm beginning to thin them as green onions. Supplementing salads w/the wild plants in my yard: chickweed, henbit, cleavers. Wish I had more dandelions -- they are great bitter herbs for early spring.

What I'm Reading

WEEDS

What do dandelion, jellyfish, and coyotes have in common?

You can definitely eat the 1^st two in the list. Dandelions, jellyfish, and coyotes belong to different living groups: plant, fish, mammal and, while adaptable, do have some specific environmental requirements (water, for instance).  All three can be annoying, irritating, even dangerous . And, for my purposes, all three are prime examples of weed species – invasive, prolific, and hard to stop once they get going. Dandelions, jellyfish, and coyotes are all weeds.

One of the themes running through this year’s 2011 The Best American Science and Nature Writing collection: how humankind has successfully destroyed numerous species of living things mostly by destroying their habitats and how, in some cases (the BP oil spill, fracking), threatens to destroy human habitat as well.

“The planet of weeds,” as David Quammen describes it,” is an impoverished place in its abundance because it heralds the end of diversity. And it is likely our inexorable future.”

Here’s a little bit about the jellyfish from “The New King of the Sea” by Abigail Tucker.

What I'm Making

Decided to make some accompaniments to a plate I'd made sometime ago -- it had lovely colors: eridium pink, French vanilla, orange, midnight blue -- but it looked lonely by itself. So, I made 3 smaller plates and a bowl to keep it company! The orange in all of these is a striker glass, which means that it starts out looking clear and 'strikes' its color upon firing ...

What I'm Reading

The Best American Science and Nature Writing (2011)

Table of Contents

What I'm Reading

When I was in school I believed that science was mathematics. That science was truth. And, ergo, that science was unimaginative and devoid of beauty. That’s what I believed from the textbooks I read, the lectures I sort of attended to, the lab exercises I performed, the statistics I applied to the data I gathered from my subjects [people].

Since I discovered science writing, my expectations have been turned on their heads – or, their molecular structure diagrams or their 1s and  0s. I’m reading the 2011 edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and I’ll share the TOC in another post which -- by itself -- should be sufficient to entice you to learn more about the physical (and, not necessarily observable) worlds we inhabit.

What I'm Making

Happy Lurve Day, my peeps and peeplets!! Cookie?

The Weather

45, windy, overcast, dampish. The weeds are so high in my yard from the unexpected rains and mild winter that I mowed yesterday – in early February.

And, at the intersection of art and science, astrophysicist Adam Frank notes today that:

"Fundamentally, both art and science are about encounters with the real world — the one we live in and experience as colors, textures, shapes and sounds. Every artistic creation and every scientific study is a record of experimentation. At their best those experiments are rooted in two vital qualities: interest and attention."

What I'm Reading

Reading the “2011 Best Essays” reminded me of how much I appreciate Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and Samuel Pepys (1633-1703). In complicated times – and, when are they not? -- it’s perspective-lending to revisit wise voices from hundreds of years ago who wrestled with pretty much the same issues, albeit more wittily.

Throughout all of the civilized countries from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, it was, in fact, almost obligatory if one was literate and of the ruling class (having time to read, study, and write) to keep a journal. Some journal contents were stewardship issues (estates, businesses, countries, legislatures, families), but they were also opportunities for personal anecdotes, sharp observations, and reflection.