I began this four-part tale by calling the collusion of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler an unlikely cosmic coincidence. A long string of improbable incidents had to occur, one by one, to gradually draw together these extremely different people. If any one event had not happened, the chain that bound them together would never have formed. Any one link missing: no partnership.
When they were young men, several alternative events might have occurred, to prevent their ever meeting. Tycho’s nose-severing duel came very close to ending his life. There was enormous pressure on him by his family to follow the noble Danish, non-astronomer path. Kepler had several brushes with death as a child. Many plagues periodically ran rampant through his part of 16th century Europe. He was extremely lucky to have gotten his scholarship; his deep poverty otherwise would have relegated him to a sad destiny.
In the middle of their respective careers—before they met—there were numerous occasions when the imminent partnership could have gotten derailed. Both of them had a patron suddenly appear, just when their careers were threatening to dwindle, which reenergized them. Both of them were obsessed with precision. Had either one accepted less than the best, their collaboration would never have happened; they literally required one another.
They both became exiled from their homeland—pointing their paths towards each other. Kepler’s first book nearly missed getting to Tycho—which would have prevented the dashing Dane from learning about this obscure math teacher in the boondocks of Austria. Both of them judiciously ducked the inquisitional eye of the Catholic Church—unlike Galileo, who later ran afoul of the pope. If either Tycho or Kepler had been blocked in mid stride, their fabulous synergism would not have happened.
So was their collaboration really coincidental, or was it destiny? Of course, this question is unanswerable. And it’s only we humans—with our ability to peer into the past and connect the dots—who read chance or fate into unfolding events. To all of our fellow creatures—who are more open to and engaged in the present moment—things are just as they are. No mystery, no guiding hand.
If Tycho and Kepler had not partnered to bring about their astronomical revolution, others would have done it—albeit at a later date. On the other hand, if the story of an Earth-centered universe had not been so entrenched for nearly two millennia, the understanding our duo came to would likely have been discovered long before them, by other pioneers. The truth of our world is not owned by any one person, partnership, or institution. It will become known to us in due time—despite our stumbling ways of seeking it.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
A Cosmic Coincidence, Part 3: Kepler the Humble German
Johannes Kepler was born the year before Tycho’s famous nova blared in the heavens. Quite the opposite of the noble birth of the flamboyant Dane, Kepler was born to a poor, dysfunctional family. His father deserted when he was a young child and several of his relatives were mentally disturbed. Kepler was a sickly child who sought solitude in his studies. He may have become just another wasted mind, had not the Lutheran duke of the region, wanting to challenge the superior position of the Catholic Church, funded full scholarships to promising young Lutheran scholars.
Young Johannes escaped the poverty of his origins and received a fine education—aimed at becoming a Lutheran clergyman. That suited his disposition, he felt, and spoke to his pious devotion to his God. His clerical game plan got derailed, however, when he was assigned to go teach math in a school in the outlying region of Austria. He regarded the move as banishment to the hinterlands and the end of his clerical plans, but he dutifully went.
Kepler had an innate mathematics skill and a budding interest in astronomy. His teaching job—not very demanding of his time, since he was not a good teacher and was avoided by students—allowed him to begin to dabble in astronomy. He also possessed the necessary astrological skills of a good astronomer of the day, and made a couple of fortunate predictions—based more on an astute observation of current events than the stars. His reputation grew.
One day, while lecturing in a rote manner to his bored math students about geometrical shapes, Kepler had what seemed to him a mystical insight into the motions of the planets. They revolved around the sun (he was already sure) and their distances from the sun must follow the simple mathematical relationships of geometric solids like spheres, cubes, pyramids, etc. His insight expanded further, telling him that the orbits were also related to each other in the manner of musical harmonic intervals. It was all so elegant! He spent the next few decades avidly pursuing these ideas—all erroneous, but it led him ever more deeply into astronomical studies.
His pursuit of his fantasy led him to ask new and bold questions, while his mathematical prowess and dogged determination kept him on the path. It gradually corrected his errors and pointed him in the right direction. He began to develop new (and correct) ideas about the paths of planets. Maybe they are ellipses and not circles? He came very close to describing the effects of the sun’s gravity on planetary motion, but gravity was something for Galileo and Newton to explain later.
Kepler needed accurate observational data to verify his conceptual models. He drew ever closer to discovering and latching onto Tycho’s observational treasure. Through an extremely unlikely set of events, both Tycho and Kepler became exiles from their homelands. This led later to both of them becoming honored subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph, who reigned in Prague.
United at last, the two of them wrestled disagreeably back and forth for a couple of years. Then Tycho died of his pee poisoning. Kepler inherited Tycho’s voluminous works and over the next 30 years dove into his theoretical studies. More and more he began to ask “why.” It led him into new territory: he began to seek physical causes, rather than just good descriptions of planetary motions.
This path eventually led him to discover his three laws of planetary motion—which for the first time put astronomy on a sound and simple mathematical foundation. Without these laws and their mechanistic insights, Newton wouldn’t have been able a few years later to formulate his laws of universal gravity, as well as the role of forces and momentum, in determining the motion of the planets and all stellar bodies.
Next time: Was this partnership a coincidence or was it destined to have happened?
Young Johannes escaped the poverty of his origins and received a fine education—aimed at becoming a Lutheran clergyman. That suited his disposition, he felt, and spoke to his pious devotion to his God. His clerical game plan got derailed, however, when he was assigned to go teach math in a school in the outlying region of Austria. He regarded the move as banishment to the hinterlands and the end of his clerical plans, but he dutifully went.
Kepler had an innate mathematics skill and a budding interest in astronomy. His teaching job—not very demanding of his time, since he was not a good teacher and was avoided by students—allowed him to begin to dabble in astronomy. He also possessed the necessary astrological skills of a good astronomer of the day, and made a couple of fortunate predictions—based more on an astute observation of current events than the stars. His reputation grew.
One day, while lecturing in a rote manner to his bored math students about geometrical shapes, Kepler had what seemed to him a mystical insight into the motions of the planets. They revolved around the sun (he was already sure) and their distances from the sun must follow the simple mathematical relationships of geometric solids like spheres, cubes, pyramids, etc. His insight expanded further, telling him that the orbits were also related to each other in the manner of musical harmonic intervals. It was all so elegant! He spent the next few decades avidly pursuing these ideas—all erroneous, but it led him ever more deeply into astronomical studies.
His pursuit of his fantasy led him to ask new and bold questions, while his mathematical prowess and dogged determination kept him on the path. It gradually corrected his errors and pointed him in the right direction. He began to develop new (and correct) ideas about the paths of planets. Maybe they are ellipses and not circles? He came very close to describing the effects of the sun’s gravity on planetary motion, but gravity was something for Galileo and Newton to explain later.
Kepler needed accurate observational data to verify his conceptual models. He drew ever closer to discovering and latching onto Tycho’s observational treasure. Through an extremely unlikely set of events, both Tycho and Kepler became exiles from their homelands. This led later to both of them becoming honored subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph, who reigned in Prague.
United at last, the two of them wrestled disagreeably back and forth for a couple of years. Then Tycho died of his pee poisoning. Kepler inherited Tycho’s voluminous works and over the next 30 years dove into his theoretical studies. More and more he began to ask “why.” It led him into new territory: he began to seek physical causes, rather than just good descriptions of planetary motions.
This path eventually led him to discover his three laws of planetary motion—which for the first time put astronomy on a sound and simple mathematical foundation. Without these laws and their mechanistic insights, Newton wouldn’t have been able a few years later to formulate his laws of universal gravity, as well as the role of forces and momentum, in determining the motion of the planets and all stellar bodies.
Next time: Was this partnership a coincidence or was it destined to have happened?
Monday, May 25, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
A Cosmic Coincidence, Part 2: Tycho the Gregarious Dane
A fortunate circumstance—in Tycho’s eyes—was his noble birth in Denmark in the middle of the 16th century. Being a male in the ruling class in his time meant that one would study at the finest universities all over Europe, and later assume the envied and cozy position of rich landowner, statesman, and plotter of intrigues at royal court. As it turned out, however, Tycho would dance down another path.
He was enamored of the heavens as a child. The regular passage of celestial bodies fascinated him. In his teens he watched a partial eclipse of the sun and he became hooked. A couple of years later he witnessed a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. He was stunned to find out that the popular stellar data tables (all based on an Earth-centered perception) had predicted this conjunction, but with errors of as much as a month. That simply was an unacceptably sloppy result! He knew he could do better.
In his teens Tycho perceived an insult from his cousin, that led to a sword duel; during which Tycho lost most of his nose, and nearly his life. (He fashioned a silver nose that he wore the rest of his life.) Then in his middle twenties (while still in college) a life-changing event happened to him: a new star appeared, which he named Nova Stella. It was the first nova observed on Earth in some 1700 years and maybe the first of our story’s cosmic coincidences.
In the minds of 16th century astronomers (and for 2000 years before, for that matter) the firmament of stars was unchangeable. Thus the nova could not be in the firmament, but it must be like a planet or comet: changing and wandering weirdly in the sky, close to Earth. Tycho swung into action and took more precise measurements of the nova than anyone else (even being a rank amateur). He proved that the nova was a member of the firmament. His reputation soared.
Buoyed by this accomplishment Tycho rebelled against his noble destiny; refusing to live the dull life of court intrigue. He was going to become a new kind of astronomer. He caught the eye of the king of Denmark, who set Tycho up on his own island near Copenhagen and generously agreed to underwrite the costs of his astronomical experiments.
Tycho was a measurement freak. He couldn’t care less about the reality of those celestial points of light—he just wanted to build accurate tables that others could use. Europe’s sea explorers were needing the kind of accuracy he could provide for their locations at sea; and he’d show the world that those eclipses could be accurately predicted!
Over the next three decades and more, Tycho built and brilliantly used the finest astronomical instruments ever seen. (This was all before the first telescope got pointed heavenward.) He created many volumes of superb data—his legacy to the world of science. Many students flocked to study under him. His ego grew without bounds.
Tycho lived hard and large. When not quite 55 years old, he drank copious amounts of wine at a party, but refused to pee as he partied on. For the next two days he couldn’t urinate and painfully died a couple of days later from sepsis: complete internal infection. His extraordinary body of work was to pass into the able hands of Johannes Kepler, who aptly used the data to forge a new astronomy. His story next time.
He was enamored of the heavens as a child. The regular passage of celestial bodies fascinated him. In his teens he watched a partial eclipse of the sun and he became hooked. A couple of years later he witnessed a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. He was stunned to find out that the popular stellar data tables (all based on an Earth-centered perception) had predicted this conjunction, but with errors of as much as a month. That simply was an unacceptably sloppy result! He knew he could do better.
In his teens Tycho perceived an insult from his cousin, that led to a sword duel; during which Tycho lost most of his nose, and nearly his life. (He fashioned a silver nose that he wore the rest of his life.) Then in his middle twenties (while still in college) a life-changing event happened to him: a new star appeared, which he named Nova Stella. It was the first nova observed on Earth in some 1700 years and maybe the first of our story’s cosmic coincidences.
In the minds of 16th century astronomers (and for 2000 years before, for that matter) the firmament of stars was unchangeable. Thus the nova could not be in the firmament, but it must be like a planet or comet: changing and wandering weirdly in the sky, close to Earth. Tycho swung into action and took more precise measurements of the nova than anyone else (even being a rank amateur). He proved that the nova was a member of the firmament. His reputation soared.
Buoyed by this accomplishment Tycho rebelled against his noble destiny; refusing to live the dull life of court intrigue. He was going to become a new kind of astronomer. He caught the eye of the king of Denmark, who set Tycho up on his own island near Copenhagen and generously agreed to underwrite the costs of his astronomical experiments.
Tycho was a measurement freak. He couldn’t care less about the reality of those celestial points of light—he just wanted to build accurate tables that others could use. Europe’s sea explorers were needing the kind of accuracy he could provide for their locations at sea; and he’d show the world that those eclipses could be accurately predicted!
Over the next three decades and more, Tycho built and brilliantly used the finest astronomical instruments ever seen. (This was all before the first telescope got pointed heavenward.) He created many volumes of superb data—his legacy to the world of science. Many students flocked to study under him. His ego grew without bounds.
Tycho lived hard and large. When not quite 55 years old, he drank copious amounts of wine at a party, but refused to pee as he partied on. For the next two days he couldn’t urinate and painfully died a couple of days later from sepsis: complete internal infection. His extraordinary body of work was to pass into the able hands of Johannes Kepler, who aptly used the data to forge a new astronomy. His story next time.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
A Cosmic Coincidence, Part 1: The Players
About 400 years ago a seemingly unlikely cosmic coincidence occurred, that brought about the chance collaboration between two giants in the field of astronomy. The legacy of that teamwork was far greater than either person could have left on his own. It was as if they were destined to complement each other, and yet their encounter was about as coincidental and unimaginable as two strangers wandering through city streets and bumping into each other.
The first of these partners to enter the astronomical stage was Tycho Brahe (TEE-ko BRA-hay). He was of Danish noble birth, in 1546. The younger man was Johannes Kepler, a poor commoner, born in present-day Germany, 25 years later. Tycho was bold, brash, and loved to drink and party. Kepler was reserved, painfully modest, and deeply religious. He likely had no idea of what a party was!
Without their common passion for the night sky, these two folks would never have even wanted to be within sight of each other. Politics might make strange bedmates, but astronomy made it far stranger in this case. We even refer to them differently: by Brahe’s first name and Johannes’ last.
Prior to Tycho and Kepler entering the scene, astronomy was an odd mixture of observation and mythological beliefs. This blend caused most astronomers to sport two hats; one as an astrologer. It was people’s belief that the observed motions of the heavenly bodies were omens for them (especially for powerful leaders), portending future events.
All those points of light in the night sky were just that to them: illumination, heavenly lights. Some were brighter, some dimmer; but all of them just bright spots way off in the black sky. The stars were seen to be fixed and unchanging (residing in the “firmament”). The planets were no more than weird stars that rambled about the sky in devilishly unpredictable ways (planet = wanderer in Greek).
In the wake of Kepler’s and Tycho’s discoveries, astronomy was transformed from mythology into a science—it became an elegant and understandable dance of stars and planets across the heavens. It morphed from the Greek and Egyptian stories of gods and angels mysteriously pulling and pushing points of light across the skies (all circling the Earth), to a simple picture of stellar bodies moving through space in simple, beautiful circles around the sun. Just a few years later Newton showed that it was all guided by the invisible hand of universal gravity—an insight he’d never have been able to come to, if Tycho and Kepler had not paved the way. Newton himself described his work as being possible only because he “stood on the shoulders of giants.”
This post and the following three give the briefest story of the partnership between the extroverted Dane and the introverted German—key players in Europe’s Renaissance in science. Next time we’ll look at Tycho, then Kepler, and in the fourth installment, I’ll speculate on the meaning (if any) of this cosmic coincidence.
The first of these partners to enter the astronomical stage was Tycho Brahe (TEE-ko BRA-hay). He was of Danish noble birth, in 1546. The younger man was Johannes Kepler, a poor commoner, born in present-day Germany, 25 years later. Tycho was bold, brash, and loved to drink and party. Kepler was reserved, painfully modest, and deeply religious. He likely had no idea of what a party was!
Without their common passion for the night sky, these two folks would never have even wanted to be within sight of each other. Politics might make strange bedmates, but astronomy made it far stranger in this case. We even refer to them differently: by Brahe’s first name and Johannes’ last.
Prior to Tycho and Kepler entering the scene, astronomy was an odd mixture of observation and mythological beliefs. This blend caused most astronomers to sport two hats; one as an astrologer. It was people’s belief that the observed motions of the heavenly bodies were omens for them (especially for powerful leaders), portending future events.
All those points of light in the night sky were just that to them: illumination, heavenly lights. Some were brighter, some dimmer; but all of them just bright spots way off in the black sky. The stars were seen to be fixed and unchanging (residing in the “firmament”). The planets were no more than weird stars that rambled about the sky in devilishly unpredictable ways (planet = wanderer in Greek).
In the wake of Kepler’s and Tycho’s discoveries, astronomy was transformed from mythology into a science—it became an elegant and understandable dance of stars and planets across the heavens. It morphed from the Greek and Egyptian stories of gods and angels mysteriously pulling and pushing points of light across the skies (all circling the Earth), to a simple picture of stellar bodies moving through space in simple, beautiful circles around the sun. Just a few years later Newton showed that it was all guided by the invisible hand of universal gravity—an insight he’d never have been able to come to, if Tycho and Kepler had not paved the way. Newton himself described his work as being possible only because he “stood on the shoulders of giants.”
This post and the following three give the briefest story of the partnership between the extroverted Dane and the introverted German—key players in Europe’s Renaissance in science. Next time we’ll look at Tycho, then Kepler, and in the fourth installment, I’ll speculate on the meaning (if any) of this cosmic coincidence.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
City Slickers, Country Cousins
In my younger years I lived in several metropolitan areas and became rather acclimated to that environment. Then in my early 40s I emigrated from the city to reside in this rural area. Many is the time I have pondered the differences in how my life has played out in these contrasting environments—usually in the context of being grateful for having been able to leave the frenetic city scene and settle in these backwoods.
Recently I began musing on the fact that city-country contrasts go much further than just human lifestyle. There are also significant differences in the flora and fauna. I’ll look at animal dissimilarities in this post. I have found animal metro life to be very different from that out here in the boonies. I know that may seem an obvious statement, but here are several curious distinctions that I’ve noted over the years.
To begin with, I’ve observed that country houseflies are slower than their city cousins. It must be because city people have inadvertently bred quicker flies there, by swatting at them so much. Slow city flies die young and never get a chance to pass their genes on, while the quick ones prosper. Country flies, however, are more laid back. They have to contend with less lethal and slower threats, like cows’ tails. Soon after I moved out here I noticed the difference, as my fly-swatting success markedly increased. Shoot, I even could catch some with my bare hand!
Mocking birds are fascinating to listen to, and the country types will treat you with pretty much every indigenous songbird call, when they launch into one of their marathon singing sessions. Listen to a city mockingbird, however, and you’re just as likely to hear it copying sirens, car alarms, and other electronic sounds. I wonder how many have recently learned those cute cell phone rings.
When we lived in the city we had a dog who moved out with us. She had learned her city habits so well that she simply couldn’t let go of them (a case of an old dog not learning new tricks). Her bowel business in town was expeditiously accomplished by stepping into the back yard, walking about 10 feet and dropping her load. She kept that habit out here; we never could get her to go deposit her poop in the woods. It was always a just few feet (in fact, under foot!) from the door. We even acquired a country dog to show her how to go off into the woods to do her toilet routine, but she never got it.
Besides differences in habits between city and country, there are several animal species that you see in the city that are very rare in the country: pigeons (we’ve got doves instead), rats, kitchen cockroaches (country roaches hide in wood piles, although they can learn to inhabit country kitchens), and fat squirrels (in the country pickings are leaner and bird feeders farther apart). On the other side of the coin, the list of common rural animals that are rare in a city is much longer. Examples are groundhogs, buzzards (no carrion allowed in town), woodpeckers (dead trees get quickly removed), whippoorwills, foxes, coyotes, bears, etc.
I wonder how animals would describe the contrasts they see between city and country people. They might have some amusing observations about how my spouse and I appeared so urbane right after moving out here. They probably chuckle at the ways in which we still are so citified—sort of like our dog, we are slow to learn new tricks.
Recently I began musing on the fact that city-country contrasts go much further than just human lifestyle. There are also significant differences in the flora and fauna. I’ll look at animal dissimilarities in this post. I have found animal metro life to be very different from that out here in the boonies. I know that may seem an obvious statement, but here are several curious distinctions that I’ve noted over the years.
To begin with, I’ve observed that country houseflies are slower than their city cousins. It must be because city people have inadvertently bred quicker flies there, by swatting at them so much. Slow city flies die young and never get a chance to pass their genes on, while the quick ones prosper. Country flies, however, are more laid back. They have to contend with less lethal and slower threats, like cows’ tails. Soon after I moved out here I noticed the difference, as my fly-swatting success markedly increased. Shoot, I even could catch some with my bare hand!
Mocking birds are fascinating to listen to, and the country types will treat you with pretty much every indigenous songbird call, when they launch into one of their marathon singing sessions. Listen to a city mockingbird, however, and you’re just as likely to hear it copying sirens, car alarms, and other electronic sounds. I wonder how many have recently learned those cute cell phone rings.
When we lived in the city we had a dog who moved out with us. She had learned her city habits so well that she simply couldn’t let go of them (a case of an old dog not learning new tricks). Her bowel business in town was expeditiously accomplished by stepping into the back yard, walking about 10 feet and dropping her load. She kept that habit out here; we never could get her to go deposit her poop in the woods. It was always a just few feet (in fact, under foot!) from the door. We even acquired a country dog to show her how to go off into the woods to do her toilet routine, but she never got it.
Besides differences in habits between city and country, there are several animal species that you see in the city that are very rare in the country: pigeons (we’ve got doves instead), rats, kitchen cockroaches (country roaches hide in wood piles, although they can learn to inhabit country kitchens), and fat squirrels (in the country pickings are leaner and bird feeders farther apart). On the other side of the coin, the list of common rural animals that are rare in a city is much longer. Examples are groundhogs, buzzards (no carrion allowed in town), woodpeckers (dead trees get quickly removed), whippoorwills, foxes, coyotes, bears, etc.
I wonder how animals would describe the contrasts they see between city and country people. They might have some amusing observations about how my spouse and I appeared so urbane right after moving out here. They probably chuckle at the ways in which we still are so citified—sort of like our dog, we are slow to learn new tricks.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Those Clever Ants, Part 2
I’ve been looking here at the extraordinary capabilities of ants, that stem primarily from their social nature. Ants have an elaborate communication system, which they use to attract one another, raise an alarm, recruit new members, control group activities, and groom one another; especially the queen. Any outsider who does not smell like a colony mate will get warded off or attacked. Yet some sneaky and cunning solitary critters—beetles, mites, wasps—are able to crack the colony’s communication code and live as a pampered member, getting workers to groom and feed them as they do the queen.
Most residents of a colony are female workers, who live a predominantly altruistic life. Biologists do not agree on referring to the actions of sterile workers as altruism, since it seems to contradict the “selfish gene” theory, which describes the activities of most critters as being dominated by a drive to propagate one’s own genes downstream. If so, why would a worker ant devote her life to the continuation of another’s life, another’s genes—specifically the queen? But workers do lavish extraordinary care on the queen and zealously guard and tend her eggs and offspring, forgoing any chance at having kid ants of their own. Let’s call it altruism. It still manages to do a superb job of sending the group’s genes into the future.
Ants exhibit their swarm intelligence in scores of ways—depending on their local habitat. To begin with, the size of a colony is wisely maintained—growing when conditions are favorable and stabilizing (or even shrinking) when times get lean. Some ants form symbiotic relationships with plants—weeding and pruning their environs, to promote the health of the plants they use. One clever species of ant lives unharmed on pitcher plants. As other bugs fall in, to become digested by the plant, ants get a safe home (no ant predator would dare invade) and the plant gets protection from ant-sized herbivores. Some ant species even farm—carrying preferred seeds into the colony, planting them in rich ant detritus, and later harvesting nutritious fruit.
Leafcutter ants cut pieces of vegetation (sometimes stripping human gardens in the process), carry them to the colony, and grow a fungus which they feed upon. Weaver ants create nesting enclosures by forming long chains with their bodies to curl leaves up, and then binding the edges together with larval silk. Some ants tend aphids and mealy bugs as cattle, which they milk (by tenderly stroking them) for a source of nutritious honeydew. Some species of ants coevolved with seed-producing plants—trading nectar for pollination and seed dispersal. And the list goes on.
I may have failed in absorbing most of the voluminous book Ants, but I got enough to significantly increase my appreciation, even if I still don’t revere those little black pests who insist on trying to set up their colony in my kitchen. I guess I should be grateful that army ants aren’t indigenous to these woods.
Most residents of a colony are female workers, who live a predominantly altruistic life. Biologists do not agree on referring to the actions of sterile workers as altruism, since it seems to contradict the “selfish gene” theory, which describes the activities of most critters as being dominated by a drive to propagate one’s own genes downstream. If so, why would a worker ant devote her life to the continuation of another’s life, another’s genes—specifically the queen? But workers do lavish extraordinary care on the queen and zealously guard and tend her eggs and offspring, forgoing any chance at having kid ants of their own. Let’s call it altruism. It still manages to do a superb job of sending the group’s genes into the future.
Ants exhibit their swarm intelligence in scores of ways—depending on their local habitat. To begin with, the size of a colony is wisely maintained—growing when conditions are favorable and stabilizing (or even shrinking) when times get lean. Some ants form symbiotic relationships with plants—weeding and pruning their environs, to promote the health of the plants they use. One clever species of ant lives unharmed on pitcher plants. As other bugs fall in, to become digested by the plant, ants get a safe home (no ant predator would dare invade) and the plant gets protection from ant-sized herbivores. Some ant species even farm—carrying preferred seeds into the colony, planting them in rich ant detritus, and later harvesting nutritious fruit.
Leafcutter ants cut pieces of vegetation (sometimes stripping human gardens in the process), carry them to the colony, and grow a fungus which they feed upon. Weaver ants create nesting enclosures by forming long chains with their bodies to curl leaves up, and then binding the edges together with larval silk. Some ants tend aphids and mealy bugs as cattle, which they milk (by tenderly stroking them) for a source of nutritious honeydew. Some species of ants coevolved with seed-producing plants—trading nectar for pollination and seed dispersal. And the list goes on.
I may have failed in absorbing most of the voluminous book Ants, but I got enough to significantly increase my appreciation, even if I still don’t revere those little black pests who insist on trying to set up their colony in my kitchen. I guess I should be grateful that army ants aren’t indigenous to these woods.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Those Clever Ants, Part 1
I recently attempted to tackle a weighty book (7 ½ pounds, 732 pages, letter page size) by Burt Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson. Titled simply Ants, it got the best of me… just a little too heavy a read. But I wanted to try, and I did get a major boost to my appreciation of this social insect of the order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae, subfamily Myrmicinae. (All those 25-cent words is one reason why the book was more than I could handle.)
Ants are the pinnacle of insect evolution, and that’s a lot to say, given that insects are the most copious of critters. Ants' extreme success and longevity can be attributed to their highly developed social lives. Social critters generally seem to thrive better than solitary animals do. Life is a struggle. There are numerous threats to endure, such as competitors, predators, and natural catastrophes. When animals band together cooperatively, their chance of survival increases. (Consider Homo sapiens!)
Thus ants are both robust and plentiful. There are some 8800 known species. They make up some 10-15% of animal biomass in most areas where they live; in the rainforest, as much as 75%. Think of that: such tiny creatures outweighing most all other animals in their vicinity—even elephants and giraffes! They turn and enrich more soil than earthworms. They’ve been around far longer than many extant creatures. They first appeared about 100 million years ago and were unfazed by the disaster that drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Most species last, on a gross average, about one million years. Ants have pushed that much further. Pretty dazzling feats for such a little critter!
I wanted to try to understand ants better, partly because most of my impressions were formed years ago, when I learned to regard them mostly as pests. I came to think that the only thing rivaling a termite or cockroach infestation is to see a line of ants parading across the kitchen counter. But I sensed that, like all the works of Mother Nature, there must be something to appreciate about them, and even revere; so I decided to take a closer look, try to drop my prejudice, and seek to understand them.
I have written here before about my fascination with watching ants (6/9/08) and a bit on their intelligent behavior due to something referred to as swarm intelligence (1/25/09). My ant appetite had become whetted and Ants was a book to try.
Crucial to ants’ success is their caste system: an effective division of labor that gets many sophisticated jobs done. But even though they have a strict hierarchy of tasks, any one ant is free to communicate (mostly chemically, via pheromones) with any other member of the colony. This democratic feature is a major aid in helping the group to be successful—in contrast (the authors of Ants point out) to the rigid hierarchies in the human military and factories, where communication goes from the top down only. In some ways ants are smarter than we are!
Next time, more on ant intelligence and skills.
Ants are the pinnacle of insect evolution, and that’s a lot to say, given that insects are the most copious of critters. Ants' extreme success and longevity can be attributed to their highly developed social lives. Social critters generally seem to thrive better than solitary animals do. Life is a struggle. There are numerous threats to endure, such as competitors, predators, and natural catastrophes. When animals band together cooperatively, their chance of survival increases. (Consider Homo sapiens!)
Thus ants are both robust and plentiful. There are some 8800 known species. They make up some 10-15% of animal biomass in most areas where they live; in the rainforest, as much as 75%. Think of that: such tiny creatures outweighing most all other animals in their vicinity—even elephants and giraffes! They turn and enrich more soil than earthworms. They’ve been around far longer than many extant creatures. They first appeared about 100 million years ago and were unfazed by the disaster that drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Most species last, on a gross average, about one million years. Ants have pushed that much further. Pretty dazzling feats for such a little critter!
I wanted to try to understand ants better, partly because most of my impressions were formed years ago, when I learned to regard them mostly as pests. I came to think that the only thing rivaling a termite or cockroach infestation is to see a line of ants parading across the kitchen counter. But I sensed that, like all the works of Mother Nature, there must be something to appreciate about them, and even revere; so I decided to take a closer look, try to drop my prejudice, and seek to understand them.
I have written here before about my fascination with watching ants (6/9/08) and a bit on their intelligent behavior due to something referred to as swarm intelligence (1/25/09). My ant appetite had become whetted and Ants was a book to try.
Crucial to ants’ success is their caste system: an effective division of labor that gets many sophisticated jobs done. But even though they have a strict hierarchy of tasks, any one ant is free to communicate (mostly chemically, via pheromones) with any other member of the colony. This democratic feature is a major aid in helping the group to be successful—in contrast (the authors of Ants point out) to the rigid hierarchies in the human military and factories, where communication goes from the top down only. In some ways ants are smarter than we are!
Next time, more on ant intelligence and skills.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Bird Experiences, Part 2: Visual
I started these two entries grouping bird experiences as being of two kinds: visual and aural. This posting will look at how birds delight our visual senses. The other three senses—taste, touch, and smell—may become involved at Thanksgiving, but thankfully they’re of little concern for songbird experiences.
Our foremost sense is visual. And there is something about birds that fascinates the eye. Few other spectator sports induce their practitioners to lay out oodles of money for binoculars, pour over birding lists, and fly halfway across the globe just to get a fleeting glance of an exotic species in the forests of Costa Rica or Borneo.
And of the visual appeal of birds, nothing captures our attention like a bird in flight. We are drawn to follow the action. Noting differences in flight styles can be a help in identifying a bird. Look up in the sky around here and see a bird gliding lazily, and it’ll surely be a hawk or a buzzard. (They can be distinguished by their underside. A hawk is nearly white, a buzzard is dark.) If a bird is in power flight with constant wing pumps, it may be a crow far overhead. Most songbirds have a bouncy or undulating flight—in which they’ll pump furiously for a moment (causing it to rise) and then fold their wings momentarily (causing it to dip). That style of action keeps lactic acid from building up in the muscles. Some birds will exhibit more than one kind of flight pattern—depending on their energy level, flight distance, their load, and wind conditions.
I love to watch birds at the feeder—their antics are fascinating. The pecking order is on display then—both within and between species. Sweet little chickadees are at the bottom rank and the red-bellied woodpecker is the current king of the feeder. Nuthatches intimidate titmice. Cardinals tyrannize nuthatches, etc.
Various types of sunflower seed-cracking techniques are also fun to watch. Birds with short, pointed beaks (chickadees, titmice) grab a seed, fly to a nearby branch, wedge the seed under a foot, and bang away at it until they’ve penetrated the shell; then they pick out the meat. Birds with strong beaks (finches, cardinals) just sit on the feeder, pick up a seed and crush it with their bill, spitting out the shell pieces. Ground feeders (juncos, doves) hop around under the feeder, pecking for bits dropped by the spitting finches.
Finally, it’s fascinating to watch how songbirds flock cooperatively around the feeder during winter, but then pair up and face off in the spring. Any pretense of collaboration evaporates, as males begin showing off to prospective mates—calling boldly, as previous buddies square off against each other.
I’m hooked. The more I watch birds, the more I learn, the more I watch. I’m caught in a charming bird whirlpool, but this hermit has no plans to fly to Costa Rica any time soon.
Our foremost sense is visual. And there is something about birds that fascinates the eye. Few other spectator sports induce their practitioners to lay out oodles of money for binoculars, pour over birding lists, and fly halfway across the globe just to get a fleeting glance of an exotic species in the forests of Costa Rica or Borneo.
And of the visual appeal of birds, nothing captures our attention like a bird in flight. We are drawn to follow the action. Noting differences in flight styles can be a help in identifying a bird. Look up in the sky around here and see a bird gliding lazily, and it’ll surely be a hawk or a buzzard. (They can be distinguished by their underside. A hawk is nearly white, a buzzard is dark.) If a bird is in power flight with constant wing pumps, it may be a crow far overhead. Most songbirds have a bouncy or undulating flight—in which they’ll pump furiously for a moment (causing it to rise) and then fold their wings momentarily (causing it to dip). That style of action keeps lactic acid from building up in the muscles. Some birds will exhibit more than one kind of flight pattern—depending on their energy level, flight distance, their load, and wind conditions.
I love to watch birds at the feeder—their antics are fascinating. The pecking order is on display then—both within and between species. Sweet little chickadees are at the bottom rank and the red-bellied woodpecker is the current king of the feeder. Nuthatches intimidate titmice. Cardinals tyrannize nuthatches, etc.
Various types of sunflower seed-cracking techniques are also fun to watch. Birds with short, pointed beaks (chickadees, titmice) grab a seed, fly to a nearby branch, wedge the seed under a foot, and bang away at it until they’ve penetrated the shell; then they pick out the meat. Birds with strong beaks (finches, cardinals) just sit on the feeder, pick up a seed and crush it with their bill, spitting out the shell pieces. Ground feeders (juncos, doves) hop around under the feeder, pecking for bits dropped by the spitting finches.
Finally, it’s fascinating to watch how songbirds flock cooperatively around the feeder during winter, but then pair up and face off in the spring. Any pretense of collaboration evaporates, as males begin showing off to prospective mates—calling boldly, as previous buddies square off against each other.
I’m hooked. The more I watch birds, the more I learn, the more I watch. I’m caught in a charming bird whirlpool, but this hermit has no plans to fly to Costa Rica any time soon.
Friday, May 1, 2009
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