Black holes

The 2 Most Important Skills For the Rest Of Your Life | Yuval Noah Harari on Impact Theory

I think this is maybe the most important thing
to know about living right now in the
21st century that we are now hackable
animals that we have the technology to
decipher what do you think what you want
to predict human choices to manipulate
human desires in ways which were never
possible before everybody welcome to
impact theory our goal with this show
and company is to introduce you to the
people and ideas that will help you
actually execute on your dreams all
right today’s guest is one of the most
profound thinkers of our time a two-time
winner of the Polanski prize for
creativity and originality his books
have sold over 12 million copies and
been translated into more than 45
languages sapiens his seminal book on
the history of mankind spent six months
on the Sunday Times bestseller list and
also made him in number one New York
Times bestselling author his work has
been recommended by countless luminaries
including Bill Gates Richard Branson
Mark Zuckerberg and Barack Obama he’s
won a litany of awards including the
Society for military histories monk Otto
Award for outstanding articles on
military history and the 2017 handel’s
Blatz German economic Book Award for the
most thoughtful and influential economic
book of the year additionally he’s one
of the most sought-after and influential
speakers in the world he’s given
multiple TED talks on hot-button issues
relating to the human race and in 2018
he was invited to give the main stage
keynote speech on the future of humanity
at the World Economic Forum annual
meeting in Davos he is a PhD from Oxford
is a tenured history professor at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in
addition to his many books he’s also
written for such prestigious global
outlets as the Financial Times the New
York Times The Wall Street Journal and
The Guardian so please help me in
welcoming the man who does a yearly 60
day silent Vipassana meditation retreat
the bestselling author of 21 lessons for
the 21st century

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

New York Times Bestseller
A Summer Reading Pick for President Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg
https://amzn.to/32zRRJX

Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind

A hardcover edition of the first volume of the graphic adaptation of Yuval Noah Harari’s smash #1 New York Times and international bestseller recommended by President Barack Obama and Bill Gates, with gorgeous full-color illustrations and concise, easy to comprehend text for readers of all ages.
https://amzn.to/3pjV9dW

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today’s most pressing issues.
https://amzn.to/38yBr8c

you’ve all here we’re happy to have you on the show thank you
good to be here good
very excited so I’ve been obsessively
reading your books since sapiens came
out and just really really blown away
and behind the scenes there’s a guy here
named chase somewhere who you will have
to meet today who has just been an
absolute champion for your books
internally because of the way that you
really frame the historical and where
we’re going in a way that becomes very
accessible for today and who we are and
that I think is the cool nexus of 21
lessons is that you’re really attacking
how does this all make sense how is the
past inform where we are and how does
where we are today inform where we’re
actually going to go and as a company
that’s making fiction content and
dealing in sci-fi and things like that
these ideas are really really important
to us for creating guides on how to be
essentially and the idea that I wanted
to start with is your notion of some of
the things that are happening
technologically become a little bit
dangerous because you can hack a human
and if you get explain what you mean by
hacking a human and then how do we end
up hacking ourselves in a positive way
well I think this is maybe the most
important thing to know about living
right now in the 21st century that we
are now hackable animals we have the
technology to decipher how humans or
what do you think what you want to
predict human choices to manipulate
human desires in ways which were never
possible before basically to hack a
human being you need two things you need
a lot of data especially biometric data
not just about where you go and what you
buy but what is happening inside your
body and inside your brain and secondly
you need a lot of computing power to
make sense of all that data now
previously in history this was never
possible
nobody had enough data and enough
computing power to hack human beings
even if the KGB of the Gestapo followed
you around 24 hours a day
eavesdropping on every conversation you
had watching everybody you meet still
they did not have the biological
knowledge to really understand what’s
happening inside you and they certainly
didn’t have the computing power
necessary to make sense even of the data
they were able to collect so the KGB
could not really understand you could
not really predict all your choices or
manipulate all your desires and so forth
and but now it’s changing what the KGB
couldn’t do corporations and governments
today are beginning to be able to do and
this is because of the merger of the
revolution in biotech we are getting
better in understanding what’s happening
inside us in the body in the brain and
at the same time the revolution in
Infotech which gives us the computing
power necessary when you put the two
together when Infotech merges with
biotech what you get is the ability to
create algorithms that understand me
better than I understand myself and then
these algorithms cannot just predict my
choices but also manipulate my desires
and basically sell me anything whether
it’s a product or a politician and that
so that’s what you’re calling hacking
that you’re hitting me with the right
emotional message at exactly the right
time based on my biometric data mm-hmm
yeah this is one of the things you can
do then you can predict you can
manipulate you can eventually also
re-engineer or replace if you really
hack a system you really understand how
it functions then usually you can also
reengineering or you can completely
replace it and again one of the dangers
that we are facing to during the 21st
century is that computers and AI would
be able to replace humans in more and
more tasks and maybe push millions of
humans out of the job market as a result
all right so I I fully understand the
dangers and we will talk about some of
what we were talking about off-camera
which is we’ve got this whole story
called nyan phew
we’re exploring that notion of what
happens to what you’ve called the
useless class when they’re pushed out of
the job market and what does that do
economically but going just staying with
the the notion of the hack ability for a
second so it’s funny as you were
describing it and I know you bring the
sense of like there’s some like real
significant problems we need to take a
very serious look at and I get almost
giddy with excitement because I have
potentially delusional levels of
optimism I’m very open to that no I
agree I mean the thing about this
ability to hack humans is that it has
also potentially tremendous positive
consequences and this is why it’s so
tempting if it was only bad then it was
B which would have been like an easy
deal to say okay we don’t want that and
let’s stop researching or going in the
direction but it is extremely tempting
because it can provide us for example
with the best health care in history
something which goes far beyond anything
we’ve seen so far
this can mean that maybe in 30 years the
poorest person on the planet can get a
better health care from her or his
smartphone then the richest person today
gets from the best hospitals and the
best doctors the kind of things you can
just know about what’s happening in your
body is nothing like we’ve seen so far
know that that’s really extraordinary
and if you had to take the positive look
and say okay we have this ability let’s
just say it’s already there we’ve got
all this biometric data it’s kicking off
how would you encourage people to
leverage that to empower themselves and
I’ll use an example that I found
profoundly interesting from your book so
you said that growing up that it was
unclear to you that you were gay but
that now Stanford has developed an
algorithm that essentially can look at
three or four photos of somebody’s face
and predict with 91% accuracy whether or
not they’re gay which seems impossible
but if that’s true the level of data
that we could give ourselves about are
like deepest most hardwired desires
there would be a level of clarity there
that seems useful how would you
encourage people to use that well it’s a
very good example I mean the Stanford
algorithm actually there is a lot of
problems with that research and let’s
put it aside but first key message from
from that is how little people actually
know about themselves and one of the
most important things in my life and
also in I think in my scientific career
was the realization of how little I know
about myself and humans in general there
was so many important ideas and
important facts we don’t realize about
herself I was 21 when I finally realized
that I was game which is you know when
you think what it it’s it’s absolutely
amazing I mean it should have been
obvious at age you know 16 15 and an
algorithm would have realized it very
quickly and you can build algorithms
like that today or in a few years you
just need to follow your eye movements
like you you go on the beach or you you
look at the computer screen and you see
an attractive guy an attractive girl and
just follow the focus of the eyes world
with the eyes go and whom do they focus
on should be very easy and such an
algorithm could have told when I was 15
that I was gay and the implications are
really mind-boggling when an algorithm
knows such an important thing about you
before you know it about yourself
now it can go in all kinds of directions
it really depends on where you live and
what you do with it
in some countries you can be in trouble
now with the police in the government
you might be sent to some reaction
facility in some countries like with you
know surveillance capitalism so maybe I
don’t know about myself that I’m game
but coca-cola knows I’m gay because they
have these algorithms and they want to
know that because they need to know
which commercials to show me let’s say
coca-cola knows that I’m gay and I even
know about myself that they know it and
Pepsi doesn’t coca-cola will show me a
commercial
with a shirtless guy drinking coca-cola
but Pepsi will make the mistake of
showing the girl in the bikini and next
day without my realizing why when I go
to the supermarket when I go to the to
the restaurant I will order coca-cola
not Pepsi I don’t know why but they know
so they might not even share this kind
of information with me now if the
algorithm does share the information
with me again it’s it a lot depends on
context one scenario is that you’re 15
years old
you go to a birthday party of somebody
from your class and somebody just heard
that there is this cool new algorithm
which tells zeros sexual orientation and
everybody agrees it will be a lot of fun
to just have this game that everybody
takes turn with the algorithm and and
everybody else looking and seeing the
results would you like to discover about
yourself in such a scenario this this
can be quite quite a shocking experience
okay but even if it’s done in like
complete privacy you know it’s it’s a
very deep philosophical question what
does it mean to discover something like
that about yourself from an algorithm
what car what does it mean about human
life about human identity we have very
little experience with these kinds of
things you know from very ancient times
all the philosophers and saints and
sages tell people to get to know
yourself better it’s one of the maybe
the most important thing in life is to
get to know yourself better but for all
of history this was a process of self
exploration which you did through things
like meditation and maybe sports and
maybe out and contemplation and all
these things what does it mean when the
process of self self exploration is
being outsourced to a big data algorithm
and the philosophical implications are
our quite mind-boggling it’s interesting
so let’s talk about that so the
implications your outsourcing the
self-discovery process to me that
sounds so profoundly useful because all
day the people that write in to me
they’re asking basically one essential
question how do I find the thing that I
love because I tell people you need to
develop a passion in your life I don’t
think you find it I think you develop it
but they need to start from an area of
real interest it needs to be actually
something that at a hardwiring level
they’re just they get that response so
then their next question is like how
right how do I get into that how do I
discover the thing that triggers me like
that and if I discover then how do I
develop it into a passion if you had an
algorithm something that were able to
use the more manipulative techniques
that you were talking about that
coca-cola’s doing or whatever but give
it to you in a way that can move you in
a desired direction so I’ll give you a
specific example that you give in the
book so talking about how let’s say
there was an algorithm that knew you
just broken up with somebody new that
you were in the grips of heartache
because they’re they’re reading your
BIOS thing we all do ha in fact give it
to us that that example that you put so
the biometrics they’re reading you the
it’s the song it knows what songs to
pick yeah I mean something is as simple
as choosing music so you you were just
dumped by your boyfriend or girlfriend
and the the algorithm that controls the
music that you listen to chooses the
songs that are the best fit for your
current mental state and of course this
brings up the question of what is the
matrix what do you actually want from
the music do you want the music to
uplift you or do you more want the music
to kind of connect you to the deepest
level of sadness and depression and
ultimately we can say that the algorithm
can follow different kinds of
instructions if you know what kind of
emotional state you want to be in you
can just tell the algorithm what what
you want and it will do it if you are
not sure you can tell the algorithm
follow the recommendation of the best
psychologist today so let’s say you have
the five stages of grief
so okay walk me with music
through this five stages of grief and
the algorithm can do that better than
any human DJ and what we really need to
understand in in this regard is that
what music and most of art plays on in
the end is the human biochemical system
at least according to the dominant view
of art in the modern Western world we
had different views in different
cultures but in the modern Western world
the idea of art is that art is above all
about inspiring human emotions it
doesn’t necessarily have to be joy great
art can inspire also sadness can can
inspire a anger can inspire fear it can
be a whole palette of emotional states
but out is about inspiring human
emotions so the instrument artists play
on and whether it’s musicians or poets
or movie makers they’re actually playing
on the homosapiens biochemical system
and we might reach a point quite soon
when an algorithm knows this instrument
better than any human artist a movie or
a poem or a song that will not move you
that will not inspire you might inspire
me and something that will inspire me in
one situation might not inspire me in
another situation and as time goes on
and the algorithm gathers more and more
data about me it will become more and
more accurate in reading my biochemical
system and knowing how to play on it as
if it was a piano like okay you want joy
I press this button and out comes the
perfect song the only song in the world
that can actually make me joyful right
now that’s so interesting to me alright
so right now real world you can snap
your fingers and you can have one
algorithm that’s tied to one biochemical
process in your life for real what would
you want to monitor and get that
feedback on now that’s easy I mean a
healthcare
if there is like something seriously
wrong in my body that I don’t know about
like I don’t know cancer or something I
would like the algorithm to find that
out I don’t want to wait until I mean
the usual process is that it has to go
through your own mind you can’t
outsource it I mean today when you need
to diagnose cancer there are exceptions
but in most cases there is a crucial
moment when you feel something is wrong
in my body and you go to this doctor and
that doctor and you do this test and
that test until they finally realize
okay we just discovered you have cancer
in your liver or whatever but because it
relies on your own feelings in this case
feelings of pain very often it’s quite
late in the process by the time you
start feeling pain usually the cancer
has spread and maybe it’s not too late
but it’s going to be expensive and
painful and problematic to treat it but
if we can you know outsource this don’t
go through the mind through through my
feelings I want an algorithm that with
biometric sensors is monitoring my
health 24 hours a day without my being
aware of it it can potentially discover
this liver cancer when it is just a tiny
just a few cells are beginning to to to
split and to spread and it’s so easy and
cheap and painless to take care of it
now instead of two years later when it’s
already spread and it’s it’s a big
problem so this is something that I
think almost everybody would sign on to
and this is the big temptation because
it comes with the whole other B the long
tail of dangers I mean this algorithm
that the the healthcare system knows
almost everything about you so one of
the biggest battles in the 21st century
is likely to be between privacy and
health and I guess that health is going
to win
most people will be willing to give up a
very significant amount of privacy in
exchange for far better health care now
we do need to try and enjoy both worlds
to create a system that give us a very
good health care but without
compromising our privacy
keeping there yes you can use the data
to tell me that there is a problem and
then we should do this order to solve it
but I don’t want this data to be used
for other purposes without my knowing it
whether we can reach such a balance and
like you know have-your-cake-
and-eat-it-too
that that’s a big political question
yeah yeah that’s that is very crazy and
very exciting for somebody like me who
definitely airs on the side of wanting
the health care
you’ve talked really powerfully about
story about how stories like money which
I don’t think most people think of as a
story as being you know these tremendous
things that control all of our lives
that point us all in the same direction
that gives us sort of a common code by
which to live
how can people take control of the story
that they tell themselves about
themselves which I find to be one of the
most important stories that you engage
in yes how our identity is really just a
story which we constantly construct and
and embellish I mean you can say that
the entire human mind is a machine that
constantly produces stories and
especially one very important story
which is my story and different people
have different specialize in different
genres some people build their stories a
tragedy some people build their stories
a comedy or a drama but in the end the
self is a story and not a real thing and
on the one hand with all the new
technologies you get better and in
better abilities to construct yourself
but already today a lot of the work
which previously was done in the brain
in the mind of constructing my identity
my story
has been outsourced to things like
Facebook that you build your Facebook
account and this is actually outsourcing
it from the brain and you are busy maybe
four hours every day just building a
story and becoming extremely attached to
it and and publicizing it to everybody
and you tend to make this fundamental
mistake you think it’s the wreck this is
really me and so that a mistake I’m
actually really curious first of all if
you take something like the profile that
people create about themselves in in
Facebook or Instagram it should be
obvious
it doesn’t really reflect your actual
existence your actual reality both in
reality now to reality like the
percentage of time you smile in your
Instagram account is much bigger than
the percentage of time you smile in real
life and you know you go on some
vacation and you post the the images
from the vacation so usually you’re
smiling in your in your swimming suit on
the beach with your girlfriend and
boyfriend holding and this cocktail and
everything looks perfect and everybody’s
so envious but actually you just had a
nasty fight with your boyfriend five
minutes ago and then this is the image
that everybody else is seeing and
thinking oh they must have such
wonderful time and afterwards like a
year later of two years later you look
back and this is what you see and you
forget what was the actual experience
like what what is the role of truth in a
story that we tell ourselves about
ourselves very little do you think there
should be more there should there should
definitely be more and wanting an
outcome if we were like I’m really gonna
make sure that the story I tell myself
is objectively true it’s going to be
very very painful and difficult I think
it is worth the effort but it’s just
very difficult we constantly we
constantly edit the this story just like
the news on TV are edited and just like
you know it’s a bit
making a movie like you watch the movie
in the cinema and everything is so
seamless like this is the story it flows
and then when you actually see how a
movie is produced this is insane like
you have this tiny bit of a scene you
repeat it 50 times and sometimes you
know you shoot this scene this scene
scene 2 comes after a scene 1 but
actually it was filmed long before that
so sometimes you you you feel the
breakup of the lovers before you film
the the first meeting for all kinds of
of scheduled reasons and location so the
the end result is completely seamless
and perfect but it is actually made up
from all these tiny
in tiny disconnected bits that have been
you know this is from here and this is
from there and we somehow glue it
together and it looks good and it’s the
same with the story of our life it’s all
kinds of bits and pieces and only when
you tell it to yourself or to somebody
else it kind of makes sense the cost of
trying to stick with the reality as it
is is very very high it’s very difficult
it demands a lot of effort and it is
often very painful because you have to
acknowledge many things about yourself
that you don’t want to acknowledge them
people have this fantasy of going to
some retreat and just taking out a week
or two off from life to really observe
inside to really explore Who am I what
is my authentic self and they have this
fantastic notion that I will be able to
finally connect to my inner child and I
will discover my true vocation in life
and I will discover all these wonderful
things about me and when you actually do
it
the first thing you usually encounter is
all the things you don’t want to know
about yourself there is a reason
that that that you don’t want to know
them I think it’s worth the effort but
it’s a very very hard task all right on
that there’s so many studies that talk
about the more delusional somebody is
self delusional the more likely they are
to be happy you’ve said one of the big
questions is a historian you’re trying
to answer is as we’ve moved forward as a
you know a species of society have we
actually gotten happier so there is some
importance it sounds like that you place
on happiness so why then would you want
people to do that hard work of facing
the reality is recognizing the things
about themselves that they don’t
necessarily want to recognize is that
because you think it leads to more
happiness I think that ultimately it is
worth the price I mean delusions come at
a very high price also and not just to
yourself but to people around you to the
world as a whole I mean ultimately this
leads to things like wars and like
genocide and like an emperor and you
know I come from Israel I come from the
Middle East so I am surrounded by
millions of people who are killing each
other because of all kinds of fictional
stories in delusions that they believe
in so sometimes it’s an important
defensive mechanism it’s very difficult
to live just with the raw truth all the
time but the price of delusion and the
price of not being able to tell the
difference between fiction and reality
it ends up and eventually it adds up to
things like genocide and war that sounds
like a pretty extraordinary price to pay
yeah I will agree with you there in 21
lessons is what do we do when we’re
faced with being put out of work that we
are one of the useless class and we have
to do this reinvention at a career level
you’re living longer your career life is
50 60 70 80 years whatever that looks
like in a time where every seven to ten
years like it’s just it’s a completely
new world what do you think the human
capacity for that level of reinvention
is well that’s a very important
question-it has little to do with
immortality because even without
immortality we are heading in the
direction even if people if the lifespan
remains as it is 80 years every 10 years
you have another big shock
I mean people one of the things many
people don’t realize about the AI
revolution and the automation revolution
they imagine it is some kind of one-time
event we have the big AI revolution in
2025
you have all these truck drivers and
taxi drivers and doctors and whatever
losing their jobs you have a few
difficult years of adjustment and then
eventually you have the new brave new
world of AI with a new equilibrium and
this is an extremely unlikely scenario
because we are nowhere near the maximum
potential of AI the speed in which it
develops is only likely to accelerate so
what we are really going to face is a
cascade of ever bigger revolutions in
the job market and in many other areas
of life relationships politics and so
forth so you have a big disruption in
2025 you have an even bigger disruption
in 2035 an even bigger one in 2045 and
and so forth and if you look say at a
job market so ok you were a truck driver
and they no longer need you but there is
new demand for yoga teachers so you
somehow reinvent yourself at age 40 I’m
no longer truck driver nominate your
teacher it’s very difficult you somehow
do it 10 years later no need of yoga
teachers thank you very much we now have
these amazing applications connected
with biometric sensors to your body they
know exactly what you’re doing with
every tiny muscle as you do this posture
of that posture
no human yoga teacher can compete with
that you’re out of job you have to
reinvent yourself again as a designer of
virtual world games and you do it
somehow but 10 years later you have to
do it again because this too has now
been automated and
even if you get support from the
government and there is all these
education for the for adult system the
really big question is again it’s
psychological do do we as human beings
have the mental stability and the
emotional intelligence necessary to
reinvent ourselves repeatedly and you
know when you’re 20 what you’re doing is
basically to reinvent yourself or to
invent yourself for the first time and
it is very difficult when you’re 30 it’s
even more difficult but you sometimes
but you somehow do it but when you get
to be 40 50 60 it becomes more and more
difficult you have more to let go of I
have invested so much in building this
career this personality these skills to
give it all up and start again from from
a new it’s so difficult so I don’t know
what whether we can do it yeah that is
the question that I think will
ultimately be forced to answer and that
brings me to education so what do you
think that if we’re talking to somebody
who’s 18 right now they’re trying to
decide do I go to college yes or no
should they go to college and if they go
to college what should they be studying
that’s a very difficult question the
first thing they should realize is that
nobody really knows nobody really knows
how the job market would look like in
2040 so they should be suspicious of all
these kinds of advices by people who
pretend that they know what the job
market would need in 20 years the best
investment I would say is in emotional
intelligence and in mental balance and
these kinds of skills of how to keep
changing throughout your life how to
keep learning throughout your life now
how do you learn that that’s very very
difficult we don’t have a college degree
in mental flexibility but these are the
most important
so whatever you choose you can go to law
school you can go to ballet school but
you should keep in mind that much of
what I’m learning might be irrelevant in
in 20 or 30 years so whatever else I’m
doing
I should also invest in developing my
emotional intelligence my mental balance
my ability to keep changing and learning
and reinventing throughout my life so
maybe to give an image or a metaphor if
in the past education was like building
a stone house with very deep foundations
now I would say that education is more
like a constructing a tent
that you can fold up and move to another
location very quickly and easily that’s
a great analogy so given that it’s so
hard to predict the future you’ve talked
a lot about the power of science fiction
and science fiction writers walk us
through that why what is the role that a
science fiction writer can play or
storytellers filmmaker whatever the case
may be our lives in the 21st century
more than anything else are going to be
new technologies especially in AI and
biotechnology and most people their
understanding of these technologies and
their potential for good or for bad it
really comes from science fiction the
political system so far has done an
awful job in understanding and preparing
us for these kinds of developments there
is almost no talk in the political arena
about AI and biotechnology the
scientific community is of course very
deeply engaged with it but most people
don’t read articles in science or nature
and even if they tried it would be very
difficult for them to understand the
professionals are gone and all that the
statistics and so forth so that most
people actually get their education
about what’s coming from science fiction
and this mean
at least I think so that science fiction
is now the most important artistic genre
and it should also be the most
responsible and one of the problems we
sense fiction is it’s so far it is done
as social jobs some novels and TV series
and films are really amazing in the way
they explore what’s what could what
could happen are ranging like some of my
favorites are my all-time favorite is
brave new world by Aldous Huxley which
was written back in the early 1930s and
I think is the most prophetic and
profound I totally understand alright so
before I asked my last question tell
these guys where they can find you
online I have a website why in Harari
dot-com and they can find me on Facebook
and Instagram and Twitter and all the
usual places
awesome my last question is what is the
impact that you want to have on the
world I want to bring more clarity to
the public conversation on what’s
happening in the world I think that too
much of the public discussion is focused
either on the wrong issues or is
extremely confused and unclear and
people are flooded by enormous amounts
of information which they don’t know how
to make sense of and what I I see my
mission is bringing clarity to the
public discussion especially in terms of
focusing people’s attention on the most
important questions I try to give some
answers to but I don’t care a lot if
people don’t agree with me about the
answers about the solutions the
important thing I think is to agree
about the questions and I would end by
saying there are three big challenges to
humankind in the 21st century there are
nuclear war climate change and
technological disruption and these
should be the first three items on the
political agenda of every country this
is not the case right now I would like
it to be the case
Yuval thank you so much for joining me
thank you that was incredible all right
guys when I say that you’re going to
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three books they are absolutely
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about where we’ve come from where we’re
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will give you the ability to look at
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understand yourself not even just at the
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kernel level it was so fascinating to
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work together is is breathtaking so I
highly highly highly encourage that and
the fact that he’s out there in a
populist way getting people to ask these
questions I think is so critical and he
throughout go back to the beginning of
this episode he threw out some amazing
business ideas without I think even
meaning to but I thought wow somebody
could actually run with these and they
would be extraordinary and that’s just
the way his mind works he really is one
of the most profound thinkers of our
time dive in he’s accessible and that is
one of the most beautiful things and
remember he’s a historian so the way
that he’s putting this all in context is
is truly extraordinary and once you
understand things at why they are the
way they are then it just brings a whole
new ability to see through the lies fake
news the stories we tell ourselves all
of the just natural human attachments to
really come to an understanding of the
way the world actually is and once you
understand that then you can begin to
move in a way that makes sense and
allows you to reach your own goals all
right if you haven’t already be sure to
subscribe and until next time my friends
be legendary
take care camp activist I credit my
success to voracious reading and I mean
I read a lot but when I say that I read
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enjoy and be legendary everybody thank
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Tricks To Improve Your Credit Score

The science behind your Credit Score

LA Johnson/NPR

Credit scores. If you’ve ever rented an apartment, bought a car or applied for a loan, you know what it is. It’s a score that tells lenders how financially reliable you are and how good you are at paying off your debts. But it’s so much more than that, too.

There are rules to the credit score game. They’re just not so easy to find.

“It really is a game of the less you know, the more the person that you owe can earn from you,” says Tiffany Aliche, also known as the Budgetnista.

For example, you’ve probably heard conflicting advice when it comes to your credit, like: You should pay off your credit card in full each month. And then, no, you shouldn’t pay off your card in full each month, it’s good to leave a little balance. Aliche says there are all kinds of mixed messages on purpose.

“It’s not in a creditor’s best interest for you to know how to play the game, because if you know how to play the game, then they don’t make any money,” Aliche says.Article continues after sponsor message

But thankfully, Aliche says the rules aren’t that hard to follow once you know what they are. Out of all the basic financial tenants (debt, budgeting, investing, insurance) Aliche says credit is the easiest to manipulate.

First, we give you some tricks and tips to boost your credit score. Then we’ll give you a basic breakdown of how credit scores work.

What is considered a good credit score?

There are lots of different credit score calculators, but Aliche recommends focusing on your FICO score. “If you have a decent FICO score, which is the typical score most lenders use, then your [other] scores will probably be good no matter what credit score system someone’s using,” she says. “The FICO score ranges from 300, which is an F minus, minus, minus to 850, which is A plus, plus, plus, plus.” And she says there’s no point in trying to achieve an 850 if your score is 740 or above. “You’re likely to get a yes on most things that you ask for when it comes to your credit once you hit 740,” she says.

How can I improve my credit score?

If you have no credit, little credit or bad credit, a parent, friend or family member (who pays their bills on time and has good credit) can do something to boost your credit score. They can add you to their credit card as an authorized user…and you will inherit their good credit from that card.

“Yes, you can inherit the good behavior, but you can also inherit the bad. So you want to make sure that you are an authorized user on someone who pays off every month in full,” Aliche said.

This is Aliche’s main credit score hack.

“Really the point of an authorized user was to give younger folks access to a card that they would not normally have access to. But we’re not using it like that. We’re just using it to boost their credit score.”

Aliche’s dad actually did this for her.

If you want to add someone on as an authorized user, call your bank or credit card company and ask to add an authorized user onto your credit card. Technically, you can give this authorized user access to your physical credit card, but Aliche recommends you not do that. Just add them as a user — with no card — to boost their credit score.

Never get too close to your credit card spending limit:

Let’s say your credit card company tells you you can have a credit card with a $100 spending limit. That’s how much money you can borrow and spend. But…you actually shouldn’t spend that full amount. You shouldn’t get even close to your $100 limit. You should spend much less. Just 30% of your spending limit, so $30. If your credit card limit is $1,000, you can spend $3,000. If you spend more than 30% of your limit, that hurts your credit.

So if you have a good credit score and you want to maintain it, spending 30 percent of your credit card limit is fine. If you have a $100 credit card limit, and you only spend $30 each month, that keeps you at 30% utilization of your card, and the credit score people like that.

If you want to increase your credit score, though, you need to spend less than 30 percent of your spending limit. Only use $20 of your credit card limit. Or $15 (if your limit is $100). That shows the credit bureau that you don’t need all of their credit. And for some reason, that makes your credit score go up.

If you do need to use your full credit card limit, one way to get around this is to pay your balance before your statement date. Your statement date is different from your payment due date. The statement date is the day that credit card companies notify the credit bureaus of your card usage. If you can beat them to the punch and pay off the card before it’s reported, you can use more than 30 percent of your spending limit.

It can sometimes be hard to find your statement date, though. Aliche recommends you call your bank or credit card company directly and ask them what the statement date is.

Is it better for your credit to pay off your credit card in full each month or keep a small balance?

“Paying off a debt in full every single month is like fairy dust on your credit score. It’s like you paid off a mortgage. It’s like you paid off a car,” Aliche says. It doesn’t matter how big or small your balance is. The credit bureau just likes to see that you pay off your balance, in full, every month. It’s the habit that counts.

You might have heard it’s good to keep a small balance, but Aliche says that’s a misconception.

“Only the credit card companies want you to keep a balance, because if you don’t keep a balance, what are they going to charge you? There’s no fees when you pay off in full.”

What about asking for a credit limit increase? Can you ask for it? Will that hurt your score?

When you ask for a credit limit increase, Aliche says, the credit card company will either do a “hard inquiry” or a “soft inquiry.” A “hard inquiry” is when you give someone permission to “to see all of your grades and then they make a decision whether they want to lend to you.” That inquiry can impact your credit score.

Before you ask for an increase, ask your credit card company if it’s a hard inquiry. If it is, you need to ask yourself if it’s worth the potential credit score hit. There’s no way to know if you’ll be approved for the increase, Aliche says, but if you have strong credit (740 or above), you’re more likely to be approved.

Now, here’s some credit score 101:

What is my credit score composed of?

The five components that make up your credit score:

1. Payment history (35% of your credit score): This is the most important part of your credit score. Basically, payment history means what it sounds like: Do you pay the people you owe on time? This applies to school loans, credit cards, etc. 
2. Amounts Owed (30% of your credit score): Think of this as your spending limit. (This is the credit utilization we talked about above). You never want your credit card balance to be more than 30 percent of your spending limit.  Aliche says credit card companies have this little trigger that says, “‘Danger, danger, danger, she’s using too much of her card. She must be in financial trauma and turmoil.’ And so that’s why they punish you by bringing down your score [if you spend more than 30 percent of your credit limit]. Because if your score is low, guess what? You can’t qualify for more debt. You see, they’re literally slowing you down.” So 30 percent is a new 100 percent.
3. Length of Credit History (15% of your credit score): The longer you’ve had credit, the stronger this part of your credit score will be. Keep your oldest credit card open and pay off a small, recurring bill each month on it and you shouldn’t have to worry much about this 15 percent.
4. New Credit (10%): Each time you open a new line of credit (think: applying for a loan or new credit card) this 10 percent of your score is affected. You can lose points just by applying for a new credit card, so make sure you don’t apply for new credit unless you really need it. Buying a car or trying to get approved for a rental is probably worth it. But is that fourth credit card worth it? Maybe not. 
5. Credit Mix (10%): You don’t need to do anything for this component. Lenders just like to see that you have a mix of credit such as revolving credit like a credit card, and some installment credit loans, like a mortgage. “They just like to see that you have a mix,” Aliche says. “The longer you live, the more of a mix you’ll have.” 

What is not included in my credit score?

The credit bureaus don’t take into account your job, your income, how much money you have saved, your marital status, or if you have children.

When should I start building credit?

Start building credit when you know you can manage it effectively. Only take out credit if you know you won’t abuse it. Aliche says she would much rather someone not take out credit than to severely abuse it. “The abuse of it is way more detrimental,” than having a “thin file.”

How many lines of credit should I have?

Typically, if you’re looking to buy a home, Aliche says a bank will look for about three lines of credit. “So I guess if there was a sweet spot, it’s that: three lines of credit,” she says.

So that would be like a car payment, a credit card and a student loan. That’s three lines of credit. And if you have five lines of credit that’s not bad, Aliche says.

“It’s not necessarily bad if you’re managing them well,” she says. “To me, between three and 10 is probably best. But honestly, why do you need more than five?”

Where can I find my credit score?

Some people can find a credit score through their online banking portal. You can get your FICO score here. You can also find your score through one of the major credit reporting agencies: Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax.

You can expect to see slightly different scores depending on where you look. Here’s more information about how to find your score.

Theory of Relativity

Copernicus 1543 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

Nicolaus Copernicus

The Copernican Planisphere, illustrated in 1661 by Andreas Cellarius. (Image credit: Public domain)

In the early 1500s, when virtually everyone believed Earth was the center of the universe, Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus proposed that the planets instead revolved around the sun. Although his model wasn’t completely correct, it formed a strong foundation for future scientists to build on and improve mankind’s understanding of the motion of heavenly bodies. [Related: Famous Astronomers: List of Great Scientists in Astronomy]

Indeed, other astronomers built on Copernicus’ work and proved that our planet is just one world orbiting one star in a vast cosmos loaded with both, and that we’re far from the center of anything. Here is a brief biography of Copernicus:

Celestial education

Born on Feb. 19, 1473, in Toruń, Poland, Mikolaj Kopernik (Copernicus is the Latinized form of his name) traveled to Italy at the age of 18 to attend college, where he was supposed to study the laws and regulations of the Catholic Church and return home to become a canon. However, he spent most of his time studying mathematics and astronomy. Due to his uncle’s influence, Copernicus did become a canon in Warmia, but he asked to return to Italy to study medicine and to complete his law doctorate. (Of course, he may also have been thinking that the skies above Italy were clearer than above Warmia, according to Famous Scientists.

Nicolaus Copernicus (Image credit: Public Domain)

While attending the University of Bologna, he lived and worked with astronomy professor Domenico Maria de Novara, doing research and helping him make observations of the heavens. Copernicus never took orders as a priest, but instead continued to work as a secretary and physician for his uncle in Warmia.

When he returned to Poland to take up his official duties, his room in one of the towers surrounding the town boasted an observatory, giving him ample time and opportunity to study the night sky, which he did in his spare time.

A new model

In Copernicus’ lifetime, most believed that Earth held its place at the center of the universe. The sun, the stars, and all of the planets revolved around it.

One of the glaring mathematical problems with this model was that the planets, on occasion, would travel backward across the sky over several nights of observation. Astronomers called this retrograde motion. To account for it, the current model, based on the Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy’s view, incorporated a number of circles within circles — epicycles — inside of a planet’s path. Some planets required as many as seven circles, creating a cumbersome model many felt was too complicated to have naturally occurred.

In 1514, Copernicus distributed a handwritten book to his friends that set out his view of the universe. In it, he proposed that the center of the universe was not Earth, but that the sun lay near it. He also suggested that Earth’s rotation accounted for the rise and setting of the sun, the movement of the stars, and that the cycle of seasons was caused by Earth’s revolutions around it. Finally, he (correctly) proposed that Earth’s motion through space caused the retrograde motion of the planets across the night sky (planets sometimes move in the same directions as stars, slowly across the sky from night to night, but sometimes they move in the opposite, or retrograde, direction).

Copernicus finished the first manuscript of his book, “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (“On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”) in 1532. In it, Copernicus established that the planets orbited the sun rather than the Earth. He laid out his model of the solar system and the path of the planets.

He didn’t publish the book, however, until 1543, just two months before he died. He diplomatically dedicated the book to Pope Paul III. The church did not immediately condemn the book as heretical, perhaps because the printer added a note that said even though the book’s theory was unusual, if it helped astronomers with their calculations, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t really true, according to Famous Scientists. It probably also helped that the subject was so difficult that only highly educated people could understand it. The Church did eventually ban the book in 1616.

The Catholic Church wasn’t the only Christian faith to reject Copernicus’ idea.

“When ‘De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium’ was published in 1543, religious leader Martin Luther voiced his opposition to the heliocentric solar system model,” says Biography.com. “His underling, Lutheran minister Andreas Osiander, quickly followed suit, saying of Copernicus, ‘This fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside down.'”

Copernicus died on May 24, 1543, of a stroke. He was 70. He was buried in Frombork Cathedral in Poland, but in an unmarked grave. Remains thought to be his were discovered in 2005.

Remains found

In 2008, researchers announced that a skull found in Frombork Cathedral did belong to the astronomer. By matching DNA from the skull to hairs found in books once owned by Copernicus, the scientists confirmed the identity of the astronomer. Polish police then used the skull to reconstruct how its owner might have looked.

Nature quotes the AFP as stating that the reconstruction “bore a striking resemblance to portraits of the young Copernicus.”

In 2010, his remains were blessed with holy water by some of Poland’s highest-ranking clerics before being reburied, his grave marked with a black granite tombstone decorated with a model of the solar system. The tomb marks both his scientific contribution and his service as church canon.

“Today’s funeral has symbolic value in that it is a gesture of reconciliation between science and faith,” Jacek Jezierski, a local bishop who encouraged the search for Copernicus, said according to the Associated Press. “Science and faith can be reconciled.”

The unmarked grave was not linked to suspicions of heresy, as his ideas were only just being discussed and had yet to be forcefully condemned, according to Jack Repcheck, author of “Copernicus’ Secret: How the Scientific Revolution Began.”

“Why was he just buried along with everyone else, like every other canon in Frombork?” Repcheck said. “Because at the time of his death he was just any other canon in Frombork. He was not the iconic hero that he has become.”

Refining the work

Although Copernicus’ model changed the layout of the universe, it still had its faults. For one thing, Copernicus held to the classical idea that the planets traveled in perfect circles. It wasn’t until the 1600s that Johannes Kepler proposed the orbits were instead ellipses. As such, Copernicus’ model featured the same epicycles that marred in Ptolemy’s work, although there were fewer.

Copernicus’ ideas took nearly a hundred years to seriously take hold. When Galileo Galilei claimed in 1632 that Earth orbited the sun, building upon the Polish astronomer’s work, he found himself under house arrest for committing heresy against the Catholic Church.

Despite this, the observations of the universe proved the two men correct in their understanding of the motion of celestial bodies. Today, we call the model of the solar system, in which the planets orbit the sun, a heliocentric or Copernican model.

“Sometimes Copernicus is honored as having substituted the old geocentric system with the new, heliocentric one, as having regarded the sun, instead of the Earth, as the unmoving center of the universe,” writes Konrad Rudnick, author of the Cosmological Principles. “This view, while quite correct, does not render the actual significance of Copernicus’s work.”

According to Rudnick, Copernicus went beyond simply creating a model of the solar system.

“All his work involved a new cosmological principle originated by him. It is today called the Genuine Copernican Cosmological Principle and says, ‘The Universe as observed from any planet looks much the same,'” Rudnick wrote.

So while Copernicus’ model physically placed the sun at the center of the solar system, it also figuratively removed the focus from Earth, making it just another planet.

Solar System – 5 Billion Years

Sun | Mercury | Venus | Earth | Mars | Asteroids | Jupiter | Saturn | Uranus | Neptune | Pluto | Comets | Beyond | Your Weight on Other Planets

The Solar System

The Solar System is our local neighborhood in space. This incredible system of celestial pobjects contains a star, eight planets, 140 moons, and a variety of other objects such as asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets. At the center the is an average-sized, middle aged yellow star known as the Sun. The eight planets and other bodies orbit the Sun in a perpetual dance that has been going on for nearly five billion years. The planets in this system range in size from small, rocky worlds to gigantic balls of gas and ice. These planets are orbited by a multitude of moons that vary from asteroid-sized chunks of rock to nearly planet-sized worlds with atmospheres of their own.

The Wanderers

For centuries, people have looked into the skies and wondered about the lights in the sky. They soon noticed that several of the lights seemed to move across they sky at regular intervals. They thought these objects were wandering stars, so they called them “planets,” which comes from the Greek word meaning “wanderers.” At the time, it was commonly believed that the Earth was at the center of the universe. Therefore, these lights that moved across the sky must be divine emissaries of the gods. Because of this, they gave them heavenly names. These five wandering lights became known as Mercury, Venus Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

The Renaissance

As the dark ages gave way to the renaissance, scientific knowledge started to evolve. People began to see the five visible planets as celestial bodies that orbited the Earth. In the 16th century, many enlightened scientists such as Galileo, Copernicus, and Kepler supported a new model for the Solar System in which the Sun was at the center and the planets revolved around it. With the invention of the telescope, it was discovered that the Solar System was much more complex than previously thought. The moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn were revealed. It was the beginning of a new age of discovery.

Age of Exploration and Discovery

As astronomers searched the night sky for more planets, Uranus and Neptune were soon found, followed by the discovery of a ninth planet to be named Pluto. Ever more powerful telescopes revealed new moons around Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. By the time we reached the 20th century, we had the technology to leave our planet and explore the Solar System up close. A rare planetary alignment made the Voyager missions possible. Launched in 1977, these two spacecraft revealed never-before-seen details of the planets and discovered many new moons. By the late 20th century, it was discovered that Pluto was only one of many small objects in the outer Solar System. In 2006, the international astronomical community voted to demote Pluto the the status of dwarf planet, bringing the official number of planets in out Solar System back down to eight.

The Solar System Today

The Solar System as we know it today consists of the Sun, the eight planets and their moons, asteroids, comets, dwarf planets, and other assorted objects in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud beyond Neptune. The eight planets all orbit the Sun in the same direction and in the same plane, known as the ecliptic. The axis of rotation for most of the planets is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic. The only exception is Uranus, which rotates on its side for unknown reasons.

The Sun is the power plant that drives the Solar System. Its immense gravity holds the planets in orbit. Its energy drives weather systems on the planets with atmospheres. The Sun also provides energy for the vast majority of life on Earth. Without the Sun, it is unlikely that there would be any life forms inhabiting our blue planet.

The Solar System is divided into two main regions. The inner planets consist of the four rocky, or terrestrial planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, while the outer planets consists of the two gas giant planets, Jupiter, Saturn, and the two ice giant planets, Uranus, and Neptune. The asteroid belt divides these two regions. The inner planets are composed mainly of rocky materials such as silicates in their outer crusts and mantles and metals such as iron and nickel in their in their inner cores. The outer planets are composed mainly of gases such as hydrogen and helium.

Beyond the orbit of the last planet, Neptune, lies two regions known as the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. The Kuiper belt is the home of dwarf planets and other small, planet-like bodies. Much farther out, the Oort cloud is the home of the icy comets. Very little is known about the objects in these two regions, but NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is scheduled to reach Pluto in 2015 and may solve many of the mysteries of the last frontier of the Solar System.

Jupiter – Largest Planet – 4.5 Billion years

Jupiter: Our Solar System’s Largest Planet

This new Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet’s trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed Jupiter when the planet was 400 million miles (640 million kilometers) from Earth, when Jupiter was near “opposition,” or almost directly opposite the sun in the sky.

(Image: © NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center) and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley))

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Fittingly, it was named after the king of the gods in Roman mythology. In a similar manner, the ancient Greeks named the planet after Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon.

Jupiter helped revolutionize the way we saw the universe and ourselves in 1610, when Galileo discovered Jupiter’s four large moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, now known as the Galilean moons. This was the first time that celestial bodies were seen circling an object other than Earth, and gave major support to the Copernican view that Earth was not the center of the universe.

NASA: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/jupiter/overview/

Physical characteristics

Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. If the enormous planet was about 80 times more massive, it would have actually become a star instead of a planet. Jupiter’s immense volume could hold more than 1,300 Earths. That means that if Jupiter were the size of a basketball, Earth would be the size of a grape.

Jupiter has a dense core of uncertain composition, surrounded by a helium-rich layer of fluid metallic hydrogen that extends out to 80% to 90% of the diameter of the planet.

Jupiter’s atmosphere resembles that of the sun, made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. The colorful light and dark bands that surround Jupiter are created by strong east-west winds in the planet’s upper atmosphere traveling more than 335 mph (539 km/h). The white clouds in the light zones are made of crystals of frozen ammonia, while darker clouds made of other chemicals are found in the dark belts. At the deepest visible levels are blue clouds. Far from being static, the stripes of clouds change over time. Inside the atmosphere, diamond rain may fill the skies.

The most extraordinary feature on Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, a giant hurricane-like storm that’s lasted more than 300 years. At its widest, the Great Red Spot is about twice the size of Earth, and its edge spins counterclockwise around its center at speeds of about 270 to 425 mph (430 to 680 km/h). The color of the storm, which usually varies from brick red to slightly brown, may come from small amounts of sulfur and phosphorus in the ammonia crystals in Jupiter’s clouds. The spot has been shrinking for quite some time, although the rate may be slowing in recent years.

Jupiter’s gargantuan magnetic field is the strongest of all the planets in the solar system at nearly 20,000 times the strength of Earth’s. It traps electrically charged particles in an intense belt of electrons and other electrically charged particles that regularly blasts the planet’s moons and rings with radiation more than 1,000 times the lethal level for a human, enough to damage even heavily shielded spacecraft, such as NASA’s Galileo probe. The magnetosphere of Jupiter swells out some 600,000 to 2 million miles (1 million to 3 million kilometers) toward the sun and tapers to a tail extending more than 600 million miles (1 billion km) behind the massive planet.

Jupiter also spins faster than any other planet, taking a little under 10 hours to complete a turn on its axis, compared with 24 hours for Earth. This rapid spin makes Jupiter bulge at the equator and flatten at the poles.

Jupiter broadcasts radio waves strong enough to detect on Earth. These come in two forms — strong bursts that occur when Io, the closest of Jupiter’s large moons, passes through certain regions of Jupiter’s magnetic field, and continuous radiation from Jupiter’s surface and high-energy particles in its radiation belts.

Orbit & rotation

Average distance from the sun: 483,682,810 miles (778,412,020 km). By comparison: 5.203 times that of Earth.

Perihelion (closest approach to the sun): 460,276,100 miles (740,742,600 km). By comparison: 5.036 times that of Earth.

Aphelion (farthest distance from the sun): 507,089,500 miles (816,081,400 km). By comparison: 5.366 times that of Earth.

From time to time, the small round black shadows cast by Jupiter’s four Galilean moons become visible in amateur telescopes as they cross (or transit) the planet’s disk. Here’s two of those shadows on Jupiter at the same time, Europa’s and Ganymede’s.  (Image credit: Starry Night software)

Jupiter’s moons

With four large moons and many smaller moons in orbit around it, Jupiter by itself forms a kind of miniature solar system.

Jupiter has 79 known moons, which are mostly named after the paramours of Roman gods. The four largest moons of Jupiter, called Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, were discovered by Galileo Galilei.

Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, and is larger than Mercury and Pluto. It is also the only moon known to have its own magnetic field. The moon has at least one ocean between layers of ice, although it may contain several layers of both ice and water, stacked on top of one another. Ganymede will be the main target of the European Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft that’s scheduled to launch in 2022 and arrive at Jupiter’s system in 2030.

Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system. The sulfur its volcanoes spew gives Io a blotted yellow-orange appearance that looks kind of like a pepperoni pizza. As Io orbits Jupiter, the planet’s immense gravity causes “tides” in Io’s solid surface that rise 300 feet (100 meters) high and generate enough heat for volcanic activity.

The frozen crust of Europa is made up mostly of water ice, and it may hide a liquid ocean that contains twice as much water as Earth does. Some of this liquid spouts from the surface in newly spotted sporadic plumes at Europa’s southern pole. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, a planned spacecraft that would launch in the 2020s to explore the icy moon, is now in phase B (the design stage). It would perform 40 to 45 flybys to examine the habitability of the moon.

Callisto has the lowest reflectivity, or albedo, of the four Galilean moons. This suggests that its surface may be composed of dark, colorless rock.

Jupiter’s rings

Jupiter’s three rings came as a surprise when NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft discovered them around the planet’s equator in 1979. Each are much fainter than Saturn’s rings.

The main ring is flattened. It is about 20 miles (30 km) thick and more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km) wide.

The inner cloud-like ring, called the halo, is about 12,000 miles (20,000 km) thick. The halo is caused by electromagnetic forces that push grains away from the plane of the main ring. This structure extends halfway from the main ring down to the planet’s cloud tops and expands. Both the main ring and halo are composed of small, dark particles of dust.

The third ring, known as the gossamer ring because of its transparency, is actually three rings of microscopic debris from three of Jupiter’s moons, Amalthea, Thebe and Adrastea. It is probably made up of dust particles less than 10 microns in diameter, about the same size of the particles found in cigarette smoke, and extends to an outer edge of about 80,000 miles (129,000 km) from the center of the planet and inward to about 18,600 miles (30,000 km).

Ripples in the rings of both Jupiter and Saturn may be signs of impacts from comets and asteroids.

Zoomed-in version of Juno’s unprecedented photo of Jupiter’s ring system, with the outlines of the Orion constellation mapped out.  (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI)

Research & exploration

Seven missions have flown by Jupiter — Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Ulysses, Cassini and New Horizons. Two missions — NASA’s Galileo and Juno missions — have orbited the planet. Two future missions are planned to study Jupiter’s moons: NASA’s Europa Clipper (which would launch in the 2020s) and the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) that will launch in 2022 and arrive at Jupiter’s system in 2030 to study Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Pioneer 10 revealed how dangerous Jupiter’s radiation belt is, while Pioneer 11 provided data on the Great Red Spot and close-up pictures of Jupiter’s polar regions. Voyager 1 and 2 helped astronomers create the first detailed maps of the Galilean satellites, discovered Jupiter’s rings, revealed sulfur volcanoes on Io and detected lightning in Jupiter’s clouds. Ulysses discovered the solar wind has a much greater impact on Jupiter’s magnetosphere than what was previously suggested. New Horizons took close-up pictures of Jupiter and its largest moons.

In 1995, Galileo sent a probe plunging toward Jupiter, making the first direct measurements of the planet’s atmosphere and measuring the amount of water and other chemicals there. When Galileo ran low on fuel, the craft was intentionally crashed into Jupiter to avoid any risk of it slamming into and contaminating Europa, which might have an ocean below its surface capable of supporting life.

Juno is the only mission at Jupiter at the moment. Juno studies Jupiter from a polar orbit to figure out how it and the rest of the solar system formed, which could shed light on how alien planetary systems might have developed. One of its key findings so far was discovering that Jupiter’s core may be larger than what scientists expected.

How Jupiter shaped our solar system

As the most massive body in the solar system after the sun, the pull of Jupiter’s gravity has helped shape the fate of our system. Jupiter’s gravity is likely responsible for  violently hurling Neptune and Uranus outward. Jupiter, along with Saturn, may have slung a barrage of debris toward the inner planets early in the system’s history, although some scientists debate how much of a role each planet played in moving the asteroids around. Jupiter may also help keep asteroids from bombarding Earth, and recent events have shown that Jupiter can absorb some pretty significant impacts. Observations by amateurs have shown that Jupiter receives a few major impacts per decade, far more than what was predicted when Comet Shoemaker Levy-9 crashed into the planet in 1994.

Currently, Jupiter’s gravitational field influences numerous asteroids that have clustered into the regions preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. These are known as the Trojan asteroids, after three large asteroids there, Agamemnon, Achilles and Hector. Their names were drawn from the Iliad, Homer’s epic about the Trojan War.

Could there be life on Jupiter?

Jupiter’s atmosphere grows warmer with depth, reaching room temperature, or 70 degrees F (21 degrees C), at an altitude where the atmospheric pressure is about 10 times as great as it is on Earth. Scientists suspect that if Jupiter has any form of life, it might dwell at this level, and it would have to be airborne. However, researchers have found no evidence for life on Jupiter.

10 Need-to-Know Things About Jupiter

1

THE GRANDEST PLANET

Eleven Earths could fit across Jupiter’s equator. If Earth were the size of a grape, Jupiter would be the size of a basketball.

2

FIFTH PLANET FROM OUR STAR

Jupiter orbits about 484 million miles (778 million kilometers) or 5.2 Astronomical Units (AU) from our Sun (Earth is one AU from the Sun).

3

SHORT DAY/LONG YEAR

Jupiter rotates once about every 10 hours (a Jovian day), but takes about 12 Earth years to complete one orbit of the Sun (a Jovian year).

JUPITER AND IO

4

WHAT’S INSIDE

Jupiter is a gas giant and so lacks an Earth-like surface. If it has a solid inner core at all, it’s likely only about the size of Earth.

5

MASSIVE WORLD, LIGHT ELEMENTS

Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up mostly of hydrogen (H₂) and helium (He).

6

WORLDS GALORE

Jupiter has more than 75 moons.

7

RINGED WORLD

In 1979 the Voyager mission discovered Jupiter’s faint ring system. All four giant planets in our solar system have ring systems.

8

EXPLORING JUPITER

Nine spacecraft have visited Jupiter. Seven flew by and two have orbited the gas giant. Juno, the most recent, arrived at Jupiter in 2016.

9

INGREDIENTS FOR LIFE?

Jupiter cannot support life as we know it. But some of Jupiter’s moons have oceans beneath their crusts that might support life.

10

SUPER STORM

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a gigantic storm that’s about twice the size of Earth and has raged for over a century.

Chemical Elements

A Chemical element is any substance that cannot be decomposed into simpler substances by ordinary chemical processes. Elements are the fundamental materials of which all matter is composed.

1 – H – Hydrogen
2 – He – Helium
3 – Li – Lithium
4 – Be – Beryllium
5 – B – Boron
6 – C – Carbon
7 – N – Nitrogen
8 – O – Oxygen
9 – F – Fluorine
10 – Ne – Neon
11 – Na – Sodium
12 – Mg – Magnesium
13 – Al – Aluminum, Aluminium
14 – Si – Silicon
15 – P – Phosphorus
16 – S – Sulfur
17 – Cl – Chlorine
18 – Ar – Argon

Why are the First 18 Elements Special?
(1) The electrons fit nicely into three orbitals. Remember that the electrons spin around the nucleus in regions called orbitals.
(2) These elements make up most of the matter in the Universe.

Future Element Names

Right now, the periodic table is “complete” in that there are no remaining spots in the 7 periods. However, new elements may be synthesized or discovered. As with other elements, the atomic number will be determined by the number of protons within each atom. The element name and element symbol will need to be reviewed and approved by the IUPAC before inclusion on the periodic table. The element names and symbols may be proposed by the element discoverer, but often undergo revision before final approval.

Before a name and symbol is approved, an element may be referred to by its atomic number (e.g., element 120) or by its systematic element name. The systematic element name is a temporary name that is based on the atomic number as a root and the -iumending as a suffix. For example, element 120 has the temporary name unbinilium.

 This periodic table includes the names, symbols, and atomic numbers of the elements. Many periodic tables omit names and only include symbols. ALFRED PASIEKA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Getty Images

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19 – K – Potassium
20 – Ca – Calcium
21 – Sc – Scandium
22 – Ti – Titanium
23 – V – Vanadium
24 – Cr – Chromium
25 – Mn – Manganese
26 – Fe – Iron
27 – Co – Cobalt
28 – Ni – Nickel
29 – Cu – Copper
30 – Zn – Zinc
31 – Ga – Gallium
32 – Ge – Germanium
33 – As – Arsenic
34 – Se – Selenium
35 – Br – Bromine
36 – Kr – Krypton
37 – Rb – Rubidium
38 – Sr – Strontium
39 – Y – Yttrium
40 – Zr – Zirconium
41 – Nb – Niobium
42 – Mo – Molybdenum
43 – Tc – Technetium
44 – Ru – Ruthenium
45 – Rh – Rhodium
46 – Pd – Palladium
47 – Ag – Silver
48 – Cd – Cadmium
49 – In – Indium
50 – Sn – Tin
51 – Sb – Antimony
52 – Te – Tellurium
53 – I – Iodine
54 – Xe – Xenon
55 – Cs – Cesium
56 – Ba – Barium
57 – La – Lanthanum
58 – Ce – Cerium
59 – Pr – Praseodymium
60 – Nd – Neodymium
61 – Pm – Promethium
62 – Sm – Samarium
63 – Eu – Europium
64 – Gd – Gadolinium
65 – Tb – Terbium
66 – Dy – Dysprosium
67 – Ho – Holmium
68 – Er – Erbium
69 – Tm – Thulium
70 – Yb – Ytterbium
71 – Lu – Lutetium
72 – Hf – Hafnium
73 – Ta – Tantalum
74 – W – Tungsten
75 – Re – Rhenium
76 – Os – Osmium
77 – Ir – Iridium
78 – Pt – Platinum
79 – Au – Gold
80 – Hg – Mercury
81 – Tl – Thallium
82 – Pb – Lead
83 – Bi – Bismuth
84 – Po – Polonium
85 – At – Astatine
86 – Rn – Radon
87 – Fr – Francium
88 – Ra – Radium
89 – Ac – Actinium
90 – Th – Thorium
91 – Pa – Protactinium
92 – U – Uranium
93 – Np – Neptunium
94 – Pu – Plutonium
95 – Am – Americium
96 – Cm – Curium
97 – Bk – Berkelium
98 – Cf – Californium
99 – Es – Einsteinium
100 – Fm – Fermium
101 – Md – Mendelevium
102 – No – Nobelium
103 – Lr – Lawrencium
104 – Rf – Rutherfordium
105 – Db – Dubnium
106 – Sg – Seaborgium
107 – Bh – Bohrium
108 – Hs – Hassium
109 – Mt – Meitnerium
110 – Ds – Darmstadtium
111 – Rg – Roentgenium
112 – Cn – Copernicium
113 – Nh – Nihonium
114 – Fl – Flerovium
115 – Mc – Moscovium
116 – Lv – Livermorium
117 – Ts – Tennessine
118 – Og – Oganesson