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God sleeps in the minerals
- cbolton 7mo agoThe first picture looks like aura quartz to me (crystal with an artificial metal coating). Is it natural?
- Luc 7mo agoIt’s indeed vacuum deposited metal on natural quartz crystal.
- hmokiguess 7mo agoDon't know why, but I think of Aliens instead. Gorgeous pictures!
- bmordue 7mo agoGod, or Cthulhu?
- sunkeeh 7mo agoThey're minerals, Marie!
- srslyTrying2hlp 7mo ago[flagged]
- vscode-rest 7mo agoDon't be curmudgeonly.
- isoprophlex 7mo agoI liked the title, and the pictures are nice too.
- criddell 7mo agoDon't be afraid to let a little poetry into your life.
- recallingmemory 7mo agoThe term "God" doesn't need to be reserved for only the religious. We're allowed to be in awe of this place too.
- hermitcrab 7mo agoIt's fine as a poetic term. But no god is required. Just time, pressure and the laws of physics.
- vscode-rest 7mo agoSimple enough. Say, could you fabricate some new time, pressure, and laws of physics for me? Oh, and don’t forget the matter!
- wartywhoa23 7mo agoSo many people carry this dull heavy just in their pockets to fend off all attempts to revive the sense of wonder they buried deep in their childhood. For me, just the very fact that there exist time, space, laws of physics, enormous complexity stemming from deceptive "simplicity", is absolutely awe-inspiring.
- carlosjobim 7mo ago"Just" Could you create the laws of physics? If all of humanity got together in a common effort, could we make one law of physics or change one law of physics? Something which has always existed, which created the entire universe, is ever present through space and time, and invisible. Something which can never be resisted because it is almighty. Not even for one second. Something which will create beautiful sculptures out of dull stone in places hidden from the world.
- hermitcrab 7mo ago>If all of humanity got together in a common effort, could we make one law of physics or change one law of physics? It wouldn't be a law of physics if it was something humans could change.
- carlosjobim 7mo agoCould anybody or anything change or add to the laws of physics? Or are they omnipotent? If they are omnipotent and beyond the bounds of space and time, isn't that something impressive? Isn't that a higher power?
- jasonjei 7mo agoThat’s fine, but you don’t have to be a deist to appreciate the title. Moby named one of his songs “God Moving Over the Face of the Water.” The author chose to use a metaphor many of us are familiar with, and even some atheists connote “God” to the mysterious existence of the universe, symbolic to the many collisions of stars that led us here.
- jacquesm 7mo agoYou're not seriously trying to help.
- thendrill 7mo agoYou must be real fun at parties ...
- cwmoore 7mo ago“Are you familiar with the Stone Tape Theory?” (Post Malone’s response in a Joe Rogan interview when asked about McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory)
- eurohand 7mo agoCthulhu*
- vscode-rest 7mo agoThe Cubes are the most captivating to me. Organic mishmash of polyhedra and assorted blobs is one thing, but perfect cubes is uniquely striking.
- chasil 7mo agoMaybe try copper sulphate? https://crystalverse.com/best-way-to-grow-copper-sulfate-crystals/ https://crystalverse.com/best-way-to-grow-copper-sulfate-cry... Crystal growth has been on here before. Let me see if I can find a link or two... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31105320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31105320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30487511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30487511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29779923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29779923 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29255511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29255511
- namanyayg 7mo agoPyrite or fool's gold, lovely mathematical perfection and a great etymology to match!
- adrian_b 7mo agoRegarding etymology, for many centuries the substances that are now called "sulfides" were called "pyrites", after the "iron pyrite" i.e. the iron (II) disulfide, which is the most abundant sulfide mineral. At the end of the 18th century, Lavoisier together with a few other French chemists have created the modern systematic chemical nomenclature, so the old term "pyrite" was replaced by "sulfide" (like also "vitriol" was replaced with "sulfate"). For who does not know, "pyrite" comes from "fire", i.e. from the pronunciation in Ancient Greek of the corresponding word that was cognate with English "fire" (Ancient Greek or Latin "p" corresponds with English "f"). Striking pyrite produces sparks, which can be used to start a fire.
- cheevly 7mo agoImagine associating god with some minerals.
- GroksBarnacles 7mo agoNot a theist myself, but I can certainly imagine a believer seeing god in all the wonders of nature. "The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."
- krunck 7mo agoImagine associating $DEITY with war, slaughter, and destruction. I prefer the mineral $DEITY.
- ErroneousBosh 7mo agoI can get behind a God that just makes cool rocks. Gabriel: "Hey, God, what's doing?" God: "Oh, well, I just got a big lump of boron so I'm trying to get it to crystallise out with all this silicon and alumina. If it works I think I'll have the tiny people call it 'tourmaline'. Yeah, look at that stuff, look at it go!"
- carlosjobim 7mo agoHave you heard about Islam?
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- BigTTYGothGF 7mo agoWhy wouldn't you? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omphalos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huwasi_stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huwasi_stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baetyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baetyl
- mr_toad 7mo agoAnd yet many early religions associate their local mountain with god(s).
- sawjet 7mo agoThe Crystals. They speak to me.
- abhikul0 7mo agoAnd they say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfpMknlL-pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfpMknlL-pg
- cgannett 7mo agopretty crystals are pretty, gonna file this under "cool game dev inspo"
- Uncle_Brumpus 7mo agoThese types of huge perfect specimens always take my breath away when I am able to see them in person. To think that this kind of stuff just kinda exists buried in the earth... I am a part of a local mineral club which hosts several "field trips" a year to various mineralogically interesting locations (most of which aren't accessible as an individual, like private land and special digs at active mining/quarrying sites on their days off). I have never found anything even remotely as beautiful as the specimens shown, but the small collection of mildly interesting things that I've smashed out of the earth with my own 2 hands is amazingly satisfying to me. You don't even have to be a super dedicated "rock nerd" to take part, I highly recommend looking for local mineral clubs to join if this even remotely interests you. It's really a ton of fun!
- binyu 7mo agoFinding specimens is not that hard or inaccessible if you are determined. Virtually any place on earth has its own geomorphology history. Start by looking at geological maps to learn what kind of rocks/minerals you can find in your surroundings and look for old/active mines, quarries or any activity that excavates soil, etc. Specimens can be found sometimes in land deposits from these activites.
- throwup238 7mo agoThat’s what really sucks about rockhounding as a hobby. In the US we have a blessing of public BLM lands where we can collect, especially in the West, but most of the interesting specimens in museums and fancy collections come from mines or some unique geological occurrence on private land. Getting them requires dropping lots of money or getting into commercial mining. The best most of us can really hope for is some small piece from tailings. There are a few species you can sometimes find in washes when they get buried during massive floods, but other than that most museum quality specimens are impossible to find for rockhounds. I still bring my trusty Estwing rock hammer everywhere but it kind of takes the wind out of the treasure hunting aspect.
- chromacity 7mo ago> There are a few species you can sometimes find in washes when they get buried during massive floods, but other than that most museum quality specimens are impossible to find for rockhounds. Well, that's kinda how it has to be, right? If art museums displayed the artwork anyone can paint, they wouldn't be interesting to most people. Most museums are about displaying the stuff you otherwise wouldn't be able to find, buy, or make. It's still fun to learn to paint, even if you're no Rembrandt. To be fair, there are some museums that go for depth instead of scarcity and I personally find them more interesting. The Computer History Museum does this pretty well. They have some truly unique items, but also plenty of stuff you can buy on eBay, just presented and explained well.
- zokier 7mo agoFirst thought in my head was that these would make great demos for 3DGS: both geometry and light interactions are non-trivial. I imagine that makes them difficult to capture with traditional photogrammetry
- shevy-java 7mo agoSome of these look pretty cool actually. I don't see any god though, but I think I saw godzilla hiding in one of those shapes.
- deadbabe 7mo agoComing across perfect cubes in the wild must be insane
- __patchbit__ 7mo agoI wonder whether the four valence electrons occupy fixed quantum configurations or tokens for carbon approximating intellectual consciousness in life
- navane 7mo agoPrague national History Museum has an amazing collection of these. Truly a hidden gem.
- lukan 7mo agoTerra Mineralia in Freiberg (quite close to Prague), is also worth a visit.
- jihadjihad 7mo ago> Truly a hidden gem Where the gems are in plain sight!
- cpursley 7mo agoTellus in Georgia has an incredible collection: https://tellusmuseum.org/exhibit/weinman-mineral-gallery/ https://tellusmuseum.org/exhibit/weinman-mineral-gallery/
- shivaniShimpi_ 7mo agooh my god, this is gorg. i love museums for the same exact thing. there's so much you donno and every visit just leaves me in awe. thank you for sharing it. big wide bful world
- thatmf 7mo ago[dead]
- mannanj 7mo agoThe shamans would test your ability of spirit by qualifying if you "Know the Stone People". They are the oldest beings, the keepers of deep wisdom and knowledge.
- jrsdav 7mo agoKind of fun to think that the crystalline structure of minerals is an "echo" of their arrangement of atoms. A repeating pattern on a scale we can actually observe.
- ProllyInfamous 7mo agoZoom out, too: [CGP Grey - Metric Paper] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI> - among my favorite videos Yet even Plancks remain analogue...
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- vivzkestrel 7mo agoHank Schrader from breaking bad "They are not rocks, they are minerals marie"
- gyanchawdhary 7mo agoCheck out the yt talk on "king of kashmir" .. the world's largest aquamarine discovered in Karakoram mountains (pakistan) .. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujGJwq3PaU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujGJwq3PaU0
- Keyframe 7mo agoThank you for this. I didn't have any interest at all i. the topic, but video got me excited and interested!
- gyanchawdhary 7mo agoyou are welcome sir :)
- julianeon 7mo agoHouston has a good collection too. https://www.hmns.org/exhibits/cullen-hall-of-gems-and-minerals/ https://www.hmns.org/exhibits/cullen-hall-of-gems-and-minera...
- alnwlsn 7mo agoI've been to a few mineral museums like this and one of the interesting ones you can come across is Asbestos. Just hanging out there on display right next to some other mineral. It forms beautiful formations just like the rest, but I've heard so many mesothelioma lawyer commercials that it's easy to forget it's a completely natural material. Also one you can pick apart like cotton and weave into a fabric - it's a flexible material, made out of a rock, which can kill you. The asbestos formations are ones they keep behind glass.
- bregma 7mo agoWe used to have asbestos rocks sitting around in our house when I was growing up (my mother was born a raised in the town formerly called Asbestos, QC). You could just peel the fibers off the rock. In that form the asbestos is harmless: it's only when it's chopped into shorter fibers and inhaled that it's seriously unhealthy. Industrial uses almost always chopped the fibers so almost no commercial products using asbestos are safe, but the rocks just sitting there are harmless.
- windsurfer 7mo ago> All types of asbestos fibers are known to represent serious health hazards in humans and animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Health_impact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Health_impact
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- jatora 7mo agoRIP
- 01100011 7mo agoCentral California has several abandoned asbestos mines which continue to release asbestos into the nearby air and water. I remember considering some hiking around the area once and then came across the warnings regarding exposure. CA also has a lot of naturally occuring mercury as well. I seem to remember that some lakes in CA are so high in natural(i.e. not from gold mining) mercury that you shouldn't eat the fish.
- wolfi1 7mo agoreminds me of a quote from my favorite band: God thinks in the geniuses, he dreams in the poets and he sleeps in the rest of the people
- suncore 7mo agoIf "dead" things look this much alive, imagine how hard it is to determine life on other planets. Real life could look much more dull than these things :-)
- pjc50 7mo agoIf you have a large pile of spare cash and want your own gem museum, there's one closing down: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c937d7p0gzpo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c937d7p0gzpo
- jrussino 7mo agoOh wow, wish this had been posted sooner! This Saturday 4/18 is the last day to see this exhibit if you're in/near LA.
- obelos 7mo agoFor us nerds in the Portland/PNW area, the Rice Museum out in Hillsboro—despite a name suggesting it has an exhaustive display of rice varieties—has a terrific collection of large and unique mineral specimens. https://www.ricenorthwestmuseum.org https://www.ricenorthwestmuseum.org
- chris_va 7mo agoI am sure there is a great list somewhere of places to see stuff like this (or I can ask an LLM), but I can vouch for Mines Museum of Earth Science (Golden CO) and The Harvard Museum of Natural History (Mineralogy room, Cambridge MA)
- throwway120385 7mo agoIf you happen to be in Hilo, HI, the Lyman Museum is pretty cool too.
- rnoorda 7mo agoSecond the Rice Museum recommendation! If I ever make it big I'm going to legally change my last name to 'Mineral' and create the Mineral Museum of Rice on the other side of the freeway showcasing everything from basmati to risotto.
- selimthegrim 7mo agoThis makes me want to find an actual rice museum that isn't the IRRI.
- billiam 7mo agothese dramatic and colorful massive specimens are perfect for an art museum, but as a recovering mineralogist I feel like the true beauty of the world of minerals in Earth is shown on the microscopic level, where you can see both the incredible order and incredible randomness of the (mostly) crystalline solids that make up minerals. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_section There is an idea that minerals are these inorganic substances but fully two thirds of all minerals identified were originated from direct or indirect interaction with living things on Earth. In fact a recent hypothesis holds that minerals have evolved since the formation of the solar system very much like living things, getting more and more complex via selective processes. See https://hazen.carnegiescience.edu/research/mineral-evolution https://hazen.carnegiescience.edu/research/mineral-evolution
- Imanari 7mo agoabsolutely stunning
- ece 7mo agoFor a while I thought what could there be to see in the petrified national forest. It's mineralized trees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood), and there were enough different minerals in the area to make different colors. Definitely worth a visit.
- Aboutplants 7mo agoThe Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh has the absolutely stunning Hillman Hall of Minerals and Gems. https://carnegiemnh.org/explore/hillman-hall-of-minerals-and-gems/ https://carnegiemnh.org/explore/hillman-hall-of-minerals-and... Spent many hours there
- ChrisMarshallNY 7mo agoMe Mum[0] was a geologist. I grew up with stuff like that, all around the house. I still have a lot of it. [0] https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm https://cmarshall.com/miscellaneous/SheilaMarshall.htm
- throwmineral 7mo ago[dead]
- ribs 7mo agoOne of my favorite topics and a hobby finally makes it to Hacker News <swoon> Fine mineral specimens are the most surprising things on earth. Such regularity and color! It reminds you that every atom of an element, every molecule of a compound is exactly the same (caveat energy states), and the laws of physics and chemistry don't change. That's how these stunningly bright and REGULAR forms develop - trillions of atoms or molecules all falling into line.
- JackAcid 7mo agoI live and I die by the crystals!
- evanjrowley 7mo agoI hope for a new RPGMaker game featuring cave exploration enemies inspired by these interesting rock formations.
- guerrilla 7mo agoGod sleeps in the minerals, awakens in plants, walks in animals, and thinks in man. Arthur Young
- AIorNot 7mo agoworth checking out his pages: https://arthuryoung.com/about/arthur-young/ https://arthuryoung.com/about/arthur-young/
- thereWasAFish 7mo agoThe pictures are striking, but the comments are quite amusing on their own. Both on the website and here on HN. You can really see how people are going out of their way to get offended. You like apple? How could you hate orange!?
- contrastcyber 7mo agobeautiful
- tim333 7mo agoI've found these more interesting since reading The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet in the nyt. You don't get that kind of thing on asteroids or Venus, they are mostly produced as a side effect of microbes in the earth's crust that predate most surface life. It's an interesting question if we'll find them and or simple life in the crust of Mars. Idelwords has some discussion of that https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm I find it somewhat reassuring that even if we raze the plant through nuclear war or climate change, the crust microbes will be just fine and regenerate new surface life a while after. (nyt article https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/magazine/earth-geomicrobiology-microbes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/magazine/earth-geomicrobi... or https://archive.ph/VgzKD https://archive.ph/VgzKD)