Reading List
http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html
http://strategyleader.org/peopledefinitions/minimumpgsize.html
http://moreno.ss.uci.edu/64.pdf
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/d605144170386223/?p=731683278e7445d1b7bf4a64dc6dcfb6&pi=1
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=225C07BA45FE27193D68E7085E803E72.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=1634556
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Lenski
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/glues/model_complex.html
http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk/press/007outhwaite.htm
http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/~felwell/Theorists/Lenski/Index.htm
http://www.skotos.net/articles/TTnT.shtml
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html
http://ads.harvard.edu/books/hsaa/idx.html
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=278714
http://vlab.infotech.monash.edu.au/simulations/non-linear/logistic/ (2.5-2.6 is the threshold for chaos)
http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~rozali/list.html (what every student should know)
rss
January 12th, 2009 at 9:45 am
video feedback fractals
January 16th, 2009 at 6:14 am
http://preposterousuniverse.com/eternitytohere/
January 18th, 2009 at 6:59 am
http://cmol.nbi.dk/javaapp.php - tons of great evolutionary models
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:53 pm
http://www.cosmolearning.com/
March 29th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Fractal String Theory: http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics/browse_frm/thread/d13ba2ca15039444/4bd9addbffae6745?pli=1
April 6th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Invariant sets, the universe as fractal: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0812.1148v3
April 6th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
A Semi-Pop Non Mathematical Tutorial on Hilbert Space in Quantum Mechanics http://www.qedcorp.com/pcr/pcr/hilberts.html
April 6th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Mechanics
“Hamilton’s equations of motion. Although they are strictly equivalent to Lagrange’s and Newton’s equations, the equations of Hamilton have proven to be more suitable for adaptation to quantum mechanics. The Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of mechanics are also notable for the fact that they express the laws of mechanics without reference to any particular coordinate system for the configuration space. Of course, in their original forms, they assumed an absolute time coordinate and perfectly rigid bodies, but with suitable restrictions they can be adapted to relativistic mechanics as well.
In quantum mechanics, a pair of conjugate variables qj, pj, such as position and momentum, generally do not commute, which means that the operation consisting of a measurement of qj followed by a measurement of pj is different than the operation of performing these measurements in the reverse order. This is because the eigenstates corresponding to the respective measurement operators are incompatible. As a result, the system cannot simultaneously have both a definite value of qj and a definite value of pj.”
http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath523/kmath523.htm
April 11th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
http://pirsa.org/C07021 videos of physics lectures at the perimeter institute.
May 9th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/10/3/150/pdf
summary: http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/10/3/150/
May 9th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
http://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy
June 20th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
http://www.earthscape.org/t2/chs01/chs01d/chs01df.html
The Archaean Period (3.8 - 2.5 BYA): The First Signs of Life (3.8 BYA)
Regardless of how life arose, we know it did arise probably 3.5 -4 billion years ago, and we also have a fairly good idea that bacteria — heterotrophic bacteria — were the first inhabitants. Heterotrophs are organisms that get their food by eating it, as opposed to autotrophs, such as plants, which manufacture their own food. These early bacteria probably made their living by assimilating (eating) simple organic molecules, although after a while they may have begun to eat each other.
It is also quite possible that early bacteria lived under extreme conditions, such as the hot sulfur ponds that occur at Yellowstone. The recent discovery of a whole new kingdom of organisms, called the Archaebacteria, lends some support to this. These very simple and ancient bacteria have been found surviving today in hot boiling sulfur springs.
Another candidate for early life are the kinds of organisms that have been found living in deep-sea vents at the bottom of the ocean. These hot-water vents spew hydrogen sulfide and other minerals that can be used by organisms. Jack Corliss, the oceanographer at Oregon State University that discovered these organisms, thinks that early life may have formed at the boundaries between crustal plates in the warm waters of the Earth’s first ocean, Panthallassa.
Remember that these first bacteria were anaerobic — that is, they lived in the absence of oxygen. There was no oxygen in the early Earth environment, so these bacteria learned how to use sulfur compounds. As a result of their metabolism, they use and produce hydrogen sulfide, the familiar rotten egg odor. Like it or not, the early Earth smelled like rotten eggs.
The reign of the anaerobic bacteria was soon to end with the appearance of the first photosynthetic bacteria. These bacteria, ancestors of the blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), began the first global-scale pollution project, and forever changed the face of our planet. The proliferation of photosynthetic bacteria introduced oxygen to our atmosphere for the first time sometime between 3.5 and 2.5 billion years ago. These first “plants”, which are popularly known as blue-green algae, formed colonies in the shallow seas which we can sea today in formations known as stromatolites.
Appearance of photosynthetic organisms (3.5 BYA)
The life history of the cyanobacteria and the formation of stromatolites is quite fascinating and we will take a few moments to review it here. Being photosynthetic, the cyanobacteria require sunlight. Thus, they would be present in shallow waters or in the lighted portions of the open sea (where we find them today). During the day, these organisms absorb sunlight and grow in mats of thin filaments. Because the cyanobacteria are composed of filaments of sticky sheaths, these mats are ideal for catching sand and debris. In addition, these organisms secrete calcium carbonate to from hardened, differentiated structures. As the organisms get buried in sand and their own skeletons, they die, and other organisms grow on top of them.. Through this process, stromatolites are formed, some exceeding thirty feet in height.
The oldest known stromatolites, dated at 3.5 billion years old, were found in western Australia in 1978. This seems to imply that life evolved quite rapidly (~500 million years), or that life’s origins go even further back, perhaps to 4.5 billion years ago. At any rate, there is no doubt that 3.5 billion years ago in the continent now known as western Australia that blue-green algae were thriving. These “fossil” organisms still survive today in parts of Australia.
We also have very good evidence that within the time period from 2.5 to 3.5 billion years ago, oxygen was introduced to our atmosphere. In addition to sending anaerobic bacteria to their foul and dark haunts, oxygen had another major effect on the chemistry of our planet — everything containing iron began to rust. Red beds of “oxidized” iron show up in rocks that are less than 2 billion years old, but don’t appear in older rocks. This is clear evidence that the earth’s atmosphere was changing dramatically. In fact, Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan have called this phenomenon the “Oxygen Holocaust.”
It is likely that the first photosynthetic bacteria did not require oxygen to live, but produced oxygen as a result of photosynthetic proton pumps that provided them with reducing energy. The oxygen produced by these organisms was probably absorbed for tens of millions of years through purely chemical reactions (i.e. metal compounds, minerals in rocks, atmospheric gases). However, as the chemical reactions ran to completion, oxygen began to accumulate in bits and pieces, first in one place and then another. This localized presence of oxygen also evidenced by alternating bands of oxidized or reduced iron in rocks known as Banded Iron Formations (BIFS).
[how reactive is hydrogen sulphide - is it a 'far from equilibrium gas'.]
September 13th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
http://nige.wordpress.com/
October 30th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~ciotola/beta/ http://www.fastentropy.org/
November 5th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-entropy/