April 4 2022 - Earth Not Round

 

The earth is not round.  So the BBC Earth Facebook channel tells me in a short video. Does that mean it is flat?  No, not that either.  They say that it is an oblate spheroid. And that it isn't a fixed shape.  This makes me think of my Flaming Pear Flexifly filters, as they all have mathematical names.  There's an oblate one or two. The tallest mountain, Mount Everest isn't the highest mountain from the centre of the Earth.  Mt. Chimborozo turns out to be the furthest from the centre of the Earth.  So there we are with another scientific correction. And what do scientists call the Earth's shape? They call the Earth roundish.  Doesn't science has its own way of being precise and being vague.   In comparison to scientists who are able to get more precise about the exact shape and its fluctuations, the members of the Flat Earth Society make up wild unproven theories that physicists can only scoff at.  Like the "US model" where the Sun and Moon are 50 km in diameter and circle the disc-shaped Earth at a height of 5500 km with the stars above this on a rotating dome.   Poor scientists, here they are with the tools to describe all the amazing aspects of the Earth and how its shape functions.  And what awaits them? The simpleton, child world of Flat-Earth conspiracy followers who are growing in numbers.  It turns out that conspiracy minded people are tuned into flat earth ideas. There is great worry over the growing number of conspiracy followers rather than science followers and this could overturn political and education systems. The advice within the science community today is to engage flat-Earthers thoughtfully and respectfully - a process acknowledged as going to be excruciatingly painful.  I just don't think that a sounds feasible or reasonable, either. I went another route, and spent a bit of time with my Flexifly filters, finding an oblate series. This is oblate north pole and then the oblate south pole to present the Pearl Morissette Menu.  This matches up with the Earth being more like a football than a soccer ball.   The bottom picture?  The beet red velvet cake with sorrel and false cardamon.  You can see how miniature it is with these paper thin layers of cake and filling.  An amazing experience.

Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 4 2022 - The Four Corners Near You

 

The four corners of the earth is still a phrase in use.  Some think it is physical and real, such as the Flat Earthers, and their identification of Fogo Island as one of the corners.  Is there any actual agreement on where the four corners are - either historically in ancient texts or currently by some mathematical calculation?  Wikipedia outlines the history aspect: Several cosmological and mythological systems portray four corners of the world or four quarters of the world corresponding approximately to the four points of the compass (or the two solstices and two equinoxes). At the center may lie a sacred mountain, garden, world tree, or other beginning-point of creation. Often four rivers run to the four corners of the world, and water or irrigate the four quadrants of Earth. Here's a practical answer from study.com that shows the journey of this phrase: "The term 'corner' is often used in mathematics to describe the spot at which two lines or planes intersect. In everyday life, we use 'corner' to describe the place where two streets come together. The phrase, 'four corners of the Earth' means from every direction. Since the Earth is a sphere, it cannot, by definition, have actual corners. The phrase 'four corners of the Earth' comes from the Bible. Some say that it is an erroneous translation that should actually be the four 'extremities' of the Earth. For example, in Isaiah 11:10-12 (New King James Version), the Bible says, '...And will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the Earth.' What this means is that people from every direction (north, south, east, and west) will be gathered together." This seems similar to how the traditions of Christmas have become based on interpretations and translations of religious texts, particularly the Bible, given how dominant it is as a religion. And we find something very practical about the idea of "four corners", that is, a quadripoint - where four lines meet geographically.  There is only one international quadripoint.  This is a spot in the middle of the Zambezi River, in southern Africa, where Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana all touch. There are 150 different tripoints in the world - where three nations meet.   Within countries, who has the most Tripoints?  China has 16, Russia has 14 and Austria has 9. This is the website with the information HERE.  The website is "Everything Explained".   Here's what it has to say about Canada's quadripoint: The full details are here in Four corners (Canada). The creation of the Canadian territory of Nunavut might have resulted in the creation of a quadripoint between the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the territories of Nunavut and Northwest Territories (NWT). Nunavut was officially separated from the Northwest Territories in 1999, though the boundaries had been defined in 1993 by the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement. Both documents define Nunavut's boundary as including the "intersection of 60°00'N latitude with 102°00'W longitude, being the intersection of the Manitoba, Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan borders". However, the northernmost point of the Manitoba–Saskatchewan border as surveyed is slightly off from 60° north 102° west, therefore the laws are not perfectly clear about whether the Nunavut–NWT boundary, which has not been surveyed, is to meet the others in a quadripoint or not. Here's another manipulated image.  This one might be called "Ascension Towards the Light".  The original motion blur picture is below - it is the birch tree around the corner - the orange is the red brick of the house.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 7 2021 - The Earth vs earth or aka The earth's earth

 

It is odd that we use earth as soil and as our place of existence - the planet we live on. It seems strange that we didn't "reserve" the name of our planet.  We did that with the other planets. My thinking is reversed.  We should look at how things evolved. The name Earth comes from English/German which means the ground.  The Old English words 'eor(th)e and 'earth' or in German 'erde'. One site says: "Earth has different names in different languages. It’s called ‘terra’ in Portuguese, ‘dünya’ in Turkish and ‘aarde’ in Dutch, just to name a few with their own etymology. However, the common thread in all languages is that they were all derived from the same meaning in their origins, which is ‘ ground’ or ‘soil’." Sciencefocus says:  The Greeks and Romans named most of the planets in the Solar System after particular gods, and we have kept those names in English. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all unknown in classical times, were named by the modern astronomers who discovered them, but still after Greek and Roman gods. So Earth is the one exception. Its name, according to the official gazetteer of planetary discovery, comes from the Indo-European base ‘er’, which produced the Germanic noun ‘ertho’, the modern German ‘erde’, Dutch ‘aarde’, Danish and Swedish ‘jord’, and English ‘earth’. Livescience says: One interesting fact about its name: Earth is the only planet that wasn't named after a Greek or Roman god or goddess.  And we don't know who first used the world for the planet.  A mystery. More Chrysanthemums today.

Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Sep 12 2020 - Four Corners of the Earth

 

None of us are travelling for a while.  But our love of place means anywhere we think about is somewhere someone has gone.  Is that the case?  Can I go travelling on the internet and experience the four corners of the world?   The four corners of the earth has been referenced for thousands of years - here's one reference from the Bible in Revelation 7:1: "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree." From such mighty images, the four corners of the earth has come into our general expressions over time - the far ends of the world; all parts of the world.  So even though we've left behind the idea that the earth with actual corners, we can still enjoy this image that for me references a vast blanket. But don't think we've evolved that much.  There are those who are compelled to keep the four corners physically with us.  According to the Flat Earth Society, Brimstone Head on Fogo Island is one of the Four Corners.  This is quite the tourist destination - many people have checked it out for their travel blogs.  The Flat Earth Society's Warning Notice stands at the outlook.  One can visit the Flat Earth Society Museum on Fogo Island, too.  One of the tourist activities is to admire the vast night sky in such a remote place.  This seems humorous to me.     The four corners are outlined at the Fogo Island outlook:  Papa New Guinea, the Bermuda Triangle, Fogo, and Hydra (Greece).  It is odd that the picture shows a triangle.  I wanted to see four corners that stretched across the entire world - like my big blanket metaphor.     That seems to me to be the real evolution here - the four corners of the world are now tourist destinations rather than Book of Revelations destruction points. I drive along Highway 8 and past Cherry Street all the time.  The pictures below are from 2009 when there was an uncultivated field at the north-west corner and it was full of wild flowers.   Now it is a vineyard, all neat and productive.  We get a nice view of all the wildflowers of Ontario - purple Asters, yellow Hawkweed, and of course Goldenrod.  This year's Goldenrod is abundant, with large drifts just coming into colour now.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to have that surprise moment of the red-jacket bicyclist come into view again.

Read past POTD's at my Blog: http://blog.marilyncornwell.com Purchase at: FAA - marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca