"Everything has been figured out, except how to live."
[Jean-Paul Sartre]

Quote of the Day, from brainyquote.com (2026/03/07)

Article of the Day

Le Guin, author of Paradises Lost
Le Guin, author of Paradises Lost

Paradises Lost is a science fiction novella by American author Ursula K. Le Guin (pictured), first published in 2002 in the collection The Birthday of the World. Set during a multigenerational voyage from Earth to a potentially habitable planet, it follows two members of the fifth generation born aboard the vessel as the ship's society responds to the prospect of landing on a planet after generations spent in space. The novella explores the isolation brought on by space travel, as well as themes of religion and utopia. It has elements of ecocriticism, a critique of the idea that human beings are altogether separate from their natural environment. Scholar Max Haiven described the novella as "a chastening lesson in both the potential and the perils of freedom", while author Margaret Atwood said that it "shows us our own natural world as a freshly discovered Paradise Regained, a realm of wonder". The novella has been anthologized as well as adapted into an opera of the same name. (Full article...)

  • Article of the Day

Image of the Day


Source: Wikimedia Commons.

On this day: March 6

March 6

William Speirs Bruce
William Speirs Bruce

Knowledge about Earth

Facts and Figures

  • Age of Earth: ~ 4.568 billion years
  • World Population: 7.3 billion (July 2015)
  • Continents: 7 (Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia)
  • Mean Radius: 6371.0 km
  • Axial Tilt: 23,44°

Image Source: Wikipedia - License: Public Domain (thanks to NASA)

Our Solar System

Our solar system consists of
1 star (Sun) and 8 planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).

  • 1 AU (astronomical unit) is roughly the distance between Earth and the Sun (about 150 million kilometres).
  • The space probe Voyager 1 was launched by the NASA in 1977 and is meanwhile (autumn 2015) about 133 AU away from Earth.

Image Source: Wikipedia - License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Why you should extend your general knowledge:

There are many reasons why one should or wants to extend his knowledge.
First you should consider that "general knowledge" is knowledge which a group of humans - who belong together regional, temporal or otherwise - owns. Thus, it describes a basic understanding of specific categories of knowledge.

As the English philosopher Francis Bacon said before: "Wisdom is Power" [Bacon 1597].