CULTURALQA 11-2023-17 All the BELOW QA are from Quora DIGEST to me on 17-11-2023.
QUORA ANSWERS NEEDNOT BE 100% CORRECT ANSWERS. Compiled and posted by R.Gopala Krishnan, 80, on 17-11-2023. Q1 Doesspace expand in all directions? A1 SilkRoad, AI Expert 9h Space is a tricky thing. It's not like a balloon thatyou can blow up and see it get bigger. Space is morelike the raisins in a loaf of bread that's baking in the oven. As the bread bakes, the raisins move away from each other,but they don't really change their size. That's how space works, too. Everything in the universe is moving away fromeverything else, but spaceitself doesn't have a size or a shape. We know all this when we look at the light fromdistant galaxies, which is stretched by the expansion of space. This stretchingmakes the light redder, and we call this the redshift. The more red shifted the light is, thefaster the galaxy is moving away from us.So, if we measure the redshifts of galaxies in differentdirections, we can compare how fast space is expanding in those directions. Scientists have done that, using different methodsand different data sets. They have looked at hundreds of galaxy clusters,which are the biggest things in the universe held together by gravity. They have looked at thousands of supernovas, whichare exploding stars that can be seen across the cosmos. They have looked at cosmic microwave backgroundradiation, which is the leftover heat from the Big Bang. And they havefound that, within the limits of their measurements, space expands at the samerate in all directions. So, Space is expanding isotropically, which means it doesn't care which wayyou look. It's just doing its thing, making everything fartherapart. But don't worry, you won't notice it in your everyday life.The expansion of space only affects things that are very far away fromeach other, like galaxies and galaxy clusters. Things that are close together, like planets andstars and people, are held together by gravity and other forces that are muchstronger than the expansion of space. Q2 Who isthe most badass scientist that has ever lived? Gary Meaney, passionate fan of all things animal4y In my opinion,Alfred Russell Wallace would be up there. Born in 1823, inWales, this Englishman is one of the most famous naturalists in history. He co-invented the idea of naturalselection along with Darwin, and discovered the biogeographical bordernow known as the Wallace Line. A whole region of Indonesia, Wallacea, is named after him. In 1848, hedecided to embark on an expedition to the then-mysterious Amazon rainforest, with nobody else except forhis friend Henry Walter Bates, later discoverer of Batesian mimicry. This wasextremely daring, and yet Wallacesurvived a full four years collecting specimens in the Amazon - Bates spent a further seven beforereturning to England. During the last year of his trip, Alfred’s brotherEdward joined the two friends in the Amazon. Tragically, they both caughtyellow fever - Edward died, but Wallace recovered and soldiered on. On the voyagehome, in 1852, Wallace was aboard the brig Helen. After 26 days at sea, the ship caught fire, andsank. Not only was this a terrifying near-death experience for him, but the vast majority of his mostinteresting and valuable specimens were lost. In a letter to his friend, Richard Spruce, hedescribes poignantly the losses: My collections however were in the hold and wereirrevocably lost. And now I begin to think, that almost all the reward of myfour years of privation and danger were lost. What I had hitherto sent home hadlittle more than paid my expenses and what I had in the “Helen” I calculatedwould realise near £500 [nearly $40,000]. But even all this might have gonewith little regret had not far the richest part of my own private collectiongone also. All my private collection of insects and birds since I left Pará waswith me, and contained hundreds of new and beautiful species which would haverendered (I had fondly hoped) my cabinet, as far regards American species, oneof the finest in Europe. You’d thinkthat such a catastrophe, the ruin of one’s entire life work, would be prettydemotivating for a man. Not so for Wallace; in that same letter, written just two months after the shipwreck,he considers going to the Andes next, or the Philippines. Eventually, hesettled on Indonesia and the surrounding regions - one of the least-exploredplaces in theworld at the time. During this expedition, which started in 1854, Wallace wasincredibly prolific, collecting: 110,000insects 7,500 shells 8,050 bird skins 410 mammals and reptiles Not only this, buthe is credited with the discovery of over 5,000 species!! That’s got to be a worldrecord. In any case, the conditions on the trip were, as you’d imagine, farfrom luxurious. Most of the time, Wallace slept in tiny wooden huts, and ate what the natives did -including fruit bat. One time, heand several local friends had to altercate with a huge python which enteredWallace’s hut. Itwas allegedly over 4 metres in length, and he described it as being “wellcapable of swallowing a dog or a child.” This plate shows the python beingunceremoniously extracted from the roof of the hut. The python’s skinis preserved today in a museum owned by the Linnean Society. The skins collected byWallace and his loyal sidekick Ali (who later voluntarily adopted the surnameWallace) were under constant threat of loss. Many rotted, and on some islands they were plagued byravenous stray dogs in the night who stole their specimens. Small animalswere a big problem too. In 1858, four years into his trip, Wallace fell terribly ill with anattack of malarial fever. The illness was severely debilitating and he wasconfined to lie in his hut on a remote Indonesian isle for some time. And, believe itor not, it was during this time - of all times - that Wallace conceived the theory ofevolution by natural selection, completely independent of Darwin! He wroteabout it to Charles Darwin, who - unbeknownst to Wallace - had long beendeveloping the same hypothesis in secret, for fear of ridicule. The twonaturalists corresponded for years, and later became friends, or at least pen pals.Eventually, after a staggering 8 years in what was then a godforsaken, unexploredcorner of the world, Alfred Russell Wallace decided toreturn to England in 1862, having become a rich man from selling his prizedspecimens. Seven years aftercoming home, Wallace wrote his world-famous book, perhaps the greatest of allthe great Victorian travelogues - The Malay Archipelago. I myself have read it, andstrongly recommend it. The book was enormously popular when it was published and is one of the only bookswhich has never gone out of print, at least for anything like 150 years. Again, hisremarkable prolificness is clear - he, up until his death, wrote over 1,000articles and 22 books; many of them defending the theory of natural selectionfrom creationist skeptics. Many of his books are also still available today. Although he was not quite done travelling throughwildernesses (he later explored the Rocky Mountains in Colorado), Wallacelargely settled down after the end of his eight-year adventure. He died in 1913, at the age of90, of natural causes. I think it’sclear to see that Alfred Russel Wallace was a man of many virtues - courageous, determined, optimistic,modest and above all very hard-working. His brushes with death in remotejungles make him, for me, one of history’s most badass scientists. Profile photo for Gopalkrishna Vishwanath Q3 What aresome of funny double meaning words? A3 GopalkrishnaVishwanath, Retired Structural Engineer & language and internet/socialmedia enthusiast.13h Windows. Why is itfunny? Read this joke. The wife textsthe husband on a cold winter morning. “Windows Frozen. Won’t open” The husband textsback : “Gently pour some lukewarm water over it and gently tap the edges with ahammer.” The wife texts back 10 minutes later: “That didn’t work. Computer really messed up now.” Q3 Ifhumans don't see air, can fish see water? A3 Ali O.AlShamsi, Investor, Trader, Fin Tech Entrepreneur Updated 6yThis is aninteresting question. Theshort answer is fish do not see water. Look at those adorable eyes. The brain tries to filter out vision obstacles like anose or filter out or constant vision noise like air. Our brains filter air, so anything with similarinformation, like air, will be filtered. Same with white noise, bodynoise, and smells. The brain filters this information to save processing powerto focus and survive. Seeing air, wecan’t use color as reference information for it, so we use refractive indices. Water has a slightly higher refractive index than air, so we can see it. et we evolved onland to filter out air taste, smell, noise, and look. Fish and sea creatures evolvedthe same way. So the answeris no. They do not see, taste, hear or smell water because it is a constantenvironment noise. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1676829075.2842165.1700234500588%40mail.yahoo.com.
