Solar System forms

[For those of you who enjoyed the Cosmic Calendar posts in December (here and here), I must apologize for the dearth of them so far this year. Not much happens before December, but I did miss announcing the formation of the Milky Way galaxy back on April 6th (10.1 billion years ago).]


Some time about 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system began forming from a large cloud of dust and gas. In the Cosmic Calendar, that corresponds to today. So ... happy Solar System Day, everybody!

Next up ... birth of the Earth.

References used:
[1] The Wikipedia article on the Formation and evolution of the Solar System reports the cloud from which it formed starting to collapse about 4.6 billion years ago. That's also where I got the pretty picture, which is a public-domain depiction courtesy of NASA.
[2] The Natural History Museum reports an age of 4.5 billion years - slightly different (two days later in the Cosmic calendar). As the formation of the solar system probably took some time, any specific moment chosen as its "formation date" (birthday?) will be somewhat arbitrary.

Test your ear for language

There's a fun game for anyone who is curious about world languages. It's the Language Quiz on Simon Ager's Omniglot blog: he posts a short recording of a language, and you get to guess which language it is.

After several months of playing , I've only once guessed the right language. Well, this recent quiz is especially intriguing, so I thought I'd share it with you. Warning: the answer has already been given in the comments, so try listening first before you read them. (It's tough, because the comments appear right below the text of the very short post.)

If, after listening, guessing, and checking your answer, you want to know why this is my favorite one so far, ask me in the comments and I'll tell you. (I'd do it here in the post itself, but I don't want to give away the answer before you try the quiz.)

Myers on meaning

At the end of a post about convergent evolution (and its misinterpretations), P.Z. Myers, author of the Pharyngula blog, gives these thoughts about meaning and purpose:

We are each our own individual engines of purpose, operating in a hostile universe where randomness can shape our fates. There is no grand scheme behind our existence, other than the same function that all our ancestors had: to order our local environment to allow each to survive and to make the world a little better for our progeny. And that's enough — that's all that is needed to make a rich, diverse, living planet, and it's all I need to live a satisfying life.

What a heartfelt summary of meaning in a naturalistic worldview. Thankyou, P.Z.!

The Downfall of Literalism

I've seen the Cake Wrecks blog a couple of times, but I have to say that being pointed to this entry by a religious blogger (Ken at C. Orthodoxy) made my day.

Thanks Ken. (Who ever said that rationalists don't have allies in the religious community?)

[Note: I am still finishing my PhD, so posts will continue to be sporadic and brief for at least a few weeks. I promise exciting things to come, so please bear with me!]

Persecution mentality

Religious and non-religious people alike could benefit from reading Ken Brown's new post, "Persecuted on every side".

I know I've fallen into the victim mentality once or twice. It's always turned out that I over-reacted. There are real victims in this world, and if we're too quick to paint ourselves as persecuted, we make less of real suffering.

I find it fruitful to read one or two blogs by people like Ken, who disagree with me on important points, to keep myself somewhat balanced. Does anyone else do this? Can you recommend good blogs or posts that convey religious experiences, non-vegetarian arguments, anti-Linux sentiment?

Careless belief

"I wish people would not be so careless about what they believe."

- from Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

For the full context, read the book. For an insight into the somewhat amusing origin of the title, follow the Wikipedia link above - it currently contains no spoiler, but will give you context enough to understand the relevance.

Thiakian king on death, and my response.

Today I give no argument, no news.

An ancient tale inspired a train of thought.
I'll share the thought in pent-iambic verse,
the English form Fitzgerald used to scribe
the ancient epic Odyssey from Greek.

He renders Homer's tale in vivid lines,
a saga of a man who seeks his home.

Odysseus speaks the lines that woke my muse;
recounts to his Phaiakian hosts his woes.
He's sailed from Troy; he's sacked an isle, and left.
Before he left a few of his men were slain.

Odysseus tells what happened then, at sea:

No ship made sail next day until some shipmate
had raised a cry, three times, for each poor ghost
unfleshed by the Kikonês on that field.

That word, unfleshed, is what has stirred my mind.
Belief and hope and fear in that term dwell.
Unfleshed: the self evicted from its corpse,
to travel down the dark Hadean paths.

A multitude expects such fate on death:
the unfleshed ghost, the soul, will carry on
to heaven, hell, or maybe back to Earth.

The word "unfleshed" befits these cherished thoughts,
expresses what so many hope from death.

But what of folk like me, who don't expect
to live on past our physical demise?
What word have we expressing what befalls?

The snowflake melts: its shape, unique, is lost.
Just so the mind, which body must sustain,
when body fails, is gone, has ceased, that's it.
How fleeting, fright'ning, this idea of self:
ephemeral and fragile. Here, then not.

The snowflake's stuff, of course, will still remain,
will rise, form clouds, and then will fall again.
Just so, my starstuff matter carries on.
In plants, in rocks, in future human flesh
it feeds the life of Gaia, though I'm gone.

I do not know a cure for fear of death:
I dread the tolling bells that speak my end.
But facts are not beholden to my wish.
Instead, to truth's stark beauty do I bend.

Does all this pose a word that I can use?
A word that speaks of loss and beauty cold?
Odysseus says the soul becomes unfleshed.
For me, the flesh, the life, becomes unsouled.


(Please let me know if verse-based blogging works.
These lines, did they enlighten or confuse?
Plain prose is still the medium I prefer.
Should ever I again invoke the Muse?)