Glossary

A Glossary of Time

This is a glossary for those of you who are confused, of not only vocabulary words but it's also an encyclopedia of scientists and authors that you might not know. If you still don't understand something, either contact me on Twitter or email me at bernadette.punk@gmail.com!

• Astronomy: The study and observation of the rest of the universe outside our own planet.
• Astrophysics: The study of the physics behind the observations made as an astronomer.
• Black Hole: An invisible spot in space that has an infinite amount of mass and density in the center (see "Singularity", "Density") so it constantly pulls everything that's close to it towards the center, where it usually begins to fall apart.
• Continua pl. (Continuum s.): A continuous series or extent. In the case of astrophysics, a space-time continuum is a black hole. (see "Space-Time")
• Cosmology: The study of the theories of how the universe was created and how it functions today, and trying to figure out why it works this way and why it was created.
• Density: How many particles are packed into the volume of whatever the matter is.
• Einstein, Albert: The very famous scientist that made many contributions to science and math, especially with his relativity formulas (See "Relativity, General", "Relativity, Special"), along with his contributions to chemistry and molecular physics.
• Einstein-Rosen Bridge: Einstein, along with Rosen created the theory of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which is actually what we call today a "Wormhole": A tunnel of which can be reached in space somehow to bring matter to another dimension, another part of our universe, or another time completely. Some scientists believe that this leads out of a black hole.
• Fermi, Enrico: Along with a few contributions to the sciences and math, he actually calculated a reasonable argument as to why there isn't life outside of Earth.
• Gravity: Believe it or not, Gravity is not a scientific law, it is a theory, saying that you can't see the force at hand, but you know that if you drop something it will move towards Earth. (See "Theory)
• Greene, Brian: Wrote "The Elegant Universe" and "The Fabric of the Cosmos", along with 2 other books and 1 coming in January 2011, called "The Hidden Reality".
• Hawking, Stephen: One of the most intelligent human beings of our time, he got his Ph.D at Cambridge University in England studying Astrophysics, and now is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics there (an award that Isaac Newton received before). He wrote "The Universe in a Nutshell", "A Brief History of Time", some other books, and some more recent books, and had created a TV series called "Stephen Hawking's Universe".
• Hypothesis: An educated prediction based on observation.
• Kaplan, Robert: Wrote "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero" along with many, many history books.
• LeMaitre, Georges: A cosmologist whose papers are all kept in Belgium (his homeland), and whose credit mostly went to the more famous cosmologists, scientists, and mathematicians of his time. Really, most of his ideas helped Einstein to develop ideas about the universe.
• Light-Cone: A diagram of sorts that shows three axes: Space, speed, and time. As the space increases, the amount of time it takes to reach the event (which can be anything happening including a planetary body just moving one degree or something) increases, and the speed of the light stays the same.
• Light-Cone, Future: In an hourglass-shaped diagram of light-cones, if the event is one of the points in this cone, it means the light hasn't reached the event yet.
• Light-Cone, Past: In an hourglass-shaped diagram of light-cones, if the event is one of the points in the lower cone (this one), it means the light has already reached and is affecting the event.
• Lovecraft, H. P.: A writer from the late 1800's to the early 1900's, he wrote magnificent science-fiction stories such as "The Colour Out of Space" and "The Lurking Fear", along with "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and much poetry and prose. He founded the genre "Cthulhu Mythos". All books and papers by him can be bought at the Necronomicon Press, and if it's not on the website, it can be requested by email at marc@necropress.com.
• M-Theory (String Theory): The theory that all the atoms and particles of everything are made of tiny, vibrating strings.
• Numbers, Imaginary/Complex: Any term that cannot describe any situation in our universe (something that doesn't make sense, so it can't exist). In this case, it is usually the square root of negative one (when you square any integer, it has to be a positive answer).
• Physics: The study of how matter and everything on Earth, in our universe, and in life work together, including forces and theories such as gravity, density, mass, volume, and time.
• Randall, Lisa: A theoretical physicist who wrote "Warped Passages: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions" and is blooming into pop-culture (or as popular as physics gets)
• Relativity, General: Einstein's theory that states that in most cases, bodies attract each other with their density telling how large their gravitational field is, and that all the bodies in the universe do this to each other. (For the exceptions, see "Relativity, Special"
• Relativity, Special: Einstein's theory that states that in exception to General Relativity, when matter goes near the speed of light, matter gains mass, but also that the faster matter moves, the slower everything around that matter moves relative to the first piece of matter.
• Sagan, Carl: Wrote many, many books including the most famous "Contact", and made his own TV series called "Carl Sagan's Cosmos"
• Scientific Law: A fact; a statement that cannot be disproven, but can be proven.
• Singularity: A tiny spot in the center of a black hole (See "Black Hole") that has infinite density and mass.
• Space-Time: Used to describe how time and space are actually intertwined in our universe; space and time now are different than they were millions of years ago, and different than millions of years before that. A black hole is actually a warp in space-time because a singularity is so strong that it twists it. (See "Black Hole", "Singularity")
• Starbird, Dr. Michael: A profound professor at the University of Texas who has written books on, given recorded lectures on, and made DVD sets on learning Calculus easily but also at a good pace.
• Steady State Theory: A theory that has long been ignored because it is physically impossible. It says that matter spontaneously appears in the center of our universe, which is what makes it expand.
• Supernova: When a star dies, if it is small, it becomes a white dwarf (a tiny, dense, white star), but when it's large, a supernova occurs. It is a large explosion, which usually results in a black hole because the core of the star, made of helium and maybe other elements, falls in on itself from the gravity, making itself infinitely dense and massive. (see "Singularity", "Black Hole")
• Tachyon Particles: Theoretical particles that go faster than the speed of light and back in time (just like my theory!)
• Theorem: One statement in the midst of a group of statments, making a theory. (See "Theory")
• Theoretical Physics: Using physics to create theories about the universe and the world we live in. (See "Theory", "Physics")
• Theory: A group of statements or one big statement that describes a large number of occurences, but is also simple enough that it has logical consistency.
• White Hole: A very young theoretical object that is supposedly connected to the other side of a wormhole that leads to a black hole. Some scientists believe that if you come out of a white hole, you go back in time, to another place in our universe, or maybe even to another dimension. (See "Black Hole", "Einstein-Rosen Bridge")