VABALOG

Wikipedia eklektiline sügavus XV

Euro ja suuremate võlglaste käekäik on jätkuvalt huvitav, kuid mul pole eriti millelegi paremale viidata kui Tyler Cowen’i postitusele, mis sisaldab asjalike mõtteid ja viiteid olulisemale. Lõpus toodud Yglesias’e postituse võib rahulikult vahele jätta.

• Dark Flow is a name given to a net motion of galaxy clusters with respect to the cosmic microwave background radiation which was found in a 2008 study. According to standard cosmological models, the motion of galaxy clusters with respect to the cosmic microwave background should be randomly distributed in all directions. However, analyzing the three-year WMAP data using the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect, the authors of the study found evidence of a common motion of at least 600 km/s toward a 20-degree patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela. The authors suggest that the motion may be a remnant of the influence of no-longer-visible regions of the universe prior to inflation.
• Vigorish, or simply the vig, also known as juice or the take, is the amount charged by a bookmaker, or bookie, for his services. In the United States it also means the interest on a shark’s loan. The term is Yiddish slang originating from the Russian word for winnings, vyigrysh. Bookmakers use this concept to make money on their wagers regardless of the outcome. Because of the vigorish concept, bookmakers should not have an interest in either side winning in a given sporting event. They are interested, instead, in getting equal action on each side of the event.
• Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft performed several close flybys of Enceladus, revealing the moon’s surface and environment in greater detail. In particular, the probe discovered a water-rich plume venting from the moon’s south polar region. This discovery, along with the presence of escaping internal heat and very few (if any) impact craters in the south polar region, shows that Enceladus is geologically active today. Analysis of the outgassing suggests that it originates from a body of sub-surface liquid water, which along with the unique chemistry found in the plume, has fueled speculations that Enceladus may be important in the study of astrobiology. The discovery of the plume has added further weight to the argument that material released from Enceladus is the source of the E ring.
• Santa Muerte is a deity venerated in Mexico, probably a syncretism between Mesoamerican and Catholic beliefs. The name literally translates to “Saint Death” or “Holy Death”. As the worship of this deity was clandestine until recently, most prayers and other rites are done privately in the home. However, for the past ten years or so, worship has become more public, especially in Mexico City. The cult is condemned by the Catholic Church in Mexico, but it is firmly entrenched among Mexico’s lower classes and criminal worlds. The number of believers in the deity has grown over the past ten to twenty years, to approximately two million followers and has crossed the border into Mexican American communities in the United States.
• Scrip is any substitute for currency which is not legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees and also as a means of payment in times where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns or occupied countries in war time. Other forms of scrip include subway tokens, arcade tokens and tickets, and “points” on some websites. Scrip survives in modern times in various forms including as gift certificates and currency in online games.
• The Observable Universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day, because light (or other signals) from those objects has had time to reach us since the beginning of the cosmological expansion. The actual shape of the Universe may or may not be spherical. Every location in the Universe has its own observable universe which may or may not overlap with the one centered around the Earth. The edge of the observable universe is now located about 46.5 billion light-years away.

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