The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
I’ve always wondered why so many people state that a lightning bolt can reach temperatures 5-6 times higher than the surface of the sun.
The core of the sun, in comparison, seems far more interesting.
Lightning bolt ≈ 30,000K
Sun’s Surface ≈ 6,000K
Sun’s Core ≈ 15,700,000K
Then there’s supernovas.
Super Nova Core Collapse ≈ 100,000,000,000K (100 billion)
Then there’s mankind, in their laboratories, smashing atoms & whatnot.
Atom Smasher ≈ 4,000,000,000,000K (4 trillion)
Super Novas are much more destructive (and amazing) than a couple of atoms, though… despite their apparent destruction, new stars and planets are reborn from that same star dust.
A super nova is a stellar (star) explosion (just a heads up).
Sceno Systematis Ptole
The original image is a scan of an old map from “Harmonia Macrocosmica” (1661) and shows the geocentric universe of Ptolemy.
For most ancient astronomers, accurately predicting the positions of the planets was tantamount to understanding the workings of the universe. The far more distant stars were simply the backdrop against which planetary action took place. Ptolemy, the last of the great Greek astronomers of antiquity, developed an effective system for mapping the universe.
Basing much of his theory on the work of his predecessor, Hipparchus, Ptolemy designed a geocentric, or Earth-centered, model that held sway for 1400 years. This system of explaining the apparent motion of the moon, sun, planets and stars around the earth - the “geocentric” (Greek ge or gea = “earth”) was current until overturned by the Galilean - Copernician heliocentric (Greek helios = “sun”) in the 17th century. The Roman Catholic church did not officially abandon it until the beginning of the 19th century.
By Michæl Paukner
