Universe is created, according to Kepler on April 27, 4977

Universe is created, according to Kepler: On this day in 4977 B.C., the universe is created, according to German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler, considered a founder of modern science. Kepler is best known for his theories explaining the motion of planets.

Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Germany. As a university student, he studied the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’ theories of planetary ordering. Copernicus (1473-1543) believed that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system, a theory that contradicted the prevailing view of the era that the sun revolved around the earth.

In 1600, Kepler went to Prague to work for Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, the imperial mathematician to Rudolf II, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Kepler’s main project was to investigate the orbit of Mars. When Brahe died the following year, Kepler took over his job and inherited Brahe’s extensive collection of astronomy data, which had been painstakingly observed by the naked eye.

Over the next decade, Kepler learned about the work of Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who had invented a telescope with which he discovered lunar mountains and craters, the largest four satellites of Jupiter and the phases of Venus, among other things. Kepler corresponded with Galileo and eventually obtained a telescope of his own and improved upon the design. In 1609, Kepler published the first two of his three laws of planetary motion, which held that planets move around the sun in ellipses, not circles (as had been widely believed up to that time), and that planets speed up as they approach the sun and slow down as they move away. In 1619, he produced his third law, which used mathematic principles to relate the time a planet takes to orbit the sun to the average distance of the planet from the sun.

Kepler’s research was slow to gain widespread traction during his lifetime, but it later served as a key influence on the English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) and his law of gravitational force. Additionally, Kepler did important work in the fields of optics, including demonstrating how the human eye works, and math. He died on November 15, 1630, in Regensberg, Germany. As for Kepler’s calculation about the universe’s birthday, scientists in the 20th century developed the Big Bang theory, which showed that his calculations were off by about 13.7 billion years.

History Channel / Wikipedia / Britannica Encyclopedia / Space.com / Creation.com Johannes Kepler (YouTube)

Understanding Military Terminology - M-day

(DOD) Mobilization day; unnamed day on which mobilization of forces begins. Joint Publications JP 4-06 (Mortuary Affairs - Defense Technical Information Center)

The Old Salt’s Corner

“O Captain! My Captain!”

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

~ Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, 1867 edition, first published in Saturday Press, New York, 1865)

“I’m Just Sayin”

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

Corollary: “Expenditure rises to meet income.”

~ Parkinson's law

“Thought for the Day”

“Once destroyed,

nature’s beauty cannot be

repurchased at any price.”

~ Ansel Adams

“What I Have Learned”

“Don’t give up now.

Chances are, your best kiss, your hardest laugh, and you greatest day

are still yet to come.”

~ Anonymous

Bizarre News (we couldn’t make up stuff this good – real news story)

Alligator stuns golfers by strutting across the course with a huge FISH in its mouth

Florida golf courses are known all over the world as being home to wildlife, specifically alligators.

Norma Respess lives in Tampa and now has her own “golf course gator” story after she spotted one walking across the green with a huge fish clamped in it's mouth.

She watched along with other stunned golfers as the alligator waltzed across the cart-path at Seven Springs Golf Club and into a water hazard.

Respess posted a video showing just this to her Facebook page, and can be heard making comments in the background.

“That's amazing, I've never seen that before”, she can be heard saying behind the camera.

“I'm glad you got the fish and not me”, she said as the gator entered the water hazard and disappeared from view.

Daily Mail (03/04/2017)

Mr. Answer Man Please Tell Us: What Does a U.S. Ambassador Really Do?

When U.S. diplomats negotiate a treaty, attend a state dinner, or arrange a visa for a traveler to the United States, they all have the same mission—to represent the interests and policies of the United States. Beyond that, diplomats’ roles and responsibilities are immensely varied.

An ambassador is the President’s highest-ranking representative to a specific nation or international organization abroad. An effective ambassador has to be a strong leader - a good manager, a resilient negotiator, and a respected representative of the United States. A key role of an ambassador is to coordinate the activities not only of the Foreign Service Officers and staff serving under him, but also representatives of other U.S. agencies in the country. At some overseas posts, personnel from as many as 27 federal agencies work in concert with embassy staff.

Foreign Service Officers are professional, trained diplomats who represent American interests abroad under the direction of the ambassador. All Foreign Service Officers listen to and observe what is going on in the host country, analyze it, and report to the ambassador and Washington. This makes U.S. policy more sensitive to the needs of other countries and their people. An embassy generally houses five types of Foreign Service Officers:

Economic (or “econ”) Officers work with foreign governments to secure internet freedom, fund scientific advances, protect the environment, or negotiate new trade laws.

Management Officers are action-oriented “go-to” leaders responsible for all embassy, consulate, or diplomatic mission operations from real estate to people to budget.

Political Officers keep the ambassador up-to-date on political events and changes occurring in the country.

Public Diplomacy Officers build mutual understanding and support for U.S. policies by reaching directly to publics in foreign countries working with traditional and social media; websites; educational, cultural and sports programs; and all manner of people-to-people exchange.

Consular Officers’ primary job is assisting and protecting American citizens abroad. If you lose your passport, find yourself in trouble with the law, or want to get married to a foreigner overseas, you’ll need the help of this officer. Consular officers also issue visas to non-U.S. citizens who wish to travel, work, study, or live in the United States.

Diplomacy.State.gov • Job Shadow • Mental Floss • Quora • Wikipedia

Where Did That Saying Come From?

“Fag End”  Meaning: The dregs.

Origin: Nothing to with smoking. In the textiles trade, the last part of the piece of cloth was made of coarser material than the rest and left hanging loose.

It came to be known as the fag end, possibly as a corruption of “flag”, meaning “hang down”.

The Free Dictionary

NAVSPEAK aka U.S. Navy Slang

O-Gang: The wardroom. Officers are O-Gangers. See also A-Gang.

O I: (wish I was asleep): Derogatory remark made by any non-OS rate whenever a OS complains about how bad they have it while underway, because OS's are almost always “Port & Starboard” when underway. OS's constitute “OI Division”.

Just for you MARINE

Pickle Suit: Nickname for Service “A” uniform, from its all over green appearance.

Pinning or Pinning On: Promotion by pinning the new rank insignia onto the MCCUU collar; also a form of hazing by striking the pins into the wearer's chest.

Pisscutter: Nickname for soft green garrison cap worn with the service uniform. See also fore-and-aft cap.

Naval Aviation Squadron Nicknames

HUQ-1 - Unmanned Reconnaissance Helicopter Squadrons
Fleet Replacement Squadron (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, California / Coronado, California

Science & Technology

Neanderthal tooth plaque hints at meals - and kisses • The quest to crystallize time (Bizarre forms of matter called time crystals were supposed to be physically impossible. Now they’re not.) • Synthetic yeast chromosomes help probe mysteries of evolution • Magnetic hard drives go atomic • Show drugs work before selling them • Patchy progress on fixing global gender disparities in science • Rising to the challenge as U.S. states turn the screw on science education

Nature

The Strange, Mysterious or Downright Weird

Turkey Séance Video? Birds Circling Dead Cat Is Normal, Really

A bizarre video of a flock of turkeys circling a dead cat in a Boston neighborhood recently went viral.

Although it looks incredibly strange to human eyes, the behavior is typical for the wild birds, Mark Hatfield, a wildlife biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) in Georgia, said in a blog post.

“They're just making sure that it's no longer a threat”, Hatfield said. “It's more of a curiosity type of thing. Turkeys are very basic.” [The 12 Weirdest Animal Discoveries]

Turkeys have a flock mentality, with one bird typically being a leader, said Pete Muller, the public relations manager for NWTF. When anything resembling a predator shows up in their midst, they have an instinct to follow their natural pecking order, which, in this case, means playing a wary game of follow-the-leader.

“If the cat moved at all, there would be an immediate flock scatter”, Muller told Live Science. Turkeys are fast, too: They can hit top running speeds of 25 mph (40 km/h), according to the National Wildlife Federation.

Live Science (03/03/2017)