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