Experimental Blog # 155

Quotations and notes from "Almost Everyone's Guide to Science" - The Universe, Life and Everything by John Gribbin with Mary Gribbin

Some important developments in the sciences have been made since 1997 when this book was written, however:

" ...the scientific world view < > has taken only about four hundred years to develop {starting from the time of Galileo,"
"Everything in science is about models and predictions," However, "None of the models is the ultimate Deep Truth, but they all have their part to play." " ..even the best model is only a good one in its own context,"
" ..science is primarily an investigation of our place in the Universe -" "It is all about where we came from, and where we are going."

"When physicists try to describe the way the world works at the most fundamental level, the most important component of their toolkit is the concept of a field."

"Ice can only grow over the poles of our planet if the supply of ocean currents carrying warm water from tropical latitudes is cut off, "
"With the present-day geography of the Earth, the natural state of the planet is to be in the grip of a full ice age."
"Roughly speaking < > the pattern of climate change over the past five million years or so has been one in which full ice ages, each a bit more than a hundred thousand years long, are separated by shorter, relatively warm intervals, each about ten or twenty thousand years long."
" ..cold winters go hand in hand with hot summers, "
"Drought goes hand in hand with the spread of ice, "
" ..the important point about all of these astronmical influences on climate is that they do not change the total amount of heat received by the whole Earth over a whole year. All they can do is rearrange the distribution of heat between the seasons."