Tag: Earth

The Cat got Wet and Life was Created

If the planet is the right size, at the right place from it’s star, is it inevitable that life will evolve? The evidence suggests no.

A fly flew over a stream of water.
A fish saw the fly and jumped out of the water to catch it.
A bear in the bushes saw the fish and jumped in the water to eat the fish.
A hunter saw the bear jump out and raised his rifle to shoot the bear. In so doing he dropped his sandwich to the ground.
A mouse saw the sandwich drop and jumped out to grab a piece of the cheese.
A cat saw the mouse and jumped out to catch the mouse.
The cat fell in the water and got wet.
The story highlights a chain reaction of events. Life is full of chain reactions. One thing causes another. Life is like dominos falling into each other and knocking the next one down. The question becomes whether it is inevitable that the first action leads to the final outcome. Given that the fly goes over the water, will the cat get wet? It is something to ponder.
If the planet is the right size, at the right place from it’s star, is it inevitable that life will evolve? The evidence suggests no. There were too many “lucky breaks” in the form of mega disasters for the earth that brought us to where we are now on a life sustaining planet. A mars size planet collided with Earth. It was a terrible collision. It spewed all kinds of rocks into space that coalesced into the moon. Without the moon, the earth would have wobbled and not have been stable to support life. The creation of Earth did not necessitate that there was a colossal disaster that resulted in the moon. Call it bad luck. Really good luck.
The Earth is lucky. Luck is luck. It’s a chance. In our case maybe one in a million. Maybe, perhaps, the only time. Maybe there’s somebody else out there, maybe there isn’t. So far, we haven’t seen evidence of anything out there other than what came from here.

Joe Drops the Ball

Because of Joe’s ball, the Earth may fall into the sun and the moon may fall from the sky.

Meet Joe. Joe has a ball, and his ball is a great problem for the whole world.
Because of Joe’s ball, the Earth may fall into the sun and the moon may fall from the sky. That’s a big problem for a small ball in Joe’s hand.

Joe tosses his ball to the side
Joe tosses the ball

The problem is that Joe drops his ball and then tosses it to the side (see illustration at right).
You see, when Joe drops his ball it accelerates at a spectacular rate of 32.2 feet per second per second.
Joe’s ball, as does any falling object, doesn’t just drop. It drops faster and faster, whether he just drops it, or tosses it to the side! If he tosses it to the side, it will hit the ground at the same time as if he just dropped it. The forward movement of the ball doesn’t slow down the downward acceleration of the ball toward the ground. (We are assuming here, that there’s no wind or air to slow it down, okay? Just leave that out for now.)JoeDropsBall3
Now, Let’s say Joe has a bullet in his hand and drops his bullet. Like the ball, the bullet’s gonna fall to the ground at the same rate the ball did.
Let’s next give Joe a gun, and have him shoot the bullet. The bullet is going forward, just like the ball that Joe tossed. But the forward movement of the bullet from the gun barrel doesn’t slow the downward acceleration of the bullet as it falls to the ground. It just falls to the ground a ways off because the bullet was going fast.JoeDropsBall4
Finally, Sir Isaac Newton shoots a cannon. And his cannon is very powerful. The cannonball goes so fast, so far, that as it falls to the ground, the ground curves away underneath it, and it goes around the world in an orbit.
JoeDropsBall5But why? Both the ball and the bullet fall to the ground at 32.2 feet per second per second. They accelerate toward the ground, but Isaac Newton’s cannonball doesn’t. Satellites stay in orbit, the moon stays in orbit, the Earth stays in orbit, and they don’t accelerate toward the ground. How come?