nature strikes back

I've been a slacker on the LJ greetings lately, so: Happy belated birthday to

Ruthie, happy birthday today to

Philip and

Fraser, and congratulations to

Tash and

Geoff on the birth of their son, Jonathan! Yaaaaay! I am glad to know all of you.

Attention natural-disaster aficionados: this is something we should be watching out for. Thanks to the awesome

Helen for the link. I must say, though, I don't get how a big rock falling from such a low height (i.e., not space) could cause a tidal wave.

Heather, any physicist insight into this?

I'm reading a book called Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (the guy who wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide books, which I have surprisingly never read). It's a non-fiction account of many trips he took to see endangered animals all over the world. His perspective is Darwinist and Greenpeacey, but it's fascinating to hear about all the animals. I love animals and think we should definitely do more to preserve wildlife, and for goodness' sake, stop tearing down rainforests (I believe the cure for cancer is probably in a rainforest somewhere). At the same time, I don't like the attitude that animals are smarter than or should take precedence over people. It's not Biblical. So that's my opinion. Wow, I didn't mean to get political. :)

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

stacye13.livejournal.com

I have a cool fiction mystery type book about the rainforest:
Amazonia, by James Rollins. It's actually very good. If you run out of reading material (haha) and want to borrow, just let me know.

chestnutcurls.livejournal.com

Okay...I'll let you know! :)

mrszoid.livejournal.com

Hmm...well, I'm not sure. First of all, I looked it up and the Isle of Man is 227 square miles. Secondly, as you mentioned, it's hard to imagine something causing this much disturbance, unless it was at a very high height, which would have increasing speed (and acceleration) as it hit the water. I think what they have in mind is that according to Newton's formula F=ma (force equals mass times acceleration), the force of the rock would push out water both horizontally and vertically, which would build and build and build until it got huge (tsunami-ish). Think of a rock dropping in a pond, with the rings of water going out, only on a much much larger scale. But then there's all kinds of ways the rock could hit - would it just slide into the water and sink down (and thus decrease the amount of surface area that hit the water dead on)? Or would it all hit the water at the same time? I wonder how the guy set up his model.

This is a difficult thing to imagine in the first place and I would be interested in seeing the scientist's model. Honestly, I think there are more important questions to investigate, but I could be wrong. This is why a great number of physicists prefer to think of problems in a more simple form, such as "consider a spherical cow...". Then we leave the real world stuff to engineers. :-)

:) Thanks for the analysis! That was very informative.

Forgot to mention - probably

dirtbird will have some helpful insight as well. :-)

zonneschijn.livejournal.com

The HitchHiker's guide was awesome.

I really need to read it.

:)

And you're right about Last Chance to See. I didn't read it but "watched" the book on CD (Douglas Adams reads the entire book out loud + tons of pics, etc.). It is Greenpeacey, and animals definately should not take precedence over people. One of the books I highly recommend is The Deeper Meaning of LIFF (A Dictionary of Things That There Aren't Any Words for Yet) by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. It's sooo funny!

skreyola.livejournal.com

(I believe the cure for cancer is probably in a rainforest somewhere).
Some people believe the cure for cancer is a vitamin in apple seeds...

At the same time, I don't like the attitude that animals are smarter than or should take precedence over people.
I completely agree. God wants us to be stewards of the earth, but He never intended us to be slaves of it. The earth is here for our use and benefit.

Thanks for the support. :)

You're welcome. :)

The Beauty and the Mess