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Such an object would function as a sail—one powered by light, rather than by wind. The natural world doesn’t produce sails; people do. What about jellyfish tha
by excitom 6y ago
Such an object would function as a sail—one powered by light, rather than by wind. The natural world doesn’t produce sails; people do.
What about jellyfish that move about the oceans pushed by wind?
- ceejayoz 6y ago(Specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella)
- leblancfg 6y agos/natural world/inorganic matter/
- InitialLastName 6y agoThere are also rocks that do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones
- alisonkisk 6y agoThey are called "sailing" but they don't sail in the sense of this discussion.
- mig39 6y agoYeah, I can think of a lot of examples of sails in the natural world. Dandelion seeds, winged tree seeds, etc.
- scott_s 6y agoBallooning spiders as well.
- beamatronic 6y agoEven some spiders
- biryani_chicken 6y agoFlying Squirrels?
- flatiron 6y agoI think the comment was poorly worded with “people” and should be “life” which is still an interesting thought.
- hawkice 6y agoDistinguishing between things produced by the natural world, and things produced by life seems like the type of communication strategy that would not help a general audience. I mean, I get what you mean, but 'natural' and 'organic' are taken to be synonyms in common usage.
- chansiky 6y agoThose are all lifeforms though. And the "sailing" mechanisms have purpose. The example you are looking for is a lifeless thin slate of ice/rock that gets pushed by a force such as wind or water.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoIt's a weird statement that confuses the purpose of an object with what an object does. Purpose exists only in our heads; natural objects don't have one. There is no <purpose="sail"> tag attached to atoms. In other words, anything that behaves as a sail would, can be called a sail. And there are plenty of objects around us that behave as sails, not made such by humans, or made so unintentionally.
- raggi 6y agoEvolution derives purpose from experimentation. It is not intent driven design, it is experiment driven design, but many aspects of persistence through evolution are nonetheless purposeful. If an adaptation is significantly successful, it becomes prominent in the created population and there is a reason for it - that is the noun, purpose. This would be different if you said "have purpose" instead of "the purpose".
- TeMPOraL 6y agoI disagree. "Purpose" connotes intent, and evolution has none. It's a glorified random number generator hooked to a feedback loop. The only "purpose" evolution has is in POSIWID sense - the purpose of a system is what it does[0]. -- [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
- sgt101 6y agoOr even more fun the idea than some pterosaurs were in fact sailers! https://phys.org/news/2009-10-ancient-pterosaur-seas-video.html https://phys.org/news/2009-10-ancient-pterosaur-seas-video.h...
- hchz 6y agoI think finding space jellyfish would also be a monumental discovery.
- andrewmutz 6y agoI think by natural world the author meant non-biological. If the object was biological, then it would be even more support for the existence of extraterrestrial life.
- pvaldes 6y agoThat is a very good example of a sail produced by a non human 'city'. Yep. Same shape and function.