Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Learn Complex Geometry from Islamic Design
In Islamic culture, geometry is everywhere.You can find it in mosques, madrasas, palaces and private homes.This tradition began in the 8th century CE during the early history of Islam, when craftsman took preexisting motifs from Roman and Persian cultures and developed them into new forms of visual expression.
This period of history was a golden age of Islamic culture, during which many achievements of previous civilizations were preserved and further developed, resulting in fundamental advancements in scientific study and mathematics. Accompanying this was an increasingly sophisticated use of abstraction and complex geometry in Islamic art, from intricate floral motifs adorning carpets and textiles, to patterns of tilework that seemed to repeat infinitely, inspiring wonder and contemplation of eternal order.
Despite the remarkable complexity of these designs, they can be created with just a compass to draw circles and a ruler to make lines within them, and from these simple tools emerges a kaleidoscope multiplicity of patterns.
So how does that work?
Well, everything starts with a circle. The first major decision is how will you divide it up? Most patterns split the circle into four, five or six equal sections. And each division gives rise to distinctive patterns. There's an easy way to determine whether any pattern is based on fourfold, fivefold, or sixfold symmetry. Most contain stars surrounded by petal shapes. Counting the number of rays on a starburst, or the number of petals around it, tells us what category the pattern falls into. A star with six rays, or surrounded by six petals, belongs in the sixfold category. One with eight petals is part of the fourfold category, and so on. There's another secret ingredient in these designs: an underlying grid. Invisible, but essential to every pattern, the grid helps determine the scale of the composition before work begins, keeps the pattern accurate, and facilitates the invention of incredible new patterns.
Let's look at an example of how these elements come together.
We'll start with a circle within a square, and divide it into eight equal parts. We can then draw a pair of criss-crossing lines and overlay them with another two. These lines are called construction lines, and by choosing a set of their segments, we'll form the basis of our repeating pattern. Many different designs are possible from the same construction lines just by picking different segments. And the full pattern finally emerges when we create a grid with many repetitions of this one tile in a process called tessellation.
The possibilities are virtually endless. We can follow the same steps to create sixfold patterns by drawing construction lines over a circle divided into six parts, and then tessellating it, we can make something like this.
Here's another sixfold pattern that has appeared across the centuries and all over the Islamic world, including Marrakesh, Agra, Konya and the Alhambra. Fourfold patterns fit in a square grid, and sixfold patterns in a hexagonal grid.
Fivefold patterns, however, are more challenging to tessellate because pentagons don't neatly fill a surface, so instead of just creating
a pattern in a pentagon, other shapes have to be added to make something that is repeatable, resulting in patterns that may seem confoundingly complex, but are still relatively simple to create.
Also, tessellation is not constrained to simple geometric shapes, as M.C. Escher's work demonstrates.
And while the Islamic geometric design tradition doesn't tend to employ elements like fish and faces,
it does sometimes make use of multiple shapes to craft complex patterns. This more than 1,000-year-old tradition has wielded basic geometry to produce works that are intricate, decorative and pleasing to the eye. And these craftsman prove just how much is possiblewith some artistic intuition, creativity, dedication and a great compass and ruler.
transcript video ted ed : ed.ted.com
 |
| Masjid Nasir al-Mulk (Persia / Iran) |
This period of history was a golden age of Islamic culture, during which many achievements of previous civilizations were preserved and further developed, resulting in fundamental advancements in scientific study and mathematics. Accompanying this was an increasingly sophisticated use of abstraction and complex geometry in Islamic art, from intricate floral motifs adorning carpets and textiles, to patterns of tilework that seemed to repeat infinitely, inspiring wonder and contemplation of eternal order.
 |
| illustration islamic golden ages |
Despite the remarkable complexity of these designs, they can be created with just a compass to draw circles and a ruler to make lines within them, and from these simple tools emerges a kaleidoscope multiplicity of patterns.
So how does that work?
Well, everything starts with a circle. The first major decision is how will you divide it up? Most patterns split the circle into four, five or six equal sections. And each division gives rise to distinctive patterns. There's an easy way to determine whether any pattern is based on fourfold, fivefold, or sixfold symmetry. Most contain stars surrounded by petal shapes. Counting the number of rays on a starburst, or the number of petals around it, tells us what category the pattern falls into. A star with six rays, or surrounded by six petals, belongs in the sixfold category. One with eight petals is part of the fourfold category, and so on. There's another secret ingredient in these designs: an underlying grid. Invisible, but essential to every pattern, the grid helps determine the scale of the composition before work begins, keeps the pattern accurate, and facilitates the invention of incredible new patterns.
Let's look at an example of how these elements come together.
We'll start with a circle within a square, and divide it into eight equal parts. We can then draw a pair of criss-crossing lines and overlay them with another two. These lines are called construction lines, and by choosing a set of their segments, we'll form the basis of our repeating pattern. Many different designs are possible from the same construction lines just by picking different segments. And the full pattern finally emerges when we create a grid with many repetitions of this one tile in a process called tessellation.
 |
| basic tessellation |
The possibilities are virtually endless. We can follow the same steps to create sixfold patterns by drawing construction lines over a circle divided into six parts, and then tessellating it, we can make something like this.
 |
| sixfold patterns tessellation |
 |
| one of the popular sixfold pattern tessellation |
Fivefold patterns, however, are more challenging to tessellate because pentagons don't neatly fill a surface, so instead of just creating
a pattern in a pentagon, other shapes have to be added to make something that is repeatable, resulting in patterns that may seem confoundingly complex, but are still relatively simple to create.
Also, tessellation is not constrained to simple geometric shapes, as M.C. Escher's work demonstrates.
And while the Islamic geometric design tradition doesn't tend to employ elements like fish and faces,
it does sometimes make use of multiple shapes to craft complex patterns. This more than 1,000-year-old tradition has wielded basic geometry to produce works that are intricate, decorative and pleasing to the eye. And these craftsman prove just how much is possiblewith some artistic intuition, creativity, dedication and a great compass and ruler.
transcript video ted ed : ed.ted.com
The First Idea About Infinite Universe
Observable universe?! What does that mean?
Even for us, in our Ship of the Imagination, there's a limit to how far we can see in space-time. It's our cosmic horizon. Beyond that horizon lie parts of the universe that are too far away. There hasn't been enough time in the 13.8 billion year history of the universe for their light to have reached us. Many of us suspect that all of this all the worlds, stars, galaxies and clusters in our observable universe is but one tiny bubble in an infinite ocean of other universes a multiverse.
Universe upon universe. Worlds without end. Feeling a little small? Well, in the context of the cosmos, we are small. We may just be little guys living on a speck of dust, afloat in a staggering immensity, but we don't think small. This cosmic perspective is relatively new. A mere four centuries ago,our tiny world was oblivious to the rest of the cosmos. There were no telescopes. The universe was only what you could see with the naked eye.
Back in 1599, everyone knew that the Sun, planets and stars were just lights in the sky that revolved around the Earth, and that we were the center of a little universe, a universe made for us. There was only one man on the whole planet who envisioned an infinitely grander cosmos. And how was he spending New Year's Eve of the year 1600? Why, in prison, of course.
There comes a time in our lives when we first realize we're not the center of the universe, that we belong to something much greater than ourselves. It's part of growing up. And as it happens to each of us, so it began to happen to our civilization in the 16th century. Imagine a world before telescopes,
when the universe was only what you could see with the naked eye.
It was obvious that Earth was motionless, and that everything in the heavens the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the planets revolved around us and then a Polish astronomer and priest named Copernicus made a radical proposal.
The Earth was not the center. It was just one of the planets, and, like them, it revolved around the Sun.
Many, like the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, took this idea as a scandalous affront to Scripture.
They were horrified.But for one man, Copernicus didn't go far enough. His name was Giordano Bruno, and he was a natural-born rebel He longed to bust out of that cramped little universe. Even as a young Dominican monk in Naples, he was a misfit. This was a time when there was no freedom of thought in Italy. But Bruno hungered to know everything about God's creation. He dared to read the books banned by the Church, and that was his undoing.
In one of them, an ancient Roman, a man dead for more than 1,500 years whispered to him of a universe far greater, one as boundless as his idea of God. Lucretius asked the reader to imagine standing at the edge of the universe and shooting an arrow outward. If the arrow keeps going,
then clearly, the universe extends beyond what you thought was the edge. But if the arrow doesn't keep going say it hits a wall then that wall must lie beyond what you thought was the edge of the universe.
Now if you stand on that wall and shoot another arrow, there are only the same two possible outcomes. It either flies forever out into space, or it hits some boundary where you can stand and shoot yet another arrow. Either way, the universe is unbounded. The cosmos must be infinite. to Bruno. The God he worshiped was infinite. So how, he reasoned, could Creation be anything less?
It was the last steady job he ever had. And then, when he was 30, he had the vision that sealed his fate.
In this dream, he awakened to a world enclosed inside a confining bowl of stars. This was the cosmos
of Bruno's time. He experienced a sickening moment of fear, as if the bottom of everything was falling away beneath his feet. But he summoned up his courage.
Bruno: "I spread confident wings to space and soared toward the infinite, leaving far behind me
what others strained to see from a distance. Here, there was no up, no down, no edge, no center. I saw that the Sun was just another star, and the stars were other Suns, each escorted by other Earths like our own. The revelation of this immensity was like falling in love. "
Bruno became an evangelist, spreading the gospel of infinity throughout Europe. He assumed that other lovers of God would naturally embrace this grander and more glorious view of Creation.
Bruno: "What a fool I was. "
He was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church in his homeland, expelled by the Calvinists
in Switzerland, and by the Lutherans in Germany. Bruno jumped at an invitation to lecture at Oxford, in England. At last, he thought, a chance to share his vision with an audience of his peers.
Bruno :
"I have come to present a new vision of the cosmos. Copernicus was right
to argue that our world is not the center of the universe."
"The Earth goes around the Sun. It's a planet, just like the others. But Copernicus was only the dawn.
I bring you the sunrise. The stars are other fiery suns, made of the same substance as the Earth, and they have their own watery earths, with plants and animals no less noble than our own. Are you mad or merely ignorant?"
"Everyone knows there is only one world. What everyone knows is wrong. Our infinite God has created a boundless universe with an infinite number of worlds. Do they not read Aristotle where you come from? Or even the Bible? I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority."
"Let us begin a new, by doubting everything we assume,"
crowd :
" has been proven."
"Heretic! Infidel!"
Bruno :
" Your God is too small."
A wiser man would have learned his lesson. But Bruno was not such a man. He couldn't keep his soaring vision of the cosmos to himself, despite the fact that the penalty for doing so in his world
was the most vicious form of cruel and unusual punishment. Giordano Bruno lived at a time when there was no such thing as the separation of church and state, or the notion that freedom of speech was a sacred right of every individual. Expressing an idea that didn't conform to traditional belief
could land you in deep trouble. Recklessly, Bruno returned to Italy. Maybe he was homesick. But still, he must have known that his homeland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe he could possibly go.
The Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition, and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs.
It wasn't long before Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police. This wanderer, who worshiped an infinite universe, languished in confinement for eight years. Through relentless interrogations, he stubbornly refused to renounce his views. Why was the Church willing to go to such lengths to torment Bruno?
What were they afraid of? If Bruno was right, then the sacred books and the authority of the Church
would be open to question. Finally, the cardinals of the Inquisition rendered their verdict.
Cardinal Bellarmine:
"You are found guilty of questioning the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Of believing that God's wrath is not eternal, that everyone will be saved. Of asserting the existence of other worlds. All of the books you have written will be gathered up and burned in St. Peter's Square."
Bruno : "Reverend Father, these eight years of confinement have given me much time to reflect."
Cardinal Bellarmine: "So, you will recant?
Bruno : "My love and reverence for the Creator inspires in me the vision of an infinite Creation."
Cardinal Bellarmine: " You shall be turned over to the Governor of Rome to administer the appropriate punishment for those who will not repent."
(crowd jeers)
Bruno : "It may be that you are more afraid to deliver this judgment than I am to hear it."
(crowd shouting)
Ten years after Bruno's martyrdom, Galileo first looked through a telescope, realizing that Bruno
had been right all along. The Milky Way was made of countless stars invisible to the naked eye,and some of those lights in the sky were actually other worlds. Bruno was no scientist. His vision of the cosmos was a lucky guess, because he had no evidence to support it. Like most guesses, it could
well have turned out wrong. But once the idea was in the air, it gave others a target to aim at.
If only to disprove it. Bruno glimpsed the vastness of space. But he had no inkling of the staggering immensity of time.
transcript from cosmos : a spacetime-odyssey (S01E01 segment)
Even for us, in our Ship of the Imagination, there's a limit to how far we can see in space-time. It's our cosmic horizon. Beyond that horizon lie parts of the universe that are too far away. There hasn't been enough time in the 13.8 billion year history of the universe for their light to have reached us. Many of us suspect that all of this all the worlds, stars, galaxies and clusters in our observable universe is but one tiny bubble in an infinite ocean of other universes a multiverse.
Universe upon universe. Worlds without end. Feeling a little small? Well, in the context of the cosmos, we are small. We may just be little guys living on a speck of dust, afloat in a staggering immensity, but we don't think small. This cosmic perspective is relatively new. A mere four centuries ago,our tiny world was oblivious to the rest of the cosmos. There were no telescopes. The universe was only what you could see with the naked eye.
Back in 1599, everyone knew that the Sun, planets and stars were just lights in the sky that revolved around the Earth, and that we were the center of a little universe, a universe made for us. There was only one man on the whole planet who envisioned an infinitely grander cosmos. And how was he spending New Year's Eve of the year 1600? Why, in prison, of course.
There comes a time in our lives when we first realize we're not the center of the universe, that we belong to something much greater than ourselves. It's part of growing up. And as it happens to each of us, so it began to happen to our civilization in the 16th century. Imagine a world before telescopes,
when the universe was only what you could see with the naked eye.
It was obvious that Earth was motionless, and that everything in the heavens the Sun, the Moon, the stars, the planets revolved around us and then a Polish astronomer and priest named Copernicus made a radical proposal.
The Earth was not the center. It was just one of the planets, and, like them, it revolved around the Sun.
Many, like the Protestant reformer Martin Luther, took this idea as a scandalous affront to Scripture.
They were horrified.But for one man, Copernicus didn't go far enough. His name was Giordano Bruno, and he was a natural-born rebel He longed to bust out of that cramped little universe. Even as a young Dominican monk in Naples, he was a misfit. This was a time when there was no freedom of thought in Italy. But Bruno hungered to know everything about God's creation. He dared to read the books banned by the Church, and that was his undoing.
 |
| Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) |
then clearly, the universe extends beyond what you thought was the edge. But if the arrow doesn't keep going say it hits a wall then that wall must lie beyond what you thought was the edge of the universe.
Now if you stand on that wall and shoot another arrow, there are only the same two possible outcomes. It either flies forever out into space, or it hits some boundary where you can stand and shoot yet another arrow. Either way, the universe is unbounded. The cosmos must be infinite. to Bruno. The God he worshiped was infinite. So how, he reasoned, could Creation be anything less?
It was the last steady job he ever had. And then, when he was 30, he had the vision that sealed his fate.
In this dream, he awakened to a world enclosed inside a confining bowl of stars. This was the cosmos
of Bruno's time. He experienced a sickening moment of fear, as if the bottom of everything was falling away beneath his feet. But he summoned up his courage.
Bruno: "I spread confident wings to space and soared toward the infinite, leaving far behind me
what others strained to see from a distance. Here, there was no up, no down, no edge, no center. I saw that the Sun was just another star, and the stars were other Suns, each escorted by other Earths like our own. The revelation of this immensity was like falling in love. "
Bruno became an evangelist, spreading the gospel of infinity throughout Europe. He assumed that other lovers of God would naturally embrace this grander and more glorious view of Creation.
Bruno: "What a fool I was. "
He was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church in his homeland, expelled by the Calvinists
in Switzerland, and by the Lutherans in Germany. Bruno jumped at an invitation to lecture at Oxford, in England. At last, he thought, a chance to share his vision with an audience of his peers.
Bruno :
"I have come to present a new vision of the cosmos. Copernicus was right
to argue that our world is not the center of the universe."
"The Earth goes around the Sun. It's a planet, just like the others. But Copernicus was only the dawn.
I bring you the sunrise. The stars are other fiery suns, made of the same substance as the Earth, and they have their own watery earths, with plants and animals no less noble than our own. Are you mad or merely ignorant?"
"Everyone knows there is only one world. What everyone knows is wrong. Our infinite God has created a boundless universe with an infinite number of worlds. Do they not read Aristotle where you come from? Or even the Bible? I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority."
"Let us begin a new, by doubting everything we assume,"
crowd :
" has been proven."
"Heretic! Infidel!"
Bruno :
" Your God is too small."
A wiser man would have learned his lesson. But Bruno was not such a man. He couldn't keep his soaring vision of the cosmos to himself, despite the fact that the penalty for doing so in his world
was the most vicious form of cruel and unusual punishment. Giordano Bruno lived at a time when there was no such thing as the separation of church and state, or the notion that freedom of speech was a sacred right of every individual. Expressing an idea that didn't conform to traditional belief
could land you in deep trouble. Recklessly, Bruno returned to Italy. Maybe he was homesick. But still, he must have known that his homeland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe he could possibly go.
The Roman Catholic Church maintained a system of courts known as the Inquisition, and its sole purpose was to investigate and torment anyone who dared voice views that differed from theirs.
It wasn't long before Bruno fell into the clutches of the thought police. This wanderer, who worshiped an infinite universe, languished in confinement for eight years. Through relentless interrogations, he stubbornly refused to renounce his views. Why was the Church willing to go to such lengths to torment Bruno?
What were they afraid of? If Bruno was right, then the sacred books and the authority of the Church
would be open to question. Finally, the cardinals of the Inquisition rendered their verdict.
Cardinal Bellarmine:
"You are found guilty of questioning the Holy Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. Of believing that God's wrath is not eternal, that everyone will be saved. Of asserting the existence of other worlds. All of the books you have written will be gathered up and burned in St. Peter's Square."
Bruno : "Reverend Father, these eight years of confinement have given me much time to reflect."
Cardinal Bellarmine: "So, you will recant?
Bruno : "My love and reverence for the Creator inspires in me the vision of an infinite Creation."
Cardinal Bellarmine: " You shall be turned over to the Governor of Rome to administer the appropriate punishment for those who will not repent."
(crowd jeers)
Bruno : "It may be that you are more afraid to deliver this judgment than I am to hear it."
(crowd shouting)
Ten years after Bruno's martyrdom, Galileo first looked through a telescope, realizing that Bruno
had been right all along. The Milky Way was made of countless stars invisible to the naked eye,and some of those lights in the sky were actually other worlds. Bruno was no scientist. His vision of the cosmos was a lucky guess, because he had no evidence to support it. Like most guesses, it could
well have turned out wrong. But once the idea was in the air, it gave others a target to aim at.
If only to disprove it. Bruno glimpsed the vastness of space. But he had no inkling of the staggering immensity of time.
transcript from cosmos : a spacetime-odyssey (S01E01 segment)
Some Basic Misconceptions in Evolution Theory
Myths and misconceptions about evolution. Let's talk about evolution. You've probably heard that some people consider it controversial, even though most scientists don't. But even if you aren't one of those people and you think you have a pretty good understanding of evolution, chances are you still believe some things about it that aren't entirely right, things like,
"Evolution is organisms adapting to their environment."
This was an earlier, now discredited, theory of evolution. Almost 60 years before Darwin published his book, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed that creatures evolve by developing certain traits over their lifetimes and then passing those on to their offspring.
For example, he thought that because giraffes spent their lives stretching to reach leaves on higher branches, their children would be born with longer necks. But we know now that's not how genetic inheritance works. In fact, individual organisms don't evolve at all. Instead, random genetic mutations cause some giraffes to be born with longer necks, and that gives them a better chance to survive than the ones who weren't so lucky,
which brings us to
"survival of the fittest".
This makes it sound like evolution always favors the biggest, strongest, or fastest creatures, which is not really the case. For one thing, evolutionary fitness is just a matter of how well-suited they are to their current environment. If all the tall trees suddenly died out and only short grass was left, all those long-necked giraffes would be at a disadvantage. Secondly, survival is not how evolution occurs,
reproduction is. And the world if full of creatures like the male anglerfish, which is so small and ill-suited for survival at birth that it has to quickly find a mate before it dies. But at least we can say
that if an organism dies without reproducing, it's evolutionarily useless, right?
Wrong!
Remember, natural selection happens not at the organism level, but at the genetic level, and the same gene that exists in one organism will also exist in its relatives. So, a gene that makes an animal altruistically sacrifice itself to help the survival and future reproduction of its siblings or cousins, can become more widespread than one that is solely concerned with self-preservation. Anything that lets more copies of the gene pass on to the next generation will serve its purpose, except :
"Evolutionary Purpose."
One of the most difficult things to keep in mind about evolution is that when we say things like, "Genes want to make more copies of themselves," or even, "natural selection," we're actually using metaphors. A gene doesn't want anything, and there's no outside mechanism that selects which genes are best to preserve. All that happens is that random genetic mutations cause the organisms carrying them to behave or develop in different ways. Some of those ways result in more copies of the mutated gene being passed on, and so forth. Nor is there any predetermined plan progressing towards an ideal form. It's not ideal for the human eye to have a blind spot where the optic nerve exits the retina, but that's how it developed, starting from a simple photoreceptor cell.
In retrospect, it would have been much more advantageous for humans to crave nutrients and vitamins rather than just calories. But over the millenia, during which our ancestors evolved, calories were scarce, and there was nothing to anticipate that this would later change so quickly.
So, evolution proceeds blindly, step, by step, by step, creating all of the diversity we see in the natural world.
transcript from video ted ed : ed.ted.com
"Evolution is organisms adapting to their environment."
This was an earlier, now discredited, theory of evolution. Almost 60 years before Darwin published his book, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed that creatures evolve by developing certain traits over their lifetimes and then passing those on to their offspring.
 |
| Jean-Baptiste Lamarck |
For example, he thought that because giraffes spent their lives stretching to reach leaves on higher branches, their children would be born with longer necks. But we know now that's not how genetic inheritance works. In fact, individual organisms don't evolve at all. Instead, random genetic mutations cause some giraffes to be born with longer necks, and that gives them a better chance to survive than the ones who weren't so lucky,
which brings us to
"survival of the fittest".
This makes it sound like evolution always favors the biggest, strongest, or fastest creatures, which is not really the case. For one thing, evolutionary fitness is just a matter of how well-suited they are to their current environment. If all the tall trees suddenly died out and only short grass was left, all those long-necked giraffes would be at a disadvantage. Secondly, survival is not how evolution occurs,
reproduction is. And the world if full of creatures like the male anglerfish, which is so small and ill-suited for survival at birth that it has to quickly find a mate before it dies. But at least we can say
that if an organism dies without reproducing, it's evolutionarily useless, right?
Wrong!
Remember, natural selection happens not at the organism level, but at the genetic level, and the same gene that exists in one organism will also exist in its relatives. So, a gene that makes an animal altruistically sacrifice itself to help the survival and future reproduction of its siblings or cousins, can become more widespread than one that is solely concerned with self-preservation. Anything that lets more copies of the gene pass on to the next generation will serve its purpose, except :
"Evolutionary Purpose."
One of the most difficult things to keep in mind about evolution is that when we say things like, "Genes want to make more copies of themselves," or even, "natural selection," we're actually using metaphors. A gene doesn't want anything, and there's no outside mechanism that selects which genes are best to preserve. All that happens is that random genetic mutations cause the organisms carrying them to behave or develop in different ways. Some of those ways result in more copies of the mutated gene being passed on, and so forth. Nor is there any predetermined plan progressing towards an ideal form. It's not ideal for the human eye to have a blind spot where the optic nerve exits the retina, but that's how it developed, starting from a simple photoreceptor cell.
In retrospect, it would have been much more advantageous for humans to crave nutrients and vitamins rather than just calories. But over the millenia, during which our ancestors evolved, calories were scarce, and there was nothing to anticipate that this would later change so quickly.
So, evolution proceeds blindly, step, by step, by step, creating all of the diversity we see in the natural world.
transcript from video ted ed : ed.ted.com
Why we are dreaming ?
Hey there, welcome to life noggin. So dream are part of our everyday life, but have you ever wonder why we dream ? well, you about to find out. Dream are sequences of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur in the mind during sleep. Mainly during REM or Rapid Eye Movement state. Rem seem to be link to a cluster of memories. This may last 5 to 20 minutes, 3 to 5 times a night and sometimes even up to 7 on average in 8 hours of sleep 2 of them are are spend dreaming.
Dream have been viewed as connection to the unconscious. They range from normal and fun to overly bizarre. Dream are generally out side of the control of the dreamer, with the exception of lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is being aware that you are dreaming, you have control for the role in the dream, or be able to change the imaginary and experience in the environment.
Pretty cool right?
There are increasing amount of activity in the parietal lobe, making lucid dreaming a conscious process. Some researcher suggest that dream serve no real purpose while other believe that dreaming is essential to mental, emotional and physical well be. Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic theory of dreams suggest that dreams were representation of unconscious desire, thought, and motivation. And then we have the activation-synthesis model of dreaming, circuit in the brain become activated during REM sleep which causes area in the brain involve in emotion, sensation, and memories to become active. The brain synthesis and interpret the activity and attempt to find meaning of the signal.
All the dream in your head are just your brain try to stitch some memory together
How Brain Process a Language
Hey there, welcome to Life Noggin. I am speaking words right now and if you know English, you can understand what I'm saying. But, how? Well, sometimes in order to find out how a healthy brain works, we need to study a damaged one. Aphasia is a communication disorder that results from damage to the parts of the brain involved in language.
In the late 19th century, patients with Aphasia allowed scientists to better study how our brain processes and produces words and sentences. Through their studies, they found two main regions in the left hemisphere that were associated with language. Broca's area which is located in the left
frontal lobe is linked to speech production. Patients who have lesions in this area may understand what I am saying right now fairly well. But, would have a hard time forming sentences of their own.
On the other hand, Wernicke's area located in the temporal lobe is thought to be important in speech comprehension. If someone has damage in this area, they can produce language just fine, but
it would be a meaningless mismatch of words like "red bottle brushes hairy sky". But, this is just a classical model of language. So, there is bound to be a few flaws. Recent studies using imaging
techniques have shown that the regions around these two areas are also active
during language processing.
And even more, the right frontal lobe maybe involved in comprehending semantics or meaning of sentences. And there is still a lot that we don't even know about how the brain actually does all of this.However, it still begs the question, how are humans just able to understand language so easily?
Sure, learning a second language as an adult is pretty hard.But, it comes so naturally to children.
Well, the linguist Noam Chomsky believes that there is something called universal grammar. Meaning that there are elements of every known language that are similar like nouns, adjectives and verbs. And that young children are hard-wired to understand and learn language.
So, a lot of language and how we learn it is by association, but, it may also be innate. But, either way
I can send information from my brain to yours just by changing the shape of my vocal track. And that's pretty darn cool. So, what language would you like to learn? I would like to learn Italian so I can be super suave all the time.
transcripted from life noggin : lifenoggin.com
In the late 19th century, patients with Aphasia allowed scientists to better study how our brain processes and produces words and sentences. Through their studies, they found two main regions in the left hemisphere that were associated with language. Broca's area which is located in the left
frontal lobe is linked to speech production. Patients who have lesions in this area may understand what I am saying right now fairly well. But, would have a hard time forming sentences of their own.
On the other hand, Wernicke's area located in the temporal lobe is thought to be important in speech comprehension. If someone has damage in this area, they can produce language just fine, but
it would be a meaningless mismatch of words like "red bottle brushes hairy sky". But, this is just a classical model of language. So, there is bound to be a few flaws. Recent studies using imaging
techniques have shown that the regions around these two areas are also active
during language processing.
And even more, the right frontal lobe maybe involved in comprehending semantics or meaning of sentences. And there is still a lot that we don't even know about how the brain actually does all of this.However, it still begs the question, how are humans just able to understand language so easily?
Sure, learning a second language as an adult is pretty hard.But, it comes so naturally to children.
Well, the linguist Noam Chomsky believes that there is something called universal grammar. Meaning that there are elements of every known language that are similar like nouns, adjectives and verbs. And that young children are hard-wired to understand and learn language.
So, a lot of language and how we learn it is by association, but, it may also be innate. But, either way
I can send information from my brain to yours just by changing the shape of my vocal track. And that's pretty darn cool. So, what language would you like to learn? I would like to learn Italian so I can be super suave all the time.
transcripted from life noggin : lifenoggin.com
Life and Death In Science
Life is fundamentally different from dead stuff, or is it? Physicist Erwin Schrödinger defined life this way: Living things avoid decay into disorder and equilibrium. What does this mean?
Let’s pretend that your download folder is the universe. It started orderly and got more and more chaotic over time. By investing energy, you can create order and clean it up. This is what living things do.
But what is life?
Every living thing on this planet is made of cells. Basically, a cell is a protein-based robot too small to feel or experience anything. It has the properties we just assign to life: it has a wall that separates it from the surroundings, creating order. It regulates itself and maintains a constant state, it eats stuff to stay alive, it grows and develops, it reacts to the environment, and it’s subject to evolution, and it makes more of itself. But of all the stuff that makes up a cell, no part is alive. Stuff reacts chemically with other stuff, forming reactions that start other reactions which start other reactions. In a single cell, every second several million chemical reactions take place, forming a complex orchestra.
A cell can build several thousand types of protein, some very simple, some complex micromachines. Imagine driving a car at 100 km/h while constantly rebuilding every single part of it with stuff you collect from the street. That is what cells do. But no part of the cell is alive; everything is dead matter moved by the laws of the universe. So is life the aggregate of all these reaction processes that are taking place?
Eventually, every living thing will die. The goal of the whole process is to prevent this by producing new entities; and by this, we mean DNA. Life is, in a way, just a lot of stuff that carries genetic information around. Every living thing is subject to evolution, and the DNA that develops the best living thing around it will stay in the game.
So, is DNA life, then?
If you take DNA out of its hull, it certainly is a very complex molecule, but it can’t do anything by itself. This is where viruses make everything more complicated. They are basically strings of RNA or DNA in a small hull and need cells to do something. We’re not sure if they count as living or dead. And still, there are 225,000,000 m³ of viruses on Earth. They don’t seem to care what we think of them. There are even viruses that invade dead cells and reanimate them so they can be a host for them, which blurs the line even more.
Or mitochondria.
They are the power plants of most complex cells and were previously free living bacteria that entered a partnership with bigger cells. They still have their own DNA and can multiply on their own, but they are not alive anymore; they are dead. So they traded their own life for the survival of their DNA, which means living things can evolve into dead things as long as it’s beneficial to their genetic code. So, maybe life is information that manages to ensure its continued existence.
But what about AI (artificial intelligence)?
By our most common definitions, we are very close to creating artificial life in computers. It’s just a question of time before the technology we build gets there. And this is not science fiction, either; there are a lot of smart people actively working on this. You could already argue that computer viruses are alive. Hm, okay. So what is life, then? Things, processes, DNA, information? This got confusing very fast. One thing is for sure: the idea that life is fundamentally different from non-living things because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than inanimate objects turned out to be wrong. Before Charles Darwin, humans drew a line between themselves and the rest of living things; there was something magical about us that made us special. Once we had to accept we are like every living being, a product of evolution, we drew a different line. But the more we learn about what computers can do and how life works, the closer we get to creating the first machine that fits our description of life, the more our image of ourselves is in danger again. And this will happen sooner or later.
And here’s another question for you:
if everything in the universe is made of the same stuff, does this mean everything in the universe is dead or that everything in the universe is alive? That it’s just a question of complexity? Does this mean we can never die because we were never alive in the first place? Is life and death an irrelevant question and we haven’t noticed it yet? Is it possible we are much more part of the universe around us than we thought? Don’t look at us; we don’t have any answers for you. Just questions for you to think about. After all, it’s thinking about questions like this that makes us feel alive and gives us some comfort.
transcript from kurzgesagt.org video on youtube : kurzgesagt.org
Let’s pretend that your download folder is the universe. It started orderly and got more and more chaotic over time. By investing energy, you can create order and clean it up. This is what living things do.
But what is life?
Every living thing on this planet is made of cells. Basically, a cell is a protein-based robot too small to feel or experience anything. It has the properties we just assign to life: it has a wall that separates it from the surroundings, creating order. It regulates itself and maintains a constant state, it eats stuff to stay alive, it grows and develops, it reacts to the environment, and it’s subject to evolution, and it makes more of itself. But of all the stuff that makes up a cell, no part is alive. Stuff reacts chemically with other stuff, forming reactions that start other reactions which start other reactions. In a single cell, every second several million chemical reactions take place, forming a complex orchestra.
A cell can build several thousand types of protein, some very simple, some complex micromachines. Imagine driving a car at 100 km/h while constantly rebuilding every single part of it with stuff you collect from the street. That is what cells do. But no part of the cell is alive; everything is dead matter moved by the laws of the universe. So is life the aggregate of all these reaction processes that are taking place?
Eventually, every living thing will die. The goal of the whole process is to prevent this by producing new entities; and by this, we mean DNA. Life is, in a way, just a lot of stuff that carries genetic information around. Every living thing is subject to evolution, and the DNA that develops the best living thing around it will stay in the game.
So, is DNA life, then?
If you take DNA out of its hull, it certainly is a very complex molecule, but it can’t do anything by itself. This is where viruses make everything more complicated. They are basically strings of RNA or DNA in a small hull and need cells to do something. We’re not sure if they count as living or dead. And still, there are 225,000,000 m³ of viruses on Earth. They don’t seem to care what we think of them. There are even viruses that invade dead cells and reanimate them so they can be a host for them, which blurs the line even more.
Or mitochondria.
They are the power plants of most complex cells and were previously free living bacteria that entered a partnership with bigger cells. They still have their own DNA and can multiply on their own, but they are not alive anymore; they are dead. So they traded their own life for the survival of their DNA, which means living things can evolve into dead things as long as it’s beneficial to their genetic code. So, maybe life is information that manages to ensure its continued existence.
But what about AI (artificial intelligence)?
By our most common definitions, we are very close to creating artificial life in computers. It’s just a question of time before the technology we build gets there. And this is not science fiction, either; there are a lot of smart people actively working on this. You could already argue that computer viruses are alive. Hm, okay. So what is life, then? Things, processes, DNA, information? This got confusing very fast. One thing is for sure: the idea that life is fundamentally different from non-living things because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than inanimate objects turned out to be wrong. Before Charles Darwin, humans drew a line between themselves and the rest of living things; there was something magical about us that made us special. Once we had to accept we are like every living being, a product of evolution, we drew a different line. But the more we learn about what computers can do and how life works, the closer we get to creating the first machine that fits our description of life, the more our image of ourselves is in danger again. And this will happen sooner or later.
And here’s another question for you:
if everything in the universe is made of the same stuff, does this mean everything in the universe is dead or that everything in the universe is alive? That it’s just a question of complexity? Does this mean we can never die because we were never alive in the first place? Is life and death an irrelevant question and we haven’t noticed it yet? Is it possible we are much more part of the universe around us than we thought? Don’t look at us; we don’t have any answers for you. Just questions for you to think about. After all, it’s thinking about questions like this that makes us feel alive and gives us some comfort.
transcript from kurzgesagt.org video on youtube : kurzgesagt.org
