Inspired by and named for a 1970 Doctor Who story-arc that originally aired from this day until 14 March on BBC1 in weekly installments wherein the Third Doctor tries to broker a peace settlement between the simians, sapiens and the reptilian Silurians who were the dominant intelligent species, the eponymous hypothesis is an interesting and self-critical (though sometimes coopted by fringe elements and regaled with the hallmarks of pseudo-science) thought experiment, a corollary to Fermi’s Paradox in a sense, to gauge those simian successors’ ability to detect evidence of prior (or parallel) advanced civilisations.
Formalised and fleshed out just in 2018 in a paper by astrophysicists Adam Frank and Gavin Schmidt, they pondered whether there would be any sort of trace of industry, given sufficient time and distance and divergence from our own manifestly self-destructive and unsustainable technology, a civilisation that produced less enduring waste and had a lower profile in terms of environmental impact would be harder to dig up but would probably be the more successful and longer-lived for it as well. Any artefacts, direct or indirect, could prove elusive indeed, and we may be incapable of recognising them for what they are. Please be sure to visit Futility Closet at the link up top for an abstract and the full paper.
Friday 31 January 2020
the hungry earth or the gorn hegemony
Thursday 30 January 2020
kryptos
Via the never cryptic and always interesting Nag on the Lake we are informed that a new clue has been tantalisingly dropped regarding the bronze sculpture that adorns the courtyard of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (previously) whose coded message has for nearly thirty years rebuffed obsessive efforts to fully decrypt it.
Professional and hobbyist code-breakers alike over the years have managed to solve three (the first two are Vigenรจre ciphers, a method using an interweaving of shifting and polyalphabetic substitution, the third is a transposition cipher with the fourth being a mystery) out of the four puzzles but the last remains a conundrum. The artist behind the work, Jim Sanborn—surprised that the mystery has taken this long to be decoded and perhaps out of a desire not to have it all unravelled posthumously—has issued a few hints first in 2010 with BERLIN, next in 2014 with CLOCK and most recently NORTHEAST with which letters of the cipher the solution corresponds with.
6x6
solar max: amazing high-resolution imagery of the surface of the Sun
holyrood: the Edinburgh parliament will continue to fly the EU flag post-Brexit
(plus votes for a second referendum for independence)
birth tourism: a woman planning to visit US territory of Saipan forced to prove that she was not pregnant
commonly known as the pipewort family: the stunning paepalanthus flowering plants
part of the troop: robotic gorilla infiltrates a family in the wild
bmc: a large cache of art and artefacts, largely never before seen, from Black Mountain College (adjacently)—staffed by among others Anni and Joseph Albers after they fled Nazi Germany—is being put on-line
catagories: ๐บ๐ธ, ๐, ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐จ, ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ, ๐ญ, ๐ง , libraries and museums
release notes
Wednesday 29 January 2020
une chatte connue pour avoir รฉtรฉ envoyรฉe dans l'espace et rรฉcupรฉrรฉe vivante
Via Mental Floss we learn that after nearly sixty years of languishing relative obscurity, thanks to a vigorous campaign, the contributions and the legacy of the first and only feline in space, Fรฉlicette, are finally being recognised and commemorated with a proper monument. Unveiled with fanfare last month and sharing an exhibition space in Pioneers’ Hall of the International Space University, l’Universitรฉ spatiale internationale (though one might hope for a more public and accessible memorial) in Strasbourg with a bust of Yuri Gagarin—the first human in space, the bronze of the cat on a plinth represents more of the untold story behind scientific advancement. Much more to explore at the links above.
8! x 3^7 x (12!/2) x 2^11
On this day in 1980 at the British Toy and Hobby Fair, the mechanical puzzle (see previously) by Hungarian architect and professor Ernล Rubik had its international debut.
Demonstrating a prototype to his students around 1974 and seeing the positive reception, Rubik sought out a manufacturer, originally calling it his Magic Cube (Bลฑvรถskocka), and licensed the design to Ideal Toys—formerly known for their line of dolls that included Betsy Wetsy and Rub-a-Dub Doggie, in 1979 for wider distribution under the name Rubik’s Cube. Among his influences, the polymath and educator lists MC Escher for grappling with impossible configurations and contemplating the nature of infinity within the permissible. Discounting the strictures of the mechanics of the cube (only seven of the eight corners can be independently articulated and there are only twelve possible orbits for each square, there are forty three quintillion permutations—that is, if a cube were to represent each possible state a stack of them would tower over two-hundred and sixty light-years high, scraping the sky beyond of our Stellar Neighbourhood.
mantra-rock dance
Tuesday 28 January 2020
manicule
The always interesting Pasa Bon! piques our curiosity regarding the punctuation mark known by the titular name or rather the index or the printer’s fist—scribes employing this symbol (☞, see also) to highlight and annotate corrections or notes.
Incorporated into standard typography, the sign’s modern sense is to direct readers to a cross-reference, point the way in advertising and was shorthand (reference the above stenography) of essayist H L Mencken to express the aphorism “When you point a finger at someone, realise that there are three pointing back at you,” bookending his telegrams with this reminder. Of course, the index also has a walk on role, a cameo according to what we’re mousing over. Much more to explore at the links above.
catagories: ๐ฃ