210420 What I learned in my studies this morning

Early rise, refreshed 

Mind ready to learn from the 

Masters of old words. 

From The Daily Stoic: 

Wisdom. Temperance. Justice. Courage. 

These four Stoic virtues form the basis for the Stoic philosophy of life. The summum bonum of what we should pursue to find true happiness and contentment in life. 

I carry a coin in my pocket which reminds me of these. I don't think about them enough, even with that small, weighty, reminder. 

Today's Meditation:

Being kind to others is a basic tenet of my philosophy of life. It is one of the most important parts of the philosophy that I try to model my children. 

It is not so much as to idolize self-sacrifice, as these passages proclaim. It makes me wonder, though, if these ancient wise men know something I don't. Do I need to do more? 

From Six Easy Pieces, by Richard Feynman:

Chapter 3. The Relation of Physics to the Other Sciences: Astronomy

Astronomy predates physics, developing initially from observations of the regular order of the planets and stars in the sky and looking for an explanation of that regularity.

Physics discovered that stars are made of the same atoms as are the things here on Earth. Using spectography, scientists analyzed the light from stars and discovered that that light must have been created from specific elements. Helium and technitium were discovered in stars before they were known in our daily world. 

Nuclear fusion creates specific proportions of isotopes (e.g. C-12 and C-13). Since chemical reactions do not change isotopes proportions like that, these could only be the result of nuclear fusion.