Seven modern wonders of the world

Aug 5, 2018 homeintheair11 Comments

In my last post I called the CERN facilities in Switzerland “our times Wonder of the world”. It made me think what else out there could be categorized as such and I made a list of 7 wonders of the modern world.

The originals

Do you remember the original Seven Wonders of the World? The ancient ones are all destroyed except the Pyramids of Giza. Later few architects agreed upon naming a new list with structures that still are standing today. This is maybe the more famous one featuring well known landmarks like: Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China, Petra and Colosseum amongst others.

Here are the very original 7, and the New 7:

Ancient and new

My modern 7 wonders

In my list I have tried to choose wonders that have the most significant impact on the world we know in 2018. I imagine that nothing will ever beat the Ancient 7 Wonders, because they have simply outperformed anything in their time. In our modern world new technology makes it easier to break records. Therefore, the candidates for this list has been chosen through following criteria:

The level of impact it has had on our self awareness as humans
Shown an outstanding achievement in our ability to create.
Is memorable and iconic.
Is going to be well preserved for centuries.
Has an actual function rather than just made to show off.

I was trying to think what they will remember us for 3000 years away from now. Which landmarks will be visited by tourists 3000 years from now? What has transformed into museums?

Here is the list: The Seven Wonders of the Modern World

Modern

A little bit about every one and the reason

Large Hadron Collider, CERN, Switzerland
I have mentioned the importance of this facility many times before. Basically it has been the reason for many important discoveries and helped us understand the universe better. If you wanna read a little bit more about it, check my blog post here.
Panama Channel, Panama
Besides being one of the longest and hardest engineering projects in the history and killing more than 25000 people in the making, the Panama Channel has even today a huge impact on the history. It is basically the number one reason behind USA’s success and super power status today. The importance of maritime force and trade is way more than you imagine. Destroy the Panama Channel, and you will see the decline of the US power pretty quickly. This is also the main reason why I chose the Panama Channel above the Suez Channel which is longer and just as impressive engineering wise.
ISS, Outer Space
Need I say more? The International Space Station of course is a wonder. Not only the whole world is collaborating, but it is collaborating to reach out into space. In 3000 years when the Earth is only visited for tourism they will visit this station and say.. here it all started!
The Palm, United Arab Emirates
The Palm is so iconic that it doesn’t need introduction. The reason why it made it to the list is, that it shows a whole new era of narcissism. We have build islands before, but never in a shape to impress people from the air. In addition, this could be the start of a new era of creating land instead of conquering it.
NEEMO, Aquarius, USA
This facility is maybe the least known on the list. NEEMO is an underwater laboratory ran by NASA. They basically send their astronauts here to live underwater in 3 weeks to prepare them for the harsh space environment. Again, this place had a huge impact on making us understand our own capabilities as human beings and therefore it made it to the list. As a teen I dreamt about being sent there and finally to space.
Burj Khalifa, United Arab Emirates
Now this one I was a bit in doubt about. It is the tallest building in the world, the skyscraber of skyscrabers. But the record will soon be overthrown by another tower in Saudi Arabia. However, I decided to include it because this really kickstarted the race to the skies. In addition, being located in the desert, this building has a very important function of keeping the whole city of Dubai together. Everything in Dubai is done indoors and the need for huge a building is therefore legit.
Dìxià Chéng, China
This is another less known facility. Can you imagine that beneath the capital city of Beijing is a nuclear shelter large enough to house the whole population of 6 million people of Beijing? Well this is the name of this shelter. Just the thought of it makes you get goosebumps. Hopefully, no one would ever nuke China and it will stand as a memory of the time when humans were so afraid of killing themselves, that they spent billions on structures like this.

Other structures in scope that did not make it to the list:

Transit siberiean railway, Russia
Atacama large milimetee array, Chile
Hubble telescope, Outer space
Three Gorges Dam, China
Cheyenne mountain bunker, USA
Tokyo train and metro, Japan
Shanghai metro, China
Hashima Island, Japan
Boeing Everett Factory, USA
Ski Dubai, UAE
Rungrado May Day stadium, North Korea
Suez Channel, Egypt
Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge, China

Take a look at the candidates. Did I miss any important? Do you think something else deserve to be on the list? Let me know in the comments!

Top one place to visit in Switzerland

Jul 22, 2018 homeintheair4 Comments

What if you had the chance to visit Switzerland for 1 day only – what is the one experience you should visit? There are many amazing places in Switzerland but the one I would recommend is the only one I consider an actual Wonder of the World: The CERN campus!

20180329_082817 - 2 — Me arriving at the reception in CERN. If I look tired it is because I woke up at 3 am to drive from Bern to Geneve to make it to the early morning guided tour.

What is CERN?

I think most people know CERN by now, but if not then here is a little background:

CERN is the most advances scientific research center in the world. The density of knowledge and great minds in this campus is not seen anywhere else in the world. Also they have the most advanced and the biggest machinery to perform their experiments. The engineering work of this is what I consider the Wonder of the World!

Here they try to answer the most fundamental questions of the universe by experimenting with nuclear particles. This helps us to understand how the world actually were created and unveiling some of the most complex questions about our reality. How does the world work? Why are we here? Can God possibly exist?

Oh yeah.. and they also invented the World Wide Web!

20180329_090510 — The worlds very first Large Particle Accelerator. This one is now retired, but they have build even better ones. The Large Hadron Collider is the most famous and biggest – 27 km in diameter.

But it doesn’t seem like something for me?

Maybe you aren’t interested in science but when I say people should come here it is because you will learn a life lesson here. I think every well rounded adult should have at least some basic understanding of what this place does. How are we gonna answer our children’s silly questions if we haven’t even looked into science?

What will you answer if a 5 year old asks you how come we exist? Why we believe in God? Why we don’t believe in God? What is the universe made of? Why can’t I fly? What other universes can you imagine and who is right and who is wrong?

No matter who you are or what you believe in, you should look into this! Bring your brain and come here. Don’t think you know anything about science before you visit this place.

Even if you believe in whatever conclusion you hear the scientist say. You need to come here to understand that this is our times philosophy hub. Answers are never clear even if some people would try to convince you they are.

Everything is free there. Go there and take the guided tour (book in advance). Even if you only grasp 2% of what they are telling you, it will be worth it!

20180329_104219~2 — Me philosophizing at CERN xD

What did they find out so far?

I consider myself somewhat a man of science but even I only grasped like half of what the Pakistani scientist told us on the tour. However, the basics is this:

They have built the Large Hadron Collider which is the essence of the Wonder. This is basically a big circular tube under high pressure and low temperature buried 100 meter beneath the Swiss/French border. They use this machine to accelerate beams of particles and make them hit each other right where they have built enormous sensors to detect all data from the explosion, process the data and send the most interesting and newest discoveries to scientists all over the world to analyze.

Discoveries could be new unseen particles, antimatter or bosons. Antimatter is basically the exact opposite of matter.. of everything we know. In theory everything has an opposing counterpart: Night and day, hot and cold, love and hate, matter and antimatter. But for some reason antimatter just disappeared when the world was created. With this machine scientists have been able to recreate it.

Another important discovery was the Higgs Boson that you might have heard about. In simple form the boson is a particle that gives gravity to everything. Gravity is not just something that exist out of nothing, it is an actual particle that gives it. Meaning everything in the world has been in touch with this particle. This was also discovered using this wonder of a machine.

20180329_102502 — You can actually see the scientists working on this tour! Isn’t it amazing?

I am not an expert

Okay guys, I am not an expert and I have not discovered the answered to everything. I like to learn always and of course I don’t understand the physics behind this fully. I find it interesting so the above is simplified to make it as easy to read as possible. If I am mistaken please enlighten me!

For me this was a true wonder to see and experience. Just as impressive to be there as it was to visit the Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China.

Is it unique?

Someone asked the Pakistani scientist if there was any other thing similar. He answered that there are particle accelerators in the USA but they are linear which makes it hard to do the collisions. Also he said that China is doing it as well. I think they are building one just as impressive. But will it be the same wonder? I doubt it.

Not because I don’t trust Chinese science. Not at all! But because CERN is actually international. While Chinese and American like to do everything themselves CERN is open to the world. First of all CERN is totally independent from the industry and military. This is ONLY about science – not war or economy. In my honest opinion peace and science works better together. Only when all the world’s brightest minds work together we can create amazing things – have anyone read the Babylon story of the Bible? Once we get divided by nations and languages we loose everything.

Well in CERN more than 100 nationalities have united their greatest scientists only to enlighten the world in a peaceful manner. You cant feel anything but humbled walking around it’s streets and laboratories. This is a strength not seen anywhere in the world not anywhere in history since the Babel Tower was built!

After walking the tour an old Dutch gentleman asked the scientist: “Amazing.. where do you start?” And the scientist responded: “9 o’clock in the morning”.

20180329_091912 — You can’t feel anything but humbled walking around in this place were geniuses have worked their whole life to unveil the mysteries of the universe.

A thought from the Colosseum and today’s violent media

Jun 13, 2018 homeintheair5 Comments

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Did it not occur to anyone in the audience that getting entertained by seeing slaves get eaten by beasts is madness? That it is not okay to get entertained by seeing other struggle to death? Or did no one question it because everyone thought this is normal? It was just the custom. And everyone was happily entertained so who would ever question it?

Do we do anything today that is wrong but never questioned because that’s what everyone is doing? Any behavior or daily thing they in the future might think is crazy? Are we even better than they were back then? Did we only stop this madness and replaced it by wars so we can get entertained in the news instead of in the arena? Is it wrong to get entertained by action, war and horror movies? Maybe the characters aren’t real but we still get entertained by seeing others suffer and struggle.

In the future, will they think we are bad people for watching the news and movies? Do we fool ourselves thinking its informative and educational while in reality it’s nothing but entertainment?

Probably not.. But who knows what future people might think about us. The point is, I am not sure we are better humans than the romans. Maybe on the individual level we are but as a generation as an era or an age we are probably not.

It is just beyond my understanding how people can do to each other what we see in the news today. But anyway, sorry for the depressing thoughts. But history is often cruel – luckily it is in the past and we can actually learn if we study it, travel to it and think about it. Always search for history when you visit a new place! 😉

Keeping your integrity while traveling

Jun 5, 2018Jun 5, 2018 homeintheair7 Comments

The other day I met this traveler who has been volunteering in various countries in Africa. Let’s call him Tim. He have been helping out building sanitary facilities for a tribe in Uganda. They invited him for a traditional meal and he accepted. Now this guy is actually a vegetarian and is very disgusted by the smell of meat. Now he is sitting with the tribe eating and they serve him this bloody raw sheep eye.

If you were a vegetarian, what would you have done?

Tim felt like he could not say no and thus he tried to swallow the eye at once. Of course – it can up again and he had to chew his way through and try not to throw up. It was the worst meal in his life.

This story made me think. Many travelers out there try to keep an open mind and say yes to anything along their way. Either they are afraid of saying no or they think they should try everything even if it contradict their taste or even their values. For me this is a misunderstood way of travelling.

Travelling is not about forcing yourself to do things you don’t like or don’t believe in. Travelling is supposed to enrich your life and teach you both about the world and about yourself. If you already know that you do not like to eat meat, then do not eat it. And don’t ever compromise your integrity no matter where in the world you are.

This is not about being a good “traveler” it is about being a good whole rounded human being. A true gentleman stay true to himself while still treating others politely. So how about the fear of offending your host?

In my experience, people – everywhere in the world – understand that their way of living is not the same as others. They will not get offended even if you do something that would have offended them, but because you are a foreigner they will understand. They will not judge you as they hope you will not judge them.

If you are afraid of saying no and explain your reasons, then it is more likely because of your own judgmental mind. Probably you think they will judge you because you yourself are likely to judge. People expect others to behave in the same way they do. Basically, if you expect good you are good. Not naive.

I knew that when Tim started to tell his solution for how to save the world from poverty: To convince africans not to have children so we in Europe don’t get flooded by immigrants later on. What a disgusting point of view from a volunteer worker!

10417761_944981348863477_694617906892663459_n — People have introduced me to lots of weird food during my travels. But always if there is something I do not wanna eat, I say no thank you. My biggest advice when travelling: Say no when people tell you to do things you know you don’t like to do!

New blog start up

May 10, 2018May 26, 2018 homeintheair1 Comment

So I have decided to start up a new travel blog just like everyone else is doing. I hope you will like mine though. I promise it will be different!

I will not do the usual “Travel Guide to XX country”. Instead I will talk about some of the things I learn on my different travels. I will basically do 2 things:

Try to communicate the philosophical experience that travelling is. Basically sharing my thoughts about the world I see.
I will make a lot of lists about interesting things. My favourite places, favourite airlines, favourite anything.

Visiting historical places or significant cultural moments or even outstanding natural sceneries often throws me in a thinking mood. I am not a romantic nor a philosopher, but I like to actually try to decode the world and understand why everything is as it is. If you know me you will know I respect all cultures, all religions and only try to bring the best to the surface.

So another thing I will not do is the usual “10 things to watch out for in XX countries” or “10 most dangerous countries to go to”.

I have been to many countries on such lists and the rule of thumb is that people are just trying to live a happy life no matter the circumstances. If you meet them with interest, they will repay it with kindness. So do not be afraid and come with me on adventures all over the world 🙂

.. and PS: Tell me your honest opinion and thoughts about what I should do here. I am basically a noob

PPS: Until the next blog post, you can read my lists of places I want to go and top places I already have been. Find them in the menu in the top or click here (top destinations visited) or here (top wanna go to places). Thank you! 🙂