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Gradients in life and reality.
17 years ago
General
Gradient: (N)
1. the degree of inclination, or the rate of ascent or descent, in a highway, railroad, etc.
2. an inclined surface; grade; ramp.
3. Physics.
a. the rate of change with respect to distance of a variable quantity, as temperature or pressure, in the direction of maximum change.
b. a curve representing such a rate of change.
It may not be obvious when looking at all the variety of things in the world but gradients are present within and between all of them. If you look at the sky as the sun makes its rounds you see the sky change color in a gradient. When water is heated its temperature changes in a gradient no matter how rapidly you heat it. When you look at the Electromagnetic spectrum you can see where all the known forms of radiation appear on a wavelength gradient.
But why do people not notice that all these things may lie upon the same gradient? If we look at animals they are divided not by their appearance but by their genes. Speciation occurs when two animals cannot create viable offspring. However this is not a strict separation as flukes can still happen and some members of one species may in fact be closer to another than the other members. Thus creating viable offspring and blurring species boundaries.
If we look back at the EM spectrum we can see that the radiation types change from wave to wave/particle to particle. Why does the periodic table not connect to this same gradation? We know that as elements decay they give off these types of radiation so where does the distinction between the two series exist? Even now we are discovering particles that do not fit into the either group but instead in between. The periodic table itself is a gradient based on density starting at hydrogen. The divisions between the elements are further blurred by the presence of isotopes, just like with animals.
Life exists in such gradations as well, with viruses being the intermediate between live and inert though not clearly being either. How far away from the simple elements of the periodic table is the virus?
I may not have worded this very clearly but I hope you can understand the jist of it. It's hard to explain such abstract subjects.
1. the degree of inclination, or the rate of ascent or descent, in a highway, railroad, etc.
2. an inclined surface; grade; ramp.
3. Physics.
a. the rate of change with respect to distance of a variable quantity, as temperature or pressure, in the direction of maximum change.
b. a curve representing such a rate of change.
It may not be obvious when looking at all the variety of things in the world but gradients are present within and between all of them. If you look at the sky as the sun makes its rounds you see the sky change color in a gradient. When water is heated its temperature changes in a gradient no matter how rapidly you heat it. When you look at the Electromagnetic spectrum you can see where all the known forms of radiation appear on a wavelength gradient.
But why do people not notice that all these things may lie upon the same gradient? If we look at animals they are divided not by their appearance but by their genes. Speciation occurs when two animals cannot create viable offspring. However this is not a strict separation as flukes can still happen and some members of one species may in fact be closer to another than the other members. Thus creating viable offspring and blurring species boundaries.
If we look back at the EM spectrum we can see that the radiation types change from wave to wave/particle to particle. Why does the periodic table not connect to this same gradation? We know that as elements decay they give off these types of radiation so where does the distinction between the two series exist? Even now we are discovering particles that do not fit into the either group but instead in between. The periodic table itself is a gradient based on density starting at hydrogen. The divisions between the elements are further blurred by the presence of isotopes, just like with animals.
Life exists in such gradations as well, with viruses being the intermediate between live and inert though not clearly being either. How far away from the simple elements of the periodic table is the virus?
I may not have worded this very clearly but I hope you can understand the jist of it. It's hard to explain such abstract subjects.
But you're absolutely right. Even learning exists on a gradient.
There have actually been very few upsets in the periodic table: The two being the realization that mean atomic mass was the wrong ordering property, and the realization that there was something that caused every second row to be longer. The first was due to there being a few elements that had unusually heavy or light common isotopes, the latter due to the presence and properties of the d and f orbitals, (and the g orbital once we get past element 120).
(Oh, and everything has wave-particle duality, it's just that with some things the inaccuracy of treating them purely as a solid object is so small that it can be safely neglected.)
http://www.5-dimension.org/members/.....periodic_s.jpg
Keep in mind this was drawn up before the 1930's so the total number of elements presented is clearly not accurate. Many of the names used are ones for theoretical isotopes or yet undiscovered elements. As you can see the noble gases always appear at the center of the curve or area of least potential. As you move down the chart the stability of the elements deteriorates as well. I think it's a rather effective visualization. On the right it's depicted on a spiral which i believe takes into account the orbitals.
And except for not having a clue as to what an isotope is?
Or having an end point that stops before the elements known at the time this table was put together? And lists as unknown several known elements? And predicts elements between ones that are actually adjacent?
Now, a spiral layout is sometimes useful for illustrative purposes, but this one isn't that good.
He also doesn't do anything for the two upsets that hit the periodic table, (moot, given that the issues had already been discovered and resolved).
Frankly it looks like something a philosopher who knew just enough science to get himself in trouble might make up.
(NB: This particular version could not be from the 1930's, because it refers to the use of plutonium and, (incorrectly), neptunium in atomic weaponry.)
[1] There are a couple of theoretical "element 0"s, but nothing like what Russel here is postulating. One looks like it can only exist as a single nucleus of a mass about twice that of the Sun, and there is some evidence that a tetraneutron can be made at least metastable.
It's based on observations taken with a spectrometer, which was still relatively recent at the time.
Isotopes themselves were still relatively new to chemistry at the time so their behaviour was not likely well known at that point.
I think that theoretically this form of chart could be adapted using our current periodic table to achieve a useful visualization.
Spectrometry was around early enough to be used in the discovery of helium in 1868, hardly new. Spectrophotometry wasn't around until 1935, too late for the initial development of Russell's table.
Isotopes were well enough understood by 1927, having been discovered by Frederick Soddy in 1913, and known to be atoms of the same element that differed in mass. Russel is treating large swaths of different elements as isotopes of one another.
I did note that a spiral layout can be useful, such as the one by Prof. Thoedor Benfey http://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbo....._pt/pt.html#aa
I'm not sure what your final point is, but it all seems to confirm something I've thought all along; that people think too much in terms of black and white, right and wrong, and categorizations.
As far as your connection between viruses and the periodic table of elements--therein perhaps lies what is still one of the greatest unsolved mysteries for mankind: abiogenesis.
Scientific classification began with the idea of shared physical characteristics. The groupings themselves have changed significantly since Carolus Linnaeus first created them. Darwin's evolutionary theory has probably had the biggest impact, for obvious reasons, but even that still has flaws. Based on the flexibility and adaptiveness of life, it would be exceptionally difficult to have a classification system that is as rigid as EM gradients. I'd like to think that life is a bit more fluid than that. Work with DNA will probably signal far greater changes in the future.
No system is perfect, which is why most of them are still supported by theories, but they are better than nothing. Besides, gradients are so much more inflexible and rigid that I'm not sure that they can apply to things that are so varied.
Here, check this out, it will help you with the science problem you have: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiMWJ1xBo8w
Bosons confuse me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
You get this alot in smallish species that don't travel.. over a range of similar habitat any two members will be able to interbreed with other close to each other.. but at the ends of the range they are incombatible..