Huwebes, Enero 26, 2017

What Determines Sky's Colors At Sunrise And Sunset?

What Determines Sky's Colors At Sunrise And Sunset?


The colors of the sunset result from a phenomenon called scattering, says Steven Ackerman, professor of meteorology at UW-Madison. Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter.
Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of the light and the size of the particle. The short-wavelength blue and violet are scattered by molecules in the air much more than other colors of the spectrum. This is why blue and violet light reaches our eyes from all directions on a clear day. But because we can't see violet very well, the sky appears blue.
Scattering also explains the colors of the sunrise and sunset, Ackerman says.
“Because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from your eyes. If the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colors continue on their way to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red.”
And because red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, the sun is red when it’s on the horizon, where its extremely long path through the atmosphere blocks all other colors.

The South Atlantic Anomaly Is The Bermuda Triangle Of Space.

The South Atlantic Anomaly Is The Bermuda Triangle Of Space


Outer space is a dangerous place—if the deep cold doesn't get you, the cosmic rays will. Luckily, Earth has its own pair of radiation belts that shield us from the kinds of high-energy particles that would wreak havoc on living things and delicate electronics the first time they had the chance. But there's an area of our planet where those protective belts turn on us. That area is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.

The Van Allen Belts

In 1958, James Van Allen led a project to send the United States' first satellite into space with some simple equipment: a Geiger counter to detect radiation, and a tape recorder to, well, record sound. That project—and several after—led to the discovery that our planet is surrounded by two donut-shaped masses of high-energy particles. Those particles are leftovers of cosmic rays shooting in from outside our solar system that become trapped in that belt configuration because of the Earth's magnetic field (if you've ever seen iron filings sprinkled around a magnet, you know that a magnetic field follows a telltale pattern). Though the high-energy particles are dangerous on their own, when they're trapped in the Van Allen Belts they shield the Earth from any other dangerous particles that might elbow their way in.

Here's The Catch

Thanks for protecting us, Van Allen Belts! Well, don't be too grateful just yet. The poles of Earth's magnetic field don't line up perfectly with its poles of rotation; they're actually tilted by 11 degrees. That means the Van Allen Belts are tilted too. This leads the inner donut-shaped mass of deadly high-energy particles to dip dangerously low to the Earth's surface—as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers) at some points over the South Atlantic and Brazil. That's well below the path of many satellites, which are forced to pass through the belt and get pummeled by protons. And we're talking pummeled: every square centimeter is hit 3,000 times per second. That abuse can cause all sorts of problems, from data glitches to electronic damage. As a result, engineers tell their satellites to power down as they pass through the anomaly in hopes that their data will be protected.

Scientists can turn co2 into ethanol and they figure out it by accidentally.

Scientists can turn co2 into ethanol and they figure out it by accidentally.

In October 2016, scientists accidentally turned carbon dioxide (CO2) into ethanol, a fuel. Whoops! This unexpected result could be huge in combatting climate change caused by CO2 in the atmosphere.

How Did It Happen?

Things don't always go exactly according to plan. And sometimes, that can be a really good thing. Take, for instance, that time in October of 2016 when some scientists working at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee tried to turn carbon dioxide into methane. It didn't work. Instead, the scientists got ethanol, a renewable fuel. This was a surprise because, well, the CO2 converted to ethanolsurprisingly easily. The scientists didn't think the catalysts they were working with could produce ethanol from CO2 on its own. This catalyst produces a yield as high as 70 percent, meaning the process barely wastes much carbon dioxide or catalyst. What you get is all fuel, baby! Better yet, the process is cheap and scalable because it uses common materials and can be done at room temperature. The ethanol that comes from it is ready to be used as-is.

This Could Be A Really Big Deal

If you haven't put it together yet, this accidental discovery could mean big things for combating global warming. Carbon dioxide is one of the main greenhouse gases in our atmosphere contributing to climate change. Finding a way to cheaply, easily, and efficiently turn the bad stuff into renewable fuel seems kind of like a dream come true, doesn't it?

How does media estimate crowd size?

The number of people in attendance at an event may seem pretty uncontroversial on its face, but it can turn political—just take the comparison between the crowd sizes at Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017 and those at the Women's March protest the next day. How exactly do people estimate attendance based on pictures of crowds? There's actually a tried-and-true formula, and it's called the Jacobs Method. Watch the video below to learn more about it

Does Bamboo Conduct Electricity?

Does Bamboo Conduct Electricity? 

Less than a year after he developed the first practical light bulb (1880), Thomas Edison designed a new version that had all the essential features of a modern light bulb; an incandescent filament in an evacuated glass bulb with a screw base. The most critical factor was finding the right material for the filament, the part inside the light bulb that glows when an electric currant is passed through it. Edison tested more than 1,600 materials, including coconut fiber, fishing line, even hairs from a worker's beard.   Finally, Edison ended up using bamboo fiber for the filament. Edison and his team discovered that carbonized bamboo had the capacity to conduct electrical currant, and that it could last more than 1200 hours, more than any other material at the time. Researchers have built upon his work and now have discovered that bamboo charcoal is a natural “nano tube” that can conduct electricity as a very thin film disbursed on the surface of a glass or silicon substrate. 

How Did Water Come to Earth?

How Did Water Come to Earth?



Water is so vital to our survival, but strangely enough, we don’t know the first thing about it—literally the first. Where does water, a giver and taker of life on planet Earth, come from? When I was in junior high school, my science teacher taught us about the water cycle—evaporation from oceans and lakes, condensation forming clouds , rain refilling oceans and lakes—and it all made sense. Except for one thing: None of the details explained where the water came from to begin with. I asked, but my teacher looked as if I’d sought the sound of one hand clapping.
To be fair, the origin of our planet’s water is an intricate story stretching back some 13.8 billion years to the Big Bang. And a key part of the story, centering on two particular solar system denizens, has been hotly debated for decades.
Here’s the part we think we understand well: Just shy of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang, the energy that sparked the outward swelling of space transmuted into a hot, uniform bath of particles. During the next three minutes, these primordial constituents bumped and jostled, combined and recombined, yielding the first atomic nuclei. One of the great triumphs of modern cosmology is its mathematical description of these processes, which gives accurate predictions for the cosmic abundances of the simplest nuclei—a lot of hydrogen, less helium and trace amounts of lithium. Producing copious hydrogen is a propitious start en route to water, but what about the other essential ingredient, oxygen?
That’s where stars, already plentiful about a billion years after the Big Bang, enter the picture. Deep within their blisteringly hot interiors, stars are nuclear furnaces that fuse the Big Bang’s simple nuclei into more complex elements, including carbon, nitrogen and, yes, oxygen. Later in their lives, when stars go super­nova, the explosions spew these elements into space. Oxygen and hydrogen commingle to make H2O.
So are we done? Not quite. In fact, this is where things get a little murky. Water molecules were surely part of the dusty swirl that coalesced into the Sun and its planets beginning about nine billion years after the Big Bang. But Earth’s early history, including epochs with high ambient temperatures and no enveloping atmosphere, implies that surface water would have evaporated and drifted back into space. The water we encounter today, it seems, must have been delivered long after Earth formed.
Faced with this conundrum, astronomers realized that there are two ready-made sources: comets and asteroids, the solar system’s gravel strewn among planetary boulders. The primary difference between the two is that comets typically have a greater concentration of ingredients that vaporize when heated, accounting for their iconic gaseous tails. Both comets and asteroids can contain ice. And if, by colliding with Earth, they added the amount of material some scientists suspect, such bodies could easily have delivered oceans’ worth of water. Accordingly, each has been fingered as a suspect in the mystery.
Adjudicating between the two is a challenge, and over the years scientific judgment has swung from one to the other. Nevertheless, recent observations of their chemical makeups are tipping the scale toward asteroids. Researchers reported last year, for example, that the ratios of different forms of hydrogen in asteroids appear to better match what we find here on Earth. But the analyses are based on limited samples, meaning there’s a good chance we’ve not yet heard the final word.
Even so, the next time you turn on the tap, think of the flowing water’s long and wonderful journey. It certainly makes a bottle of Fiji seem a little less exotic.




Is anaconda considered venomous?

Is anaconda considered venomous?


These days no, Anacondas do not produce a venom. Well kinda. But there has been recent debate as to whether they (as well as other constrictors) once had venom. They do have what appears to be remnants of venom glands but they are for the purpose of saliva. Bryan Fry of the University of Queensland has found though that these glands still produce venom like proteins but they are in trace quantities and no longer used for killing and catching prey. He feels that in venomous animals if they stop relying on venom over generations these animals lose that ability over many thousands of years. So I guess it depends on your definition of venomous. They still produce minute amounts but can but it wont hurt us or any other animal really.   Many animals we once thought of as non venomous actually are such as iguanas and certain species of garter snakes. While not extremely toxic we now know these animals do have working venom systems. From what I understand it started with Fry looking into komodo dragons and the myth that they had super toxic saliva with various pathogens and bacteria. In reality they have venom. Anyone who wishes to learn more about venomous animals should really look into Bryan Fry. He has some books which I cant wait to read and he IMHO has revolutionized what we know about venomous animals. And my apologies to him if I misinterpreted anything I have read or seen in his lectures.

Seahorse Fathers Take Reins in Childbirth

Seahorse Fathers Take Reins in Childbirth

Stentor Danielson
National Geographic News
June 14, 2002
It's true that male seahorses never play catch with their children or help them with their homework. But they do outdo human dads on one count: Male seahorses undergo pregnancy and give birth to their sons and daughters.

The trait is unique in these strange and fascinating fish that inhabit tropical and temperate coastal waters worldwide.
Seahorses, which range from less than an inch to a foot (one to 30 centimeters) in length, have evolved a series of unusual adaptations—a prehensile tail for clinging to underwater vegetation, a tubelike mouth for sucking in tiny crustaceans, and protective bony plates in their skin. There are 32 species of seahorse, all in the genus Hippoca
"They're such an unusual-looking fish, people sometimes don't realize they're real fish," said Alison Scarratt, curator of fishes at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
The aquarium is currently featuring "Seahorses: Beyond Imagination," an exhibit about seahorses, pipefish, and sea dragons that will end next year. Scarratt said it has been the most successful exhibit in the history of the Baltimore Aquarium, which opened i1981.
Although the bony plates covering its body make the seahorse unpalatable to most other animals, its survival is under threat from human predation, especially for use in traditional medicines.
No statistical data on seahorse populations is available because relatively little research on seahorses has been done until recently, but fishers have reported a decline in the number and size of seahorses they catch, according to a network of scientists from various institutions who conduct research under a program called Project Seahorse.
Breeding seahorses in captivity is a problem, in part because the babies are so tiny it's hard to keep them alive. The marine scientists in Baltimore are working to develop effective methods that will help ensure the creature's survival.
Male Contractions
The male seahorse has a pouch on its stomach in which to carry babies—as many as 2,000 at a time. A pregnancy lasts from 10 to 25 days, depending on the species.
The reproductive process begins when a male and a female seahorse do daily pre-dawn dances, intertwining their tails and swimming together. Eventually they engage in a true courtship dance, which can last as long as eight hours. It ends with the female depositing her eggs in the male's pouch.
"Their mating ritual is quite beautiful," said Sarah Foster, a research biologist at McGill University in Montreal who is involved in Project Seahorse.
Scientists think the courtship behavior is designed to synchronize the movements of the two animals so that the male can receive the eggs when the female is ready to deposit them. The eggs are then fertilized in the dad's pouch.

The eggs hatch in the pouch. The father cares for the young as they grow, regulating the water salinity in the pouch to prepare them for life in the sea. "It's quite costly energetically," Foster said.
When the tiny seahorses are ready to be born, the male undergoes muscular contractions to expel the young, known as "fry," from the pouch.
Cutting the Ties
While seahorse dads go the extra mile to give birth, the parents do not provide their tiny offspring with any care or protection after they are born.
Infant seahorses are susceptible to death from predators and being swept into ocean currents, where they drift away from feeding grounds rich in microscopic organisms.
Fewer than five infant seahorses in every 1,000 survive to adulthood, which helps explain why the litters are so large, said James Anderson, manager of the seahorse program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
By fish standards, however, seahorses have a fairly high survival rate because they are sheltered in the father's pouch during the earliest stages of development. The eggs of other fish are abandoned immediately after fertilization.
Breeding Difficulties
Although seahorses are the only fish that experience true male pregnancy, the males of two close relatives, sea dragons and pipefish, carry eggs attached to an area beneath their tails.
Anderson said other members of the family Sygnathidae, to which these three fish belong, have a number of different types of enclosed areas on their bodies in which to hold eggs; these spaces range from a flat spot to a trough, suggesting how a pouch may have evolved.
Scientists are not sure what evolutionary advantage male pregnancy gives seahorses. One theory is that it enables a shorter cycle of reproduction by distributing the costs of the process between the two partners.
While the male is bearing the young, the female can prepare more eggs to implant soon after the male has given birth to the last litter. Anderson said some seahorses can give birth in the morning and be pregnant again by evening.
Aquariums have only recently developed the technology to raise seahorses in captivity, according to Scarratt. "The husbandry for seahorses is extremely difficult," she said.
The main challenge has not been getting the seahorses to breed, but to help the fry survive, she explained. The infant seahorses are so small they cannot eat most of the tiny plankton that are fed to the adults. Special food has to be grown so the fry do not starve.
The Seahorse Breeding Lab at the National Aquarium in Baltimore has raised eight species of seahorses and three species of pipefish. Populations of these fishes have been sent to institutions in the United States and Portugal.

Can a hen lay an egg without a rooster?


You do not need a rooster for your hens to produce eggs. 
Unless you are trying get baby chicks, you should likely not bother having a noisy cock.
Without a rooster, the eggs will be unfertilized, but they will be produced just the same.
The egg is an external uterus. It is created whether it is fertilized or not, just as a human woman creates conditions once a month to have a baby, even if she won't.
If you do want fertilized eggs, then you should have about one cock for every 7 hens. You need to help the broody hen have a nice space to incubate the eggs. Momma hens are very dedicated so try to help them by putting food and water next to them.
Baby chicks are super cute.

Seahorse Fathers Take Reins in Childbirth

Seahorse Fathers Take Reins in Childbirth

Stentor Danielson
National Geographic News
June 14, 2002
It's true that male seahorses never play catch with their children or help them with their homework. But they do outdo human dads on one count: Male seahorses undergo pregnancy and give birth to their sons and daughters.

The trait is unique in these strange and fascinating fish that inhabit tropical and temperate coastal waters worldwide.
Seahorses, which range from less than an inch to a foot (one to 30 centimeters) in length, have evolved a series of unusual adaptations—a prehensile tail for clinging to underwater vegetation, a tubelike mouth for sucking in tiny crustaceans, and protective bony plates in their skin. There are 32 species of seahorse, all in the genus Hippoca
"They're such an unusual-looking fish, people sometimes don't realize they're real fish," said Alison Scarratt, curator of fishes at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
The aquarium is currently featuring "Seahorses: Beyond Imagination," an exhibit about seahorses, pipefish, and sea dragons that will end next year. Scarratt said it has been the most successful exhibit in the history of the Baltimore Aquarium, which opened i1981.
Although the bony plates covering its body make the seahorse unpalatable to most other animals, its survival is under threat from human predation, especially for use in traditional medicines.
No statistical data on seahorse populations is available because relatively little research on seahorses has been done until recently, but fishers have reported a decline in the number and size of seahorses they catch, according to a network of scientists from various institutions who conduct research under a program called Project Seahorse.
Breeding seahorses in captivity is a problem, in part because the babies are so tiny it's hard to keep them alive. The marine scientists in Baltimore are working to develop effective methods that will help ensure the creature's survival.
Male Contractions
The male seahorse has a pouch on its stomach in which to carry babies—as many as 2,000 at a time. A pregnancy lasts from 10 to 25 days, depending on the species.
The reproductive process begins when a male and a female seahorse do daily pre-dawn dances, intertwining their tails and swimming together. Eventually they engage in a true courtship dance, which can last as long as eight hours. It ends with the female depositing her eggs in the male's pouch.
"Their mating ritual is quite beautiful," said Sarah Foster, a research biologist at McGill University in Montreal who is involved in Project Seahorse.
Scientists think the courtship behavior is designed to synchronize the movements of the two animals so that the male can receive the eggs when the female is ready to deposit them. The eggs are then fertilized in the dad's pouch.

The eggs hatch in the pouch. The father cares for the young as they grow, regulating the water salinity in the pouch to prepare them for life in the sea. "It's quite costly energetically," Foster said.
When the tiny seahorses are ready to be born, the male undergoes muscular contractions to expel the young, known as "fry," from the pouch.
Cutting the Ties
While seahorse dads go the extra mile to give birth, the parents do not provide their tiny offspring with any care or protection after they are born.
Infant seahorses are susceptible to death from predators and being swept into ocean currents, where they drift away from feeding grounds rich in microscopic organisms.
Fewer than five infant seahorses in every 1,000 survive to adulthood, which helps explain why the litters are so large, said James Anderson, manager of the seahorse program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore.
By fish standards, however, seahorses have a fairly high survival rate because they are sheltered in the father's pouch during the earliest stages of development. The eggs of other fish are abandoned immediately after fertilization.
Breeding Difficulties
Although seahorses are the only fish that experience true male pregnancy, the males of two close relatives, sea dragons and pipefish, carry eggs attached to an area beneath their tails.
Anderson said other members of the family Sygnathidae, to which these three fish belong, have a number of different types of enclosed areas on their bodies in which to hold eggs; these spaces range from a flat spot to a trough, suggesting how a pouch may have evolved.
Scientists are not sure what evolutionary advantage male pregnancy gives seahorses. One theory is that it enables a shorter cycle of reproduction by distributing the costs of the process between the two partners.
While the male is bearing the young, the female can prepare more eggs to implant soon after the male has given birth to the last litter. Anderson said some seahorses can give birth in the morning and be pregnant again by evening.
Aquariums have only recently developed the technology to raise seahorses in captivity, according to Scarratt. "The husbandry for seahorses is extremely difficult," she said.
The main challenge has not been getting the seahorses to breed, but to help the fry survive, she explained. The infant seahorses are so small they cannot eat most of the tiny plankton that are fed to the adults. Special food has to be grown so the fry do not starve.
The Seahorse Breeding Lab at the National Aquarium in Baltimore has raised eight species of seahorses and three species of pipefish. Populations of these fishes have been sent to institutions in the United States and Portugal.

Sabado, Enero 21, 2017

Why deaf people don't say "ACHOO" when they sneeze?

WHY DEAF PEOPLE DON'T ACHOO WHEN THEY SNEEZE?

Sneezing feels—and is—so involuntary, yet apparently you do still have some control over what you say when you sneeze. "Achoo!" is particular to English speakers, the BBC's Ouch blog reports, and deaf people just make the sounds associated with the movement of air a sneeze represents.
"While deaf people sneeze naturally, hearing people feel compelled to add sound effects," partially deaf journalist Charlie Swinbourne wrote in a post for The Limping Chicken, a U.K.-based blog for deaf people.
In other cultures, hearing people choose different "sound effects," indicating that achooing is by no means inevitable. French speakers sneeze to achoum, for example, while Japanese speakers say hakashun. Those sound similar to achoo, but aren't exactly the same. Bencie Woll, a researcher who studies deaf communication at the University College London, explained why for Ouch. Sneezes do make some sound that people aren't able to control, but people are able to modify the sound, depending on what seems socially appropriate. Laughter works similarly. You gotta make noise when you laugh, but you are able to stifle or amplify it.

DOES WALKING REALLY IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY?

DOES WALKING REALLY

 IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY?


​"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking." Nietzsche
So observed eminent philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his book 'Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophise with a Hammer'. Whilst Nietzsche's comments were recorded more than 125 years ago, they've been backed up much more recently by researchers from America's Stanford University in an article published in the 'Journal of Experimental Psychology'.
When comparing walking with sitting, the group found the former to boost creative output by up to 60 per cent. This, analysts have claimed, is also the reason why technology progressors Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg regularly held meetings on foot.
So why are so many people of the view that walking boosts creativity, and what evidence is there to prove that the views of both Friedrich Nietzsche and Stanford researchers are right?

Activity versus environment

Much of the uncertainty about walking's creative benefit has been wrapped up in the debate over activity versus environment. Put another way, is it the physical act of walking which boosts creativity, or the scenery one can enjoy while doing so. After all, you could argue that more writers, artists and philosophers have spoken of the ways in which the British countryside gave them flashes of inspiration, more so than simple walking.
In light of this, the team at Stanford University sought to find out just what provides the creative spark; the physical act of walking, the scenery a person can enjoy or a combination of the two. For this, the team separated walking participants into two groups, those who did so inside and those who took to the great outdoors. Perhaps surprisingly, all walkers reported increased levels of creative output, regardless of whether they were inside or out.
Similarly, researchers also used a group of test subjects being pushed around outside on a wheelchair. This would present them with results for a group that was not walking but were still outdoors and enjoying a similar visual movement to walking. Whilst those who were sitting in moving wheelchairs outdoors scored much higher in the creative tests than those sat indoors, they couldn't quite reach the levels achieved by those who were walking, regardless of whether they were inside or out - so it's not simply being outside that helps creativity, it's walking outside.

Testing creativity

One potential pitfall with studies such as these can come when trying to test - and therefore quantify - creativity. After all, it's arguably impossible to put a numeric value on a person's creativity, or value one person's output as being of greater worth than another. To combat this, the Stanford team used a number of different tests to ascertain levels of creative output.
The first involved so-called 'divergent thinking', which involves getting participants to think of as many different uses for an item as they can. Each response was then tested for accuracy (to root out responses such as using a bicycle tyre as an engagement ring), then marked depending on how rarely it was used. Respondents were awarded top marks if they came up with a valid, unique suggestion.
A second test saw participants being asked to come up with complex analogies for simple prompts. An example given by the university as a good result would be comparing 'a robbed safe' with 'a soldier suffering from PTSD', as this invokes a sense of loss, dysfunction or violation. Responding with 'an empty wallet', however, would be deemed less creative as it's too similar to the prompt.

​Idea generation

Nietzsche's comment proved particularly accurate when considering the tests undertaken on creative thinking while walking. Most of the aforementioned research took into account the ability to perform creative tasks after going out for a walk. Researchers, however, also wanted to measure peoples' creative reasoning when actually undertaking a walk. For this, word association games were played, where participants were given three seemingly disparate words and asked to find the common denominator (such as the link between ice, hand and cheese being cream).
Here, the participants who were out walking scored lower than those sat indoors, prompting the researchers to note that walking does indeed boost idea generation, but may not be so good for 'convergent', focused thinking. Or, as Nietzsche put it, "all truly great thoughts are conceived while walking."

But why?

This research - as well as the nifty soundbites or anecdotal quotes that have been around for hundreds of years - suggests that the act of walking itself, not just what you enjoy along the way, is what's beneficial. The science to back this up is long established and trusted.
Exercise, of course, gets the heart pumping faster, thus circulating more blood to the brain. This is even true on small ambles - not just powerful sprints. All this extra oxygen-rich blood getting to the brain allows it to perform certain tests much better, especially those concerned with memory and attention.
More recent research showed that walking actually encourages the brain to create new connections between cells and helps transmit messages between them much more effectively. Furthermore, it can reduce the speed of tissue degradation and even enlarge the hippocampus, which is responsible for spatial navigation and converting information from the short-term to the long-term memory.

When it comes to a boost in creativity, though, researchers said there might be something else at play. They argued that walking distracts the brain's prefrontal cortex, as it's this which is responsible for decision making and rule learning - among other things. With the prefrontal cortex otherwise occupied, it enables left-field, alternative suggestions to sneak in where they may otherwise have been rooted out.
Regardless of the reasons why or the tests undertaken to obtain proof, it seems that walking has long been known to boost creative thinking - not to mention memory capacity and attention levels. As American polymath Henry David Thoreau noted in his journals: "Methinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow."

Where does Creativity came from?

Where Does Creativity Come From?


So much for logic.
When developmental psychologist Joseph Chilton Pearce was in his early 30s, teaching humanities in a college, he was engrossed in theology and the psychology of Carl Jung. Pearce describes himself as “obsessed” by the nature of the God-human relationship, and his reading on the subject was extensive. One morning as he was preparing for an early class, his 5-year-old son came into his room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and launched into a 20-minute discourse on the nature of God and man.
“He spoke in perfect, publishable sentences,” Pearce writes, “without pause or haste, and in a flat monotone. He used complex theological terminology and told me, it seemed, everything there was to know. As I listened, astonished, the hair rose on my neck; I felt goose bumps, and, finally, tears streamed down my face. I was in the midst of the uncanny, the inexplicable. My son’s ride to kindergarten arrived, horn blowing, and he got up and left. I was unnerved and arrived late to my class. What I had heard was awesome, but too vast and far beyond any concept I had had to that point. The gap was so great I could remember almost no details and little of the broad panorama he had presented ... He wasn’t picking up his materials from me. I hadn’t acquired anything like what he described and would, in fact, be in my mid-50s and involved in meditation before I did ... My son had no recollection of the event.”
Events like this pose deep questions for creativity. Where does the wisdom come from that makes creativity possible?
Baron Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, the renowned German physicist who was a contemporary of legendary physicists Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, thought deeply about creativity in science. In any great scientific discovery, he said, “We find the often disturbing and happy experience: ‘It is not I; I have not done this.’ Still, in a certain way it is I — yet not the ego ... but ... a more comprehensive self.”
What is this “more comprehensive self”? I propose that it is a domain of consciousness that is nonlocal or infinite in space and time, in which all information resides. Throughout history it has been called many names — the Source, the Absolute, God, Goddess, Allah, Universe. My favorite term is the One Mind, in which all individual minds come together.
It’s an ancient idea, this universal, unitary consciousness. The premise surfaced dramatically in America during the nineteenth century in the philosophy of transcendentalism. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the leading proponent, wrote:
There is one mind common to all individual men ... What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.
Emerson called this single, universal mind the Over-soul.
Many great scientists have agreed in principle with Emerson. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger recognized, “the unification of minds or consciousness. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind.” The eminent physicist David Bohm agreed, saying, “Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one. This is a virtual certainty ... and if we don’t see this it’s because we are blinding ourselves to it.”
Systems theorist Ervin Laszlo, who is a classical pianist and author of 75 books and over 400 articles, knows a thing or two about creativity. He says:
We raise the possibility that the minds of exceptionally creative people would be in spontaneous, direct, though not necessarily conscious, interaction with other minds within the creative process itself.
In this perspective, the One Mind can function as the Source of all the ingredients anyone could ever need to formulate a new idea, compose a sonata, or paint or sculpt a work of art.
Tapping into the Source is the goal of most creative individuals. As John Briggs says in his admirable book about creativity, Fire in the Crucible:
For the creative genius, the ancient perception that it is possible to invoke an identity between the universal and particular, between the personal and the vast impersonal, the part and the whole, is pervasive. It burgeons at all levels of the creative process and dominates creative vision. [In their] many moods and meanings, [creative individuals are involved in] a search for wholeness and a personal/universal identity...
They are seeking the Source, the One Mind.
Many who treasure uniqueness, individuality, and ownership are not thrilled with this scenario. The problem is that, if all minds are in contact and share information, who gets credit? If ideas cannot be assigned to specific persons, what then of originality and individual achievement? Who gets honored? Should the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes be put on hold? Should those already awarded be returned?
Others aren’t troubled. Novelist Joseph Conrad saw his connection with the whole. He wrote about, “the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation — and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts.” Painter Piet Mondrian spoke of the artist’s communion with something greater than the individual self, noting that, “Art has shown that universal expression can only be created by a real equation of the universal and the individual.”
Artist Paul Klee saw that the whole speaks through the part, saying, “[The artist’s] position is humble. He is merely a channel.” Psychologist Erich Fromm sanctioned Klee’s view. Fromm said that the creator:
... has to give up holding on to himself as a thing and begin to experience himself only in the process of creative response; paradoxically enough, if he can experience himself in the process, he loses himself. He transcends the boundaries of his own person, and at the very moment when he feels ‘I am’ he also feels ‘I am you,’ I am one with the whole world.
Pearce’s 5-year-old son seems to have entered the One Mind and dipped from the cosmic soup the information that fulfilled a need at the time. The information arrived spontaneously, unasked, as a grace. But this does not mean that preparation and skills are not important in the creative process. Although creative breakthroughs can be spontaneous, it helps if we open the door and assist the process. The Fulani, a tribe in West Africa, extend this insight into a general principle: “God will not drive flies away from a tailless cow.”
The door to creativity is often opened during meditation, reverie, or dreams, in which time is perceived as an eternal present in which the divisions of past, present, and future meld into an all-encompassing now. In this state, it is not just the separations in time that disappear, but also separations between people and things. This experience is amazingly common. It often erupts spontaneously, as when we are transfixed by a plangent musical note, the smell of fresh-baked bread, or a coyote’s midnight howl. During these moments, if fortune smiles, we can become as Pearce’s 5-year-old son who knew, for a while, “everything there was to know.”