Artificial Intelligence had its ups and downs in the last 50 years. Early success solving small problems in simulation ignited a flurry of predictions about super intelligent machines taking over the world before the coming of the 21st century. Hampered by a lack of a good understanding of how commonsense reasoning works in people and a lack of computational resources, computers being very slow up until the mid nineties, AI research stalled in the 80s. Many people rushed to dismiss it as nothing more than hot air.

However, science is all about proposing and testing new theories in order to find the best ones. Since the mid-90s, AI research has advanced by leaps and bounds. We now have a better understanding of how the human brain works and that has helped us to find and test better computational models for AI. These in turn have also helped us to better understand the functions of the human brain. New techniques such as statistical analysis are helping intelligent agents to copy with large amounts of information and noisy sensors. Faster computers with vast amounts of storage are allowing us to experiment in more challenging domains and solve larger problems.

It is true that AI has not yet been able to produce a machine capable of commonsense reasoning. However, by specialization, many AI systems are actually running our world today. AI helps us fly airplanes and drive our cars. It aids doctors perform surgery. It helps us find information in the vastness of the World Wide Web. It helps us discover spam email and promptly delete it. It helps us schedule traffic lights and public transportation. It helps us analyze financial markets and make predictions about the outcome of sports events. It aids in surveillance of public spaces improving security and safety. These are only a small sample of the penetration of intelligent systems in our daily lives. Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and I bet it won’t be long before we have the understanding, methods and resources to finally construct thinking and learning machines. Let us wish and hope that such technology would only be used to benefit mankind and not destroy it.

You can find lots of information about AI’ and its50th birthday on the Internet. However, I think that best reading about this topic is the 1955 proposal for the AI workshop. You can read it here.

Artificial Intelligence is 50 years old is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

Animals and The Melting Arctic Ice Cap

There is little dispute that the Arctic ice cap is melting. Since 1979, it has definitively shrunk by 20 percent. The issue amongst most people debating global warming is whether this is because of global warming or just a natural cycle of the planet.

From a common sense point of view, it is difficult to imagine global warming is having no impact on the ice caps. The rising temperature of the planet would seem to be a common sense cause of the melting ice. Alas, common sense rarely seems to be used in debates these days.

As the cap melts, the impact on animals in the area is readily apparent. The primary problem is the reduction of habitat. Polar bears are the most obvious animals suffering from this situation. The habitat of the polar bears is the ice flow areas around the edges of the caps. As the caps melt, the flows are disappearing and pulling back to the extent that there is no ice on the shores. The extent of the melting is such that a Russian ship was able to reach the North Pole in 2005 without the use of an ice breaker. This lost habitat is pushing the polar bears to the edge of extinction. Various estimates put the total population at 20,000 and dropping.

There are, however, positive developments for some species. Recent empirical evidence shows the various seal populations of the Arctic are exhibiting growing population numbers. The exact reason is unclear, but they are appearing more and more in southern regions of the cap, which leads to the conclusion that their habitat is actually expanding.

The receding caps are also opening up extensive new habitats for fish. The melting ice is full of nutrients and fish migration to the new opening seas is astounding. Pink salmon, in particular is being seen spawning in rivers far to the north of their usual spawning grounds.

In general, the impact of the melting Arctic ice caps is a mixed situation. The polar bears certainly dont see anything to be happy about.

Animals and The Melting Arctic Ice Cap is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

In an attempt to make some progress, I decided to pay sixty dollars for a review of my ancient astronaut website. Of course, this was to be a review by skeptics; a review by New Age believers would be worthless. Their blog’s description was “critical reviews of paranormal claims on the Internet.” The intermediary granted them five days to perform their review but that has long since come and gone, and not a word from them. My website presents a vast amount of evidence and, in truth, I could not expect anyone to produce a good critical review in just five days. No one, including myself, would want to see quickly prepared and frivolous arguments, else I would make them look ridiculous in my counter arguments. Moreover, some of my evidence comes from Spanish-language sources and, to start, they would need time to verify that none of it is a hoax. They are welcome to all the time they need.

What to expect from this blog is uncertain. There are skeptics who are as narrow-minded in their thinking as their New Age counterparts, and then again, there are skeptics, like me, who objectively evaluate the evidence to arrive at the truth. Was there a real ancient astronaut? To help the skeptics answer that question, I will give them some ideas on how to refute my theories. Here, solely for space considerations, I will concentrate on the archaeological evidence, leaving aside ideas on how to refute the cryptology and theology evidence for another day.

My website reproduces engravings from the Tiwanaku civilization in Bolivia. One of those engravings depicts the alleged ancient astronaut as an aquatic with a three-pronged tail, with each of the three prongs ending in a pod. How do the skeptics refute that? Easy. They simply need to demonstrate that the shape of those pods resembles some form of animal or plant life to be found in that region. In other words, they need to find a terrestrial source for those engravings, otherwise my extraterrestrial arguments remain unharmed.

The timing of the Tiwanaku sky-god drawings coincides with the timing of the Nazca Lines in Peru, so the ancient astronaut of both places has to be one and the same. For Nazca, the skeptics will find many ready-made arguments, but I consider all of them weak. The mentality of the people of Nazca cannot be assumed to be unique in human history. It has to be demonstrated that people elsewhere also believed that the sun, moon, or sky-spirits had physical eyes that could observe ground drawings. Alternatively, it has to be demonstrated that the people of Nazca worshipped birds, believing them to have cognitive intelligence.

The recorded engravings on the cosmological Sun Disk, alleged alien artifact, may prove to be the biggest challenge for the skeptics. How are we to believe that the Andeans of the early sixteenth century a) knew that the Earth was round, b) knew that it was possible to orbit the Earth, c) knew that sunlight striking the moon could reflect back to strike a spaceship, d) knew that the dark clouds along the Milky Way contained stars within, and e) knew that water formed the basis of plant and animal evolution? Here the skeptics would need to find parallels in the history of western civilization. I look forward to their response.

Ancient Astronauts and Contemporary Skepticism is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

The uses of solar energy on earth include solar heating for buildings, solar heat for manufacturing or industry and electricity production. So what is solar energy? How does it affect us?

Solar energy is responsible for weather systems and ocean currents. It provides light, heat, and energy to all living things on Earth. It has many uses. It supplies electricity; it can be used to power cars.

Solar energy is also used as a power for satellites in space and in space shuttles. It could also power boats, generators during emergencies, toys, and even security systems.

The amount of solar energy that the earth receives is about 770 trillion kilowatts (kW), an amount 5,000 times bigger than the sum of all other energy, may it be terrestrial nuclear energy, geothermal energy or gravitational energy.

There are two types of solar energy. These are:

1. Thermal Energy
2. Electric Energy

What is the difference between the two types energy?

Thermal energy is kinetic energy. It is everywhere. It makes the earth hot and even heats up our homes. It helps us to dry our clothes. It is used as well to heat up water for household use or even pools. That is why thermal energy is called the heat energy because it is stored in the center of the earth as well.

Electric energy is widely known to us as the electricity. It is an essential part of nature and it is one of our most widely used forms of energy. This uses sunlight to power ordinary electrical equipment, such as household appliances, computers, and lighting.

Most applications of solar energy depend on systems including collectors, storage and controls. Storage is needed for a reason that solar energy is only available at daylight hours, but the demand for energy is needed both day and night. Controls are used to guarantee that the storage system works safely and efficiently.

The accessibility of solar energy is determined by three factors:

The location is usually measured by latitude, longitude and altitude.
The time.
The weather.

Aside from knowing that solar energy is a free energy still, you have to realize that it also has advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages are:

Solar energy is almost limitless; it will be available for as long as there are still humans in the earth.
It is abundant. You will not worry of running out of it.
It could provide more power than all known fossil fuel reserves.
Solar energy is available during the day when electricity usage is really important.
It is the most inexhaustible, renewable source of energy known to man.
Solar energy can be absorbed, reflected, transmitted, and insulated.
It can be collected and stored in batteries.

The disadvantages are:

It is not suitable in cloudy areas.
It is not available at night time.
And it may require large land areas.

As a reminder, solar energy levels are lesser the farther north the site. Considering geography, season is an important determinant of solar energy levels because the Suns position and the weather vary greatly from summer to winter.

An Untapped Source Of Eternal Energy: What Is Solar Energy? is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

An Overview of Wind Farms

A wind farm is simply a collection of wind turbines in a location used to produce electricity. Wind farms can be found in the United States, but are far more prevalent in Europe. China is also beginning to invest large amounts of resources in wind farms as its energy needs grow.

The fundamentals of electricity production through wind farms are pretty simple. Highly efficient wind turbines are placed in locations where they will receive the maximum amount of wind energy. These turbines can be traditional horizontal windmills or vertical eggbeater windmills.

Regardless, the wind turns the blades as it passes, which turns a generator within the turbine. The turning motion converts the wind energy into electricity when the generator cranks, which is then sent into a utility company power grid or stored in batteries. This process is similar to hydropower with wind being used instead of water.

The stereotypical wind farm is an exercise in topography. The goal is to find locations where wind exists as frequently as possible. Put in practical terms, ideal spots are in areas where ground variation occurs as wind is produced when different surface areas heat up at different rates. As each surface heats up, the air rises and cooler air rushes in to replace it. Thus, we have wind. Given this situation, ideal locations for wind farms are often along shorelines or in valleys funneling winds from the shore.

Many people are under the impression that wind farms are located only in areas of land where winds are howling through valleys and over hills. While this is certainly true, the current trend is to build wind farms off the shorelines of countries.

The advantage of offshore wind farms has to do with the frequency and generation of winds. Shorelines represent fertile wind generation areas. On top of this, the open space of the ocean allows winds generated from remote locations to move towards shorelines. If you have ever spent time going sailing, you have an understanding of how strong these winds can be. On top of all of this, placing wind farms in the ocean avoids the cost of buying pricey space on land.

Wind farms are up and functioning in most first world countries. The bigger issue is getting them to produce enough energy at as low a price as possible to make them a viable energy production platform.

An Overview of Wind Farms As An Energy Source is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

An Overview of the Sun

The Sun is a star, one of billions in the known universe. It is similar to other stars you see in the night sky, but is prominent in our lives because we orbit it once every 365 days.

The process pivotal in the creation of the Sun goes on to this very day. Roughly 4.5 billion years ago, a massive gas cloud surrounded by dust began to compress. As one small part gained in density, it started to produce a small gravitational pull. Over time, this sucked the rest of the gas and dust into an increasingly smaller area. Nobody is sure what first set off the gravity movement, but it may have been a supernova.

As the disk of material compressed, it created more gravity and sucked in more material. With spin induced, the disk produced heat. Throw in a bit of helium and trace elements and you have a cauldron that eventually became our Sun.

The actual process that fuels our Sun is called fusion. Fusion is fueled by the elements of the Sun to create what is essentially a ball of plasma. The atomic elements that act as fuel for this process are hydrogen and helium atoms. Hydrogen makes up roughly 74 percent of the mass of the Sun. Helium makes up roughly 24 percent. The remaining one percent consists of trace elements such as iron.

As to pure measurements, the Sun is pretty impressive. It does not have a solid surface, but it is generally considered to have a diameter of 864,900 miles. As a matter of comparison, the Earth has a diameter of some 7,900 miles. Every second, the Sun converts approximately 5 million tons of matter into energy. The outer layer of the sun averages roughly 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature at the core of the sun is 27 million degrees Fahrenheit.

The sun is expected to continue to keep burning for another 4.5 to 5 billion years. Break out the sun block!

An Overview of the Sun is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

The modern day telescopes bring with them a wide array of accessories and it is with the aid of these accessories that it becomes much more easier to successfully put the telescopes into proper use. Let us see what are the important accessories that go well and are a must-have for most telescope users: -

Filters- These are very essential for telescope users because they reduce the glare on the eyepiece and scatter the light thereby making it less strenuous for us to view distant objects.

Eyepiece- this is a very important piece of equipment and its absence can render a telescope useless. Eyepieces come in a variety of sizes and if you add more than one eyepiece to your telescopes then you can have the pleasure of viewing even the tiniest and distant objects with clarity.

Mounts- Mounts are the stands for telescopes. It is a mount on which the telescope rests. Since a telescope wont function favorably in vibrations therefore you should ensure that it is placed on a stable mount.

Barlow lens- A Barlow lens helps in the magnification of telescopes. These lenses are available in different sizes and we must be careful in choosing the size that best fits the eyepiece.

There are two main types of telescopes, the refractor (Galileo) telescopes and the reflector (Newton) telescopes. The refractor telescope uses an objective lens that bends the light towards the eyepiece. While the reflector telescope uses a mirror, which collects the light and then directs it towards the eyepiece.

Though both the refractors as well as the reflector telescopes are easily available in the market we should take the following points into consideration before buying a telescope.

Do not get impressed by the magnification of the telescopes. This is because magnification alone is of no use if it just produces large but hazy images.

Aperture- This is the most important factor while deciding on a telescope. Aperture is the opening that collects light so its important to choose a telescope with a larger aperture that will ensure a clearer and a more detailed image quality.

Resolution- This enables the telescopes to produce a more detailed image. So always opt for a telescope, which has a higher resolution. Moreover since resolution is also determined by the aperture, therefore the larger the aperture the better the resolution.

Focal length- The distance between the optical center of the lens or the mirror and the optical center of the eyepiece is known as the focal length. The focal length is what determines the magnification in telescopes. Larger focal lengths imply more magnification.

If we are careful about remembering the above points then it wont take us long to choose a telescope the next time we want to buy one for ourselves.

What Are Telescopes? is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

Most birds also share the common trait of flight however there are sevaral species of flightless birds, that exist mostly on islands. These are birds that once used to have the ability, but do to adaption have lsost it. A famous flightless bird is the kiwi which exists in New Zealand.

What are birds is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

The National Science Foundation mostly provides research funding in the form of grants. These grants are most often given in the form of individual grants to graduate students and professors. In fact, with an annual budget of approximately $5.5 billion, the National Science Foundation provides about 20% of federally supported funding for basic research to Americas universities and colleges.

Under the leadership of its director, Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., the National Science Board meets six times per year to determine the policies of the National Science Foundation. The National Science Board consists of 24 members, all of which are appointed by the President of the United States to 6 year terms.

History of the National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation was originally established as the result of the 1950 National Science Foundation Act. The mission of the National Science Foundation, as stated within this act, was To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense.

The National Science Foundation has competed with defense research agencies, such as the Office of Naval Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, for funding. This battle for funding has led many science historians to claim that the National Science Foundation is an inept compromise between visions within the federal government in regards to the scope and purpose of the foundation.

Programs of the National Science Foundation

Fields within the National Science Foundation include: astronomy, physics, behavioral science, biology, chemistry, and computer science. Economic science, social sciences, science education, engineering, environmental science and education, polar research, geoscience, mathematics, and statistics are also fields covered by the National Science Foundation.

In addition to working within its regular fields, the National Science Foundation promotes a variety of special programs. These programs are sometimes put into place in order to increase the participation of under-represented minorities in the sciences. The Research Experience for Undergraduates program, for example, targets minorities and women. This program provides grants to institutions in order to assist them in providing opportunities for summer research to undergraduate students.

In addition, the GK-12 Crosscutting Program was established by the National Science Foundation to provide universities with money to encourage graduate students to interact with k-12 students. The goal of this program is to increase science retention in children at an early age.

The National Science Foundation also funds projects on a national scale. One such project is the National Science Digital Library. Also, the National Science Foundation helps pay for the establishment of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers that are located in some research universities.

Space exploration and the National Science Foundation

At times, there is conflict between the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This is because both agencies strive to increase knowledge regarding the universe, space, and the human body. Neither, however, wants to pay more than its fair share for this research. Furthermore, clear guidelines concerning which agency is responsible for which aspects of the fields have not been established.

Currently, the two agencies have developed a truce of sorts. Under the unofficially structured guidelines, NASA is responsible for paying form space based operations. These include projects such as Chandra, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Spitzer Space Telescope. The National Science Foundation, on the other hand, funds ground based operations. These include the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, and Kitt Peak.

Weird Science The Inner Workings Of The National Science Foundation is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com

Generating electricity from the sun is all about converting sunlight into power. Importantly, the process has nothing to do with converting the heat produced by sunlight into energy. This common misconception leads to a lot of confusion regarding solar systems.

The technology behind solar systems is known as photovoltaic technology. Essentially, this technology involves using sunlight to create a chemical reaction. During the chemical reaction, electrons are released from the relevant material and collected by tiny wires. This process creates a direct current of electricity. The electricity is then converted to usable alternating current electricity and stored in a battery or fed into a utility grid system.

Solar platforms use this exact process to produce energy. The arrays are made up of small squares called photovoltaic cells. A collection of these cells forms a single panel and a collection of panels makes up a solar array. The size of your array is entirely dependent upon the amount of electricity you want to produce.

The photovoltaic cells in a solar array are where the action happens. The cells are typically made with crystalline silicon under a glass cover. When sunlight hits the crystalline silicon, the material reacts by kicking off electrons. Tiny wires built into the cells collect the electrons in the form of an electrical current. This current is then sent to an inverter, which converts it to usable electricity.

The biggest issue with solar platforms is how efficiently they convert sunlight into electricity. The answer depends on how much you want to spend. Top brands will convert at roughly 15 percent efficiency. Less expensive brands will convert at 5 to 10 percent efficiency. The more efficient the panels, the fewer you will need.

It has become clear that our reliance on fossil fuels is only going to lead to further problems, whether political, environmental or economic. Advancements in solar technology as well as incredible tax breaks and rebates make using the Sun as an energy source a viable solution for you.

Using the Sun for Power – How It Works is a post from: Reference Education Center | FTP2009Istanbul.com