Tag: Time

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Geologists reject the Anthropocene by Madison Jones

The epoch of mankind
has reached a swift conclusion—
over before it began.

by Madison Jones

For the past 15 years, a panel of scientists, the international Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS), have deliberated on whether to recognize the Anthropocene as an official epoch in our planet’s geological timeline. In March 2024, the panel voted against officially recognizing the term, with twelve members opposed and four in favor. The term has been widely used by both scientists and humanist scholars, and so it presents an interesting example of how scientific deliberation impacts interdisciplinary areas of research.

Further reading:

‘Geologists reject the Anthropocene as Earth’s new epoch – after 15 years of debate’, 2024, Witze, A., Nature. Available: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00675-8

Author bio:

Madison Jones is an assistant professor in the departments of Professional & Public Writing and Natural Resources Science at the University of Rhode Island. His poetry collections are Losing the Dog (Salmon Poetry, forthcoming) and Reflections on the Dark Water (Solomon & George). His poems appear in Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly, and elsewhere.

You can find out more about Madison’s research, writing and poetry at madisonpjones.com and catch up with him on X/Twitter: @poetrhetor.

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The answer is none by John Norwood

The answer is none

Optimized to none more black

There is no knapsack

Most of the three line poems I write are zen kōans in the syllabic form of haiku. This one was inspired by the disappearance of some corporate swag, an empty knapsack, taken from my cubicle while I was out of the office. It manages to include a couple of pop culture references, a nod to Zen Buddhism, and a reference to the knapsack problem, a famous optimization problem in computer science that is NP-hard, that is, it cannot be solved in polynomial time.

John Norwood is a Mechanical Engineer working with Carbon, Inc. to revolutionize how things are made. His interests include old houses, yoga, baking, cryptography, and bluegrass music. You can follow him on Twitter under the handle @pryoga

Enjoyed this sciku? Check out some of John’s other work: Universal truth, God may be defined, With enough data, Rivers cut corners, and Squeamish ossifrage.

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God may be defined by John Norwood

God may be defined

P not equal to NP

Thus unprovable

This poem is about cryptography, which makes reference to the famous unsolved P versus NP problem of computer science. Modern cryptographic techniques rely on problems that are hard to compute (NP, or non-polynomial time) yet easy to verify (Polynomial time). If it were provable that such problems don’t exist, then any cryptography could be easily cracked. Our security is reliant upon an un-provable state and the very nature of its un-provabiity is what makes it secure. This fits my personal definition of God as the unknowable and believe the power of faith is rooted in a healthy relationship with that which cannot be known.

The P versus NP problem was first independently formulated by Stephen Cook and Leonid Levin in 1971, although the underlying ideas were considered earlier by John Nash, Kurt Godel and John von Neumann. It is one of the 7 Millennium Problems identified by the Clay Mathematics Institute with a reward of $1 million for the first to propose a solution.

John Norwood is a Mechanical Engineer working with Carbon, Inc. to revolutionize how things are made. His interests include old houses, yoga, baking, cryptography, and bluegrass music. You can follow him on Twitter under the handle @pryoga

Enjoyed this sciku? Check out some of John’s other work: Universal truth, The answer is none, With enough data, Rivers cut corners, and Squeamish ossifrage.