[Catalist] MARCH FOR SCIENCE on Saturday 14th April 2018

[Michael McGarry]

MARCH FOR SCIENCE on Saturday 14th April 2018

Greetings CATALIST and ASTARIX 2.0 subscribers,

“The specific aims of the Australian (March for Science) events are four-fold: To call for universal, high-quality education that places emphasis on critical thinking, to foster a dialogue between the public and scientists and ensure transparency of scientific findings, to encourage our policy makers to incorporate scientific evidence into their decisions, and to campaign for viable government funding so researchers can achieve long-term goals to benefit society.” 

Reference URL: https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/polish-your-boots-for-the-march-for-science <https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/polish-your-boots-for-the-march-for-science>
AUS March for Science URL: https://marchforscienceaustralia.org <https://marchforscienceaustralia.org/>
Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Existence of Life

“The issue of the second Law of thermodynamics (increasing entropy with time) and the existence of Life is a very important one. It is quite reasonable to ask how we can go from disorder (following Big Bang) to order (Life) without violating this Law. The answer is that this Law was best stated by Boltzmann when he said in effect that “Entropy almost always increases with time”. In other words if you wait long-enough then opposite things will happen. This is just like winning the lottery. If you buy enough tickets over a long period of time then one day you just might win the lottery. The same with Life. Given the Universe is estimated to be at 13.4 billion years, somewhere in Space the conditions were right to create self-sustaining Life, and we are the proof that this was possible. Unfortunately, the same argument means that the probability that this has also happened elsewhere in the observable Universe is rather small, and this is supported by the fact that thus far with our best (radio, X-ray, visible) telescopes we have found nothing. Can’t wait for the SKA!” [Igor Bray: CATALIST: 03/04/2018]

Entropy and Complexity and History of the Universe

We can learn more about the relationship between entropy and complexity and the history of the Universe, as explained by Sean Carroll, by watching this YouTube video 1 between 14.20 to 24.33 minutes.  Sean Carroll URL: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com <https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/>
WIKIPEDIA URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_M._Carroll>
Thanks and Best Wishes,

Michael John McGarry

 

YouTube URL 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40eiycH077A <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40eiycH077A>
 

YouTube URL 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26a-ztpQs8 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x26a-ztpQs8>
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.stawa.net/pipermail/catalist_lists.stawa.net/attachments/20180404/6167a5b2/attachment.html>