Syndicate
|
Stay up to date with the Cosmic Fantasia RSS feed
|
|
|
The Search for Ourselves in the Cosmos |
|
|
|
|
Written by Neil De Grasse Tyson
|
|
Saturday, 04 December 2004 |
|
Human senses display an astonishing acuity and range of sensitivity. Our ears can record the thunderous launch of the space shuttle, yet they can also hear a male mosquito buzzing in the corner of a room. Our sense of touch allows us to feel the crush of a bowling ball dropped on our big toe, or to tell when a one-milligram bug crawls along our arm.
Some people enjoy munching on habanero peppers, while sensitive tongues can identify the presence of food flavors at a few parts per million. And our eyes can register the bright sandy terrain on a sunny beach, yet have no trouble spotting a lone match, freshly lit hundreds of feet away, across a darkened auditorium. Our eyes also allow us to see across the room and across the universe. Without our vision, the science of astronomy would never have been born and our capacity to measure our place in the universe would have remained hopelessly stunted.
In combination, these senses allow us to decode the basics of our immediate environment, such as whether it's day or night, or when a creature is about to eat you. But little did anybody know, until the last few centuries, that our senses alone offer only a narrow window on the physical universe.
Some people boast of a sixth sense, professing to know or see things others cannot. Fortunetellers, mind readers, and mystics top the list of those who claim mysterious powers. In doing so, they instill widespread fascination in others. The questionable field of parapsychology rests on the expectation that at least some people actually harbor this talent.
In contrast, modern science wields dozens of senses. But scientists do not claim that these are the expression of special powers, just special hardware that converts the information gleaned by these extra senses into simple tables, charts, diagrams, or images that our five inborn senses can interpret.
Continue story @ http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=108413
Source: Rednova
|
|
Featured Screensaver Our Leonardo da Vinci screensaver celebrates the genius of the man and displays 54 of his greatest artworks (some with different versions), drawing scientific studies and drawings. Download Screensaver
More Screensavers
|
