Explorations Team supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. He was the recipient of the Allan M. Sachs
Teaching Award at Columbia. With the LIGO Collaboration
he was the co-recipient, among others, of the Breakthrough
Prize, Gruber Prize, Einstein Medal, and the Bruno Rossi
Prize. Education. PhD Columbia University
https://people.clas.ufl.edu/imrebartos/
[ 82 ]A nearby neutron-star merger explains the actinide
abundances in the early Solar System Imre Bartos &
Szabolcs Marka A growing body of evidence indicates that
binary neutron-star mergers are the primary origin of heavy
elements produced exclusively through rapid neutron
capture 1 – 4 (the ‘r-process’). As neutron-star mergers occur
infrequently, their deposition of radioactive isotopes into the
pre-solar nebula could have been dominated by a few nearby
events. Although short-lived r-process isotopes—with half-
lives shorter than 100 million years—are no longer present in
the Solar System, their abundances in the early Solar System
are known because their daughter products were preserved in
high-temperature condensates found in meteorites 5. Here we
report that abundances of short-lived r-process isotopes in the
early Solar System point to their origin in neutron-star
mergers, and indicate substantial deposition by a single
nearby merger event. By comparing numerical simulations
with the early Solar System abundance ratios of actinides
produced exclusively through the r-process, we constrain the
rate of occurrence of their Galactic production sites to within
about 1 − 100 per million years. This is consistent with
observational estimates of neutron-star merger rates 6 – 8 , but
rules out supernovae and stellar sources. We further find that
there was probably a single nearby merger that produced
much of the curium and a substantial fraction of the
plutonium present in the early Solar System. Such an event
may have occurred about 300 parsecs away from the pre-
solar nebula, approximately 80 million years before the
formation of the Solar System.
http://www.nature.com/articles/s 41586 - 019 - 1113 -
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[ 83 ]Five Ages of Man (by Hesiod). The story of the ages
of man can be found in Hesiod's Works and Days, translated
by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, between the verses 109 and 210 ,
starting with the verse 106 after previously talking about the
story of Prometheus, the Theft of godly fire and creation of
Pandora which consequently brought mischief among other
bad things to the mortals. Hesiod believes that mischief is the
reason why his brother Perses is holding back from work and
rather bribes the corrupt judges to get the easy wealth from
his brother. And at the end of the story, in verse 105 , he says
that there is no way to escape the will of Zeus who punished
both Prometheus and mankind for the deceit. In verse 106 it
is evident that Hesiod wants to hold on to that last thought,
where there is no escape to the will of Zeus, when preparing
to tell the story of the ages of man.
http://www.greek-gods.org/mythology/five-ages-of-man.php[ 84 ]Creationism: At a broad level, a Creationist is someone
who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and
earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will. Such a deity is
generally thought to be “transcendent” meaning beyond
human experience, and constantly involved (‘immanent’) in
the creation, ready to intervene as necessary, and without
whose constant concern the creation would cease or
disappear. Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all Creationists
in this sense. Generally they are known as ‘theists,’
distinguishing them from ‘deists,’ that is people who believe
that there is a designer who might or might not have created
the material on which he (or she or it) is working and who
does not interfere once the designing act is finishing. The
focus of this discussion is on a narrower sense of
Creationism, the sense that one usually finds in popular
writings (especially in America today, but expanding world-
wide rapidly). Here, Creationism means the taking of the
Bible, particularly the early chapters of Genesis, as literally
true guides to the history of the universe and to the history of
life, including us humans, down here on earth (Numbers
1992 ). Creationism in this more restricted sense entails a
number of beliefs. These include, first, that a short time has
elapsed since the beginning of everything. ‘Young Earth
Creationists’ think that Archbishop Ussher’s seventeenth-
century calculation of about 6000 years is a good estimate.
Second, that there are six days of creation – there is debate
on the meaning of ‘day’ in this context, with some insisting
on a literal twenty-four hours, and others more flexible. Third,
that there was a miraculous creation of all life including
Homo sapiens — with scope for debate about whether Adam
and Eve came together or if Eve came afterwards to keep
Adam company. Fourth, that there was a world-wide flood
some time after the initial creation, through which only a
limited number of humans and animals survived. Fifth, that
there were other events such as the Tower of Babel and the
turning of Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Creationists (in this
narrow sense) have variously been known as
Fundamentalists or biblical literalists, and sometimes –
especially when they are pushing the scientific grounds for
their beliefs – as Scientific Creationists. Today’s