This is the view from Erratic Rock State Natural Site near McMinnville, Oregon. The large rock in the foreground originated in the northern Rocky Mountains, nowhere near this spot. It is the only rock of its type outside Canada, and was transported here during a massive Ice Age flood around 15 thousand years ago. Titanic floods washed down eastern Washington, scoured their way through the gorge, then filled the valley with water. The water was filled with debris including icebergs from the flood’s origin, some of which carried boulders. As the ice melted and the waters receded, this boulder remained, a silent testimony to the power and extent of the flood. The view from this point helps us appreciate the scale of the flood. Continue reading
Tag Archives: spirituality
Thinking Beyond Cognitive Limits
One of the interesting accounts in Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, is a combination of two things: First, a description of the reasons why certain types of planning don’t work because of limitations in the human mind, and how to work around that. Second, the account of a bunch smart folks working together on a project, and making those very mistakes. I think this raises a very interesting, and possibly fundamental, question about reality.
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Of Causality and Love, Faith and Eternity
The world is a mysterious place, and part of human nature is to try to understand it. This is the role of science and rationality; we look to them to help us make sense of things. To an large extent they are very successful, and have improved our ability to manipulate the world more and more. And yet, there are things about the deeper underpinnings of reality that give us pause. Continue reading
Crystal Perfection
Recently, I was thinking about crystals as illustrations. Not an uncommon thought; our imaginations are captured by their unique properties, and these properties make them interesting comparisons. A crystal’s beauty and unique properties stem from special construction on the atomic scale. Its smallest parts are arranged in a repeating, orderly manner that forms a lattice. Although some crystals gain value from impurities, the finest have none at all. In fact, their lattice structures are perfect, with neither foreign materials, nor missing elements. It is this particular example of perfection that is interesting.
Where’s the Wave Collapser?
This little video illustrates one of the big confounding questions in physics. The question is how to understand the role of conscious observation in resolving a quantum state. The problem has been around for a long time, and Erwin Schrödinger came up with this famous illustration to highlight the question. Towards the end, the video describes a higher-level perspective about the question. Continue reading
Sudden Phase Change
Imagine a basin of calm, liquid water. Perfectly still and pure. All of a sudden it is jostled, or a speck of dust falls in, and it freezes in a moment. The water must have started below freezing, yet it was liquid. This seeming contradiction can occur when very pure water is carefully lowered below freezing, so ice crystals never have a chance to form. The result is “supercooled” water. Supercooled water may remain liquid while cooled quite far below freezing. It’s easy to make in the lab or at home, and sometimes occurs in nature.
While the water is still liquid, it seems contradictory: below freezing, yet not frozen. If water below freezing is supposed to be frozen, why is this so easy to demonstrate? It just seems wrong. Continue reading
Kelvin's Clouds 