History Of Scientific Discovery In 500 Tweets (in progress)

1500
i have no clue when we decided rough scale of solar system. that the solar system is vast empty space

16th century Europeans decide to challenge and question the authoritative texts with their own observations

16th cent Europe: decide, contra Aristotle, the universe is orderly enough to find that order through painstaking observation and data collection

science begins as the assumption that processes in the sky, at all scales and in the past are the same as we can observe now on earth


assume the universe is governed by a set of universal rules which don't change over time and are the same in every lab, in earth and heavens

17th cent Europe invents regular cycles of experiment, methodical widespread publication of detailed reports of method, critical discussion


Magellan finally spans the globe of the earth

1540
Brahe trusting orderly universe, builds massive observatory and spends life recording details of the motions of seemingly chaotic mars

Kepler slaves away at Brahe's data and assuming sun at center of solar system finds 3 formulas of motion for every planet around the sun


Galileo, newton begin seeking mechanistic explanations of phenomena, from interacting isolatable parts, ultimately atoms



Galileo breaks with classical medieval un-analyzable holism: ballistic flight can be split into independent vertical and horizontal components

with this principle, G. cleverly used inclined plane and device to measure time to take data on time of descent, and discovered acceleration

the vertical component of ballistic flight accelerates towards the earth independently of the horizontal component, fixed velocity from launch

Galileo puts a linear number scale to temperature, allowing us to find analytical patterns in the relationship between temp pressure and volume

Galileo invents thermometer allowing us to find quantitative patterns between temperature, pressure and volume of gasses, heat and work


1600
Galileo puts new spyglass to the night sky and finds mountains on the moon.  it is a world with geology like earth

Galileo puts his spyglass to the night sky: there are more stars.  THOUSANDS more stars!

Galileo puts his spyglass to the milky way, it's actually stars, many more stars.  MILLIONS of more stars

watching Venus over the years, Galileo finds phases like the moon but both full and crescent phase near the sun so Venus revolves around the sun


Galileo's telescope observations and Brahe's measurements show that all the planets orbit in ellipses around the sun, not the earth.

by watching Jupiter day after day in his telescope, Galileo finds 4 moons revolving round a disk. it's another world with moons like earth

Galileo finds that his telescope magnifies the planets to disks, but never magnifies the stars to disks, they must be very far away



Galileo infinity paradox: associate 1,4,9,16.. with 1,2,3,4.. shows subset of integers is just as numerous as larger containing set




1620
with Von Helmont, we discovered gasses as a weighable component to chemical reactions.  this allowed us to account for reactions completely


1660
Boyle breaks with classical 4 unisolatable elements.  It's not a chaos of infinite variety of combinations but it's more than 4 elements.

Boyle: substances aren't continuous mixtures of 4 unisolatable 'principles', there are a discrete number of elements which can be isolated.

studying pressure, volume, temperature relationships in gasses allowed us to eventually equate temperature with motion of molecules

chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics begin to show that the universe is interestingly messy, but not a total inseparable chaos.

Leeuwenhoek crafts remarkably powerful lenses and sees microscopic creatures never seen before.  takes science 150 years to take seriously

animals and plants come only from eggs that come from other animals and plants, they do not form higgledy piggledy from rotting schmutz.

life on earth today does not spontaneously form from the principles of physics, but is a hereditary affair, only coming from other life

when did scientists start questioning fanciful faunas, seeking confirmation of bizarre claims?  Even as stranger creatures were discovered?

by Lineaus' time, 10,000 species of plants had been discovered, described and sorted out

at some point, 100,000 life forms were classified.  What effect did this number have on our view of life? by Darwin's time, how many?

and then a million?  and even today, we don't know if there are on the order of a million or 100million, nor what a species even is!



When did we notice that warm air rises? i guess round boyle's time we knew heat reduced density increased buoyancy?


Roemer, records the motions of Jupiter's moons, notices a delay the further Earth is from Jupiter, and calculates a finite speed for light. it's FAST

Roemer, finding apparent orbits of Jupiter's moons delayed when Earth is further from Jupiter, calculates finite speed for light. 186,000 miles/s


1680
the difference in temperature between a hot fire and cold water propels a steam engine into spontaneous motion

hot cylinder expands, causing cold water valve to open, contracting cylinder, closing valve, cylinder heats again... neg feedback causes cycles

measuring gasses allowed us to discover central reaction of life: flesh burns to breath: CO2, H2O, powering movement and releasing heat

Then plants use sunlight to combine breath molecules back into burnable plant substance releasing Oxygen for burning again

Newton synthesizes Kepler's formulas for planets with Galileo's acceleration of falling objects and finds universal law of gravational motion

Newton found the way to see that the motions of the heavens could be explained with the same rules as ballistic motions here on earth


1760 ?
Redox reactions between different metals can propel charges along a wire.  This is an electric current from a battery.



1780
life: continuous cycles of sunlight fusing CO2 and H2O to CH and O2 then burning CH in O2 back to CO2 and H2O, releasing heat back to night

life: continuous cycles of sunlight fusing breath into plantflesh then animals burning flesh back to breath realeasing heat back to night

so in steam engines as in life, flow from high potential energy to low (hot to cold, sun to night) causes cycles and pattern formation


Cavendish measures minute gravitational force between 2 10lb spheres & comparing that to the force between 1 sphere and earth, weighs the earth

weighing Earth allows us to find density: 5g/cc it's not hollow or superdense! bedrock has density ~2 so deeper layers must be denser, iron?



1800
geology begins by watching processes today of volcanism, erosion, deposition, and extrapolating these backwards in time. yields LONG timeline

Geologists begin mapping rock layers, building up a sequence of events, endless cycles of rock building and erosion?



1820
electric current carrying wires can induce each other to move, build a motor!


interference patterns between beams of light show that light travels in waves.  SOMETHING is oscillating.



by 1820s there are hints of integral proportions in chemical reactions hinting in an atomic theory but there is also still too much chaos.

by 1820s there are 49 known elements, with many curious properties and no systematic classification in sight

by 1820s there are 2000 known compounds

when do we decide that we find no new substances that are NOT made of elements we already know?

we find 2 chemicals with same composition but different properties. are properties due to ARRANGEMENT of atoms? chemicals have structure?


first hint of molecular biology, Mulder finds consistant similar high molecular weight formulas for various proteins.  1000s of atoms each

Babbage and lovelace envision a mechanical device that can be programmed to execute step by step any sequence of symbolic/arithmetic operations

detecting shift in star's apparent position as earth orbits the sun shows their distance (parallax). 10,000 times the distance to planets

look at finger with each eye, it shifts. look at star when earth moves around sun.  it shifts a LOT less.  we calculate it's REALLY far away


1840
Joule measures that a specific amount of motion produces a specific amount of heat by friction, and hypothesizes heat is motion of atoms.

Clausius' kinetic model: gas molecules rebounding from chamber walls accounts for measured relationship between pressure, and temperature

volumes of gasses react chemicaly in small integer proportions: 1:1, 1:2, 2:3 ... as if combining molecule by molecule


many diseases are found to be caused by microscopic organisms (germs) which can be identified and grown in the lab.

Spallanzani, Virchow, Pasteur: not only do all animals and plants come from eggcells, ALL cells, even bacteria, come only from other cells

All life on Earth comes as assemblages of amoeba like cells or in fact single amoebas.  cells only come from other cells, never spontaneously formed

every living creature, even a single celled amoeba comes only from parents, we've never observed one to form from nonliving elements

All life on Earth is a continuous lineage of amoeba giving birth to each other generation to generation slowly varying, 3.6billion years


organic chemists slowly begin making sense of their results by imagining their chemicals as specific 3 dimensional arrangements of atoms



DARWIN

geology: 1000s of rock layers can be identified in succession based on different fossils appearing and dissapearing never repeating: deep time

major feature of design in nature: constraints.  no six legged mammals.  creatures appear in fossil record based on previous designs

major feature of variation in nature: similar species are found geographically close to each other

as we catalogue more life we realize that adaptations like the eye are not fixed and perfect but exist on a continuum of variation and fitness

there are no fixed perfectly adapted designs in nature but seemingly endless random experimentation with varying degrees of fitness

Darwin/Malthus: organisms give birth to way more offspring than there is room for, only some can survive.

each generation, different new heritable traits appear, if environment keeps selecting for some kinds over others, populations will change

Since traits don't have to be perfectly adapted to function, the game of life can experiment with them through random variation and selection

the layers of rock strata suggest there were millions of generations of creatures through history

the sheer number of variations of creatures discovered by the 19th century was enough to put the idea of special creation in question.

if a new heritable trait helps its bearer to compete in the maltusian game, over generations, the prevelance of that trait will increase in a population, populations will change



Lichen: two kinds of organisms: fungus and algae, join as one organism, propagate as combined unit, can outcompete either separate organism


1860
mendeleyevs periodic chart of elements shows we've found the complete set of 92 which are responsible for all variety of matter on earth

99% of all materials, colors, textures, lifeforms, is accounted for by simply rearrangements of only 2 dozen different chemical elements

by simple geometric rearrangement of the atoms CHNO nature gives us extreme creativity: air, water, fire, wood, oil, colors, smells, life...



1880
Newtons laws of motion for 2 planetary bodies yield simple complete solutions. add a 3rd body? took 200 years to solve: unpredictable chaos


a new kind of phenomenon that is not accounted for by Maxwell's grand synthesis of light, electricity and magnetism: radioactive decay of Uranium

by Darwin's time, Kelvin calculated the time for Earth to cool was ~10s of millions years.  Geologists/Paleontologists thot 100s million

radioactive decay was discovered to be source of heat in the earth that could account for the extreme age of that geological layers suggest

By Darwin's time physicists could not explain how the sun shone for the 100s of millions of years the geologists thot life existed on Earth



1900
Eddington realizes that nuclear fusion could account for the billion years of sunshine that fossil record of life requires

combining steady rate of radioactive decay with % of decay products in rock allows us to find absolute ages for strata: to billions of years

The earth's surface has been worn down, melted, recycled and recycled.  It is not likely we can find the first earth rocks ever formed!



Devries rediscovers mendelian genetics: traits r products of many discrete packets of heredity which r not lost by blending and can vary by mutation

source of new random variations, and mechanism of inheritence without loss due to blending was found in mendelian genetics of discrete genes

darwin problem: traits can't be selected for over many generations if they blend into each other. answer: they are inherited as distinct packets



WEIRDNESS IN MATH
arrange pennies in rectangles: 2x2, 2x3, 3x3, 2x5... 4, 6, 8, 9, 10... what numbers are left? 2, 3, 5, 7, 11... these are prime numbers

Euclid shows a proof that even though the primes get more and more spread out, the sequence is unending

becuase primes cannot be factored we can show there is never a repeating pattern in the sequence of prime numbers

there is an algorithm to tell whether the next number is prime, hence we have an algorithm that gives an unending sequence of novel patterns

there is a fraction between any 2 fractions, infinitely dense. so r there MORE fractions than integers? Cantor shows how to count them: NO!

Pythagoreans found simple proof that square root of 2, a number between 1 and 2, cannot be a fraction, what sort of number is it?

draw a square with sides of 1. draw the diagonal.  draw a square who's sides are that, it's area is 2. The diagonal cannot be a fraction

but it's strings of small fractional ratio length that sound nice together, so call such a nonfractional length, irrational

long division is an algorithm of discrete steps which gives the sequence of decimal digits of any fraction.  The pattern always repeats

There is an algorithm to give the sequence of decimal digits of square root of two. since it is not a fraction, its sequence can't repeat

square root of 2 is not a fraction, so the deterministic algorithm giving its sequence of decimal digits cannot repeat, infinite creativity

as the diagonal of a square of side 1 cannot be expressed as a fraction, neither can the circumference of a circle of diameter 1: pi.

****
DATE THESE.  WHEN R THEY SIGNIFICANT?

Cantor discovers a bigger infinity than the amount of integers: since decimal expansions of non fractions never repeat, they cannot be counted

nonrepeatability of decimal expansion of nonfractions implies a list of them CANNOT be put in correspondence with integers, a new infinity



Einstein and Perrine nail AVOGADRO'S NUMBER
it's pretty likely to get 7 heads out of 10 coin flips, but nearly impossible to get 700,000 heads out of a million coin flips

dust motes jiggle in water because sometimes an excess of atoms strike it on one side, as with coin flips, this helps us count how many atoms!

Einstein: dust motes jiggle in water because a FINITE # of atomic collisions on each side give unequal statistical fluctuations: gives # of atoms

Einstein: if water were infinitely divisible (no atoms) collisions of water particles with a dustmote would cancel out exactly: it wouldn't move

Einstein and Perrin by 1920s finaly NAIL the reality that stuff is made of finite number of discrete atoms by COUNTING their collisions

Einstein and Perrin finally nail atomic nature of stuff: the palm of your hand is made of 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms! atoms r small!

We can count the number of atoms in your hand: 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!  atoms are SMALL!  life is made of MANY MANY parts



1920
QUANTUM
the number of atoms in a glass of water IS the 2nd quantum fact, the fact that mass/energy comes in discrete packets

the # of atoms in a glass of water is the 3rd quantum fact: it explains how FAR REMOVED we are from quantum facts because we are SO big

quantum particles show interference patterns with each other showing they are spread out like waves, no well defined position or momentum

quantum waves, light, cannot be made infinitely dim, it comes in discrete packets, like particles: photons

4th Quantum fact: at the quantum level: individual particles and processes are inherently unpredictable, free random number generator!

Quantum mechanics deals in probabilities, yet it is the most quantitatively accurate piece of physics we have


Rutherford shoots alpha particles at gold foil, almost all go thru, minute amount recoil back surprisingly.  atoms are mostly empty space

The basic properties of solids is explained by quantum mechanical properties of pauli exclusion principle and heisenberg uncertainty! (this says nothing! explain it)




between QM, 3body chaos, radiogenic mutations... there are sources of random input for a creative universe.



heat a thin layer of fluid from below, cool on top, the heat flow drives the layer to stable dynamic pattern of hexagonal convection cells

heating bottom of container of fluid warmer than top, and fluid executes stable hexagonal pattern of cyclic motion, like a steam engine

2nd law thermodynamics: hot and cold eventually mix to disordered lukewarm, but meanwhile a small region between hot and cold becomes ordered



at some point we catalogue a million species and 1/4 of them are beetles.  W T F?  so we can ask, how so many?  at same time y not billion?

why does much of life fall into discrete species at all?  why not a continuously varying population of organisms?



The oldest solid rocks in the solar system, meteorites, have been radiodated to 4.6billion years (so? what's this mean?)


GALACTIC ECOSYSTEM
henrietta Leavitt finds a class of variable stars who's period is related to their brightness. find the distance to one, and map the cosmos

shapley uses leavitts cepheid tape measure to map out globular clusters showing we are 25,000 light years from center of our galaxy

Hubble uses the new palomar telescope to show andromeda fuzzypatch has individual stars, cephieds, it's 2million ly away, it's another milkyway!

Hubble finds that distant galaxies have reddened doppler shifts, they are fleeing from us, the more distant, the faster they are fleeing

using redshift as a distance marker we find galaxies more than 5 billion light years distant. they must be older than our solar system

we find white dwarfs (suns that have used up their fuel) less massive than our sun, must have grown slower than our sun thus must be older!

With parallax we find distance to sun is 96 million miles, therefore it is huge: 800,000 miles wide.  dwarfs the mass of all the planets

stellar spectra show stars are 98% hydrogen and helium, since they dwarf the planets, universe is mostly Hydrogen, earth elements rare

spectra show that oldest stars are even scarcer in earth elements and we can show earth elements are produced inside stars by nuclear fusion

The universe begins with hydrogen and 25% Helium, the oldest stars have this composition.  all other elements are cooked in massive stars

Physics tells us that stars more than 8 times solar mass have enough pressure to start fusing helium to carbon nitrogen and oxygen and beyond

massive stars create all the elements and then explode causing new stars to form more enriched in these elements generation after generation

so we have ferretted out the ecology of stars enriching universe in all the elements of chemistry and giving birth to each other and planets

we can count over 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars most with planets and 10^50 atoms so universe is over 10^70 parts.  why?




CELL BIOLOGY
a new level of organic chem: instead of combinations of merely C H N O, each protein is unique arrangement of 20 diff amino acids, 100s long

new level of chemistry: instead of a few atoms connecting to make a molecule, 100s of molecules (amino acids) connect to make a protein


if proteins are monster molecules, ribonucleic acids are monstermonsters: seem to be chains of MILLIONS of small molecules

we finally nail that the mysterious ferments of the 19th century and the enzymes that coordinate each step of metabolism are proteins

krebs sees dozen metabolic reactions are in fact arranged in everturning cycle that transforms pyruvate one chemical bond at a time into CO2

life is cycles of discrete steps: one molecular configuration of atoms transforming into another, each step guided by its own protein robot

a new picture of life: dozens of connected molecular transformations arranged in tangled loops whereby teams of molecules build each other

life too is a digital process. transformations of plant to animal to breath to plant occur as step by step atomic rearrangements of molecules

as fluids are swarms of billion billion slippery parts, so LIFE is dancefloor of billion billion discrete transformations of atomic arrangements

inventing the electron microscope helped us discover that living 'protoplasm' is in fact full of millions of incredibly intricate structures




goedel: arithmetic and logic are complex enough to produce mathematical statements that can neither be proved nor disproved.  

CYBERNETICS
Turing invents mathematical model that can encode any algorithm, execute it step by step, even modify itself. leads to programmable computer

Turing proves that we CANNOT prove whether a particular step by step algorithm which loops back on itself, will ever end or not



1940
digital computer can execute millions of computations in reasonable amount of time, leading to discovering new kinds of mathematics

digital computers get us thinking about complex processes in terms of repetition of different discrete operations. new way to look at universe

with fast digital computers we discover simple mathematical systems that could spawn complexity simply by iterating simple rules over and over

digital computer allows us to amplify certain styles of thinking, eventually can beat any chess player

computer programming leads us to attempt inventing an artifically intelligent machine that can be as intelligent as humans or more

at the same, trying to simulate thinking with computers, gives some concrete hints at how enourmously complex thinking is.

invention of transistor proplells us into era where computational power doubles every 2 years, so in 60 years a billion times more powerful

inventing digital computers has indeed acted like a thought amplifier and allowed us to solve scientific puzzles impossible with pen and paper

Burks/Von Neumann: a mathematical description of a complex machine that can reproduce itself out of simple building blocks


theory of superconductivity understanding how motions of positive charges in cold matter make electrons pair up into virtual particles...



Turing begins to formulate a mathematical theory of how a uniform brew of 3 chemicals can interact to create patterns as in embryogenesis

Miller and Urey zap a simple mixture of CO2, N2, H2O with electric sparks and get dozens of kinds of biochemical molecules


Franklin, Watson, and Crick solve the 3 dimensional structure of the DNA molecule showing that it can encode information AND replicate


animals move by muscles which are arrangements of millions of proteins each acting as a hinge that contracts by a single chemical reaction

basis of animal motion: myosin proteins are nanomolecular machines each with a hinge that can grab and contract by a single chemical reaction


Sanger: 10 year laboratory analysis: first to determine the complete arrangement of the 54 amino acids strung together to make a protein

exact 3 dimensional structure of a protein (myoglobin) solved by x-ray diffraction. on our way to complete understanding of protein mechanisms





1960
we transform swords into plowshares and learn to turn german war rockets into spacecraft that can rise through the sky and reach the moon

using newtons laws of gravitation we can calculate how fast to fling a rocket so it doesn't fall back down to earth, but travels to the moon

Mariner 2 spacecraft reaches venus and peers beneath the clouds: 90x earth atmospheric pressure, sulfuric acid and 800degrees. no paradise!

Mariner 2 Spacecraft reaches venus and looks around, we transform a dot in the sky into a world


Leaky decides why not, lets observe apes. sends women to chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutangs. find complex social arrangements, tool use

we begin looking at other animals, apes, octopi, elephants, whales, crows... find tool use, complex social life, culture, problem solving



CONTINENTAL DRIFT/PLATE TECTONICS

science works by exploring every possible thing with wildly different tools and approaches and find that it all interlocks

Columbus' first voyage into the unknown most certainly doomed to take more months than he had supplies, lucks out and discovers new continent

using the stars on a spherical sky as guide, we begin to map coastlines onto a globe, the coasts of europe/africa fit north/south america!

we find rock formations and fossils on both sides of the atlantic that match each other.

we sound the entire floor of the Atlantic ocean and map its valleys and mountains, we find a ridge in the middle that matches both coastlines

this ridge is hot with fresh magma rising and cooling to basalt, forming new ocean floor

core samples all along the ocean floor, the bedrock is all basalt

the continental crust however is mostly granite with basalt inclusions and folded metamorphosized sediments it has a much more complex history

core samples along ocean floor have deeper and deeper layers of sediment on top as you get closer to the coasts, closer to the coasts is older?

when we discovered radioactive decay, we learned how to tell the age of REALLY OLD rocks. yup, the ocean bedrock is older towards the coasts.

but ocean bedrock is, over all, young, only a few hundred million years old, continents much older, some rock billions years old.


THE ROLLING OCEAN CRUST MAGNETIC TAPE RECORDER:

why not measure the magnetic orientation of rocks? it orients to the magnetic field of the earth when the rocks form from molten magma

in young bedrock, the magnetic field is oriented towards the poles, in older bedrock, not so, either the poles move or the bedrock moved!

map the magnetic fields across the ocean floor! on either side of the ridge, parallel matching stripes, flipping north, south, north, south...

the north and south poles were reversing orientation every few million years?

look at the magnetic orientations of older and older bedrock on continents, they all point to stationary poles if we MOVE the continents!

well? lets go and WATCH the continents, ARE they moving apart?  HELLS YEAH, umm... by half an inch per year.  this takes radio, or radar or satelites

but 1/2 inch a year is enough if you multiply it by the radiodates of the oldest ocean crust, BINGO, you get the distance between the coasts!

can entire continents REALLY move? how many MORE INTERLOCKING measurements do you want before you are convinced?  this is how science works

half inch out of 3000 miles is like 1 part in 100 million.  to get these measurements to match we are measuring THAT accurately.  SCIENCE!


so, like soup in a pot, the entire earth is gyrating round and round in a series of interlinked convection cells, continents floating on top

theory of plate tectonics interweaves all the disparate phenomena of geology: continents, oceans, volcanos, earthquakes, mountain building...






uniform background noise of microwaves discovered that matches correct wavelengths of theoretical prediction of aging glow of hot big bang



Ribosome: an ensemble of ~160 nanomolecular robots (proteins) that can manufacture any nanomolecular robot from the blueprints in the DNA

each biochemical process and cell structure is produced by a different nanorobot that ribosomes build from distinct sequences of DNA code

ribosomes can translate robust codes stored in DNA using only 4 molecular 'letters' into different connected sequences of amino acids that fold up into nanomolecular robots

We break the code that ribosomes use to translate from letters of DNA to a connected sequence of amino acids that can fold up into distinct nanomolecular robots

ribosome translates each of the 64 different sequences of 4 kinds of nucleotides on a strand of DNA into one of 20 amino acids in a protein

ribosome reads DNA sequence 3 beads at a time to build up sequence of amino acids on a protein.  each sequence gives a protein unique behavior


jacob and monod find 6-molecular-component negative feedback loops that regulate production of healthy concentrations of components in cells

excess nutrient binds signal protein which binds  DNA switch blocking gene so ribosome can't get the code to make enzyme that makes nutrient




1970
freeze fracture technique and scanning electron microscope give us images of spatial complexity in cells built by actual molecular assemblies


CAN WE PREDICT EVENTUAL BEHAVIORS OF ALL SIMPLE PHYSICAL SYSTEMS? SIMPLE MATH SHOWS NO!

in ____ Newton calculated all possible orbits of 2 mututally gravitating bodies: totally predictable. but add a 3rd? unsolved problem

in 1900 Poincare showed that the NEXT simplest physical system, the eventual behavior of 3 gravitationally attracting planets is unpredictable

in 1970 Lorenz found same unpredictability and complexity in system of 3 differential equations describing convecting fluid system

in 19__ May found same chaos and complexity in simplest chaotic arithmetic system: multiply fraction by 1 minus itself, times 4, repeat.

repeating the simple rule: multiply fraction by 1 minus itself then multiply by 3.5 yields simple behavior, but multiplying by 3.6, chaos!

mathematical descriptions of some simple physical systems show that very similar initial conditions can diverge wildly in eventual behavior

mathematical descriptions of some simple physical systems show that very similar systems can show wildly different patterns of behavior

some systems are stable, predictable, and stable to minor perturbations, while other systems are impossible to predict after minor changes

[this is a hard one to describe]


pick a number, if even, divide by 2, else times by 3 and add 1, repeat: 5 16 8 4 2 1 4... does every starting value end 4 2 1? no one knows

try 27: 82 41 124 62 31 94 47 142 71 214 107 322 161 484 242 121 364 182 91 274 137 412 206 103 310 155 466 233 700 350 175 526 ... hmmm...

simple geometric rule followed by mechanical checkers leads to complex pattern formation. can simplicity of chemistry lead to complexity of life?




1971 Mariner 9 reaches mars, closeup photos of mars geology: lifeless, dry, but had massive flows of water in the past!


much evolutionary change in fossil record is not uniformly gradual but long episodes of stasis punctuated by shorter bursts of change. why?



Gierer and Meinhardt figure out how Turing mechanism creates striped patterns out of initial homogenous chemical system

Zhabotinsky convince chemists that far from equilibrium chemical reaction can oscillate and produce patterns from initial homogenous state

Zhabotinsky convinces chemists that not all chemical reactions settle to equilibrium.  Some may oscillate back and forth and make patterns

Prigogene et al characterize the dissipative system, when energy flows through a fluid system, patterns and robust cycles spontaneously arise

even simplest combustion reaction CH4 + O2 results in complex network of reaction cycles between dozens of reactants in dynamic convecting flame



we find the molecular sensors, switches, paddles and feedback mechanism that bacteria use to swim towards food and away from harm

negative feedback mechanism gets bacteria to dissolved food: concentration increasing? spin paddles, swim ahead, else reverse 'em and tumble



we land the viking crafts on mars.  amazing detailed images of sunsets, frost, dustdevils...

we fly first spacecraft to jupiter and saturn and find the moons all have different geological history, volcanos, ice covered oceans...

flying to jupiter and its moons we discover that tidal heating can produce active geology even in small moons, IO has active volcanos

pattern of cracks and gravitational anomalies and magnetic field suggests that jupiter's moon Europa has a subsurface ocean!


after traveling to venus, mars, jupiter and saturn, there is no obvious signs of macroscopic life in the solar system, we are alone



1980
classification of finite simple groups: first mathematical proof that takes 10,000 pages, 100s of mathematicians, what kind of proof is it?


we begin to find high temperature superconductors, we don't understand them, nor do we know if room temperature superconductors exist


we find the first simple chemical system that produces stripes from a homogenous starting state, just as Turing predicted


fossil bacteria within 200million years of the period of late heavy bombardment of meteorites.  life did not need billions of years to start


langton simplifies VonNeuman's self reproducing math machine to a loop of 96 cells with only 100 rules

simple machine on square tiling: if tile white turn right, if black turn left, flip the color, move forward, repeat. builds pattern 9,977 long


even as far out as neptune, voyager 2 spacecraft finds complex moon: Triton with geology and nitrogen geysers




1986
Tom Ray surprises everyone with an operating system of simple computer programs that reproduce, evolve and form complex ecosystems

Pearson finds parameters of Gray Scott reaction diffusion differential equations that yield reproducing spots

Pearson finds ferrocyanide iodate sulphite system in uv evolves into blobs that move around and reproduce, mimicing gray scott equations



Schoomaker and Levy discover comet that then slams into jupiter, driving home importance of impacts in recent earth history


Mayor and Queloz craft the precision necessary to discover first planet revolving around another star, soon we find 1000s of solar systems

Galileo spacecraft at Jupiter finds complex dynamics of surface ice cracking, melting, refreezing on moon Europa.  complex dynamic ocean beneath?

sayama modifies langton's loop so that they can interact, die, give birth and evolve




2000
[alkali vents]

Cassini/Huygans spacecrafts find methane/ethane hydrological cycle on Titan and possible ethene redox cycle, surface lakes on another body!

Cassini dives through Saturn's moon Enceladus' geysers and finds evidence of contact with minerals and even alkali hydrothermal vent chemistry

New Horizons reaches Pluto after 10 years operates flawlessly and discovers ice mountains, convecting nitrogen sea and methane and complex organic snow

New Horizons reaches Pluto after 10 years flight and discovers that Pluto is not a frozen dead ball but a geologically active planet

Dawn spacecraft with its new ion propulsion drive becomes first spacecraft to orbit one body then pick up and orbit another

Dawn spacecraft discovers Asteroid Ceres has subsurace salty slush ocean which resurfaces in recent timescale


observing asteroid belt, it has been mixed, early in solar system history, the planets have been playing pinball, chaos.

we discover a new realm of solar system: Kuiper belt beyond neptune full of new mini planets, pluto foremost among them

after 40 years of refining to accuracy of 1 part in 10^20, LIGO detects its first gravitational wave, a totally new realm of astronomy opens




FIND WHERE THESE GO

1st quantum fact: the vapor of an element in an electric discharge tube radiates light in only discrete wavelengths, not a continuous spectrum

each element is discovered to have unique spectral fingerprint thru a prism. These are found in our sun, so the sun's made of earth elements



>pre 1900


kepler? observes a comet and shows that it is not atmospheric! it is further away than the moon

Halley calculates positions of his comet, predicts it will return with an orbit of 75 years, like a very far planet.

kepler? observes a new star appearing in the sky.  and then it fades.  what does THAT mean?


finding some meteorites after they fell and analysing them, we realize they correspond to no terrestrial rocks, they are from outerspace


>1900


pick a number, even?, divide by 2, odd? times by 3 and add 1, repeat: 5, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1, 4... does every starting value end 4, 2, 1? no one knows

by 1950s? we realize we are finding a plethora of subatomic particles and there is no rhyme or reason






>1960
von Fritch discovers that honeybees can communicate distance, and direction of flower patches to nestmates using symbolic dances

after viking or something:
we realize that some of our meteorites have bubbles with same makeup as mars atmosphere, they came from mars!

__ builds a bag around a 300foot tropical tree and gasses it with insecticide. collects 500 new species of beetle.  what does this mean?


we realize we STILL don't know how many species there are on earth by order of magnitude.  10million? 100million?


we build unified quantum theory of electromagnetism with strong and weak nuclear forces. but we can't find a quantum theory of gravity



Anderson, Laughlin and Pines point out that we cannot predict macroscopic behavior from microscopic laws (quantum)

after we discover a new macroscopic law we can explain it using quantum mechanics but we can't predict new macroscopic laws from quantum alone

we realize that social insects form complex cooperative societies with no leaders.  we begin to ferret out the interactions that make them work

Seely observes mechanism by which 100 honeybees explore and mutually decide on a single nesting site to move into to with 98% success rate.

we watch 1/4 inch termites with no blueprints build 10 foot tall complex nests, the global structure comes from simple local interactions

different groups of dinosaurs are more different than each other than one group is from birds, dinosaurs have feathers, birds ARE dinosaurs



our immune system explores antigen morphospace by constantly inventing new matching antibodies by genetic recombination without sex

immune system explores how to recognize new foriegn antigens by generating novelty in antibodies by recombining components of antibody genes

immune system imagines new antibodies by miniature evolution: recombination of genes for variation and then selection of those that bind invaders



we find forms of cancer in dogs and tazmanian devils that can jump from host to host and be essentially immortal, a new kind of parasite!

biologists have been cultivating a line of human cancer cells from one patient that is immortal in the laboratory, a new species of creature

there are microscopic layers of alga/lichen ecosystems living 1mm deep inside antarctic rock surviving 6 month nights 60mph winds 60below 0

get the numbers!

we begin finding living bacterial communities 2 miles deep in bedrock, in >100degree high pressure ocean vents, hyper salt or acid, EVERYWHERE

as wildly different as fungi, animals, algae and bacteria are... they are ALL biochemically the same.  life happened on earth ONCE.

there are bacteria that can derive their energy and food solely from mineral chemistry, no need of sunlight

all plants, animals, fungi use basically two kinds of metabolism, yet there are DOZENS of different bacterial metabolisms

but the core molecular machinery that all life uses to construct itself from chemistry is the same, we have only ONE example of life on earth

entire thriving ecosystems miles under the sea at volcanic vents living off of mineral chemistry and no sunlight, a different world!


alvarez finds evidence for large meteorite impact during the cretaceous tertiary mass extinction, when dinosaurs went extinct. a cause?



studying birds during spring singing season we learn that brains are still growing new neurons and wiring new connections at adulthood

brains are wired very stochastically during development.  how do we come out at all the same? how do 10,000 genes produce myriad behavior?

[you made a start on counting algorithms in honeybee, 260 of them, how many do you suppose there are in human?]


while the interior of silicon crystals, like most metals, has simple cubic stacking of atoms, the surface has complex 7x7x3 patterns of atoms


records finally show that the concentration of the greenhouse gas, CO2 is steadily rising for 20 years, slowly warming the earth


naked mole rats!  burrowing rodents found in africa to have similar hive lifestyle as honeybees, with a fertile mother and infertile workers


1980-1998
observations of neutrino oscillations is one of the few outstanding puzzles in the standard model of particle physics


Cichlid fish in a few african lakes represent over a 1000 species that may have evolved within the past 10 to 100 thousand years. fast!