The Most Astounding Fact

I realise that I've not been active round here for a while. Sorry to the world and thanks to NobblySan for the nudge.

What is the most astounding fact about the Universe? A deep question which has tied up philosophers, theologians and scientists for millennia. The astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked this in an interview for TIME Magazine in 2008 (I think).

I would have said 'the direction of the arrow of time'. But thinking of the reverse: atoms and molecules converging through the soil to produce a corpse which is then animated as you, to exist for an undefined period gradually getting younger until doctors or midwives push you inside another person who then has inverse copulation...

Well it's no more strange then what we do by living 'forwards'. You'd be used to it because that's how it was. How would you tell the difference? I prefer it our way though.

DeGrasse Tyson chooses a different fact:

The Most Astounding Fact (Neil deGrasse Tyson)


We are stardust indeed.

Woodstock ~ Joni Mitchell
Grow into these trousers... >>

Science fiction comes one step closer

A vertical take off rocket engine which can hover, but then it shuts down and re-ignites the engine in flight! Truly awesome engineering to maintain control and attitude. I can't get over how important this is. Conserving fuel in the decent phase of a spacecraft lander is, well, crucial. Especially if you need to be able to lift off again.

Xombie flying rocket shuts down and restarts in mid-air


It's akin to one of these little babies:

Masten Space Lunar Lander Challenge Flight 2


I am impressed. Grow into these trousers... >>

Even Einstein made mistakes

In fact he made lots of them. But there was one which even Mr Albert himself called "his greatest blunder". In 1917, looking at his newly forged theory of General Relativity, he realised the equations predicted that the universe should be either expanding or contracting. Einstein's world view made him unhappy about this, so he introduced a cosmological constant to counteract such movement. After all, everybody 'knew' that the universe was static. He defended this position for years, even though there was no physical or gravitational reason for such a mathematical constant to exist.

In 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble observed that galaxies appear to be moving away from us, and the further away, the faster they receded. The universe was expanding and Einstein could have predicted it years before. He considered this to be his big mistake and the cosmological constant was dumped.

Interestingly, in more recent years, observations show the universe is not just expanding, but accelerating. This implies a force pushing empty space apart. Mathematically, it is strangely akin to Einstein's cosmological constant. Perhaps the old guy was onto something after all...

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Dynamic Einstein generator from hetemeel.com. Grow into these trousers... >>

Carpool

I just found this great video site - Llewtube - which features host Robert Llewellyn (yes that's Kryten) driving around giving lifts to various guests and interviewing them during the journey. Here he is with the physicist Brian Cox.



He has also interviewed the likes of actor Patrick Stuart, comedian Arthur Smith, journalist and rationalist Ben Goldacre, Skepchick founder Rebecca Watson and lots more...

Shame about the crap Flash based site though, but it works. Grow into these trousers... >>

From the largest to the smallest

This seems to have been doing the rounds today but I will post it too. It's very clever.

Slide the slider to go from the largest things in the universe, or the 'estimated' universal scale itself, to the smallest. Atoms? Nah, keep going. Quarks? Nope, keep going down. And again. A bit more. Nearly. Nothing much here, down again. Ah, the Planck length, 1.616×10⁻³⁵ meters, nothing any shorter than that makes sense. Head bump with reality.

Click the link below or the image, endure the advert, click 'play' and then slide.

The Scale of the Universe by Fotoshop

Grow into these trousers... >>

E = mc2(1-v2/c2)-½

I've been following a vast series of maths lectures over the last 6 months or so from the physicist Leonard Susskind. This is a guy who can argue the toss with Stephen Hawking and then go teach a class of continuing education students. It's the recordings of his CE classes that I'm watching.

Susskind has a such a likable personality and easy style he can often lull you into a false sense of security, and then he'll snap you out of it with a jerk. I wish I'd had a teacher like him 25 years ago when I still could do maths properly (practice, Holroyd, practice - yes I know).

Fast forward this lecture to about 1h 15min and watch him derive Einstein's famous E=mc² with such consummate skill it's like he's stating the bleedin' obvious. His play with 'c' the speed of light, is almost comedy and his correction by (1-v²/c²)^-½ is the bit non-physicists always forget (but that's the most important bit 'coz it tells you it's impossible to accelerate a mass to the speed of light*).

Lecture 6 | Modern Physics: Special Relativity (Stanford)

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If you are daft like me and want to follow the whole thing, start with his course on classical mechanics:
Lecture 1 | Modern Physics: Classical Mechanics (Stanford)
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* I can't think how to html 'one divided by square root' except to raise it to minus the half power Grow into these trousers... >>

Thunder and lightning - part II

Glance back to yesterday's post to get the scenario.

So Mr Smokie had counted 7 seconds from seeing the lightning to hearing the thunder, and said it was 7 miles away.

Something told me this was wrong, a gut feeling if you like, and then I remembered somewhere I know well. It has an echo! The only place the echo could come from is a row of terraced houses a couple of hundred yards away (there is nothing else, just open fields), but the echo is loud and distinct. Clap hands and about a second later it's repeated back to you. Remembering that the sound has to travel maybe two hundred yards, bounce, and return back; then a crude estimate of the speed of sound might be 400 yards in a second. This slowly percolated into my brain.

But then, due to alcohol induced delirium joining in with the general early-evening banter around the bar, it took ages for these thoughts and numbers to congeal...

1760 yards to the mile (call it 1800), divide by 400 yards per second gives about 4½ seconds per mile. Mr Smokie was way wrong - 400 yards per second times 7 seconds is 2800 yards. Just over a mile and a half. That was eventually my guesstimate. Of course by this time Mr Smokie had buggered off and my taxi was due. So I went home and then just had to look it up.

The speed of sound in air? Can vary from about 330 to 340 meters per second and, as RBH pointed out, it depends on pressure, temperature and (I'd never have thought this) humidity; which I guess changes the overall density of the air by adding water vapour.

For simplicity lets say air pressure is normal, it's a bit above 0°C and not damp. The speed of sound works out to be 333.33 meters per second. You may guess where I'm going, that's 3 seconds per 1000 meters. Or 3 seconds per kilometer.

Mr Smokie counted 7 seconds, multiply by 333.33 meters per second gives you 2333.33 meters or 2.3 kilometers, give or take a few yards.

That's 1.45 miles.

Wahhh! Across the valley that's about where I liv.. Oh, other direction.
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And RBH was right:
5s x 333m/s = 1666m = 1.035mi
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Thunderstorms - how near is the lightning?

There was a thunderstorm this tea-time. I was safely sat at the bar but one of the crew had gone outside for a fag (I just gnawed on my 'chomper') when there was a loud boom of thunder.

Mr Smokie came back in. "That's 7 miles away is that" says he, "count t'seconds after t'lightnin' an' that's how many miles". Or words to that effect. I think there was richer linguistic use of the term 'fuck' (find out more here).

Now; I remember counting from the lightning when I was a kid but, sat in the bar tonight, I couldn't remember just what relationship was. Till I worked it out.

Any answers? Grow into these trousers... >>

A thought for a Sunday

"There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations."

Leonard Susskind (1940 - )

From - The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics (2008)
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I really want to read this book. More Susskind coming soon for those who love physics and maths. Grow into these trousers... >>

A new chemical element is recognised

The periodic table grows by one to 112, to the bane of chemistry and physics students around the world.

From New Scientist:

For years, the space next to [Roentgenium at position 111] has been unceremoniously occupied by the letters Uub, which stand for ununbium, the Latin word for 112 that has stood as a placeholder.

That place is now filled, all it needs is a name. How about onehundredweightium? Grow into these trousers... >>

A landmark day for astronomy

The Hubble Space Telescope gets an upgrade, kudos to the crew of Atlantis, and two more space telescopes were successfully launched - Herschel and Planck.

Herschel carries the largest mirror ever on a spacecraft. At 3.5m it has twice the collecting area as Hubble (2.4m), but will examine the universe in different a different part of the spectrum. It's designed to detect long wavelength infrared, it will peer through the dust which often obscures inner detail in Hubble images.

Plank is an orbiting thermometer. Carrying a range of detectors to pick up microwaves it will scan the ubiquitous background radiation of the Big Bang. With exquisite sensitivity it will add to the understanding of how the universe came to be and how the distant future may unfold.

2009: Herschel and Planck (ESA)


The data will be amazing, but we have to wait 'till next year until they reach operational position. Herschel and Planck are not intended to last very long either. A two or three years of use will deplete their coolant systems, and their great distance means no service missions are possible. But later, the unravelling of the findings over many more years, will inspire a generation. Grow into these trousers... >>

Herschel and Planck are ready for launch

Two new space telescopes are set to launch in a couple of hours aboard the same Ariane 5 rocket. Watch it live on Mogulus.

White knuckle time again, here's hoping for a great mission.

More to follow later today.

UPDATE: Launch successful and bang on time. Grow into these trousers... >>

Breaking news - Hawking 'very ill'

Physicist Stephen Hawking (67) is undergoing tests after being admitted to Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge.

Hawking, who suffers from motor neurone disease, has been battling with a chest infection for several weeks and is said to be 'very ill'.

My best wishes go out to him. Grow into these trousers... >>

Star Formation: The Game

Via Bad Astronomy...
Set off supernovae to compress the gas cloud and trigger star formation.

Science and gaming together, bliss.


Here's an article on gas clouds and stars from the game's astronomy consultant, Adam Frank. Grow into these trousers... >>

A limit to scientific knowledge?

I just paid a visit to The Random Fish and found a link to a BBC news article that's well worth a read.

What do you get if you divide science by God?

It's an interesting article about the 2009 winner of the Templeton Prize, Bernard d’Espagnat. The prize is awarded to honour:

"a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works."

From the article at Templeton:

"...d’Espagnat has written and lectured extensively on the philosophical significance of the universal truths of quantum mechanics. He notes, however, that quantum physics merely predicts observational results. As far as describing reality, it suggests that not only our plain, everyday concepts of objects but also our scientific concepts refer only to phenomena – that is, to mere appearances common to all.

Still, d’Espagnat warns, experiments often falsify theories and so there must exist, beyond mere appearances, something that resists us and lies beyond the phenomena, a “veiled reality” that science does not describe but only glimpses uncertainly. In turn, contrary to those who claim that matter is the only reality, the possibility that other means, including spirituality, may also provide a window on ultimate reality cannot be ruled out, d’Espagnat insists, by cogent scientific arguments. Although he concedes the theological implications of the term “veiled reality,” he guards against using it as justification for specific religious doctrines which can be falsified by reason and fact."

My feelings are more in line with Steven Weinberg and Martin Rees in the BBC report above. Physics can seem 'chillingly impersonal' (so can biology, just watch a wildlife documentary). Does it matter if we can't conceptualise where quantum theory is leading? I think not. The theory works exquisitely. Scientific hypothesis and experiment can still continue even if no one currently understands the contortions and ramifications of, say, a super-dimensional space (though they try). So long as there is a chain of logic to be followed then holding a mental picture, as of a 3d object, is not important. An underlying 'veiled reality', as d’Espagnat postulates, could be shattered tomorrow by one person's insight. Or the universe might get more interesting by becoming even less intuitive. Who knows? It's still today. Science offers hope; 'veiled reality', like religion, is a closing door to inquiry.

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Bonus thought for a Sunday:

"The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand."

Frank Herbert (1920 – 1986)

and a previous TFAS:

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'.

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992) Grow into these trousers... >>

So You Think You Can Fly?

Is this guy an unbelievably skilled pilot or is he stupid and lucky?
I'll go with lucky.



Now this is real skill.

Grow into these trousers... >>

A thought for a Sunday - Richard Feynman

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.

Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988), from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999) edited by Jeffery Robbins. See also here. Grow into these trousers... >>

Very 1960's

New Scientist has another cool picture gallery, this time of ice crystals viewed by polarised light.

Now where are my oil wheels and kaftan? Grow into these trousers... >>

Physics - If it were like women

I can't fully find out who the author is really, but he seems to be a scientist/poet.

Whatever, this is priceless:

PHYSICAL THEORIES AS WOMEN.

BY SIMON DEDEO

- - - -

0. Newtonian gravity is your high-school girlfriend. As your first encounter with physics, she's amazing. You will never forget Newtonian gravity, even if you're not in touch very much anymore.

1. Electrodynamics is your college girlfriend. Pretty complex, you probably won't date long enough to really understand her.

2. Special relativity is the girl you meet at the dorm party while you're dating electrodynamics. You make out. It's not really cheating because it's not like you call her back. But you have a sneaking suspicion she knows electrodynamics and told her everything.

3. Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion.

4. General relativity is your high-school girlfriend all grown up. Man, she is amazing. You sort of regret not keeping in touch. She hates quantum mechanics for obscure reasons.

5. Quantum field theory is from overseas, but she doesn't really have an accent. You fall deeply in love, but she treats you horribly. You are pretty sure she's fooling around with half of your friends, but you don't care. You know it will end badly.

6. Cosmology is the girl that doesn't really date, but has lots of hot friends. Some people date cosmology just to hang out with her friends.

7. Analytical classical mechanics is a bit older, and knows stuff you don't.

8. String theory is off in her own little world. She is either profound or insane. If you start dating, you never see your friends anymore. It's just string theory, 24/7.

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via Berto: Philosophy Monkey Grow into these trousers... >>

A demonstration of entropy

Via Cosmic Variance, the Domino Effect. This is jaw drop good.

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