As a mental exercise I am studying the the largest thing we know, the universe and the smallest living thing we know, the cell. The macrocosm and the microcosm. Cell are fundamentally fascinating. If you take a cell and put it in a petrie dish it will become like an amoeba and adapt to being a one celled creature even though it has all the information to make a new me or you or an oak tree, whatever its DNA says. It will continue to do what we do, use energy, grow, reproduce, etc. It is amazing. It means we are probably really just an "ant colony" but under on binding and ants are really one organism but they are all loose and running around. The largest cell in the world is the yolk of an ostrich egg and the longest is the nerve cell of a giraffe which can be 10 feel long. Cells are adaptable. We can learn from them.
Get this! The observable universe is l,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (l with 24 zeros). In language this is a million million million million miles. In mental comprehension it is really really big. We describe this universe with two theories that are not quite adequate so we are looking for a unified theory. This creates a certain paradox according to Stephen Hawking and this is soooo interesting. "If there really were a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions - so the THEORY ITSELF WOULD DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF OUR SEARCH FOR IT". This is philosophy, this is theology. No wonder the religious right is so upset. Science is taking their job. The best thing to do obviously is not to run away from it, but to embrace it. All the right wing universities should open the biggest astrophysics departments around and hire all the best people and find the unified theory (God) and they could own it and make up their own myths about it so they could control everyone like they seem to want to do. I, at least have respect for the catholics in that they have quite an active Jesuit astrophysics search going on. They even apologized to Gallalio(sic). It is never too late, I say. They have their own telescopes. They have one here in Arizona, on Mr Graham. We call it the Pope Scope.
Hint for tomorrow. We may be the result of a larger one celled animal eating a smaller one.
Get this! The observable universe is l,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (l with 24 zeros). In language this is a million million million million miles. In mental comprehension it is really really big. We describe this universe with two theories that are not quite adequate so we are looking for a unified theory. This creates a certain paradox according to Stephen Hawking and this is soooo interesting. "If there really were a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions - so the THEORY ITSELF WOULD DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF OUR SEARCH FOR IT". This is philosophy, this is theology. No wonder the religious right is so upset. Science is taking their job. The best thing to do obviously is not to run away from it, but to embrace it. All the right wing universities should open the biggest astrophysics departments around and hire all the best people and find the unified theory (God) and they could own it and make up their own myths about it so they could control everyone like they seem to want to do. I, at least have respect for the catholics in that they have quite an active Jesuit astrophysics search going on. They even apologized to Gallalio(sic). It is never too late, I say. They have their own telescopes. They have one here in Arizona, on Mr Graham. We call it the Pope Scope.
Hint for tomorrow. We may be the result of a larger one celled animal eating a smaller one.
posted by Anne Coe | 6:23 AM
3 Comments:
I think the yolk of the egg is the entire cell, hence the largest cell is the ostrich egg, the longest the giraff. Interesting class you had.
Isn't this like comparing apples and gravity waves? And if you want to look at small living things, use prions.
It's true, the unfertilized egg is a single cell.
geode
Why would I want to look at prions? And no this isn't like comparing apples and gravity waves. I was not comparing anything, merely exploring the two extremes. They are related, if you must know though, as they are all composed at their most reductionistic level, of the same stuff and they are all doomed to the same end.
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