When you are pondering about a problem, you would tend to look upwards at the sky left then right then around and around until your imaginary lightbulb lights up. Most of you may be aware of doing these mundane processes but have you asked yourself why? Theories suggest that constant eye moment is correlated to the way your mind processes information and generates thoughts. Scientists conducting experiments in Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) discover that people prefer different representational systems or ways in which they process the same information. Our brain don’t just process information sent by our 5 senses: Sight (Vision), Smell (Olfaction), Sound (Hearing), Touch (Tactile) and Taste (Gustation) but also Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Proprioception, Pain, Pressure, Temperature, Force and Length. The following graphic shows how our eyes move while we think and the specific mental system that our brain implements. The diagram typically works for people who are right-hand dominant, and the annotations would be transposed for left-hand dominant.
— Vr = Visual Remembered = Sees images of something remembered (Deja Vu)
— Ac = Auditory Constructed = Hears sounds not heard before
— Ar = Auditory Remembered = Hears sounds previously heard before
— Ai = Auditory Internal Dialogue = Talks internally to one’s self
— K = Kinesthetic = Experiences feelings, emotions, sensations and movement
If you have children who are currently learning about, for instance, limits in mathematics, occasionally they would gaze up at the sky once they encounter a homework problem that forces them to integrate multiple concepts they learnt separately at school. I, for one, have learnt about limits back in high school but only the basics of the mathematical notation were expected to be written on the test paper by my teachers. I’m not going into a full-on lecture on limits, its notation and its practical use in physics and economics but I’ll share a link for you to learn and read in your own time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_(mathematics)
Nonetheless if you’re sitting on a grassy patch on a clear sunny day and you look upwards to think about something out of the blue (pardon the pun), you notice the sky above you is blue. But have you ever thought why the sky is blue to you? When I was in primary school, teachers told me that the sky is the surface of the ocean on the other side of the Earth and at first I believed them. However after watching multiple documentaries about Earth, I realised this is not the case. At the heart of solar system is our bright star called the Sun where 7 planets circumnavigate it in elliptical orbits due to the Sun’s warping of space time. The order of the following planets goes from increasing distance from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Earth, or our Blue Marble viewed from outer space, is what we humans call home sweet home. Depending on the month, Earth’s distance from the Sun varies being closest in summer and farthest away in winter i.e. 146 million km (91 million miles) in early January, also known as the Perihelion, and 152 million km (94.5 million miles) in early July. We know that for 4.5 billion years already, our sun releases up to 3.8 x 10^26 Watts of power every second, equivalent to 3.8 x 10^23 Kilowatt hours. According to Einstein’s famous equation E= mc^2, every hour our Sun loses up to 15 billion metric tons of its own mass. It’s quite clear our Sun is like a gigantic, floating nuclear power plant that never stops producing energy because 99% of its electromagnetic radiation comes in the form of visible light, ultraviolet rays and infrared rays (heat radiation). Our Earth has an outer layer of gas particles called an atmosphere, which consists 78.084% Nitrogen, 20.946% Oxygen, 0.9340% Argon, 0.0407% Carbon Dioxide, 0.001818% Neon, 0.000524% Helium, 0.000118% Methane, 0.000114% Krypton, 0.000055% Hydrogen along with trace amounts of water vapour which varies from 1% at sea level and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere. When light mostly emitted from the Sun and surrounding stars interact with the Nitrogen molecules, light of shorter wavelengths of the visible spectrum tend to be scattered more than those of longer wavelengths. This is called Rayleigh Scattering. Our eyes have cones and rods located within our retina that are highly sensitive to blue, green and red lights. Even though violet light has the shortest wavelength our eyes aren’t sensitive enough to detect it hence we mostly view a clear sky as blue. During dawn or dusk when the sun is setting or rising, blue light becomes scattered even more and are now directed away from our eyes. In that case, whenever you view the sun along the horizon, lights of longer wavelength like red and yellow will then be detected from our eyes hence the sky during those periods of the day will be seen as yellow or red.
For years I have wondered about this phrase “the sky is the limit” which this post is mainly based on. For those who haven’t heard of this phrase before, it means there is no apparent limit. In other words, there is always potential for anyone to stretch beyond their boundaries and strive for success like no one has ever gone before. Some sources claim this phrase was coined by Cervantes in his 17th century work Don Quixote. Other sources claim it originated at a time of optimism and progress in an American newspaper prior to the first world war (WW1). The earliest known citation is from a New York newspaper named the Syracuse Herald, in September 1911:
“Then good luck, and remember the sky’s the limit.”
Since the proposed suggestion of “Outer Space" by Greek philosopher Aristotle in 350 BC, referred to as nature obhurs a vacuum, a principle known as the horror vacui, and following astronomical discoveries by Zhang Heng and Galileo Galilei, we humans are the first organisms to send people, animals, satellites and space materials into outer space with the help of rocket boosters that could overcome Earth’s gravitational pull. Our motivation to be the first at everything in the space race certainly brought vigorous competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. The media called this competition “the race to the stars”. On October 4 1957, Sputnik 1 was the world’s first ever manmade satellite to reach outer space. Then on November 3 the same year, the first animal to reach outer space was a Russian dog named Laika onboard Sputnik 2 and on April 12, 9:07am the same year in Moscow, the Vostok 1 spacecraft successfully travelled around the Earth once reaching a maximum height of 327 km (203 miles) over the course of 108 minutes. The pilot of Vostok 1 was 27 year-old Senior Lieutenant Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin. But on 20 July 1969, NASA’s Apollo 11 was the first spaceship to land on the Moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking the first steps and speaking the first words on the lunar surface. So technically the Soviet Union (the rabbit) actually won the space race against their rival tortoise (United States). Now it seems humans are the only organisms who have the motivation, knowledge, skills and curiosity to explore our solar system, neighbouring stars, Earth-like planets light-years away and possible signs of alien life far far away in other galaxies. All these questions regarding us being the only ones breathing Oxygen, receiving any response from the messages we sent to other galaxies at light speed, the type of language aliens out there may or may not understand or will aliens see us as aliens is still a mystery. We are no closer to finding any proven, rational answers in the short term and you and I who are reading this right now may not be alive to actually watch it happen. Here are a few links that you can read about regarding space exploration and outer space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_exploration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space
The environment in outer space is very different to what we live in here on Earth. You would feel more weightless because the impact of Earth’s gravitational pull is not as strong as it is on the ground. There’s not many particles per square inch of outer space and crucially no oxygen out there for us to breathe. That’s why we see astronauts wear sophisticated spacesuits to not only replenish their oxygen levels (756 mmHg) for a sufficient time depending on their missions. They also protect them from minute particles of space debris and harmful radiation from the Sun, maintain body temperature and pressure, remove harmful waste products like Carbon Dioxide, Hydrogen Sulfide and Urine and maintain clear radio contact with fellow astronauts and ground control through an in-built intercom system. But what if you were exposed to the elements of outer space? The pressure in outer space is so low, close to a perfect vacuum that all the air from your lungs and airways will be sucked out causing pulmonary barotrauma, rupturing your lungs and severely damaging your chest cavity. Air inside your anus, ears, eye cavities and nasal cavities will also be sucked out causing your eardrums and sinuses to rupture, followed by bruising and internal bleeding of your soft tissues. Within milliseconds your body will respond by replenishing your fast depleting oxygen levels and with no oxygen in outer space, you will experience hypoxia. All of these painful biological experiences are a result of rapid decompression of your system. Within minutes, deoxygenated blood accumulates in your brain to a point you will lose consciousness and then die of hypoxia. When your body pressure drops below 6.3 kPa, your blood and other bodily fluids will boil and this is known as ebullism. The steam that accumulates within your dead corpse may expand you like a balloon slowing down circulation. However your elastic tissues and skin’s porous characteristics will prevent your body from bursting. But what will it take to make your body burst? That is hard to answer because everyone’s body limits is different depending on your cell structure integrity, body size and adaptability to high internal and external pressures. It is known that Jacques Cousteau withstood 13 atm (atmospheres of pressure) in his recording-breaking scuba dive 117 metres deep. This got me wondering about the limits of the human structure and function. I’ll compile a long Q&A list regarding the limits of the human body in another post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1
Do you think there is someone out there in another galaxy? Would they speak any of the languages we speak here on Earth? We don’t really know. We, the homo sapiens, have the curiosity and motivation to build and launch spacecraft into interstellar space like Voyager 1 & 2 in September 5 1977. These spacecraft still communicate with the Deep Space Network with countless data and routine commands being sent to and fro. As of December 2016, it is officially the farthest manmade spacecraft on Earth at a distance of 137 AU or 2.05 x 10^10 km from the Sun. It has already flown past Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980 including its largest moon Titan. As Voyager 1 flies through space at least 17 km per second, what will it see next? It has already crossed the heliopause at 121 AU (Astronomical Units) and is now in interstellar space. Slowly one by one instrument after instrument will shut down and terminate its function. Until time has reached the 2020s, whatever data it has collected and pictures it has taken in front of it, it will be stored in its compact data servers and we will not be able to retrieve it. In about 300 years Voyager 1 will reach the Oort cloud which takes about 30,000 to pass through it. Voyager 1 wasn’t programmed to travel towards any particular star and it may be the loneliest thing out there. Provided it does not collide with anything, will it ever be retrieved by anyone out there? In the event of Voyager 1 being found, if ever, by intelligent alien life forms from other planetary system, there is a gold-plated audio-visual disc stored inside its compartment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record
It carries photos of the Earth and its lifeforms, scientific information, spoken greetings from famous people such as Jimmy Carter and Kurt Waldheim, a medley “Sounds of Earth" that includes the sounds of whales, a crying baby, waves reaching the shore, and a collection of music from famous composers and artists such as Mozart, Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry. Other Eastern and Western classics of the 1970s and prior plus indigenous music and greetings in 55 different languages are also included. But will anyone out there be able to decrypt it and decipher the information on that disc? Assuming they do understand the message, would they be able to send a message back to Earth? As a matter of fact, that is all a mystery. Personifying what aliens might do and perceive is not demonstrating empathy towards possible alien life. What are the chances they speak at least one of those 55 languages? If not why weren’t the voices of artificial and fictional characters like R2D2 and Chewbecca included in the recording? Well no one here on Earth can answer those questions for you. You and I don’t really know how long it will take for a response to reach Earth but we all know that number is huge. If there is anybody out there and they coincidentally find this post, this is my message to them:
Hi there, welcome to Earth. What do you think of this place? If you are reading this for the first time I may not be alive today. But if you were curious to find out who I really am, go to [my grave] at [this cemetery] and you will see I and many others are mere mortals. You wonder why everyone looks so different to you, find an object that looks like this [picture of computer, screen tablet or phone] and follow the instructions I will provide to search a gizmo called the Internet for answers. Don’t worry if people look at you suspiciously, be open and optimistic of what your future lies ahead of you. You may even find your best friends and your long lost love here. Enjoy your stay on Earth and we will understand if you choose to leave and visit somewhere else.
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