Victor Bremson's Reflections
Monday, January 17, 2005
Tsunami’s, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Comets and Hope
In December of 2004 there was a massive earthquake in Asia followed by a large Tidal Wave that caused widespread destruction and killed possibly 200,000 people.
About 100,000,000 years ago a comet hit the earth somewhere near Manson, Iowa. This comet was about a mile and a half across, weighing ten billion tons and traveling at perhaps two hundred times the speed of sound. Manson became in an instant a hole three miles deep and more than twenty miles across. It would make the Grand Canyon look small. It was probably responsible for killing much of the life on the planet including the dinosaurs. There are millions of these comets flying around out there that have this potential. Despite all our technology we don’t want them all that well.
About 600,000 years ago the world’s largest known volcano that lies under Yellowstone National Park erupted and caused a nuclear winter for 8 years that also wiped out most life on the planet including the possibility of early human life. This explosion would have been 1000 times greater than the explosion of Mt. St. Helens. This volcano explodes about every 600,000 years.
None of these events provide much in the way of warning. And Finally.
In 1965 Thomas Louise Brock began a discovery that points to how resilient life is. They discovered life in some yellowy-brown scum that ringed a hot pool near Yellowstone. This life existed in temperatures far hotter than anything we could imagine. Their discovery led to Kary Mullis receiving the Nobel prize in biology in 1993 for basically discovering that a great deal of DNA material can be found in a tiny sample of a heat resistant enzyme found in the bacteria. In essence we learned that where we find water and some source of chemical energy that life can emerge. Brian Swimme teaches that when scientists try and create a perfect vacuum devoid of everything, the kind of vacuum found only in deepest space, that life also emerges.
I am filled with awe.
Victor Bremson
January 16, 2005
I give thanks to Bill Bryson in a Short History of Nearly Everything for most of the above inspiration.
About 100,000,000 years ago a comet hit the earth somewhere near Manson, Iowa. This comet was about a mile and a half across, weighing ten billion tons and traveling at perhaps two hundred times the speed of sound. Manson became in an instant a hole three miles deep and more than twenty miles across. It would make the Grand Canyon look small. It was probably responsible for killing much of the life on the planet including the dinosaurs. There are millions of these comets flying around out there that have this potential. Despite all our technology we don’t want them all that well.
About 600,000 years ago the world’s largest known volcano that lies under Yellowstone National Park erupted and caused a nuclear winter for 8 years that also wiped out most life on the planet including the possibility of early human life. This explosion would have been 1000 times greater than the explosion of Mt. St. Helens. This volcano explodes about every 600,000 years.
None of these events provide much in the way of warning. And Finally.
In 1965 Thomas Louise Brock began a discovery that points to how resilient life is. They discovered life in some yellowy-brown scum that ringed a hot pool near Yellowstone. This life existed in temperatures far hotter than anything we could imagine. Their discovery led to Kary Mullis receiving the Nobel prize in biology in 1993 for basically discovering that a great deal of DNA material can be found in a tiny sample of a heat resistant enzyme found in the bacteria. In essence we learned that where we find water and some source of chemical energy that life can emerge. Brian Swimme teaches that when scientists try and create a perfect vacuum devoid of everything, the kind of vacuum found only in deepest space, that life also emerges.
I am filled with awe.
Victor Bremson
January 16, 2005
I give thanks to Bill Bryson in a Short History of Nearly Everything for most of the above inspiration.
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