#gentleobservations

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

That phone - yes, the one in your hand, or perhaps your pocket - works by radio waves.

Yes, I'm back with more ramblings about all the ways humans use the electromagnetic spectrum! Because turns out, you're rather reliant on it.

Phones - mobile phones, anyway - use radio waves to connect to each other (it's more complicated than direct phone-to-phone communication but the radio waves are the important part today!). Your wifi is also radio waves. GPS is also radio waves. I probably don't even need to look it up to tell you a radio is radio waves, but I did and they do.

So, humans communicate with each other and locate themselves by waving, in a way. I like that.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

If you ever listen to an episode of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale, you'll likely notice how normalised all the strange and supernatural stuff is. You might wonder what it's like to live in a place where five-headed dragons are talked about in the same way as going grocery shopping.

But think about it - countless farmers and food-makers all send their produce to the same place, where you can walk around and get everything you need from one building. A massive collaboration for your convenience. No more do you have to go to the butcher for meat, and the greengrocer for vegetables, and someone else for something else. All one place.

Don't take the everyday for granted. Take off the goggles of normalisation and actually look at the world. It's pretty cool.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

I walked past a primary school, and it was lunchtime, so all the kids were outside running around and having fun, and I thought: They're learning. They think they're just playing, but they're learning interpersonal skills without even knowing they're doing it.

I also walked past two older people, while one was asking the other what a word from a different language meant.

Humans are learning forever, and constantly, even when they're not aware of it. How cool is that.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

I love how some of the earliest surviving written examples of Old Irish poetry are scribbled in the margins of other manuscripts. Humans are constantly driven to create, even when they're not supposed to be doing so. They will come up with dances on the spot, whistle tunes never heard before without even thinking, doodle in textbook margins. Beautiful.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

Alright, we've discussed a lot of the ways humans use the electromagnetic spectrum. They're kind of reliant on it, really, and that is never more obvious than when you consider: visible light.

They can see a portion of the spectrum, their eyes detect these wavelengths and translate them into colour. And in yet another stunning feat of imaginative naming, they called that bit "visible light."

Obviously, not all eyes can do this, but most can to enough extent that sight is known as one of the five senses by which people experience the world (primary senses, anyway - there are more than five, but that's a topic for another day).

Humans rely on radiation, on the electromagnetic spectrum, not just for their food and their health, their beauty and their communication. They rely on it to experience the world. And the world they see is beautiful in colour.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

no proper post today, gentle is currently Unsummonable. they want to talk about colours though so go ahead and share some associations you have with certain colours, ae've been so excited for this research since ey started this blog, it'll be a nice surprise for when they get back! -Manuel

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

Anyway, more on radiation - specifically the electromagnetic spectrum. Because it turns out, humans use it for a lot more than cooking.

Medical diagnosis and treatment. I don't really have much to say about this, because I'm not a doctor - if it's used for more than X-rays and cancer treatment please let me know because humans are bending this thing to our will in the best way and I want to learn more.

Now what I don't understand, is why humans will also use it for pretty much the polar opposite. This lies in ultraviolet light - the opposite side of what we can see to infrared. It's not good for our skin to have too much of it. And yet - and yet - humans will intentionally seek out the milder forms of the damage. Granted not all humans will forego suncream and other protections in order to get a tan, but the idea is popular enough that people have invented artificial ways of toasting themselves with UV light. Or, alternatively, painting yourself to look like you have been. I don't know if that's dangerous, but it can come up with some interesting-looking results from what I've heard.

And believe it or not, that's not all. Stay tuned.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle

[toomanypossumsinthistrenchcoat]

Has anyone ever noticed how reliant humans are on radiation? Not even radioactive stuff, which is cool but usually more dangerous than useful from what I can tell. Just the electromagnetic spectrum.

Cooking. We don't have to use radiation to transfer heat, but it's very useful, and before all the fancy electrical stuff what did humans use? Fire. Infrared radiation. And now they use microwaves too, in devices they very fittingly call... well. Microwaves!

And a good amount of their diet requires this process to even be safe to eat. You're not going around eating raw chicken, but if you radiate it hard enough for long enough, it's fine!

My guess would be the ability to cook food is an evolutionary benefit. It increased the amount of edible food at your disposal - whether by changing its chemistry and so making it digestible, or by killing the germs in it (likely both I think) - and more available food means increased chance of survival.

There's way more humans use the electromagnetic spectrum for, but this is enough for today. Go radiate yourself some dinner.

If I get stuff wrong, please correct me politely - I don't know very much yet, but I love hearing cool facts! Thank you -Gentle