Modelling of nature-questions with computer-code has been developed using the Life program by Conway. This simple code produces stricking results, even though the code itself is fully define and unchanging.
There is the alternative technique of self-modifying code, which may offer further modelling opportunities.
Mountain Beaver skull, top view
Mountain Beaver, binomial Aplodontia rufa, is very familiar to country residents of the coastal Pacific Northwest, but less so in the towns and cities, or on University campuses, where it may have an aura of mystery (or misinformation). Though many rural citizens rarely see the animal itself, they are well aware of it from the abundant holes and dirt-piles it excavates (and its landscape-depredations). The general country can seem saturated with the tunnel-warrens of mountain beaver. … cont’d >
Nuclear Quadrapole Resonance, NQR, is a science tool, technique or instrument of the same family as the more-familiar MRI or Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Both probe the nucleus structure of the atom or molecule using radio waves and coils attached to electronic circuits.
NQR equipment can be built in elementary forms that are simple, undemanding and inexpensive – yet useful. MRI, however, generally requires a larger commitment in engineering, support and financing.
NQR resembles the Fluorescence of minerals under a ‘black-light’ or ultraviolet illumination, which has been used as an exploration tool. This type of ad hoc fluorescence works very well, is easy & cheap … but it does not give the same results for the same materials & substances, in different conditions. Variations of impurities or chemical and environmental factors can lead to different results for different samples of the same material. (This sensitivity can of course also be useful…)
MRI, on the other hand, is not influenced by incidental complications, the way NQR is. This allows certainty that NQR can’t give, and in cases like medicine this can be the difference between acceptable and not.
Quadrapole resonance has received attention in the late 20th & early 21st C, as a practical method of detecting buried landmines. Princess Diana was famous for spearheading the landmine initiative. The high variant-sensitive of NQR, which can impair its formal scientific utility (or disqualify it in medical applications) means that it can detect an arbitrary object in varying ground-materials, and may even detect that specimens of the exact same model of explosive device were made at different (specific) factories, which can then deprive makers, providers and users of plausible deniability.
Continental Divide of North America
Continental Divide watersheds of North America center on a dramatic mountain range that parts the West & East watersheds in a sharp north-south line. It is also a formidable physical barrier, or divide. Furthermore, the mountains that form this line rise sharply from the prairie lands that occupy the center of the continent. Approached from the flat prairies during exploration, the mountains looked like a wall on the horizon, so the divide was very conspicuous. … cont’d >
Iron Age axe, Gotland, Sweden
The spread of Iron Smelting and Blacksmithing during the Iron Age could have led to a much more widespread familiarity with technology among the general population, than had been the case during the preceding Bronze Age. Although mining of ore and production of iron products was often under the purview of powerful business entities and state authorities, iron can also be obtained by small groups and in informal contexts, and there is evidence that this sort & level of activity was present. The shortlived and perhaps temporary Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, engaged in iron-production, in a very isolated and remote setting; a boat-load of hard-scrabble Greenland colonists, recent refugees from Iceland, out exploring on their own. They needed nails for the boat; they made small pieces of iron from local stuff, and beat-out some nails. … cont’d >