Quasars, Pulsars, Novae, and Blinking Molecules…

What I am about to explain to you may be a bit confusing unless we begin with what the heck a ‘quasar’ is.

A quasar is defined as an extragalactic, super massive star-like object in that it is luminescent, but that it is the most luminescent object in the universe.

A pulsar, however (and yes, they have been found which is awesome!) is a quasar that acts sort of like a lighthouse: it blinks in a rotating fashion. However, scientists have not yet figured out exactly how this works.

But what they have found out is that some molecules actually do blink.

According to an article from August 12th, last week Neils Bohr’s prediction of molecules blinking was correct after all.

Neils Bohr had predicted this long ago, as a chemical physicist. Now physicists have found that molecules can blink due to a transition of electrons between discreet levels of energy within individual atoms at a time.

These have been coined ‘Quantum jumps’ by Neils Bohr and they have finally found how exactly this works. There are discreet interruptions when the electrons are being transferred, and so the molecules actually light up with energy when all the electrons are in it, then when the interruption is gone they all then go to the other molecule. The interruptions are caused by the emissions (of carbon and such) from the atom, blocking out the electrons.

What’s cool is that these are molecules that are blinking here. What it means is, different ways of imaging for cancer. Real time images of viruses such as HIV and soforth.

But not only for medical professionals: if blinking molecules could be controlled (which may be coming sooner than we know it), these could be used as an electricity-free way to use house-hold lights, brighter display screens on computers and gaming systems, TVs, and could change the way we see electronics as we know them.

As far as novae go, I wanted to explain why you can’t see quasars, pulsars, or supernovae (or novae) with the naked eye.

The problem is this: the closest stars to us besides the Sun take a loooooooong time to send their light to us.

If we were very close to the supernova or pulsar or quasar or whatever it is, we could see it in real time, or close to it.

But in the same way, you cannot see supernovae or quasars with the naked eye because they are so far away, that by the time the light gets here it would barely be noticeable. Any star that is massive enough to have a supernova (or a nova, which is a supernova that causes a white dwarf not a black hole), or any pulsar or quasar, is not even close to being seen with the naked eye. You even need a telescope to see all of the separate areas and craters on the moon, let alone a supernova that’s happening a thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand million light years away.

Next post: The ending of “The Time Machine” (contains spoilers!) and how probable the ideas really are about what the future will be like…

“The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells and What it Implies…

I’m almost finished with “The Time Machine” now and I found a strange similarity with this and “The Lurking Fear” by H. P. Lovecraft. Both of these writers love to do science fiction work, and both include two different species of men: the white, hiding-in-the-darkness gorilla people that inbreed and eat the other species: the people who have not been shunned by society and sent underground (or in Lovecraft’s case, locked in their own home) also known as the civilized, more evolved people.

Another similarity is that the people who are not hiding, do not cannibalize, and live close to normally speak a different language and look a bit strange. In “The Time Machine”, they are 800,000 years into the future, while in “The Lurking Fear”, the people are in the present on their own space of land.

What I found interesting in “The Time Machine” too was that the time traveler insists that going at speeds so high as to go into the future may actually bring yourself into another dimension. If so, he wouldn’t have ended up on Earth, as he remarks near the end of the story. The ‘current’ people in these stories do differentiate greatly between cultures though. In Lovecraft’s story, although they look more monkey-like than humans, in Wells’ story they definitely don’t.

In Wells’ story, what was interesting was he included the fact that their chins were smaller, they were very short and pale, and had big, bright eyes, looking like children, when in fact they were adults. They also all wore the same kind of soft material, and they all ate at the same place. There was no electricity, no currency to speak of, but biotechnology had gone so far as to create new and glorious breeds of flowers, which they all had in their gardens.

On another note, I’ve decided to look at the book “Night Watch” from the year 2000 and see what it was about; I’ve never seen it ever, actually. I was looking at it this morning and it was very useful for seeing the constellations during which seasons, and telling you how to spot certain stars such as Polaris.

Considering it’s from 2000, I don’t know how accurate it would be today. I’m assuming it would be close enough that you would be able to find mostly everything without too much of a hassle.

Next post coming tomorrow, about quasars, pulsars, blinking molecules, and novae (as opposed to supernovae)!

Technorati Tags: Book,H. G. Wells,Astrophysics,Dimension,Time,Machine,Math,Physics,Theory,Modern,Pulsar,Quasar,Blinking,Stars

A Blurb From Calculus, the Fire Breathing Dragon of Mathematics…

 

So, besides listening to audiotapes of science-fiction this summer, I’ve decided to get Dr. Michael Starbird’s audio CD’s of Calculus.

Of course, Calculus can be hard, if the professor is uninteresting, or speaks to quickly, or just doesn’t seem to care if anyone in the room understands… (trust me, I’ve had teachers like that!) But with Dr. Michael Starbird from Texas University, he really shows true teaching of Calculus in a way that most people can understand, not just the quiet, super-intelligent beings in the front of the classroom. With these audio-CD’s, even without a background in Precalculus (I’m taking it this coming year), I can fully understand what the concept is of Calculus and how it works philosophically.

As far as the math goes, it’s harder without a visual, but I can understand the basic concepts of the Derivative and the Integral as two separate ideas that work together mathematically with limits.

If you need any help with Calculus, definitely download his audio-recordings online or buy his books (or borrow them from the library) or just do something to be taught by this guy. He really is very famous, too, for making Calculus an understandable and teachable subject. 

“Deception Point”, “The Time Machine”, and Other Books…

 

So besides being extremely busy with Summer things, at night I’ve been listening to some audiotapes (much easier to do during the lazy days of Summer) but besides that, I wanted to make a promise:

That I am going to keep with this blog no matter what it takes. Because, first, it’s what I like to do: To write, inform others, teach, etc. But secondly, it’s also my passion. My current dream is this: To be a professor of astrophysics at a great university and to do my own research.

This is what I want, and the blog is what I came up with.

Back to the news, I listened to the entire audiotape of “Deception Point” by Dan Brown (author of “The Da Vinci Code”, etc.) and it was one excellent piece of science fiction. Not too science-ish (in fact, you find out why it’s called “Deception Point” later)but very good nonetheless. Has alot to do with the government which is pretty interesting…

I have begun listening to “The Time Machine” and I’m happy to say it’s very scientific so far. A wonderful piece of science-fiction to read, and there’s even a movie of it.

I loved the beginning, because the ‘time traveler’ (as he’s called) hasn’t yet said he could time travel, but said that he theorized that there were four dimensions: that time is a fourth dimension (which today is still accepted by theoretical physicists)that we cannot perceive like other dimensions because we aren’t surrounded by it, we ride along it, just like space. This is why space and time are considered ‘space-time’. This time traveler didn’t call it ‘space-time’ but he did say that they work hand in hand and that we ride along the fourth dimension involved in our universe, time.

Now, thinking about time as another dimension didn’t quite start until the group of theoretical physicists became a bit more populated, which was around the time this book was written (I can’t quite grasp the exact year) but a number of decades later, here we are reading Lisa Randall’s “Warped Passages: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions” and we see that time being a fourth dimension is still used in common theories.

In “The Time Machine”, when the time traveler is done explaining his theory about us riding along this fourth dimension, he is speaking to a few very educated men in the science field, one being a psychologist. Three of the men were doubtful about his theory, but one man says that he thought it was a very interesting idea.

Then comes when the time traveler deduces that if he were able to change into another dimension by going fast enough, he could travel through time.

Does this sound familiar?

I solemnly swear that I have never, ever heard this story until last night, and I was very surprised by how the time traveler perceives things very similar to how I have been making my theory. Of course, I don’t know how much he knows about the universe and such, so he doesn’t get into great detail about how he came to this conclusion, other than that he believed that time worked hand in hand with space as another dimension with matter, and he couldn’t have been closer to the ideas of most theoretical physicists today.

"Anyway, I was thinking more of a bio-social exploration with a neuro-chemical overlay"...

"Wait, are you asking me out?"

Yes, this was another quote from The Big Bang Theory. One of the best.
Although I won't get into just how the heck you get dating out of that remark, because it's more neuro-science related.
Anyways, I thought I'd comment on what I learned while reading "The Day Without a Yesterday" and tell you that I brought "A History of Zero" back to the library today for obvious reasons.

Anyway, in "The Day Without a Yesterday", it talks about how LeMaitre should have gotten more credit for some things that Einstein took most of the credit for. This was because, back when Einstein was around, there began the fight between quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity. Quantum mechanics, at first, could not agree with Einstein's Relativity, until a Russian mathematician (I forget his name) mathematically figured out how they would go together. Then, Einstein found Special Relativity, a term he coined for the Russian mathematician's formula. So pretty much they worked together for a while on it.

Anyways, when they still didn't agree before the Russian mathematician stepped in, there were a number of debates of Einstein's relativity versus the newly-founded Quantum Theory. Einstein was troubled because it turned out his relativity wasn't so great after all. He was bummed, and he was trying to distract himself by being more outgoing with his friends, but the trouble of his relativity (only General at this point) removed all possibilities of truth without expanding it and changing it somehow. The Russian mathematician pointed out that in his General relativity formula, he needed the upside-down triangle-looking symbol (ummm I have no idea what it's called... That's delta, I think?) which made space-time curve matter, and matter curve space-time, but working with quantum theory just a little bit more.
Then came along Einstein's find of special relativity, which clashed once again with quantum theory just a bit longer.

The reason why I like this book is because it not just shows the achievements of Einstein, but it shows who helped him and who should get credit for what things, too. Einstein didn't do all the work, you know.

Also, more about "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene, I find it astounding how similar string theory and my theory are. Except for the garbage can theorem (I still can't type that with a straight face), the fact that I'm saying space-time can rip is intriguingly similar to that of string theory.
I'm curious as to how string theorists say that space-time can also repair itself, so hopefully I'll get to that part soon.
As for "A Brief History of Time", I stopped because I wanted a more one-focus book right now, not a general one (which is weird because usually I prefer those)... I guess it's because I know most of the stuff in that book so I need something more focused on stuff I don't know instead.
Ah well, I am definitely keeping up more with this.

P.S. After a long period of time, I'm planning on putting all the posts into a book-form, so stay tuned!

I Owe You an Apology, String Theory….

This is an official message to String Theory: I am sorry for treating you condescendingly and not believing in you without knowing all the facts first.

From: Madeleine Michaud

 

What brought this about was the fact that I didn’t really pay attention when I was reading “The Elegant Universe” by Brian Greene. In fact, I didn’t even read past the first few pages. But what I do know now is that according to string theory, space-time can be torn and it can repair itself, which amazed me! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I didn’t even think of space-time repairing itself after it’s ripped, I figured it would be a black hole. But maybe not. I’ll have to look more into this, but that’s a whole other story.

Did I mention I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. John Carlson? I think I did, but I can’t remember at this point. Anyway, I figured I’d throw a picture up here for fun.

I just thought I’d update saying I’m going to read more soon, because I’ve been behind on my work due to computer issues (of which we thought were resolved, but they’re not!) But now, I have Windows 7, and therefore, I have Windows Live Writer. What this means is, I can publish my blog without having a good internet connection at that time!

I did happen to read more of “A Natural History of Zero”, but it’s becoming redundant very quickly. If I were to give advice to the author, I’d say don’t give away the answer to the mystery only five chapters into the book.

The first five chapters were amazing though, I’d recommend at least reading that much!

Technorati Tags: Astronomy,Science,Math,Astrophyics,Physics,John Carlson,String Theory,Theory,Space,Time,Dimension

The Crazy Dr. Lowell and Some Thoughts on "A Natural History of Zero"...

As I may have said before (I can't remember at this point), I have watched the whole Cosmos series from Carl Sagan, and I seriously recommend it to anyone who isn't bored easily by flowing, dreamy music, excepting the first episode, because I mean my attention span about science and math and such isn't the biggest, but seriously? When talking about the first episode, I compare it to trying to sit down and watch a yoga video without following the moves or doing anything else.
But the rest of the series has a lot to do with not only space, but biology, which is another interesting science (but we won't get into it much here)... But the reason why I wanted to bring it up was that I thought I was crazy for speaking about the universe as almost an organism as itself, using "natural selection" as to which universe will survive the longest.
It's not always the stronger ones that survive, but it is the norm to think of it that way.
If we think about the universe as an organism itself, then how do we know if its on the latter end of the universal scale?
For all we know, other universes (if they're there)could have survived the past thousand-billion years!
But then again, perhaps we could think about it this way: The universe is expanding. If a universe is contracting, it may be dieing (because everything is going to collapse on each other) but if its expanding, its making more room for more matter to emerge, and stuff won't be crashing into each other.
But the fact that its expanding at an accelerating rate (the speed at which it's expanding is equal to how far it is, so it becomes faster each moment) worries me, because what happens when it reaches that infinite amount of distance? Will everything be sucked into a vortex of terror or something? Haha, probably not. But still, will the universe begin contracting into what is theorized as "The Big Crunch"?
Well, according to "A Brief History of Time", because our universe is expanding so quickly, it is going to keep expanding forever, because there's not enough mass for everything to start moving toward each other again after a certain amount of time.
As far as we know today, we only have about 10% of the mass needed to have The Big Crunch. So what this means is, the universe's expansion will eventually slow down and seemingly stop at some point in time.

In other news, from "A Natural History of Zero", what was interesting was the philosophy behind the idea: Is zero a symbol for nothing, or is it a "nothing" that's there?
The first is what puts it on par with the rest of the numbers, the latter is what would keep it in another category all by itself.
This is an ancient, ANCIENT question, that cannot exactly be answered except by how the mathematician, or the student, or whoever uses it.
If you put zero in a category by itself in your work, then you're saying it's a nothing that's there (which is terribly confusing to those who think about it too long) and if you use it as a number along with all the other numbers in your work, then you're saying it's a symbol for nothing, just like 1 is a symbol for one, and 3 is a symbol for three.

Also, I thought I would bring in some stuff from H. P. Lovecraft's "Pawtuxet Valley Gleaner" First Writings (The Gleaner being the Pawtuxet Valley tabloid/magazine). for the Gleaner, H. P. Lovecraft's first writings ever published, Lovecraft wrote a number of astronomy forecasts and what he knows about stars, magnitude, and the planets.
What's cool is that these were written back in 1906, so it's interesting to see things in there that we know today were wrong, but back then were seen as the truth.
Part of this issues were caused by the fuzziness of the telescopes; you could only see something for about a few seconds before having to readjust and recalibrate the whole thing.
The first thing that started was that there was a professor named Dr. Lowell, who claimed to see perfectly straight crevices dug into Mars, and theorized that they were water canals for an extremely intelligent species.
I had to laugh, because we learned in science this year that it was false.
Plus, they hadn't discovered Pluto yet, so there were only eight planets just like there are today!
Another thing they said was that another professor had spotted dark green spots on the moon that could only be vegetation. Of course, this too was eventually proven false.
The people were beginning to panic because of Dr. Lowell's "discoveries", and many asked questions about extraterrestrial life. What would this look like? It says in the article that no one could be sure because although there's really no air, "there could be a thin, gaseous cloud" that the extraterrestrials could live in. But with the "discovery" of vegetation on the moon, the people would believe anything. Not to mention, that there was a theory of a volcano on the moon, because many people estimated different diameters for the moon's largest crater, and therefore they thought volcanoes must change it.
Back to Mars, Dr. Lowell also thought he saw circles cutting up these long, thin canals, and therefore he told everyone that this intelligent species must use them for when the winter on Mars has passed (which there actually is) and the poles melt (which actually happens) and let the water down the crevices (does not happen).
I wonder if our generations are going to seem this crazy in the future?

Almost the Beginning of the End, But a Fresh Start has Emerged...

 

So, I haven't updated as much as I would, but it does happen to be a very hard week for me.
Besides all that life stuff, I've been reading a few works of H.P. Lovecraft (A very old, but famous horror/sci fi writer) that included many supernatural dimensions, space, time, and many references to an 'Abyss of time' and such. I wanted to put in a quote that I just had to smile at, because his trademark is putting numerous descriptions all in a line in one large run-on sentence. This is from The Lurking Fear (pub. Necronomicon Press, 1977):
"I felt the stranging tendrils of a cancerous horror whose roots reached into illimitable pasts and fathomless abysms of the night that broods beyond time." - pg. 23
I have to say, in my opinion, this is a much more awesome description, rather than just saying "I was scared, I wanted to run, and scream, but I couldn't."
Although in the second quote, these are commonly used in today's horror books, to suffice the average bowel movement, instead of attempting to stretch our imagination beyond our limits.
I had to write a paper for school in March about my favorite author, or just an author of literary merit. I chose Lovecraft because he fits both of those descriptions. We had to choose an X, Y, and Z about the author (three descriptions of his work, three pieces of literature by him, three themes he commonly uses, etc.) and argue why this author is a great author, or how in the world these three things appropriately describe his work. I chose for my thesis: "H. P. Lovecraft’s use of magic-realism, New England lore, and supernatural dimensions were made more effective in his writings by his obsession with the sciences." which actually turned out to be great, compared to some who used the old X, Y, and Z method, I just chose his three usual literary devices, and made it work with how EVERYONE who has analyzed his works says over and over how he loved the sciences, especially astronomy and physics (which is ironic, clearly).
Anyways, so I've been very distracted from my science reading, until Thursday when at the library, I stumbled upon "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero" by Robert Kaplan.
I was looking for something fresh, something besides "Blah, blah blah, can't go faster than the speed of light, blah, blah blah" and this was definitely something I was looking for: Something about the sciences that definitely showed genuine interest from the narrator, and didn't start babbling over useless things just to fill the pages.
If I had to suggest it to anyone, seriously, I'd suggest it to anyone who's interested in history, math, science, mysteries, or human nature (behavior, etc.). It talks about numbers from the beginning besides zero, too, and it says how it ties in with the cultures, how the cultures exchanged symbols, and how the symbol for zero wasn't developed until far into the development of civilization. It gives pictures, too, to give the reader a visual of what the old numbers used to look like, and how they weren't exactly numbers, such as Roman Numerals, the Indian 'Kha', and the Greek symbols for different amounts. Many of them weren't exactly numbers because they were only ten-based, not one-based. It's terribly confusing when you tried to make slightly larger numbers such as 72 or 160.
And so, I am taking a break from "A Brief History of Time" for something a bit newer and refreshed, then I'll get back down to the nitty-gritty of spacetime.