Miscellany

Miscellany

INDEX
(Not linked)


SCROLL DOWN FOR RHYMING STUDY AIDS


Abiogenesis
A Razor by Ockham
Cave Mineral Deposits
Ether Debunked
Evolution Deniers
Global Warming Deniers
Global Warming
Interdependency
Know Me Astronomy
Seismic Waves
South Florida 2050 AD
Thunderstorm Electric charge
Will This Be Our Legacy?


Attributions at the end of this page.









Abiogenesis


The fossil record shows that life began on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago.

Three point five billion years ago
A self-copy compound did grow
An important contribution
On the path to evolution.

Did a muddy shelf one day
Make some stuff like RNA?
A perfect copy of itself
With ingredients off the shelf.

Did life start deep in a sea
From H2S and heat energy?
Did new life species invent
At a hydrothermal vent?

Did stellar dust originate
Chemicals that could replicate?
The chemicals that gave birth
To the tree of life on Earth.

Life origin may not be resolved
Though fossils show it evolved.
Scientists accept the position
“Unknown” trumps superstition.
                                                                                By Alan Beech


A Razor by Ockham


To explain the things that we see,
When explanations don’t agree,
Ockham’s Razor says to cut out
Ones with more we don’t know about.
                                                                                           By Alan Beech



Cave Mineral Deposits


                                                                                         By Dave Bunnell

These deposits form when saturated calcium carbonate solutions drip slowly and some CaCO3 precipitates out.


To the ceiling of a cave
Stalactites cling tight.

From the ground floor of a cave
Stalagmites grow might.
                                                                   By Alan Beech



Ether Debunked

Ancients said ether was special air
Only heavens and gods could share
Newton used it to square observation
With his new theory of gravitation.

Clerk Maxwell contradicted
Stuff that Newton predicted
To his electromagnetic field
The ether concept started to yield.

Both light and this stuff ether
Traveled too fast to meter,
Michelson did not concur
Made an interferometer.

Equipment that he designed
Many more times was refined.
Working with Morley he persisted
Suggested ether never existed.

Einstein’s Special Relativity
Implied that mass is energy.
The ether concept it nixed
And time and space unfixed.
                                                                                 By Alan Beech




Evolution Deniers

                                           By Punch Magazine Artist



Darwin's work, published in 1859, has been repeatedly vindicated
since that time. It provides the firm foundation for modern biology.

The theory of evolution
Led a science revolution.
Denied by pious folks.
Often the butt of jokes.
                                                 By Alan Beech




Global Warming Deniers

                                                                                  By Hannes Grobe



There are many powerful people who deny that global warming is due to human activity, and some who still deny it completely, despite the enormous amount of evidence that it is a reality.


Antarctic ice shelf
Breaking by itself
Although it is thick
Anthropogenic

The globe is warming
And sea levels rising.
Why is it so quick?
Anthropogenic.

Why make all this fuss?
As it may not hurt us.
It’s a socialist trick.
Anthropogenic.

I’m a warming naysayer,
I’m for profits and prayer.
All the others are sick.
Anthropogenic
                                                                      By Alan Beech



Global Warming

                                                                By Sémhur

                                                        Public Domain


Vast quantities of fossil fuels that  were laid down in the Carboniferous Period, 350 - 300 million
years ago, store carbon as hydrocarbons. Burning the hydrocarbons releases the carbon as dioxide..




Earth is warming, Earth is flooding
What’s the reason, what’s the reason
Fossil fuels, fossil fuels
And no-one is blameless
No-one is blameless.
                                                            By Alan Beech
(Sung to the tune of "London's Burning")



Interdependency

Tycho Brahe spent years in isolation
While recording each planets position.
Kepler used Brahe's work to calculate
How Earth and its planets circulate.

Newton used Kepler’s calculation
In his theory of gravitation,
But could not afford its publication cost.
Halley (of Comet) made sure it wasn't lost.
                                                                                              By Alan Beech



Seismic Waves

                                                                                           By  Brews ohare


Compression or primary (P) waves from
Eruption, earthquake or atom bomb.
Are first to arrive because P is faster
Secondary S waves confirm the disaster.

P are longitudinal waves like sound
S the transverse waves, shake up solid ground.
P and S body waves give the alarm
Surface waves following do the most harm.
                                                                                  By Alan Beech




South Florida 2050 AD

                                                                   Merrit Island FL By KillerChihuahua

Seawater intrudes a little each day
Each month a record high tide
Our world is here, should we tough it and stay
Or find a new place to reside?

Tap-water soon will be unfit to drink
Salt water is near our wells
Everglades fauna are close to the brink
Of dying and all it foretells.

Record heat stories make headlines each year
Multiple cancers of skin
Homeless and jobless we cannot stay here
The dice rolled and we didn’t win.

They could have stopped it a long time ago
Fossil fuels were the known cause
They laughed at warnings and acted too slow
From selfish greed and wimpy laws.
                                                                                          By Alan Beech



Thunderstorm Electric Charge

                                           By Metfis2

Scientists are still studying the electricity of lightning.
This is a simplified version.

Thunder clouds that worry us
Are storm cumulonimbus.
Protons to the cloud tops go
While electrons stay below.

These electrons as a band
Excite protons on the land
Proton plusses trail each cloud
Following the minus crowd.

Discharged as a lightning flash
With its mighty thunder crash
Cloud to cloud or cloud to ground
Making lots of light and sound.
                                                                     By Alan Beech


Will This Be Our Legacy?

The environmental impact
Of many people packed
On Earth, our tiny planet
May kill everything on it.

We overfish our seas
Burn our jungle trees
Waste our water supplies
And ignore counsel wise.

We must reproduce less
Our lifestyles reassess.
Will our future generations pay
The price for our inaction today?
                                                                                        By Alan Beech


ATTRIBUTION OF IMAGES



 Big Bang
"History of the Universe" by Yinweichen - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Cave Mineral Deposits
"Labeled speleothems"  The original uploader was Dave Bunnell at English Wikipedia - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

Evolution Deniers
"Man is But a Worm" by Punch magazine artist. - (image reference) (image source). Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

 Global Warming Deniers (W Antarctic ice shelf profile)
By Hannes Grobe 21:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC), Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

 Global Warming (atmospheric carbon dioxide)
"Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide-en" by Sémhur - Image:Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide.png, uploaded in Commons by Nils Simon under licence GFDL & CC-NC-SA ; itself created by Robert A. Rohde from NOAA published data and is incorporated into the Global Warming Art project. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 via Wikimedia Commons

 Global Warming (Average Glacier Thickness)
"Glacier Mass Balance". Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Gravitation, Law of
  "NewtonsLawOfUniversalGravitation". Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

 Kepler's First Law
Kepler’s first Law original PNG version by Stw using Kig and GIMP. The SVG version drawn by Arpad Horvath. Licensed under Creative Commons attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

 Kepler's Second Law
By Chatsam (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
  
Kepler’s third Law
By Stündle (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
  
 Know Me Astronomy
Rhyme by Celia Berrell
Seismic Waves
By Brews ohare (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Solar System
"Planets2013" by WP - Planets2008.jpg. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

South Florida 2050 AD Merrit Island FL 
By KillerChihuahua (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 Thunderstorm Electric Charge
By Metfis2 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Phanerozoic Eon
By Wikipedia


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