AP2014d Habitat

Habitat – image 4 from the series Pictures of 1000 Words: Abstractions of Ancient Wisdom

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image: Habitat

Habitat, along with the other 6 images in the series, has been installed into its official location for ArtPrize 2014 at the First United Methodist Church, at 227 East Fulton Street, Grand Rapids, MI. This photo of it was taken right after it was framed, while it was still in the shop. Thank you, Mr. Lane Elmer 🙂

 

Habitat is the fourth image in the series entitled “Pictures of 1000 Words: Abstractions of Ancient Wisdom”. It was created using the text from Proverbs 27:11 – Proverbs 28:28.

The subject matter of each image in this series is inspired by some aspect relating to design.

The theme of this fourth image, entitled Habitat, is universal design. This image of the earth catching light from the sun reminds us that all the amazing designs we find surrounding us depend on the perfect placement of our planet in space!

Up to this point in the series, the images have attempted to highlight examples of complex engineering that we can relate to on our human scale. In the image “Habitat” we take a (fairly large) step back from the relatively minute scale we have been focused on in order to establish some context between those designs and the universe at large. The Earth provides a rare sanctuary from the fiercely extreme conditions that pervade our solar system and the universe as a whole – from the blistering heat on the surface of Mercury to the frozen atmosphere of Neptune, and from the absolute zero of deep space to the fusion-inducing heat at the center of the sun. There are a number of characteristics that define our earth which make Earth seem more like a machine engineered for the protection and survival of its payload rather than a random chunk of rock hurtling through space.

For example, the Earth has a magnetic field which does more than tell us which way is North. Radiation carried by the solar wind streams continuously from the sun and would cause all life on Earth to be microwaved into oblivion – if it were not diverted around and away from the main surface of the planet by this same magnetic field. The Aurora Borealis, seen at the North and South poles where the lines of the earth’s magnetic field converge, lights up the skies in an amazing showcase of this radioactive energy.

Also, the earth orbits the Sun at exactly the proper distance to allow the ambient surface temperatures to span the relatively minute range within which water can be found in its liquid form. A critical ingredient for living organisms, water steams into gaseous form at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), while at temperatures below 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) water freezes into a solid form that is as hard as concrete. Weather conditions that seem extreme to us as humans, such as ice storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes, are exceedingly mild compared to the conditions found beyond the environment of our earth, and in actuality remain within a very limited range that allows the delicate balance necessary for life to persist.

Some other intriguing characteristics of our habitat the Earth:
– the tilted axis of the earth causes the seasonal variations that allow life-enabling conditions to exist even at extreme latitudes
– the earth is the only planet with a single major satellite (which we know as the moon) whose gravity pulls at the oceans which cover 3/4 of the surface of the earth. The tides generated by this interaction provide tidal energy and prevent stagnation, allowing life to thrive.

Ultimately, the contents of a package depend upon the integrity of the package designed to protect them. The persistence and preservation of the myriad instances of cohesive design with which we find ourselves surrounded upon the surface of this earth provides tangible evidence of the effectiveness and complexity built into the habitat that has protected us in the midst of the maelstrom of inhospitable forces that make up the cosmos!

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