Welcome to a New School Year with Hurrican Earl and Stephen Hawking...

Up in New England, luckily, Earl may be hitting up in Mass., but as far as here in RI is concerned, it's only about tropical storm level (significantly less damaging than a hurricane) and therefore won't last very long, and won't be as strong as it was down south.

So today, Stephen Hawking finally came out with his new book: The Grand Design, co-authored by Leonard Mlodinow. This will be available on Amazon on Tuesday, September 7th.

I was very surprised to hear that in his new book, instead of speaking about quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity like he usually does, he actually describes the universe from a String Theory point of view instead!
I don't know if you realize how apocalyptic this is: Since when does Hawking involve himself with String Theory????

For the past however-many-years-he's-been-here, he has written books upon books upon papers of quantum mechanics, Einstein's relativity, his formulas, his own work with black holes, and that was about all. Then all of a sudden, he disappears into the dark for a while, and *Poof!* he suddenly transforms into an expert on String Theory as much as he is about Einstein's relativity!

The fact is, I have never in my entire life seen someone as inspiring as Stephen Hawking. A man living with ALS for over forty years longer than doctors said he would. When he was in college and was planning to attend Cambridge University to get his Ph.D. was when he was diagnosed with ALS, with only a few years to live.
And here he is today, still alive, still able to communicate, and still able to write books upon books about his research and knowledge. This man is a genius.

I'd update more, but... I have a surprise for you viewers out there. The next post will be on Saturday, and I'm not, under any circumstance, ruining the surprise! ;)

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…

"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!

The Old Binder... I Need to Change It, For the Second Time

 

Originally, my project was turning into a binder, consisting of a drawn cover with a rocket and two different titles:
The Modern Time Machine Project by Madeleine Michaud and Kyle Oelofse, and The SIEMEN's Math, Science, and Technology Competition by Madeleine Michaud and Dean Thurston.
Of course, my interests have taken a huge turn from first, writing a book with Kyle, and second, adding on a project to do with all of this information. But that would be terribly difficult for someone going into junior year... I mean, you can't prove my theory, so what good would an experiment do for me if I can't go to the large hadron collider??
This picture was version 2.0 of the project, as it turned into not a book, but just the project and THEN writing a book later..
Of course, my partner for the project was not as interested as I thought he was. And to enter the Siemen's competition before you're going into senior year, you HAVE to have a partner.
So, to my dismay, the project was dismissed, as well as the book.
So for a couple of weeks I had absolutely nothing, except ideas, which is all I had begun with.
As far as my theory went, that stupid stuff with "Brian" (the one from the previous post) had distracted me from everything... Because he wasn't interested in it.
So, I made a big mistake. But I've learned from it, which is the important piece of it.
And so, here I am, writing this post for today...Awesome!
And that wasn't sarcastic. Writing a blog is possibly one of the best ideas ever come up with for blooming writers and people who want to share ideas and information with the world!
It's much less intimidating than writing a book, because all it is, is whatever you want to say for the day, and it doesn't have to be writting in a certain way. You can write it any way you want, and it doesn't have to be over 100 pages to be considered to show to the world (to be printed and sold)....
All it is, is typing stuff in a somewhat-entertaining way and and clicking a button.
How easy...
Anyways, I wanted to tell you all about this dialogue that happens every single time I meet someone new or catch up with a relative:

Person: "Are you thinking about college yet?"
Me: "I want to get my Ph.D in Astrophysics at Cambridge University"
(With a look of surprise)Person: Wow! That's (insert 'wonderful' or 'intense')!
Me: "Yeah, it's in England..."
(Still looking astonished)Person: "Well, that sounds (insert 'wonderful' or 'fascinating')!"

I wonder if a conversation like this happens with anyone else with one of their relatives or when meeting someone new....

As far as science goes, I was thinking about my theory on the way to my family reunion in the car today, and I realized that if the theory is called Modern Theory, and if our universe is actually another universe's waste disposal system, shouldn't that part of it be called the Garbage Can Theorem? I laughed, what a funny name... I suppose it could be called the Excess Energy Theorem or something good-sounding like that?

It's funny because I'm still reading "A Brief History of Time", and I realized that String Theory didn't exist until after this book was released in 1989/1990.
This means that String Theory has only been around for, at the most, 19 years!
Really, I would like to meet the scientist who came up with it, and analyze their brain for a plethora of psychological issues....
Haha, just kidding.
Anyways, next time I'm posting a diagram of the time-travel aspect of my theory, so stay tuned!