(Part 3) Best products from r/askscience

Yes, humans are animals. On a taxonomic level were are apart of the kingdom animalia. On a behavioural level, many of the traits we might consider to be uniquely human are not.

For instance, we once defined humans as being the only animals that could use tools. However we now know of tool use in multiple orders or animals including primates. We also thought that we were the only ones that used fire, but the use of fire dates back between 500,000-1.2 million years...well before modern humans evolved about 200,000 years ago.

What abilities do we think are uniquely human?

First, the following three topics: language, cognition and culture have all been described and observed in other animals. Really only certain aspects of these three major topics are unique to us. I would also like to add that these topics are the subject of people's entire lives, and to sumerize them here will do them injustice, but I will do my best. Finally, given the dichotomy for humans to create a "us" vs. "them" mentality it is often difficult for people to open up to the idea that humans are more like animals or animals more like humans. This is very much entrenched in our society to think of animals as "lesser" beings. So much so that it took a long time for people to come around to the idea that they could use tools, even though nowadays it is as simple as looking up a youtube video. By no means am I saying that humans are not better at doing some things, we are, but this does not make us superior overall, nor does this make us the best. What I am trying to get at is that we need to stop thinking of humans as being the "superior" animal, the "end goal of evolution", because in many aspects we are not. If you are interested I would recommend reading anything by Frans de Waal, and Moral lives of animals by Peterson. But I digress...back to those three main topics: Language, Cognition and Culture.

Aspects of language: We are unique mainly in how complex we can make it, and our ability to change it so quickly. However, some species have been shown to display tendencies of recursiveness, syntax, regional dialects and other aspect of language that one might consider uniquely "human". Moreover we are still discovering new modes of communication between individuals so this is very much an evolving subject. I will say this however, humans were around for a lot longer than we have had complex modern language, so it is incorrect to define us based on our modern capabilities but exclude our ancestors, or exclude our ancestors in our evaluation of language across animal species.

It has been hypothesize that "theory of mind must have preceded language use, based on evidence of use of the following characteristics: intentional communication, repairing failed communication, teaching, intentional persuasion, intentional deception, building shared plans and goals, intentional sharing of focus or topic, and pretending." - all of these precede language and we see many of them being expressed in animals, especially within the primate order. So first cognition then language. This is important because we know that animals can have or can display complex emotions or thoughts without the use of language.

You also need to consider that many animals communicate using other senses, they even sometimes use magnetic fields to sense their world. Testing them on their ability to use speech or writing is already biased. Speech is based on being able to hear and symbols are based on vision. Some animals don't use these senses or they are greatly reduced. How should we test them? or even begin to compare them to humans? You can't roar like a lion or make ultra low frequencies like a elephant - so why should we judge them on their ability to talk exactly like us? “Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein. We need to make sure we are testing animal's intelligence in their own right - not based off of our own preconceptions or misconceptions. Finally, it has been postulated that gestures played an important role in pre-language hominids (including early humans), in that they used gestures rather than words to communicate.

In sum: modern human level language is indeed more complex, however we are not the only ones with language. For more info go here: origin of language.

Aspects of cognition: We know that animals are capable of cognitive reasoning, complex problem solving, they teach and learn, they feel many if not all the emotions we feel especially mammals, they are capable of deception, lying, cheating etc. They love, they hate, they mourn, they recall friends and remember enemies, they know when they are getting the short end of the stick. They have hierarchies with strict social rules, they are afraid, courageous, and selfless. They are able to recall where they stored 30,000 seeds 6 months after the fact. They can memorize shapes and forms and put symbols into context. They beg and steal, give and receive. But probably most important of all, many have a concept of the "self" and "others" - they are knowing, being and living like us to top it all off... they also have morals.

However, humans do stand apart in some key areas of cognition. Some researchers surmise that cooperative breeding enhances the performance of social cognitive domains and it also motivates the individual to share mental states with others. Cooperative breeding is a social system where mothers require help from others to raise their offspring - all human cultures exhibit this trait and this developed because we are bipedal and have trouble giving birth. Combined, cooperative breeding and the motivation to share mental states leads to shared intentionality, which is the ability and desire to work collaboratively with others towards a shared goal, as well as understanding that others are aware of your intentions. Cooperative breeding in primates to date is observed only in callatrichids and humans, both of which exhibit shared intentionality. What sets apart humans from other cooperative breeders with shared intentionality is our ancestral ape-level cognitive system. The unique combination of social cognitive skills, ape-level cognitive skills and shared intentionality led to the development of our species-specific traits, including [modern] language and enhanced cultural transmission. Our ape-level cognitive skills stem from freed grasping hands, our tool use and ability to solve complex problems.

In theory, extant apes have all the necessary cognitive preconditions (i.e. simple understanding of others mental states) approximating humans but they lack the motivational components of cooperative breeding, and thus lack shared intentionality. However, groups of chimpanzees hunting involve the delegation of tasks (i.e herders, ambushers) where all participants must assess the others hunting position and effectiveness in order to successfully carry out a shared goal. What is contested is whether they understand that together they are dedicated to the shared goal, a key component of shared intentionality.

Although there are two major camps on this it is thought that modern human intelligence and behaviour developed about 60,000 years ago in what is known as behavioural modernity. "It is the point at which Homo sapiens began to demonstrate an ability to use complex symbolic thought and express cultural creativity. These developments are often thought to be associated with the origin of language". Humans evolved about 200,000 years ago. Others think that our intelligence developed slowly, over time even before we were human not from one single mutation or behavioural event that occurred ~60,000 years ago. Unfortunately there is good evidence on both sides and we just don't know the full story yet.

Aspects of Culture Animals posses culture in much the same way we do. There are countless examples and I would be happy to provide them but this post is already long enough. Human culture is only different in one way - we easily build upon previous experience. Known as the ratchet effect we can take someone else's idea and change it, or slightly to build on it but the previous idea is never lost. Our knowledge is continuously building upon its self. Which is why you may think there is such a large gap between us and them [animals] - of course you are comparing humans today, not the humans of the past. It is hard to explain, but everything you see around you - cars, complex maths, being able to go to the moon - those are not things that make us more intelligent. The ability to retain and improve upon knowledge through generations is what makes us intelligent. Other animals have a harder time accomplishing this, if a novel idea is presented it takes a long time for it to take hold - which is why they don't have cars, and complex maths and they can't go to the moon.

OK, one of my favorite topics.
First of all, do you live in a city? Light pollution will play a big role in what you can see.

Now, my advice in chronological order:

• Buy a Planisphere
  
• Buy a copy of Nightwatch
  
• Get some decent binoculars. If you don't have any, aim for something with a magnification of 8-10x (don't go bigger!), and make sure that the objective is at least 5 times the magnification. In other words, you're looking at 8x42 or 10x50, something in that sort of range.
  
• Spend a year looking up at the sky with your books and planisphere. You'll fall totally in love.
  
  When you get a telescope, here are some crucial factors:
  
  
• Magnification is (mostly) irrelevant.
  
• Diameter = brightness, and thus better deep-sky viewing.
  
• Diameter = weight, and a huge telescope that you never use is a big waste of money.
  
• Decent optics are surprisingly affordable. A good mount is essesntial
  
• Electronics are nice, but not necessary.
  
  Refractors are long, expensive (for the diameter) and have great sharpness and contrast when done well. Fantastic for planets, the moon, etc.
  Reflectors are cheap, and when mounted on a Dobsonian mount, are the cheapest scopes per inch out there. That makes them great for deep sky viewing. They tend to be big and need more maintenance (i.e. alignment) though.
  Cats, of various forms are moderately expensive and that is exacerbated by the fact that they're usually on nice motorized mounts. Great scopes though, and fantastically compact. Ideal for photography, if you're so inclined.
  
  The general advice for a first scope is to spend a year getting to know the sky, and then get a 6" dobsonian. It's small enough that you'll actually use it, large enough to get a good amount of light, and simple enough that you don't have to spend any time setting it up. Just plunk and go. 8" may be OK, but don't go larger than that for a first scope - you won't use it.
  
  Be aware that you won't see the rich colours you're used to seeing in pictures, though - you're more likely to see a barely-visible veil for a nebula. However, you can see gorgeous things already with your little scope. Look for the open clusters - the double cluster, the Pleiades, the Beehive, and so forth. Look for Andromeda, and the Orion nebula. They're all naked-eye objects from a sufficiently dark area, and that much better with a low-power scope (or binoculars).
  

Have you considered becoming a population geneticist? All of those questions are things that evolutionary/population geneticists are very interested in.

Let's break this into pieces. The first piece:

What is the eventual fate of a new mutation, and how does it depend on a) it's selection coefficient (a measure of how beneficial/deleterious it is), and b) the population size.

The selection coefficient (which we'll denote by s) is a measure of the "per generation percent fitness advantage" enjoyed by an individual who carries a particular mutation, relative to those who do not carry the mutation. To a first order approximation, the probability that a beneficial mutation that has just arisen (and thus resides only in a single individual) escapes loss from the population and eventually becomes "fixed" (i.e. present in every individual) does not depend on the population size, and is equal to about 2s, or two times the selection coefficient. In other words, if a particular mutation causes its carriers to leave approximately 1% more offspring to the next generation, relatively to non-carriers, then it has about a 2% chance of not being lost from the population. If it's not lost during those early generations, then it will eventually rise in frequency and become fixed.

Now, this is a rough approximations, and with a better approximation, we find that the population size does matter somewhat. This is because when the population size gets small, the chance events of genetic drift become more impactful, and it becomes harder for selection to overcome them. This is basically exactly the example you gave, but in reverse. Basically, even if a mutation has a fitness advantage, if it's present in only 10 out of 100 individuals in a population, it can happen to be lost by chance if it has a couple bad years in a row. In a population of 1 million, however, a mutation that's at 10% frequency would take a lot of bad years in a row, in order to be lost, which is very unlikely, so natural selection will eventually win out and push the mutation to fixation.

However, it is true that mutations change frequency faster in populations of smaller size (pretty much for the reason you surmise). If we condition on (i.e. assume that) the mutation eventually becomes fixed, then it is more likely to have done so quickly if the population size was small than if it was larger. The time it takes for a beneficial mutation to become fixed, assuming it does become fixed, is proportional to log(N), the logarithm of the population size. So if you increase the population size by a factor of 10, it takes twice as long for a beneficial mutation to transit through the population. By a factor of 100: three times as long.

However, there's one last factor we should consider, which is how the population size interacts with the mutation rate. Consider a population that exists in some environment in which it has an "adaptive need". In other words, the environmental conditions are such that if a certain mutation (or class of mutations, if we consider that mutations at multiple different base pairs might be able to solve the same problem) would be beneficial, were it to arise, then we can ask how long until we expect the population to adapt. If we say that the per individual rate at which beneficial alleles are created is given by µ, and there are N individuals in the population, then to a first order approximation in each generation there is a 2Nµ probability that a beneficial mutation arises somewhere in the population (there's a 2 because we're thinking about diploids). Then, using the simple 2s approximation from above (which is good enough for this point), the probability that a mutation both arises somewhere in the population and manages to escape being lost in those early generations is 4Nµs.

Using the properties of the geometric distribution, this means that we expect it to take about (4Nµs)^(-1) generations until the mutation that will eventually come to dominate the population arises. Then, it will take of order log(N) generations for the mutation to sweep through the population.

So when this effect is factored in, an increase in population size of 10-fold means you wait roughly one tenth as long for a beneficial mutation to arise, but only twice as long for it to fix. A 100-fold increase in population size means you wait roughly 1/100 as long for the mutation to arise, but then only 3 times as long for it to sweep through the population, meaning that in general, larger populations should adapt faster than smaller populations. However, if we're thinking about populations that are already so large that beneficial mutations occur somewhere in the population almost every generations (like bacteria, for example), then a different set of mathematics takes over, and this is still an active area of research (see here for a recent review).

These calculations all rely on what are pretty much "standard" results in population genetics, so any good population genetics text book should work as a decent reference. If you're interested in these kind of questions, a good place to start might be John Gillespie's "Population Genetics: A Concise Guide"

Well, excited-state calculations aren't that easy. Neglecting magnetic interactions doesn't really simplify things much - they're normally neglected in QC calculations (except for heavy elements where SO-coupling becomes significant).

One idea is that you might try repeating (and perhaps improving on) Pekeris calculations on helium from the 60's, which are fairly well-known. The drawback here is that like Hylleraas method (which he built on), it's not going to tell you much about current methods in 'real world' use. But it's almost certainly the best trade-off for programming simplicity versus accuracy.

If you're more interested in learning something that might be of practical use, then a Hartree-Fock implementation is certainly the best starting point for any atomic/molecular calculation. Nearly all quantum-chemical methods build directly on H-F, so even if you want to do something more accurate, you'll need to start with HF. Szabo and Ostlund is pretty good for HF and post-HF methods, and has Fortran sources to a basic HF program in it. (Despite it's name though, it's a bit dated and doesn't deal with DFT methods at all). So you could start with a basic HF program, and if you still really want to do excited states after that, the simplest more accurate method would be to move to Configuration Interaction. Specifically, you could do a CI-Singles calculation to get the excited states. (at that level, we're talking errors of ~ 1 eV, so you might understand why magnetic interactions are negligible!) If you're really ambitious you could go on and go to higher CI levels.

But if your goal is to learn quantum mechanics rather than quantum chemistry, I wouldn't go too far with it. I'd expect an understanding of the HF method (although not necessarily its practical implementation) to be necessary for a good grounding in QM. And I'd expect any grad student in Q-chem to be able to write an implementation. But going from a basic Hartree-Fock program to a more sophisticated one, and from a HF program to a CI program can take quite a bit of work, very little of which consists of learning any new physics. For someone who knows the HF method well, you could pretty much summarize the entire theory behind CI in five words: "Linear expansion in Slater determinants."

I personally quite like Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw's works, Why Does E=mc^2 and The Quantum Universe which talk about relativity and quantum mechanics respectively. I found these very accessible when I was doing my A-Levels (which I think is the equivalent of American High School) and they require absolutely no knowledge of maths.

If you're more interested in Grand Unified Theories (which I assume is what you're thinking of when you talk about two forces being the same force) then the only thing that comes to mind is The Elegant Universe which I've never read personally but I have heard very good things about it. It's about String Theory which is one possible GUT theory of everything (not quite the same as a GUT, see the reply) but does cover a few other areas as well.

Another book which I've heard good things about, but again haven't read myself, is In Search Of Schrodinger's Cat which has more of a focus on quantum mechanics.

Personally I would read both of Cox and Forshaw's stuff first because they are both very short so won't take long to get through. Then you can move on to one of the others, which are both a bit longer.

If you ask nicely on /r/physics or something similar they might also be able to suggest other things you would like.

Edit: There might be a Feynman Lecture or two that interests you as well but bear in mind that these are aimed at undergrads.

Edit2: I also just did a quick google search of site:reddit.com/r/physics books which threw up some pretty good results.

Edit3: String theory n'est pas un GUT, pardon my french.

Most mutations are indeed deleterious/bad, but there are also beneficial/good mutations. A good example is the ability to metabolize lactose as adults - since we've domesticated cows/goats/etc. and milk is a good source of nutrition, there is positive selection on this trait being maintained on a population. That's why this mutation, or trait, is very common among European and African populations.

It's helpful to think of selection as a "force" that pushes a trait to become more or less common in a population. If selection against a trait is strong enough, it will die out (go to 0% incidence in a population), and if it is strong enough, it will "fix" (go to 100%).

In addition to selection, there is genetic "drift." Because of how people pair off to mate and how traits get passed on, there is a degree of randomness that causes the percentage incidence of a trait in a population to fluctuate - like a random walk in physics.

Just from these factors alone, with the introduction of new traits (mostly bad, but some good), there is always going to be diversity within a population. But because we have two copies of each chromosome and each gene, one from mom and one from dad, you can also have interesting situations where having one mutation has a very different outcome than none or two. In some of these cases, you can get a stable percentage of a trait in a population at a value between 0% and 100%. A good example is the mutation that causes sickle cell anemia if you have two copies, but may protect against malaria if you have one copy.

If you want to learn more, Population Genetics by Gillespe is an accessible (and cheap) book on this subject. I think a little bit of calculus helps for the math.

http://www.amazon.com/Population-Genetics-A-Concise-Guide/dp/0801880092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408234938&sr=8-1&keywords=population+genetics

What you've said is mostly close enough that the difference doesn't matter much to a layperson. However this bit:

> Light does not pass through time (which doesn't make sense to me, but I read that somewhere) which is why it is always moving through space at the speed of light.

Is a bit off while also being a very interesting topic. I imagine the source of this statement is related to the fact that photons will always travel at the speed of light, relative to all observers. In other words, if I were to travel towards you at 0.5c, then shine a light towards you, the light would travel away from me at c while simultaneously (from your point of view) approach you at c, not 1.5c.

In essence, if you assume it to be true that the light moves away from me at c, and towards you at c, the only way to reconcile the two statements is that we experience time differently.

This incidentally is a really good starting point for learning about General Relativity (I heartily recommend the book Why Does E = mc² (and Why Should We Care?) if you find this interesting as it does a way better job of explaining it than I could).

One good example from that book is a thought experiment where you have two observers. One observer is on a train. He has with him an extremely precise clock that simply bounces photons from one plate (bottom) to another (top). For this observer, the photons are going completely vertically as long as the train is NOT accelerating. It critically does not matter whether the train is moving relative to the ground or not, only whether it's accelerating or not. However, to the observer on a platform as the train goes by, the position of the photon as it bounces off the bottom plate, is not directly below the point at which it hits the top plate. It's very close, as the train is not traveling at relativistic speeds, but it's definitely not directly above (picture it as a right angled triangle where the light just traveled the hypotenuse).

This means that even in something traveling relatively slowly, the light has traveled further for the observer on the platform, than for the observer on the train, despite being exactly the same photon traveling at exactly the same speed (c). How much further the light traveled depends on the relative speed. One of the interesting things about this though is that the time dilation effect is actually real and measurable even at relatively slow—certainly achievable—speeds. In fact, it actually effects things we use every day. Flights for example are fast enough that it's measurable, but more interestingly, GPS would not work for more than a few days at a time if the satellites we put in orbit for it to function did not take this effect in to consideration!

I'm not aware of any specific study that directly addresses your question, but based on existing, similar research, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a correlation.

The Mozart Effect has long held that listening to classical music potentially increases spatial-temporal reasoning, a skill highly core to success in mathematics. As classical music is obviously purely instrumental, perhaps there is an inverse link in which mathematically-minded people tend to be more attentive or appreciative of patterns rather than lyrics.

If you're interested in a more in-depth read about how our brains interpret music, and what makes us like the music we like, I'd highly recommend reading This Is Your Brain On Music. Again, I don't recall the book addressing any studies that directly answer your question, but there's a lot of intriguing information to gain if it's a topic of interest to you.

And since everyone else is, I may as well add in that I too am mathematically-minded and tend to focus on pattern more than lyrics.

Great question, and I love all of those books including Robert Martin's! How about MY new book : https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Sex-Science-Behind-Kingdom/dp/1681771667/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472849244&sr=1-1&keywords=wild+sex+the+science+behind+mating+in+the+animal+kingdom

Great question about enhancing looks - i have an episode of the web series on this exact topic. In NATURE, good looks generally mean good health and good genes. However, for the human species they can mean the opposite due to our obsession with outside interventions.

Some male birds like bowerbirds make their homes 'extra' beautiful using shiny objects and feathers, some flamingoes use pigmented earth to preen themselves and appear brighter. There are most definitely deceptive techniques that animals use to possibly fool a potential mate if they aren't too beautiful - However, animals overall are not generally known for beauty interventions.

The best book I've read on this subject is Stephen Webb's If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life.

The book discusses your proposition as well as many others. It gave me a much greater appreciation of the large number of conditions that may actually be necessary for intelligent life to evolve.

At the end of the day, I think the answer to the question as to why we don't see any ETs is that it takes a great many coincidental conditions for life to evolve far enough while constantly struggling against a great many factors that can bring about its demise.

Salt goes back before recorded history, since it is vital to our biology. You can read an anecdotal history of how it has influenced world affairs in "Salt: A World History", which is a fun read.

Black pepper almost certainly rose to prominence on the European table as a status symbol, since all of it was brought overland from India via the silk road until the opening of sea trade routes around the Cape of Good Hope in the 16th century. It is useful for flavoring preserved foods (as part of the cooking/preservation process) and as medicine, and these aspects drove trade even to the extent of motivating Vasco da Gama's quest for a sea route to India at the end of the 15th century.

In no particular order I will list what my parents gave me that doomed me to a life of engineering. Granted, some of these things are pretty pricey, so I'd go for the book as a starter. Don't worry the book is awesome and full of mammoths.

Capsela : Amazing modular design tools that lets you neat little machines.

Robotix : Slightly more futuristic where you can build your own robot. I actually had a 2 foot dinosaur on wheels that I could drive around and make 'roar'.

Legos : This seems pretty standard.

The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay : A great book I got around the age of 5 that I forced people to read to me

K'Nex, Erector Sets, and a grandfather who happens to be a carpenter can also help.

I am not at all an expert on this topic, but I am reading Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors right now, a fascinating book on the history of humans that tends to favor genetic explanations above the more social anthropological explanations.

This book argues that race is a very real thing, but it has little to do with looks (which is how people traditionally separate out race, e.g. black, white). It argues there are clean genetic clusters (based on a small number of genes) that can be referred to as "human races". You can say this person is ~x% this cluster, y% that, etc. You are right that genetically individuals are very diverse, but some genes dominate in some races. Just a few 100 years can create some major genetic changes that are selected for in that group. This is a fact supported by many examples, like the intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews, or the long distance running abilities of East Africans.

It is possible to look at someone's genetic signature and map them to a cluster pretty cleanly. Whether you want to call this "race" or not is debatable given the terrible history of race relations, but that is just a semantic debate. The politically correct stance that there is no difference between human populations hides the truth for social reasons.

What are you trying to be? Have one book just slightly deeper than Greene's book, or actually learn theoretical physics to say become a theoretical physicist or at least understand it?

If the former, it will be difficult as there's a lot of things that might be tacitly assumed that you know about more basic physics. However, a very good intro to Quantum Mechanics is Shankar. I'd also look into Foster and Nightingale's relativity book for a brief introduction to special (read Appendix A first) and general relativity. Maybe after both try A. Zee intro to QFT if you want to learn more about QFT. If you want to learn about phenomenological particle physics, say look at Perkins. Also it may help to have a book on mathematical physics, such as Boas or Arfken. (Arfken is the more advanced book, but has less examples). Also it may help to get a basic modern physics book that has very little math, though I can't think of any good ones.

If the latter than you will have to learn a lot. Here's advice from Nobel Laureate theoretical physicist Gerardus t'Hooft.

>If a small mutation somehow created a proto-stomach, it'd be completely useless to begin with

Not necessarily. I think this is where your thinking is straying. Evolution "works with what it has". So for example, I found it fascinating in the book Your Inner Fish it explains how the three tiny bones in your ear that hold your eardrum taught, following the evolution ladder back millions of years, those corresponding bones were part of the jaw, and had nothing to do with hearing. And there is a small little fluid filled "sack" behind the eardrum, which has tiny hairs, and as the fluid interacts with the little hairs, those signals are interpreted in the brain as sound. Those little hairs and membranes were originally, going back millions of years, on the outside, and part of the skin of fish like creatures which allowed them to monitor water currents around them.

You are thinking more along the lines of it only taking a few generations for a "gall bladder" to evolve. But this would really take many, many, many generations to develop. I'd highly recommend the book mentioned above.

I'll also link here to an interesting article on the evolution of the stomach.

>Current evidence indicates that CCK evolved in chordate ancestors and that gastrin-like peptides that separately regulate stomach functions evolved from an ancestral CCK at the level of the divergence of tetrapods from fish)

One reason centipedes can't evolve into dogs is because dogs already exist. Over enough time, centipedes might evolve into dog-like creatures, but they'd be unrelated to dogs as we know them today, no matter how similar they looked. The same applies to all the other examples provided.

For a good book on how evolution works, check out The Greatest Show on Earth.

I'll refer to an example I've gleaned from James Gleick book on Chaos.

He refers to some older work on simulation where data had to be inputted by hand. Those simulations would sometimes crash, and you'd have to re-input the values of the variables for whatever point of the simulation you were at. Sometimes, to save time, they would round off the last digit of the decimals, because life is too short for this shit, and because why would changing a parameter by 0.0001 have any noticeable effect? The results would change a lot, sometimes drastically, from these small roundings.

to quote from one of the earlier linked references:

In the 1960s the weather scientist Edward Lorenz observed that minute variations in the initial values of variables in his twelve-variable computer weather model could result in grossly divergent weather patterns:

Two states differing by imperceptible amounts may eventually evolve into two considerably different states … If, then, there is any error whatever in observing the present state—and in any real system such errors seem inevitable—an acceptable prediction of an instantaneous state in the distant future may well be impossible….In view of the inevitable inaccuracy and incompleteness of weather observations, precise very-long-range forecasting would seem to be nonexistent.

Such sensitive dependence on initial conditions means that the further one goes into the future the more inaccurate predictions become. Systems that are sensitive to initial conditions and bounded are said to be chaotic.

As to the other specifics of your question, you'd need an atmospheric science guy for that ... I'm more of Straight Earth Sci.

So, scattered across the world, there are salt deposits. These are normally form where the ocean water gets trapped and then evaporates, like a tidal region by the sea. However there are also large salt formations left from really ancient oceans that have evaporated entirely, like the salt flats in the southwest part of the US.

There is a great book called Salt which discusses this in great detail. His thesis is that these salt formations lead to the first groups of humans which stopped being nomadic and settled in one place. It is definitely worth the read.

The Way Things Work is pretty awesome.

This gets asked every so often, and these are the books I usually recommend for someone wanting to know what's up with archaeology. Start at the top, and keep going down if you're interested. There are many more, but I like these.

• Rathje's Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage
  
• Deetz's In Small Things Forgotten
  
• Trigger's A History of Archaeological Thought
  
• Johnson's Archaeological Theory

im not OP but try The greatest show on earth by Richard Dawkins, thats where i got started.

Two good introductions to physics and science in general:

Bill Bryson (popular and quite funny): A Short History of Nearly Everything

Brian Cox (slightly more serious, but still a fairly easy read): Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?)

Just have to say that reading Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick a bit later on in your learning will change your perspective on everything. Such a good, fun read too.

I'm definitely not qualified to answer your question myself, but I've been wanting to learn more about this subject as well and I was recommended this book by a few people. I think both of us would find it very informative!

Amazon link

Just want to mention that pop sci (which everything you mentioned is) and an actual rigorous study of physics are two very very different things. The romantic image of physics you get from those kind of programs is very different then what is actually involved in learning physics.

I would suggest getting more familiar with the mathematics (calculus, statistics, linear algebra) before diving into the actual physics.

Having the math first will make it much easier to see the actual physics behind the equations instead of sitting there trying to figure out the math and physics at the same time.

To that end I would suggest having Boas mathematical methods next to you at all times during your early studies. Its at about a sophomore (college) level but is easily accessible to most anyone with a basic mathematics background.

(http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-Sciences-Mary/dp/0471198269)

Other than that watch Kahn academy or the MIT online courses.

For computational chemistry:

You will need to have a solid understanding of Quantum Chemistry. The two commonly used books for this is the following...

Quantum Chemistry: 6th ed. by Levine

Modern Quantum Chemistry by Szabo.

Honestly don't worry too much about the newest edition of Levine. I've been using the 5th edition and not much has changed. Szabo is published by Dover so its dirt cheap.

For actual computational chemistry, Cramer does a decent job.

For the beginner I would recommend this from a perennial favorite.

I just read Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?) by Brian Cox. Can't say I fully understood it all (only an amateur physics buff) but found it very interesting.

Don't read Feynman. While it's extremely dense and good, it's also very unconventional and hard to understand if you don't know where it's going already.
I'd suggest Griffiths or Zee's Nutshell. While both are technically textbooks, i think you can read them very well without necessarily understanding all calculations.
Of course, those are damn expensive so you should better look for them in a library.

Richard Dawkins's latest book covers this in detail: The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

If you are looking for resources to help you learn electronic structure theory, I recommend the textbook by Szabo and Ostlund here.

As for how to approach stargazing, I would start by learning to find the bright naked-eye planets in the sky (Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn). Assuming you're in the northern hemisphere, Mars and Saturn are to the south in the evening now, and Jupiter will be low in the southwest after sunset. Then learn to find some of the brighter stars and more prominent constellations.

The easiest way to learn these things is to have an amateur astronomer friend show you. If you don't know anyone who can help, see if there's a local planetarium that will show you what's in the night sky currently. If you have a computer, install the free program Stellarium. If you have a smartphone, there are several apps that will show you star maps of wherever your phone is pointing, but be aware that sometimes these apps get confused and show you the wrong part of the sky. And you can look for guide books like Nightwatch.

Griffiths > Eisberg > Sakurai > Zee > Peskin

Peres and Ballentine offer a more quantum information oriented approach, read em after Griffiths.

Shankar before Sakurai, after Griffiths.



In that order. Your best bet though, is to find the appropriate section in the nearest university library, spend a day or two looking at books and choose whatever looks most interesting/accessible. Be warned, it seems that everyone and their cat has a book published on quantum mechanics with funky diagrams on the cover these days. A lot of them are legitimate, but make little to no effort to ensure your understanding or pose creative problems.

Perhaps the book The Way Things Work? I loved this book when I was a kid.

Carl Sagan addresses this in his book titled The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. He deals not with the neurology behind it, but rather the psychology and history behind it. A good read.

As a poster mentioned above, Stewart's Multivariable Calculus, and [Boas' Mathematical Physics](http://www.Mathematical.com/ Methods in the Physical Sciences https://www.amazon.com/dp/0471198269/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_6zeYAbQ5R5KB6) are excellent sources for the required math background.

I present to you, the Tiktaalik.

I don't have time to answer your question properly but check out your local library or purchase Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish which will help you achieve a proper understanding of this topic.

This book had the same profound effect on me and really helped me understand why people behave the way they do.

edit: Chaos: Making a New Science is also a good read.

You will like: http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525

This is one of the potential solutions to the Fermi Paradox. You might enjoy Where Is Everybody by Stephen Webb, as it addresses this and 49 other proposed answers to that question.

It is not unreasonable to think that the reason we have had no contact with ETC is that we are either the first, or among the first and so distant from the others that we can't discern each other's existence yet. However, we must also consider that life may exist in forms so alien to us that we wouldn't recognize it.

Check out some Chaos Theory by James Gleick and the wikipedia article on it. Can't link to both without losing my comment...

Edit: Here

Salt: A World History everything and more than you ever wanted to know about salt

I've got yet another book! "This is your brain on music" by Daniel Levitin

http://www.amazon.ca/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525

Maybe read this, why not?:
http://www.amazon.ca/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/0452288525