ocean – Harmonia Philosophica

Droplets carrying an ocean…

Self-cleaning surfaces and laboratories on a chip become even more efficient if we are able to control individual droplets.

University of Groningen professor Patrick Onck, together with colleagues from Eindhoven University of Technology, have shown that this is possible by using a technique called mechanowetting. “We have come up with a way of transporting droplets by using transverse surface waves. This even works on inclined or vertical surfaces.”

The idea of mechanowetting is basically very simple: put a droplet on a transverse surface wave, and the droplet will move with the wave. “One of the properties of water droplets is that they always try to stay on top of a wave. If that top runs ahead, the droplet will run with it,” Onck explains. It is possible to move the droplets by using mechanical deformation to create surface waves. “The remarkable thing about this is that it also works on inclined or vertical surfaces: drops can even move upwards against gravity.” (1)

Water carrying water.

A sea carrying drops.

An ocean carrying humans.

The abyss holding into hopes.

But it’s not the world you are looking at. But its mirror image.

Turn around and look at yourself.

See…

Hopes carrying the abyss.

Humans taming the ocean.

Small tiny drops…

Carrying the sea…

Ocean. Rogue waves. Darkness.

Rogue waves are extremely high ocean waves that exceed the significant wave height by more than a factor of 2. Extreme waves are also very rare; less than one in 100,000 waves exceeds the rogue wave criterion. While their existence was long disputed throughout the 1990s, thousands of rogue waves have been recorded on oil rigs in the past 20 years. Nevertheless, the origin of rogue waves is still disputed, with a multitude of competing theories that fall into two basic categories: linear theories consider incidental random interference the origin of rogue waves. Recently nonlinear theories gained increasing popularity as they promise that certain characteristic wave patterns may possibly precede a rogue event. (1)

“Something interacts” and “something happens” …

Randomly or not, it does not matter.

Because the actual nature of the ocean is beyond any such interpretation.

The ocean is deep, cold, scary. The ocean is mystical, alone, powerful. The ocean is peaceful. The ocean is dark. The ocean is silent. The ocean is never random. Look at the large waves. The ocean does not interact. The ocean Is. Let yourself go. Feel the power of the cold water. Feel the loneliness of the cosmos.

The ocean is what it is.

You are drowning…

Watching the sun fade away…

As you descend to the depths of the abyss…

Afraid. Cold.

And yet…

A sudden warmth welcomes you…

Face. DNA. Appearances. Deep ocean.

Can the DNA predict a face? Though appearance-prediction technology shows promise, it’s still in its infancy. [1] At some point it will surely succeed in showing some results. But it will never be 100% accurate.

We look at faces. Because appearance means everything in a world of appearances. But appearance is affected by the environment. And we also affect the environment. In an environment which changes all the time, so does appearance. However the essence of things is in their inside. The essence of existence lies within itself. Behind the face there lies a person – whose specific attributes could be predicted by nothing.

In a sea constantly in motion, we are trying to capture the shape of the waves. Instead we should try to look at the deep ocean floor. All waves are different and yet their true nature lies within the dark depths of nothingness.

It is terrifying to look into the abyss.

But at some day we will have to…

Melatonin. Sleep. An ancient secret long forgotten…

As much as we may try to deny it, Earth’s cycle of day and night rules our lives.

When the sun sets, the encroaching darkness sets off a chain of molecular events spreading from our eyes to our pineal gland, which oozes a hormone called melatonin into the brain. When the melatonin latches onto neurons, it alters their electrical rhythm, nudging the brain into the realm of sleep.

At dawn, sunlight snuffs out the melatonin, forcing the brain back to its wakeful pattern again.

We fight these cycles each time we stay up late reading our smartphones, suppressing our nightly dose of melatonin and waking up grumpy the next day. We fly across continents as if we could instantly reset our inner clocks. But our melatonin-driven sleep cycle lags behind, leaving us drowsy in the middle of the day.

Scientists have long wondered how this powerful cycle got its start. A new study on melatonin hints that it evolved some 700 million years ago. The authors of the study propose that our nightly slumbers evolved from the rise and fall of our tiny oceangoing ancestors, as they swam up to the surface of the sea at twilight and then sank in a sleepy fall through the night. (1)

The bright dark sea.
The source of our existence.
From the dark ocean we came.
And its dark secrets define our life.

A small creature going down into the deep.
A small creature rising up to the Sun.
A small creature deciding how we will behave millionf of years ago.

In the silent ocean, under the silent Moon.
Something carves the fate of the world.
The source of our existence.
The bright dark sea.

Listen to the dark waves…
Listen to them echoing through the aeons…