Prone To Decay Part I

Prone To Decay Part I

LANGUAGE

     This new post of mine is going to be quite large so I plan to break it down into multiple posts. This post is still grounded in science but will now spill over into other subjects. There are many things I have observed and have thoughts about and they all relate to one single scientific law. There are many scientific laws such as the law of gravity, for example. A scientific law is an independently and sufficiently verified description of a direct link between the cause and effect of a phenomenon, deduced from experiments and/or observations. Also called laws of science, scientific laws are considered established and universally applicable to certain class of things or phenomenon under appropriate conditions. There are scientific laws of Thermodynamics and The Second Law of Thermodynamics in essence states that everything in existence tends towards chaos and disorder. It is a tested and proven fact that everything gets worse not better. The only way something can be improved is with direct intervention by an outside variable of some sort. Everywhere around us we all can look and see this scientific law being enacted in all that we see and come into contact with. We all age, everything dies at some point, things rot, metal rusts, food molds, paint fades, faces wrinkle, hair becomes gray, sight becomes blurry, things fall apart, cars break down, hearts fail, lungs collapse, etc. The list can go on and on. I believe I made my point that everything becomes disorderly, chaotic, and falls apart without some other variable to repair, replenish, or put things back in place.

     I’ve always thought about this fact in a material sense. I think about houses that need new roofs or cars that rust or about the faded wallpaper in a house. But with the way the world is I also have now realized that this law seems to be true for ethics, morals, language, business practices, knowledge, health, and so much more. I would like to write about each of these topics, not necessarily in that order.

     One of these topics that have bothered me the most lately is the realization that language is also falling apart and people’s ability to communicate is weakening. I am prey to this problem as well. I make plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes of my own. I am certainly not claiming to have it all together but I have taught English to many students and my wife teaches English at a university and the things I have seen have absolutely amazed me, much to my chagrin.

     The first year university students that my wife teaches were handpicked and given scholarships to attend a university. For all intents and purposes, I will keep it as anonymous as possible. These students were chosen because they are considered to be the smartest and brightest of all the students in their class. They have not begun their field of study yet but most of them have expressed that they plan to become scholars or lawyers after graduating from the university. My wife teaches an English course at this university. Her students are self-proclaimed geniuses and experts. They constantly brag about how smart they are and act like they are better than all the other students by showing off that they are in school on a scholarship. The students are so arrogant that they have the audacity to tell the teacher that she is wrong and argue with her over their answers. I have seen some of the homework from these students and it is absolutely horrible. If I were their teacher, I would flunk all of them.

     Their recent assignment was to write a report about genetically modified food and its effects on people. Here are just a few example sentences of what they wrote in their reports:

“For instance genetically modified food has been done by modification of food that is to put nutrient into the food.”

“It can causes.”

“By doing genetically modified food.”

“All the political people are agree with them.”

“Many of us still blur and do not concern on the harmful effects of GM food.”

“Genetic engineering concept have been used for centuries.”

     Now keep in mind, these are what the students consider to be complete sentences. They have also argued with my wife that their answers are correct and that they should be given more points on their homework and tests. Yet, that is only an example of how the best of the best write sentences. Let’s look at how they spell:

Difficultness [Difficult]
Wet her [Whether]
Faulties [Faults]
Outcompete [Outperform]
Dissolvency [Dissolve]
Dramastically [Dramatically]
Genenetic [Genetic]
Futher [Further]
Prsue [Pursue]
Encomposed [Encompassed]
Porfit [Profit]
Salvation [Starvation]
Statisfied [Satisfied]
Enchane [Enhance]
Shelter Life [Shelf Life]
Aravle [Available]
Inserts [Insect]
Inexact [Inaccurate]
Majoritically [Majority]
Hawt [Hot]

     This is just a small portion of the massive amount of mistakes my wife has had to mark. Yet, the students proclaim to be experts at English and want to be lawyers and scholars. I have one last example and this is one of the most tragic. A test was given to them and on this test was a fill-in-the-blank section. The sentence had a blank after the word “leap”. Please note, this is not the actual sentence, but I am making up an example sentence to portray what the essence of the question was. “In the world today, modern technology is rapidly advancing. From what the technology used to be, computers have taken a huge leap __________ in such a short time.” Okay now, do you want to know what the class wrote as their answers? The following are seven of the answers given by the students:

1: Leap Performances
2: Leap Dash
3: Leap Off
4: Leap Action
5: Leap To
6: Leap Frogged
7: Leap Frogging

     But enough with the university students, this problem permeates everything, even the media. I can’t count how many times I have read articles online and found spelling or grammar mistakes in the news articles. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am no wiz at English. In fact, I consider myself to be quite bad at English. English is a difficult language and there are many things about English I simply don’t know or I have forgotten over the years, especially in the realm of vocabulary. I have forgotten a lot of vocabulary. But when it comes to the television media, news articles, newspapers, movies, and books, these things should be checked by an editor. There are people that are paid to check for mistakes and if mistakes get past them they aren’t doing their job. Everybody makes mistakes when they write but a professional source employs professional editors to check for mistakes and to make sure none exist.

     For example, it was just in the news about Michael Jackson not showing up to court because he is sick, again. If you visit the site via this link you will see a couple of errors right away. Look at the third small paragraph. It says, “It would be unwise for him to travel, given what’s he’s got now…” The word “what’s” should be “what”. And the very next line is wrong too. In the next line, “for the obvious reasons” should read, “for obvious reasons”. I was a bit surprised that there were two mistakes in the first three small paragraphs. I didn’t even continue reading the article, I just stopped right there.

Commonly Misused Words and Phrases

     The link provided above is an article I read online just a few days ago. The article is well written and has a lot of insightful information. I highly suggest reading it. It has some great information in it. It is on the topic of English words and phrases that most people misuse or don’t truly understand. It is amazing how many words and phrases people use wrongly. But the irony of this article is that the writer is trying to correct these English mistakes and makes an English mistake of their own. Oh, the irony. If you look at the fourth word in the article, “peruse” and read the first sentence you will see a mistake. The sentence reads, “I think everyone falls pray to conflicting nature of peruse—and it’s no wonder.” The word “pray” should be spelled as “prey”.

     Now, I don’t even have to touch the topic of blogs, chat programs, online community sites, chat rooms, and forums. Many people have noticed how horrible the English found at these sources can be. It ranges from bad punctuation to the lack of punctuation entirely. These posts also show a range from the lack of capitalizing letters to writing in all caps. There is a mixture of bad grammar, poor spelling, and just simply writing with acronyms. Then there is the topic of “1337”. Don’t even get me started on that. It has become a language all of its own. The sad thing is when I see people that use “1337” in school reports, presentations, or even job résumé’s. Believe it or not, I have even met people who speak with “1337” in their daily conversations. These same people mock you and ridicule you for having proper English because they think that they are right and you are wrong. This happens when you use words they are unfamiliar with and they treat you as if you are stupid when in fact they are the ones that can’t speak proper English.

     This post is already very long and I could go on and on with examples. I have seen so many things that are so absolutely absurd that I can’t believe what it is that I am experiencing. The English language has taken a huge plummet over recent years and seems to be spinning rapidly out of control as it continues to get worse.

     The intriguing thing about this is that it is not limited to English. I have friends who speak many other languages and I have friends who are from many other countries; all of them have told me that even in their own languages it has begun to decay and people don’t know how to speak or write properly anymore. Another phenomena taking place is the meaning of words changing. It is mind boggling to see how many languages have new slang words that have a different literal meaning than the slang meaning. This type of occurrence is something that has just taken off in recent years. Languages have always changed and evolved over time, but it is now evident of how much languages are falling apart and now becoming meaningless and confusing.

     I have learned that older versions of the English language are much more descriptive. Today many words change their meaning based on their context. If someone says, “That’s hot!” you won’t know if they mean that it is spicy, hot to touch, popular, or sexy, unless you know the context of the phrase. Just like the word “love”. Love could mean a romantic love, erotic love, brotherly love, or affection. I have studied foreign languages and it is amazing how some languages are very descriptive and have different words for almost everything. With a language that is very descriptive it is easier to get very specific and clear, but to do this in English you need supporting words to form the context in order to know the meaning of the specific word being used.

     Depending on what era you are from, you could find yourself confused with vocabulary as well. Many words have changed their meaning over time. For example, the word “let” used to mean, “to hinder” but now it means “to allow”. The word “Queer” used to mean “strange”, “gay” used to mean “happy”, and “fag” used to mean “cigarette”. Use any of those words now and you will see they have a completely new meaning. If you want a cigarette and you say, “I want a fag.” or if you see a strange person walking around and you say, “That person is queer.” or you feel happy and you tell your friends, “I am gay.”; you will discover a completely different reaction than what you were expecting and find people believing things about you that aren’t necessarily true.

     Lastly, I would like to point out how the English language has become corrupted, dirty, and perverse in recent years. There were so many things you used to be able to say and nobody would bat an eye, but if you say it now you will be accused of being a pervert or sexually harassing somebody. Very common and innocent words have now become iffy. You have to chose your words carefully and think about how someone might take it. The name Richard is a prime example of this. Most people know that Dick is a shortened way of saying Richard; however, if you holler to somebody and say, “Hey Dick!” you may find yourself with an unexpected reaction. If you are trying to set up an appointment with somebody and you ask them, “So when can you come?” you may hear people snicker as if you said something funny. The list can go on and on with examples of how many words have a dirty, perverse, or sexual connotation to it nowadays. The words used to be seen as clean and innocent. There is clear evidence of a rapid decay of languages spoken globally. It is not just limited to English and it is such a tragic thing to behold.

     So this is just one example of how the Second Law of Thermodynamics is truly at work. Everything is moving towards disorder and chaos. Everything is falling apart, rotting, and decaying. I previously, hadn’t noticed that it stretches and penetrates every aspect of existence. Everything is falling apart and deteriorating, even language. And with this in mind, it is so ironic that people think the world and everything in it are improving. You really believe that?

The Age Of The Universe?

     All of the topics in my blog thus far have been science related. I do not intend for my entire blog to be science topics, but so many questions pop into my mind when I learn of new scientific data. In this blog post I am not seeking to prove or disprove evolution or to say who is right or wrong. I simply want the reader to stop and think about the facts before coming to their conclusion. Some people believe the universe is billions of years old and some people believe the universe is under seven-thousand years old. Regardless of who is right or wrong, there are many different views on scientific data. I simply just want to take a look at the facts and think about the facts logically.

     In regards to the age of everything in our universe there are certain things that would be limiting factors. For example, if you find a sunken ship in the ocean with a chest of coins on it and you look at the dates of these coins, these dates will determine a limiting factor of when the ship sank. If there is a coin with a date that says 1475, another coin’s date that says 1620, and lastly a coin with the date of 1730 on it, then you will know that the ship could not have sank before 1730. You do not know the exact date it sank because there isn’t any more information to work with, but you know it couldn’t have sank before 1730. The 1730 coin is now the limiting factor.

     So it may not be possible to know the exact age of the universe or how long the Earth has been in existence, but there are limiting factors. One such factor is the spiral galaxies themselves. Let’s look at the scientific facts only. It is a scientific fact that there are spiral armed galaxies in the universe. It is a fact that we live in such a galaxy. It is a fact that the galaxies are spinning. It is a fact that the galaxies are spinning faster on the inside and spin slower the further you get to the outside edge of that galaxy. Those are all the facts. So with these facts come the conclusions. Well, a scientist can tell you that at the rate of speed the galaxy is spinning and the fact that it is spinning faster in the center – and if the universe were really billions of years old – there would not be any spiral arm galaxies in existence. Because of this fact, the spiral arm galaxies would have lost their arms long ago.

     Another strange fact is the fact that the planets in our solar system are radiating heat and are in the process of cooling off. This is a real and proven scientific fact. It is also a fact that the planets receive heat from the sun. It is a fact that the planets radiate much more heat than they ever acquire from the sun. If the solar system were billions of years old, the planets could not possibly be radiating this kind of heat.

     Jupiter has a moon that is named Ganymede. Ganymede has a very strong magnetic field. Science has record of the known fact that magnetic fields are generated by the liquid motion of molten metal inside of a body. Because of known and proven scientific facts, Ganymede should have cooled solid billions of years ago but it hasn’t.

     One recent scientific fact that I learned of really got me thinking. Did you know that Saturn’s rings are unstable and moving away from the planet? This is also a scientific fact. If Saturn’s rings are moving farther and farther away from the planet, then you can logically conclude that if Saturn is billions of years old it would not have any rings.

     Or let’s take the moon as an example. The moon is known to collect space dust because its own gravitational pull as it circles the Earth. Scientists calculated that the moon would accumulate approximately an inch of dust every 1,000 years. When building the landing craft for the moon landing, that took place on July 20th 1969, it was built with wide disks at the base of its legs to disperse the weight of the craft to prevent it from falling through the space dust that has collected on the moon all of these years. Over 500 million people worldwide watched this event on television when Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon, and seeming surprises, made a comment about the ground being solid. This is a recorded fact and was witnessed by many. The audio file of this event can be found online. During the trip to the moon, samples of the dirt and space dust were taken. When the space dust was measured, there was only six inches of space dust. The scientists were right about their calculations that the moon gains an inch of dust every 1,000 years, so why did the moon only have six inches of dust? This puts a limiting factor of 6,000 years on the moon’s existence.

     Or to continue with the topic of the moon; did you know that the Earth is slowly losing the moon? As the moon circles the Earth, it gradually moves farther and farther away. Scientists are aware of this and it is another recorded fact. The moon moves about three inches farther away from the Earth each year. As large as the moon and Earth are, you may think, “Three inches? What difference does three inches make? That is so insignificant!” No, on the contrary, if you do the math and calculate it out you will find that the moon could not have been here more than a few thousand years before it would be so close to the Earth that no life could exist, when calculating the effects of its drifting away. As we all know, the moon affects life on Earth in many ways; one of the main ways is through the ocean tides.

     Mankind has known about comets for many years down through history. The tail of a comet is nothing more than particles and pieces of the comet breaking off and deteriorating. Scientists have calculated that a comet’s life expectancy is approximately 10,000 years. So if the universe is billions of years old there should no longer be any comets. So why do we still have comets? This phenomena alone limits the universe to being 10,000 years old.

     The Earth’s magnetic field is getting weaker and weaker all the time. The Earth’s magnetic strength has declined 10% just in the past 150 years. This fact alone now limits the Earth’s age to a maximum of 25,000 years old.

     The Earth spins at 1,000 miles per hour, but the Earth is slowing down by one second per day. If the Earth were billions of years old it would have been spinning so fast that nothing could live on the surface. In fact, the winds alone would be at speeds of up to 5,000 miles per hour due to the Coriolis Effect.

     The Sahara Desert is another limiting factor. To know more about this just read my very first blog post. The Sahara Desert, alone, puts a 5,000 year cap on the desert itself.

     These days, the economy and prices of gasoline are a constant headline in the news. But did you ever stop to think about where our gasoline and oil come from? Yes, obviously, they come from beneath the ground. It is commonly known that the oil underneath the Earth’s surface is under extreme pressure and when people drill for oil, the oil bursts up to the surface and shoots out like a giant fountain. It is logical to conclude that “some” of that pressure is obviously from the weight of the rocks and dirt of the Earth bearing down on top of it. However, the weight of all the rock and earth, alone, could not hold all of that oil down for very long. In fact, scientists have stated that the weight of the earth on top of the oil, alone, could only hold the oil down, under pressure, for a maximum of 10,000 years. So if the Earth were billions of years old, there would not be any more pressure to hold the oil down anymore and it would have already risen to the surface.

     It is another proven fact that the population of the Earth is increasing. Over time censuses have been taken to record the population of people on the Earth. Historians and archaeologists have found documentation and records of censuses taken and ancient historians records of populations during their times. Approximately, 2,000 years ago there were about 250 million people living on the Earth at that time. By 1800, there were now 1 billion people on Earth. In 1930 we reached the 2 billion mark. In 1962 we were at 3 billion people. By the year 2000, the Earth now had a population of 6 billion people. So in just a mere 200 years, the Earth went from 1 billion people to 6 billion people. Now, this is much easier math to calculate here. If the population can multiply by six, in just 200 years and if man has really been on the Earth for 3 million years like the theories in the textbooks say, then by now there would be 150,000 people per square inch covering the entire world. As you most likely know, that just isn’t possible.

     So in conclusion, the question stands, “How old is everything in this universe?” I leave it up to you to come to your own opinion on that. I do not know how old the universe is. The only thing I know are the scientific facts that have been publically revealed to the world through science. And from the facts, people have come to entirely polar opposite conclusions from these facts. Some people believe everything is billions of years old and some people believe that everything is less than 7,000 years old. What you want to believe is up to you. I am attempting to be unbiased in my blog post here by simply stating scientific facts and not my opinions.

The Big Bang Theory

     I am not a scientist and I have a very limited knowledge of scientific subjects, which may be why I have all the unique questions that I have. When I was a child I was taught that in the beginning there was originally nothing and then nothing exploded in what is known as the Big Bang theory, and everything that exists today came from that. At the time I was taught this I didn’t question it or think about it at all. I mean I was just a child, who was I to question what the teachers taught me? I remember very clearly reading a textbook in high school named “The Origin of the Universe”. This textbook was an HBJ General Science book from 1989. I remember it so clearly; it had a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge on it. In chapter 17.6 on page 362 it says, “In the realm of the universe, nothing really means nothing. Not only matter and energy would disappear, but also space and time. However, physicists theorize that from this state of nothingness the universe began in a gigantic explosion about 16.5 billion years ago. This theory of the origin of the universe is called the Big Bang theory.”

     Being so young, I didn’t know any better, but when you stop and think about what the textbook says, it really doesn’t seem very logical. Now, I know the Big Bang theory is exactly that, a theory, but theories should have some sort of logic or observable evidence to it. How do you have nothing and then nothing explodes causing everything to come into existence from nothing exploding?

     Once again, I am not a scientist and I am not saying the Big Bang theory is true or not, I am simply just trying to make “logical” sense of the things I have been taught. However, I know that 1989 was a very long time ago and the theory has been updated since then. Yet even as recent as April of 2002 in Discover Magazine, it essentially said the same thing. The magazine cover had the subtitle, “Where Did Everything Come From?” An excerpt from the article says, “The universe burst into something from absolutely nothing – zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere. How is that possible? Ask Alan Guth. His theory of inflation helps explain everything.”

     And to look up this subject today, the theory has remained the same. Scientists still believe that once there was nothing and nothing was swirling together inside of a tiny region smaller than a dot on a page, and as the dot filled with nothing, nothing exploded which resulted in galaxies, stars, moons, and planets. I am not against people having theories. People can believe anything they want to believe. I just feel like there should at least be some logic to a theory like this if they are going to call it “science”.

     On the topic of everything swirling inside of this “dot”, also called an “infinitesimal region”, then when it exploded sending forth everything that exists in the universe, everything would naturally be spinning in the same direction right? I mean, that is a logical assumption, is it not? We have scientific laws that explain how everything works don’t we?

     There is a scientific law known as the Conservation of Angular Momentum. This law states that it is a measure of the momentum of a body in rotational motion. The angular momentum of rigid bodies is conserved; thus, a spinning sphere will continue to spin unless acted on by an outside force. So this law is saying that if something is spinning and then it breaks into pieces, all the pieces will be spinning in the same direction unless the pieces are stopped or thier speed and direction gets changed by another source.

     According to the Conservation of Angular Momentum, when the Big Bang took place and everything exploded from nothing, everything in the universe would be expanding and spinning in the same direction. So if this is the case, then why is it that Venus, Uranus, and Pluto are rotating backwards compared to the other planets in our solar system? There are more than 90 moons in our solar system and 8 of them also spin backwards. In fact, some entire galaxies are spinning in the opposite direction.

     So the question is, “Is the Big Bang theory accurate?” I don’t know because I wasn’t there; I am older than I look but I’m not that old. I wasn’t there to witness it happen and once again it is only a theory. I just find it a strange theory that doesn’t “appear” to be very well devised. There should also be some kind of observable evidence, but the only things that we can observe seem to contradict the theory because of the fact that they are backwards.

     I am curious what you think. Please write your comments and constructive feedback to this post. No flaming please. This is meant to be for intellectual conversations and postings. I am not in the mood to argue with people or for people to accuse me of this or that. I am simply stating facts that I have observed and expressing my questions on the subject. I said before that I am not an expert in such things. I just read what the teachers made me read and questions sprang up from that. It was a moment that caused me to “stop to think” about it.

Red Giants To White Dwarfs

     As I stated in my previous blog entry, I have always had a deep love and fascination with anything relating to astronomy. I used to know a lot about astronomy when I was younger, but I have forgotten so much of it. And these days, so much new knowledge has been found that it is hard to keep up with how quickly things advance and change. However, I had fairly recently attended an astronomy class at a university. The textbook had a lot of great information, but there were always things that caused me to have deep nagging questions to wrestle with.

     One such question came after learning that it takes billions of years for a red giant star to evolve into a white dwarf star. I have never questioned it until I learned that ancient astronomers have records that say something different. Cicero, in 50 B.C. stated that the star known as Sirius was red. Seneca also recorded Sirius as being red and stated that Sirius was redder than Mars. Ptolemy listed Sirius as one of the 6 red stars in 150 A.D.

     Today, Sirius is a white dwarf star. I am no mathematician but I am able to do simple addition and subtraction and I can easily figure out that from 150 A.D. to now is not billions of years. So my question is how does a red giant become a white dwarf in such a short time if my astronomy textbook told me it takes billions of years?

Supernova Remnants

     I have always had a deep love and fascination with astronomy. Since I was a child I would look up at the stars and wonder if I would ever get to visit other planets? I always pondered the existence of other life on other planets and how many stars there might be in outer space. Growing up, as a child, I used to know the names of all the Constellations and I could easily point them out in the night sky. I knew all the planet and moon names and in what order they were in, from first to last.

 

 

     When I was attending a university, I enrolled in an astronomy class. The class taught many things that spawned new questions in my mind. I had a number of questions relating to the stars and supernovas in result of this class. I learned, as we all know, that a star is a self-luminous celestial body consisting of a mass of gas held together by its own gravity in which the energy generated by nuclear reactions in the interior is balanced by the outflow of energy to the surface, and the inward-directed gravitational forces are balanced by the outward-directed gas and radiation pressures.

 

 

     Later, the class arrived at the topic of supernovas. A supernova is when a star undergoes a sudden, extreme increase in brightness across the electromagnetic spectrum, followed by a more gradual decrease lasting from several days to several months. Supernovae occur when a star collapses suddenly at the end of its life, condensing its core material into an extremely compact mass that then undergoes a slight rebound. The resulting shock wave sends all matter surrounding the core flying into space, leaving a neutron star at the site of the core’s collapse. The shockwave induces further fusion in the matter surrounding the collapsed core.

 

 

     So to put it more simply, a star implodes on itself and the energy and shockwave it releases exceeds that of the output of the entire galaxy. Such a thing should easily be detectable for millions of years after its implosion. When I learned that very few supernova remnants have been observed I questioned where the other supernova remnants are? Scientists say that a supernova occurs approximately every 25 years or so and leaves behind very observable evidence that should last millions of years. So if our universe is billions of years old, where are all the supernova remnants? Why is it that approximately 200 supernova remnants have been found and no more than that? Shouldn’t there be thousands; or even millions of them? So why are they absent?

The Sahara Desert’s Age?

     I’ve always been fascinated with science fiction and with ancient histories of different nations. Egypt has always been so fascinating to me. As a child I remember wondering how the pyramids were built and when they were built. I personally don’t know much about Egypt. I haven’t studied about it enough to know that much about it. I know there are many theories as to who built the Great Pyramid at Giza and how it was done. The movie Stargate suggested that aliens built the Great Pyramid at Giza as a landing platform for their spaceships. Regardless of when or how the pyramids were built I have had other questions. In my mind I always asked myself, “Why would a nation of people build a society in the middle of a desert?” That never made any sense to me. But after reading books about Egypt and having looked at illustrations of slaves building the pyramids, it is always in the sand of the desert. I thought to myself again, “Where is their water coming from? Where do they get their food? If they have to travel to a place outside the desert to get these things that would be very inconvenient and costly to them and yet they were such a great and powerful nation.” For years, those questions have always been in the back of my mind, but I have never really thought too seriously about them. After all, they were just passing questions not a burning need to know.

     Then recently I was reminded of the fact that the Sahara Desert continuously grows bigger and bigger each year. Then it dawned on me, “If the Sahara Desert is getting bigger and bigger each year, then at one point there wouldn’t have been a desert at all. I wonder how many years can be mathematically subtracted when taking the factor of its yearly growth into account?”

     With some research I found out that some scientists believe it is “around” 4,000 to 5,000 years old or so because of its rate of yearly growth and an entity known as a prevailing wind pattern. A prevailing wind pattern is a wind that blows predominantly from a single general direction. So maybe not always, but most of the time, the wind blows in the same direction making the Sahara continue to grow in the same direction, for the most part. I don’t know for sure, but I thought that I read somewhere that the Sahara grows at a rate of 30 miles (48 kilometers) per year.

     So this is where the questions come into play; were the Egyptians living in a desert or was it originally a lush and fruitful environment? My second question is a bit off the path but it got me thinking just the same; why do scientists sometimes say that the Sahara has been developing over the past 50 million years? That just doesn’t seem physically possible. I’m no scientist and I humbly admit that I don’t know much, but if it grows at a rate of approximately 30 miles a day and you do the math on it; that would make it impossible for it to exist beyond about 5,000 years. If it has been in existence for 50 million years, the whole planet would be a desert, it would seem.

     I don’t know that’s just my two cents on the matter. I just thought it was interesting and I’d love to get some “constructive” feedback. I say “constructive” because I would like to have intellectual conversations about this. So if you don’t have anything good to say just keep silent. There are a lot of people that just like to flame anyone with a differing viewpoint than them. I am personally not saying the Sahara is or is not 50 million years old. I am leaving it open for discussion and debate. I honestly don’t know I wasn’t alive that long ago. I just stopped to think about it and realized that if the Earth is billions of years old we should have a bigger desert some place, at the very least. So please tell me your thoughts on the subject, but please write something intelligent as opposed to flaming.

     There are a couple sayings which I am sure you have heard, “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all” and “It is better to keep your mouth shut and let men suspect you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”