Aiming for Andromeda

When we peer into the dark night sky, the vast majority of objects that we can see without binoculars or telescopes are stars in the nearby neighborhood of our Milky Way Galaxy. Depending on the sharpness of our eyesight and if our eyes have had a chance to adjust to the darkness, we may be able to see some 4,000 stars—only a very few of which are planets and various nebula. Though our galaxy contains something on the order of 100-400 billion stars, we can see but the tiniest fraction of the closest ones, by naked eye. There are maybe 100-200 billion galaxies—which reside so far away that only the most powerful telescopes can see them. (Note that there is quite a range of estimates of the number of stars and galaxies; it is not easy to approximate these quantities.)

Yet there is one galaxy—just one—that we can see with the naked eye: Andromeda Galaxy; the closest one to ours. Andromeda appears quite large in the winter sky—about the size of 5-6 full moons laid side by side. That sounds pretty spectacular—and it is—but most of us will never get the chance to spot this galaxy. Why? For two reasons: (1) you'll never find this faint object if you are looking for it anywhere near the bright lights of a city, and (2) it is extremely faint; even on a dark country night you need to know exactly where to look, but still can easily miss it.

I have struggled for years to spot this sister galaxy of ours. I know exactly where to look and I wait until my eyes have adjusted to the dark... but no luck so far. It's frustrating, because I feel certain that I once saw Andromeda about three decades ago. It was spectacular! It was unlike any other sight in the night sky. I did not know precisely where to look at the time, so I put down my discovery that night to being blessed with great fortune. The vision has remained like a photograph in my mind, which I've conjured up from time to time.

So why have I failed to view Andromeda gain, after all these years? I do know just where to look, but no luck so far. I can come up with three possible explanations: (1) my aging eyes are not as sharp as they were a few decades ago, (2) even though we live in a very rural area, light pollution has relentlessly increased since then, or (3) just maybe I was imagining I once saw Andromeda.

Then, the other night, as I sat in the outdoor tub, intently looking at the place where the galaxy should be, I thought I saw a faint smudge... very faint. It wasn't at all spectacular—just a wan, fuzzy blob; nothing like what I observed decades ago. Is this all that my weakening eyes can now see, or was I maybe once again just imagining I could see it?

Reproducing Robots

About 100 years ago the word robot was coined. Its origin is a Czech word, robota, which means “forced labor.” In the ensuing century, the definition of the term robot has evolved (thanks to the use of computers) from a machine that behaves as a slave, to an entity that can act autonomously and intelligently by performing complex tasks. In fact, with the advent of artificial intelligence, some people now speculate that we may be on the verge of creating robots that are far smarter than humans, and may soon turn the tables and enslave us!

Robots running amok is a fear that, by dint of unleashed technology, we may about to uncork a machine-like Pandora's Box, by taking an unwise step that will lead to future ominous problems. That possibility has created countless science fiction tales which suggest that our human future may contain many battles with robots who rebel and try to defeat us. One of the most famous depictions was a series of novels by Isaac Asimov, who expanded upon the Czech origin of robot, to coin the term robotics in 1941. Asimov conceived of his three laws of robotics—that would prohibit robots from harming human beings. His assurances, however, have not mitigated the fear in some people’s minds that robots may eventually rebel and some day take over.

Now comes the possibility from a scientific collaboration between teams from the UK and Netherlands, that robots may soon breed and evolve. That idea takes these machines ever closer to human-like capabilities—maybe even enclosing them within the realm of what we call life. Yikes! That's too close to Frankenstein's creation of a “living being” from dead body parts... and we know the troubles caused by that creature.

So can a robot ever attain the qualities of evolving and being “alive”? Biology defines life as exhibiting about six features: (1) a complex assembly of “living” cells, (2) able to respond to diverse stimuli, (3) reproduction, (4) self-regulation, to respond to its environment, (5) possessing homeostasis—to maintain critical internal conditions and balances, and (6) processing energy, to carry on its metabolic activities.

Maybe those 100-year-old robots were simple programmed machines, but today's robots feature most of these characteristics of life. For example, the UK and Dutch researchers' robotic technology is able to spawn (birth?) offspring that receive a transplanted “brain” (in the form of software) from their “parents,” which contain inherited traits.

These robots employ artificial intelligence, which guides that inheritance, so as to optimize certain capabilities for specific missions that we are as yet unable to comprehend. Is this some form of robotic evolution—an evolution in which they can control themselves, and pass traits on to future robotic generations? Are we opening a Pandora's Box, from which super robots will soon breed and become god-like beings? Asimov, we may need your robotic laws to protect us.

Immaterial Mortality

 In 1905 Albert Einstein published his groundbreaking Special Theory of Relativity. I've written before about how revolutionary his ideas were. They solved a conundrum that had been bedeviling physicists for several years, regarding the properties of light. Whereas scientists had been considering time to be constant for all observers (regardless of their location or motion), the speed of light was seen as variable, being dependent on an observer's behavior. Einstein proved it to be the opposite. He began with the assumption that the velocity of light would be seen as identical for everyone—regardless of how fast they moved or where they were. The consequence of this premise is that the passage of time is a variable; the march of time depends on your speed... that is, while time is not a constant, the speed of light is.

One commonly-expressed result of his relativity theory is the so-called “Twin Paradox.” Calculations (later proved by measurements) showed that, if one twin takes off on a rocket ship and returns some time later, the traveling twin will be a tad younger than the twin who stayed home. This is very counterintuitive. Time for the traveling twin actually passes more slowly.

These relativistic effects are not usually seen until an object travels at a significant fraction of the speed of light, but it does show up for something that many people use every day: their smart phones, for locating themselves on the planet's surface. The GPS system must use relativistic calculations; otherwise your position would be tens of yards (or meters) in error. Your smart phone directions would have you driving into brick walls or into a lake. Well, sometimes that does happen, but the error can be mostly attributed to human inattentiveness.  

I have made some relativistic example calculations to illustrate the lapsed time for space ships of various speeds to travel to our nearest galaxy (Andromeda) and back.  Andromeda is about 2.5 million light years away. In other words, light would require 5 million years to travel to Andromeda and return... at least that's the elapsed time we observers back on Earth would measure. If time is relativistic, however, what would be the elapsed time for our space traveler at these different speeds? It would be less, according to Einstein; how much less would be a function of how fast the ship traveled. To illustrate this, I have shown the elapsed time in the table below for a spaceship at five different speeds.

Spaceship speed	50,000 miles per hour	0.5c	0.9c	0.999c	C
Round trip time	35 billion years	4400 years	1260 years	120 years	Zero time

The first entry in the table is for a hypothetical spaceship whose speed is roughly comparable to today's spacecraft: it does the trip at 50,000 miles per hour (83,000 km per hour). To illustrate how slow this is, the trip would require some 35 billion years! Clearly, we must go faster.

For the second entry in the table, I assume a spaceship that can travel at half the speed of light (0.5C, where “c” is the scientific symbol used for light speed, which is 186,000 miles per second, or 300,000 km per second.) It will be a long time—if ever—before we'd reach that kind of speed. Nonetheless, for illustration purposes, the round trip to Andromeda would require 4,400 years for those aboard that ship, if they traveled at half the speed of light. That’s still a very long trip.

Let's say our imaginary ship could travel at 90% the speed of light (0.9c). Now the trip for those on board would be down to 1,260 years. Let's go even faster: to 99.9% the speed of light (0.999C). Then the trip could be finished in a mere 120 years.

For reasons I won't go into here, no real spacecraft could ever reach these speeds, despite the accomplishments of the starship USS Enterprise on “Star Trek,” which can reach warp speed eight—some eight times the speed of light! That's a fun way to fly around space, but is entirely fictional. Unfortunately, those interstellar distances will remain way beyond us mortals.

I've included one more interesting calculation in the table: the lapsed time to and from Andromeda Galaxy, for something that manages to travel right at the speed of light. (One of the consequences of Einstein's theory is that nothing can ever exceed the speed of light; it's an absolute upper bound.) For that light-speed trip, no time has passed at all! In fact, an object traveling at the speed of light can traverse the entire universe (and back, if it wishes) and never register any time lapse!

What kind of “thing” could travel at the speed of light? Well, light itself does, which we may describe as photons zinging along at c. Photons can do this only because they have no mass... they are completely immaterial. A consequence of  photons being massless is that they always are moving at the speed of light... they can exist only as moving particles.

So if you could ride along with a photon at the speed of light, you would in essence become immortal. Of course, your material being would never withstand the trip, but the massless photon can. So, for us material mortals back home, photons would require five million years for the round trip to Andromeda, but to them, they do it in no time at all.  That, it seems to me, is a definition of immortality.

As I pondered this fascinating result recently, it occurred to me that, while we material beings are mortal—often also described as being temporal, ephemeral, or perishable critters—some religions consider our souls to be immortal. If we do have a soul, it is immaterial; it is massless.

So a massless soul—like the massless photon—can only exist as something traveling at the speed of light. It could go on its merry way forever (that time lapse of “forever” being what we stationary mortals would measure), taking no time at all, from its perspective. Would that not be a definition of our soul being immortal?

Expeditious Evolution

From the very beginnings of life on Planet Earth to today, evolution has gradually brought about change and adaptation. As environmental conditions have altered, bringing about new climates, life forms have soon followed suit—the luckier variations altering to thrive in the new situation, while the less fortunate ones died out. This elegant process has caused relentless and progressive adaptation on the part of plants and animals—with the result that, at any given moment in time, the mix of living species is fairly well balanced.

There have been, however, numerous occasions when the environment changed so dramatically and rapidly that many species could not adapt quickly enough, so they became extinct. There have been half a dozen or so catastrophic events that caused some 70-95% of plant and animal species to disappear, but life soon adjusted and began to flourish again, as new species came into existence.

We are now in the midst of the latest major environmental change. It is being designated as the Anthropocene Age transformation—whereby the planet is rapidly heating. This change is being brought about by humans. And the rate is hundreds and thousands of times faster than in any comparable change in the past! That faster pace will likely see the extinction of far more species than in the past.

And yet there is already evidence that some animals are currently altering their physiology, in attempts to adapt to the warmer conditions. Some of these critters have slowly evolved (over millions of years) to find ways to radiate excess body heat. Birds' beaks help them cool, because their bills are not covered with insulating feathers. Similarly, some furry animals have evolved hairless ears, tails, and legs, in order to shed excess heat.

Current scientific research is showing that some bird species are adapting to hotter climates by growing larger beaks—to radiate heat better. Some mammals are growing longer ears or less hair on their legs. Some bats have had their wing size increase. This is evolution in action, and is rather heartening. But there may well be more to the story that is less heartening. Might these recent changes negatively impact other bodily needs, such as the ability to avoid predators or attract sexual partners? Might the changes be better at dissipating heat, but worse off for other needs?

Most importantly, the Anthropocene climate change is occurring at breakneck speed—over dozens of years, rather than thousands. That is too fast for some species to respond. Unable to change in time, they face the prospect of disappearing. Time will tell, as they say.

Squirrel Quirks

I have enjoyed observing the behavior of many different animals around the homestead, over the last several decades. My motivation to do so, besides the delight of watching them, is to learn how to better live with them (1) by coming to know the qualities of the critters that I consider beneficial or enjoyable, in order to find ways to welcome them into our routine. (2) For those animals I find problematic, it similarly helps to understand them, so that we may coexist with minimal strife. (3) And for the vast majority of critters who I see as neither enjoyable nor annoying, it still helps to get to know them as members of Nature's wonderful world.

The more I learn about our resident critters, the more I come to see each one as a unique individual. Not all mice or crows or oak trees behave identically. They each have their own peculiar traits, and that has sometimes led me to see them as possessing personalities... personalities that differ, just as each human has their own unique disposition. For example, some mice are bolder than others. Some deer are more curious. Some chickadees are more tame than others. I sometimes even come to feel that I can tell one individual from another—simply through its familiar behavior.

Now comes a study by researchers at the University of California Davis, that shows squirrels exhibit human-like personality traits. The researchers spent lots of time observing and tracking a certain species of squirrel. They observed such things as how various squirrels reacted to their mirror images or how closely one could approach a squirrel before it ran away. But most of the work was simply hours of watching and noting—the classic technique of ethology, such as championed by Jane Goodall and Franz de Waal (both of whom I have written about before).

What they found in squirrels was a wide range of bold, aggressive, athletic, and sociable behaviors. Some squirrels were simply more outgoing. Bolder and more active squirrels covered more territory and were more successful at finding food. Aggressive squirrels claimed better perches, from which to spot food or predators. However, those same audacious critters sometimes paid the price of being at greater risk for accidents or predation. Doesn't that seem similar to various human personalities? Audacious men often score better with women, but also are more likely to get into fights. Sociable people tend to have a wider circle of friends, but often have more shallow relationships than shy people.

One of the results of the UC Davis study was that the researchers came to see individual squirrels as “who” rather than “it.” I sometimes have even given names to individual animals who I have come to recognize as having distinct personalities.

Jupiter's North Pole

 

This is a photo of Jupiter's north pole, taken by NASA's Juno spacecraft. At the center of the photo is a huge cyclone, surrounded by eight smaller ones. Juno was launched in 2011 and arrived at Jupiter in 2016, to study its atmosphere and interior composition. The mission is ongoing.

Colonialism’s Triple Transgressions

The sins of colonialism are beginning to be recognized and acknowledged, in recent years. By definition, colonialism is “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically.” European states did it to indigenous lands in the Americas, the Mideast, Africa, and Asia. The US later followed suit and exploited American Indians, as well as countries in Central and South America and throughout the Pacific. The admission of these colonial transgressions has been a long time in coming—partly because the winner always writes history and because the colonial powers of the West often convinced themselves that they were called to spread the word of civilization and modernization (often describing it as “the white man's burden”). They saw themselves helping to civilize backward peoples. In fact, it was brutal exploitation.

Western colonialism has committed three successive types of crimes, that began over half a millennium ago, and continue through today.

The first crime was the invasion and domination of dozens of lands, the world over. This was not war—it was simply a takeover by the stronger invader. Although the rationalization was often given of spreading civilization, in fact the real reason was to acquire resources and to expand the territory of the dominant country. The colonial powers extracted oil, minerals, agricultural products, and even people (to enslave). Introduced agriculture was established in the conquered lands—to export back to the homeland such products as rubber, cotton, sugar, tobacco, drugs, etc. People of the occupied lands were often forced either to purchase these products or create them for the pleasure and wealth of the residents of the colonial powers.

The second crime committed by the colonialists was to abruptly pull out their forces and administrators, when pressure mounted to terminate the occupation, in the mid 20th century. They left behind a debilitated situation, whereby the former colonies were unprepared to govern themselves adequately. Corruption that had begun under foreign rule blossomed and crippled chances to bring about a functioning and just society. In many cases, the former colonies—now ostensibly autonomous—remained under the economic thumb of the former rulers. They remained dependent and exploited—now by corporations, rather than by military force.

The third crime of the colonialists is being played out on the international stage today, as millions of refugees from the former colonies flee the terrible conditions there—of war, poverty, and failed governments. The former colonial powers—predominantly Europe and the US—do their best to block the refugees from entering and finding safe haven. This is particularly merciless, given that the population of the developed states is declining, and they could benefit from the presence of the refugees. Instead of a deserved welcome, refugees are met with a xenophobic response.

Many people think that we live in a post-colonial world—that the offenses are behind us. A more honest appraisal, however, shows that the colonial transgressions are ongoing.