Saturday, March 31, 2012

Out of Africa


125,000yrs ago- humans move out of Sahara northeast direction through the Sinai desert (climate differences made the area lush and possible to pass through)

100,000yrs ago- 10 human burial remains in Israel (belief in afterlife)

90,000yrs ago- area returns to desert and life once again became impossible

70,000yrs ago- tools found on a site in Yemen(back then it was a fertile plain); 2nd successful crossing

42,000yrs old- beads found in Turkey

40,000yrs ago- last iceage-> tools(oldest bone needle) found in Siberia and in Romania (they travelled via the river Danube: 10% of all Europeans can trace their genetic lineage to one female individual)

20,000yrs ago- footprints found in Australia

14,000yrs ago- first North American people came from the Siberian tribes (similar facial features and dwelling designs) and they moved in across Alaska as a corridor through the ice appeared in the past (their origin stories tell of ice crossings). They hunted woolly mammoths (clovis points have been found in woolly mammoth skeletons).

13,000yrs ago- first South America people's tools were found in Amazon basin. In Chile, remains of a hut was found with footprints, remains of game (Mastadon) and potato skins.

*people moved along the Pacific coast from the North to South Americas.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Our Newtonian concept of space is limited

1) Space is not inactive. It is an active actor which is interwoven with time and dictates how things move. Gravity is the shape of space-time itself, almost like a rubber sheet and has curvature. It has been tested and proven true with an orbiting gyroscope called "Gravity Probe B" around the earth as its axis shifted as predicted by Einstein's theory.
2) Space is relative. It acts with time in corresponding fluctuation to keep the speed of light constant. Because no matter how fast you travel, you will find that the speed of light is constant.

3) Space is not empty. At the quantum mechanics level, particles are constantly popping in and out of existence and annihilate each other. It also contains the Higgs field with which accords particles thier mass. This is be tested in the Hadron collider.

4) Space is expanding. This is because of dark energy. 70% of the weight of the entire universe is dark energy. Dark energy could continue to pull the universe further and further apart such that the universe would become cold, dark and lonely. The expanding pull of dark energy could also tear apart everything within the universe from stars to planets to matter of all kind.