In some ways, the history of science is the history of a philosophical resistance to mythical explanations of reality. In the ancient world, when we asked “Where did the world come from?” we were told creation myths. In the modern world, we are instead told a convincing scientific story: Big Bang theory, first proposed in 1927 by the Belgian Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître. It is based on observations that galaxies appear to be flying apart from one another, suggesting that the universe is expanding. We trace this movement back in space and time to nearly the original point of the explosion, the single original atom from which all the universe emerged 14 billion years ago.
While it is based on the empirical measurement and quantitative reasoning, it is also a creation story, and therefore shares some of the traits of the stories that have come before. For one thing, it resonates with the ethos of the modern age—this is the era of big explosions, like those in White Sands and over Nagasaki. Also, like all creation stories, it explains in comprehensible language something which otherwise requires unobtainable categories of thought. After all, we cannot really know what the world was like before its creation. But we do see how things around us change, grow, are born, and die. And, like the ancients, we fashion these observations into the story of our creation.
The Temple of Athena Pronaia was a temple at the ancient site of Delphi, in the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, a group of buildings comprising temples and treasuries as well as the famous Tholos of Delphi.It was actually built thrice.
.An image of the Temple of Athena Pronaia in Delphi, Greece
The standard story of the birth of the cosmos goes something like this: Nearly 14 billion years ago, a tremendous amount of energy materialized as if from nowhere.
In a brief moment of rapid expansion, that burst of energy inflated the cosmos like a balloon. The expansion straightened out any large-scale curvature, leading to a geometry that we now describe as flat. Matter also thoroughly mixed together, so that now the cosmos appears largely (though not perfectly) featureless. Here and there, clumps of particles have created galaxies and stars, but these are just minuscule specks on an otherwise unblemished cosmic canvas.
That theory, which textbooks call inflation, matches all observations to date and is preferred by most cosmologists. But it has conceptual implications that some find disturbing. In most regions of space-time, the rapid expansion would never stop. As a consequence, inflation can’t help but produce a multiverse — a technicolor existence with an infinite variety of pocket universes, one of which we call home. To critics, inflation predicts everything, which means it ultimately predicts nothing. “Inflation doesn’t work as it was intended to work,” said Paul Steinhardt, an architect of inflation who has become one of its most prominent critics.
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In a cyclic universe, periods of expansion alternate with periods of contraction. The universe has no beginning and no end.
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom.It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south.
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Glass takes one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!
Gold is the only metal that doesn’t rust, even if it’s buried in the ground for thousands of years.
Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end.
If you stop getting thirsty,
you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst mechanism shuts off.
Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals.
Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.
The song Auld Lang Syne is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.
Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent. Drinking a glass of water before you eat may help digestion and curb appetite.
Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn’t smoke unless it’s heated above 450F.
The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean.
The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man.
Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density.
The University of Alaska spans four time zones.
The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.
In ancient Greece , tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.
Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday, which was written in 1935!
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
A comet’s tail always points away from the sun.
The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent.
Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other painkillers, that is why it is found in some medicines.
The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.
If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.
When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.
In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed.
Strawberries and cashews are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside.
Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams.
The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year.
The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust.
Due to earth’s gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters.
Mickey Mouse is known as “Topolino” in Italy.
Soldiers do not march in step when going across bridges because they could set up a vibration which could be sufficient to knock the bridge down.
Everything weighs one percent less at the equator.
For every extra kilogram carried on a space flight, 530 kg of excess fuel are needed at lift-off.
Tter J does not appear anywhere on the periodic table of the elements.
Donald Trump has given his first public speech since leaving the hospital.With just three crucial weeks left before the election, he’s making a pitch to the very demographic he’s spent years demonizing.
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Corsica, a mountainous Mediterranean island, presents a mix of stylish coastal towns, dense forest, and craggy peaks (Monte Cinto is the highest). Nearly half the island falls within a park whose hiking trails include the challenging GR 20. Its beaches range from busy Pietracorbara to remote Saleccia and Rondinara. It’s been part of France since 1768 but retains a distinct Italian culture.
When James Hamblin tells people he has not used soap in the shower for five years, they tend not to hold back in expressing their disgust. “It’s one of the few remaining things for which we feel fine telling someone that they’re gross,” he says. “It’s amazing to me, honestly.”
Yet despite people’s “clearly moralizing judgments”, Hamblin is no hygiene slouch. Even pre-pandemic, he made a point of washing his hands with soap. He is, after all, a doctor who lectures at the Yale School of Public Health and a medical writer and podcaster for the US magazine the Atlantic. At 37, he looks so youthful that he still gets compared to the fictional child doctor Doogie Howser.
But eschewing soap on your pits and bits does raise awkward technical questions, more on which after some context. Hamblin’s minimalist showering habits evolved gradually, after he relocated from California to a studio apartment in Brooklyn, New York, to pursue a writing career. He needed to save time, money, and space. Simultaneously, he says: “I started learning about emerging microbiome science and decided to try going all-out for a bit.”
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‘As I gradually used less and less, I started to need less and less’ … James Hamblin on cutting out soap and deodorant. Photo from enviromantic / Getty Images.
Henningsvær is a fishing village in Vågan Municipality in Nordland county, Norway. It is located on several small islands off the southern coast of the large island of Austvågøya in the Lofoten archipelago. The village is located about 20 kilometers southwest of the town of Svolvær.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
James' World 2 