It seems to me that writing is like exercising. Once you start and get in the habit, the words and the reps just flow. But get out of the groove, and to begin again is to fear pain. My thighs always hurt after I restart the exercise bike. And my brain hurts thinking about stringing words together to try to say something cogent. But Michael wrote a lovely piece about the Marlins, which oh by the way got ‘retweeted’ by the Marlins announcer, so Wow! If he can find time amongst his heavy school load, I will make time and gird my fingers and brain to write again. It’s good therapy anyway – just like riding the stationary bike.
So this is what I’ve been thinking about today – 
Cosmology…and the meaning of life. Trivial subjects suitable for my Facebook page, you say? Well, I never denied being a nerd, and enjoying being a nerd. So there! 
So what’s this all about Alfie? Re-reading sections of Michio Kaku’s book Visions, and watching Stephen Hawking on “The Meaning of Life” from his Grand Design series, available on Netflix. I also went back to Arthur C. Clarke’s original short story from 1951 “The Sentinel”, which formed the basis for Stanley Kubrick’s immortal 2001 – A Space Odyssey released in 1969, I think … wait a sec, I’ll check. Hold please…nope – 1968. Guess we didn’t see it until a year later…well, we were very poor in 1968.
Back to Cosmology and the Meaning of Life…Chapter 15 of Kaku’s Visions: Toward a Planetary Civilization”, starts on page 322. This is assigned reading so read and we’ll discuss. Just kidding. Kaku is a master at making very complex subjects fairly understandable for us non-physicists. I could describe it in detail, but I’d rather share what I found to be mind bending in this chapter:
- Astronomer Nikolai Kardashev introduced a concept of civilizations, and labeled them Type I, II and III, based on the natural progression of energy consumption.
- “…any civilization in outer space will rely successively on three main sources of energy: their planet, their star and their galaxy, corresponding to Types I, II and III civilizations, respectively. The energy output of each civilization is roughly 10 billion times larger than the previous one.”
- Economic growth is fueled by increased consumption of energy.
- Astrophysicists have searched for life by analyzing characteristic “energy signatures”
- “Our civilization is so new that even a hundred years ago we still got most of our energy from burning wood and coal, and any discussion of extraterrestrial energy sources would have been considered madness.” So we’re Type Zero!
Of the three transitions, the most perilous – and likely the one that potentially destroyed other civilizations out there (hypothetically anyway) is the transition from Type 0 to Type I. Why? Let’s think of a few reasons:
- Sectarian, fundamentalist, nationalist hatreds leading to war and genocide;
- The discovery of the power of the atom and development of nuclear weapons;
- The discovery of the power of chemistry with pollution and accompanying toxic threats
So the good news here is that we are just beginning our lives as a civilization on this planet, with lots to look forward to, if we can avoid the hazards of self-destruction brought on by any or all the above. Oh, and don’t forget the potential for natural disasters to exterminate large quantities of us, like meteor strikes, global warming, solar flares, the shift in the magnetic poles, the eruption of a supervolcano like Yellowstone (it is overdue, you know…) Whew…makes your head spin.
Tomorrow I’ll discuss the meaning of life espoused by Stephen Hawking with an adjunct theory posited by Matthew McConaughey’s character in True Detective. Stay tuned.