Hey there!! I've been checking twitter and I saw David Spearing have been posting some questions (he called them Mysteries) and I thought they were really interesting! I love discussing this kind of stuff, because I study Biology and I study all this kind of subjects and a lot of science stuff! and when I read a question (a mystery) then I wonder if I really know the answer and if I really understand what I think I understand...and then I force myself to check on wikipedia and google every little thing...and that way, I learn new stuff! so maybe thanks to David we'll become smarter!! hahaha My idea is to write here his mysteries and discuss about them, because I cannot write everything I want to say in a single tweet....and if David really wonders about this stuff, he can come around and read the different opinions! :D so now, let's start for Mystery #1
Mystery #1 - Why is Earth called Earth when its 70% water and only 30% earth. Should we change the name to Water?
Hypothesis 1- I replied to him by twitter on this one, but I did without checking or properly thinking about it! I said it's called "Earth" because when the name was chosen, they didn't know about the Earth being round like a ball, they thought it was plane, with an end, and that most of it was earth (even if there was some water). They thought the ocean had an end, actually the end of the world, and Flags (like Spanish flag, for example) had this inscription on it "Non plus ultra" which means there's nothing further.....and after discovering the world was actually round, they changed it to "Plus ultra" which means you can go further....so that could be a reason why. Once they knew the dimensions of the Earth and the proportion of water, it was too late, it was already named as the Earth...
Hypothesis 2 - the name actually comes from the latin word Terra (in spanish Earth is "La Tierra" so for us is more logic), and this one comes from Gea or Gaia. You can guess this because of the root of words like Geography, Geology and bla bla bla....and well, Terra or Gea is for a Greek goddess which was considered as a simbol for feminity and fecundity....and since Earth is the only Planet where life is possible (as far as we know and excepting microbiota living in some microambients in other planets) maybe that's why it's called Earth.
Conclusion: we shouldn't change the name....lettuces are 95% water...should they be renamed too? :P
Mystery #1 - Why is Earth called Earth when its 70% water and only 30% earth. Should we change the name to Water?
Conclusion: we shouldn't change the name....lettuces are 95% water...should they be renamed too? :P