Sunday, March 13, 2011

Uranus, Uranium and the arrow of time

The chemical element Uranium, discovered in 1789 by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, was named after the newly discovered planet Uranus...That is on Wikipedia. Uranium is the fuel of the nuclear plant. Right now there is a lot of attention for radiation levels, following the earthquake in Japan. Right now Uranus is in the first degree of Aries. 


Earlier I studied the historic events during Uranus in Aries (in the first degree) and I found few Historic Events, except for the invention of the first accelerator. There were no nuclear plants in those days. That is a new situation. 


A week ago I watched Professor Brian Cox about the Second Law of Thermodynamics related to the universe. If I understood him well, he said:
- entropy increases
- from order to disorder
- past will change
- future won't return to past 
That is the arrow of time. Everything must eventually end. And when it ends, we can't get things back as they used to be. Change is all around.


Picture this: a piece of ice falling of a gletscher will never get out of the water again and manage to stick to that wall like before. (The idea about the universe is, that in the end there will be nothing left but a minuscule dark spot.)


That is what happens with history and the positions of planets, too. Nothing is the same as it was before. 


When Uranus was named 'Uranus' (a few years after Herschel spotted the planet), there was shortage of food in Europe (because of dust of the vulcano Laki). The French Revolution followed, a few years later than the outburst of Laki. There was no Uranus-Pluto or Uranus at Aries Point. And there was no nuclear plant.



That is what crossed my mind...

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