Gorgeous Photos of California's Super Bloom | Reader's Digest
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Microsoft Word - TheModernView.doc - TheModernView.pdf
Microsoft Word - TheModernView.doc - TheModernView.pdf
In the standard model, there are only 12 fundamental particles of matter,
together with another one called the Higgs boson.
The electron is perhaps the most famous of all 12 particles.
It has two heavier cousins, the muon and the tau.
Then, each one of these has a companion neutrino,
like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
So an electron neutrino, a muon neutrino, and a tau neutrino,
making for a group of six particles called leptons--
from the Greek for light weight.
The other six particles are known as quarks.
Of the six quarks, the most important are
called the up and down quarks, which make up particles
like the proton and the neutron.
So, according to modern particle physics,
everything that exists in the universe--
every kind of matter or material--
is made of these 12 particles.
In the standard model, there are only 12 fundamental particles of matter,
together with another one called the Higgs boson.
The electron is perhaps the most famous of all 12 particles.
It has two heavier cousins, the muon and the tau.
Then, each one of these has a companion neutrino,
like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
So an electron neutrino, a muon neutrino, and a tau neutrino,
making for a group of six particles called leptons--
from the Greek for light weight.
The other six particles are known as quarks.
Of the six quarks, the most important are
called the up and down quarks, which make up particles
like the proton and the neutron.
So, according to modern particle physics,
everything that exists in the universe--
every kind of matter or material--
is made of these 12 particles.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
Microsoft Word - HistoryOfTheAtomIIITheBohrModel.doc - HistoryOfTheAtomIIITheBohrModel.pdf
Microsoft Word - HistoryOfTheAtomIIITheBohrModel.doc - HistoryOfTheAtomIIITheBohrModel.pdf
Albert Einstein published a different paper,
which is the one that would give him a Nobel prize in 1921.
In this paper, he proposed something quite revolutionary--
that light can be a wave, as people had known for a long time,
but it could also be interpreted as being made
of little bullets, called "photons."
Albert Einstein published a different paper,
which is the one that would give him a Nobel prize in 1921.
In this paper, he proposed something quite revolutionary--
that light can be a wave, as people had known for a long time,
but it could also be interpreted as being made
of little bullets, called "photons."
Microsoft Word - HistoryOfTheAtomIIThompsonToRutherford.doc - HistoryOfTheAtomIIThompsonToRutherford.pdf
Microsoft Word - HistoryOfTheAtomIIThompsonToRutherford.doc -
HistoryOfTheAtomIIThompsonToRutherford.pdf
Meanwhile, in France, Pierre and Marie Curie
were investigating the kinds of radiation
that emanated from different chemicals and realized
that there were three different kinds of radiation, which were then called
alpha, beta, and gamma particles.
Together, with the x-rays, they made for a very bizarre quartet of stuff
coming out of matter.
HistoryOfTheAtomIIThompsonToRutherford.pdf
Meanwhile, in France, Pierre and Marie Curie
were investigating the kinds of radiation
that emanated from different chemicals and realized
that there were three different kinds of radiation, which were then called
alpha, beta, and gamma particles.
Together, with the x-rays, they made for a very bizarre quartet of stuff
coming out of matter.
Microsoft Word - HistoryOfTheAtomIGreeksToDalton.doc - HistoryOfTheAtomIGreeksToDalton.pdf
Microsoft Word - HistoryOfTheAtomIGreeksToDalton.doc - HistoryOfTheAtomIGreeksToDalton.pdf
In the case of modern atoms, the force that binds them together
is electricity.
For example, water is made of a combination of two atoms of hydrogen
and one atom of oxygen, the famous H2O formula.
The amazing diversity of materials that we see in nature
comes from this incredible ability that atoms have to combine with one another
to create different kinds of molecules.
From very simple-- like water--
to incredibly complex ones--like a protein, which can have millions of atoms.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Microsoft Word - WhatIsMatter.doc - WhatIsMatter.pdf
Microsoft Word - WhatIsMatter.doc - WhatIsMatter.pdf
What is the world and everything in it made
What is the world and everything in it made
of? Galaxies, stars, planets, people, rocks, where did all
this stuff come from? How can we
know? These are the fundamental questions that we will study in the next two weeks. As we
investigate the material composition of the world, we'll find very deep clues about the nature of
reality and what we can and cannot
know about it.
Everyone wonders at some point in life about the origin of all things. This rock, for example,
where did it come from? What is it made of? Why is it so different from a living thing? It's
amazing to think that the material composition of th
e world was actually the first question asked
in philosophy. Thales of Miletus, in about 650 BCE, changed the way people thought about the
world. Instead of saying that God or different gods made everything in nature, he tried to
understand nature from wit
hin nature, offering rational answers to describe the physical nature of
reality.
New Physics Beyond The Higgs? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
New Physics Beyond The Higgs? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Late last year, when most people were getting ready for the holidays, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine at CERN,
the European Organization for Nuclear Research, made a startling
announcement: Their two massive detectors had identified a small bump in
the data with an energy level of about 750 GeV.
This level is about six times larger than the energy associated with the
Higgs particle. (To go from energy to mass divide the energy by the
square of the speed of light.) For comparison, the mass of a proton, the
particle that makes the nuclei of all atoms in nature, is about 1 GeV.
The Higgs is heavy — and this new bump, if associated with a new
particle, would be really heavy.
At the more abstract, a new physics event at energies six times higher
than where the Higgs was found would mean that we are edging a bit
closer to the Big Bang, the event that marks the origin of the universe.
There is a huge gap in energy between the Higgs and the Big Bang, of
course, but getting new data at higher energies can clarify how to move
closer. This kind of fundamental physics has a very noble heritage, as
it traces its origins to the beginnings of Western philosophy and even
beyond — to questions related to our origins. If we picture creation as a
puzzle, every new piece we discover helps us understand our origins a
little better. The new bump may not give us a final answer (it's not
clear we can ever get there), but it'd certainly make the picture
clearer.
Late last year, when most people were getting ready for the holidays, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine at CERN,
the European Organization for Nuclear Research, made a startling
announcement: Their two massive detectors had identified a small bump in
the data with an energy level of about 750 GeV.
This level is about six times larger than the energy associated with the
Higgs particle. (To go from energy to mass divide the energy by the
square of the speed of light.) For comparison, the mass of a proton, the
particle that makes the nuclei of all atoms in nature, is about 1 GeV.
The Higgs is heavy — and this new bump, if associated with a new
particle, would be really heavy.
At the more abstract, a new physics event at energies six times higher
than where the Higgs was found would mean that we are edging a bit
closer to the Big Bang, the event that marks the origin of the universe.
There is a huge gap in energy between the Higgs and the Big Bang, of
course, but getting new data at higher energies can clarify how to move
closer. This kind of fundamental physics has a very noble heritage, as
it traces its origins to the beginnings of Western philosophy and even
beyond — to questions related to our origins. If we picture creation as a
puzzle, every new piece we discover helps us understand our origins a
little better. The new bump may not give us a final answer (it's not
clear we can ever get there), but it'd certainly make the picture
clearer.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Game Of Quarks: A Guide For The Perplexed : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Game Of Quarks: A Guide For The Perplexed : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
In total, six quarks are enough to explain all hadrons found so far: up,
down, charm, strange, bottom, top. For example, a proton is made of two
up quarks and a down quark. We can represent a proton as (uud). Quarks
are bound together in the proton by particles called gluons (yes, they
glue them together). A neutron is made of the combination (udd). You can
play the same game with the other hadrons, which come in two types:
baryons (three quarks, like proton and neutron) and mesons (made of a
quark and an anti-quark). An anti-quark is like the original quark but
with opposite electric charge.
In total, six quarks are enough to explain all hadrons found so far: up,
down, charm, strange, bottom, top. For example, a proton is made of two
up quarks and a down quark. We can represent a proton as (uud). Quarks
are bound together in the proton by particles called gluons (yes, they
glue them together). A neutron is made of the combination (udd). You can
play the same game with the other hadrons, which come in two types:
baryons (three quarks, like proton and neutron) and mesons (made of a
quark and an anti-quark). An anti-quark is like the original quark but
with opposite electric charge.
Pushing The Frontiers Of High-Energy Physics Links Humanity : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Pushing The Frontiers Of High-Energy Physics Links Humanity : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
CERN has just finished the first run of the upgraded LHC, reaching
energies that almost doubled those of the previous runs, the ones that
found the Higgs. The machine works by colliding protons against protons
head-on, after accelerating them clockwise and counterclockwise to
speeds approaching the speed of light. The particles fly around a
17-mile circular tunnel, buried about 300 ft. underground. At some
spots, within devices called detectors, the particles are made to
collide with one another. A detector is essentially an amazingly
sensitive camera, capable of recording the trajectories of the particles
that fly off from the collision point.
CERN has just finished the first run of the upgraded LHC, reaching
energies that almost doubled those of the previous runs, the ones that
found the Higgs. The machine works by colliding protons against protons
head-on, after accelerating them clockwise and counterclockwise to
speeds approaching the speed of light. The particles fly around a
17-mile circular tunnel, buried about 300 ft. underground. At some
spots, within devices called detectors, the particles are made to
collide with one another. A detector is essentially an amazingly
sensitive camera, capable of recording the trajectories of the particles
that fly off from the collision point.
Enough Already With This 'Theory Of Everything' : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Enough Already With This 'Theory Of Everything' : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
However, even if we are successful in building a unified theory of
the known four forces (a difficult proposition to believe in these days,
given the lack of observational support after four decades), it will
only be a temporary and incomplete unification, never a TOE or "final"
theory.
Science, even at its most fundamental level, is an ongoing process of discovery that feeds on our never having all the answers.
However, even if we are successful in building a unified theory of
the known four forces (a difficult proposition to believe in these days,
given the lack of observational support after four decades), it will
only be a temporary and incomplete unification, never a TOE or "final"
theory.
Science, even at its most fundamental level, is an ongoing process of discovery that feeds on our never having all the answers.
Monday, April 24, 2017
Search For A Final Theory: A Holy Grail? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Search For A Final Theory: A Holy Grail? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
The goal of elementary particle physics is to obtain a description of
matter in its most fundamental form. These indivisible bits of stuff
have certain properties, such as mass and electric charge, and can
interact via four forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and two that only
manifest themselves at nuclear distances, the strong and weak forces. A
Final Theory would unify these four forces into a single one, showing
that, at very high energies such as those prevalent near the Big Bang,
these four forces were one. As the universe expanded and cooled, this
force would gradually split, until it became the four forces we know
today: unification dissolves through cosmic history. At present, superstring theories
are the best candidates for such unification, although they remain far
from achieving this goal. Such theories actually go beyond the notion of
elementary particles: the fundamental entities are wiggling strings of
energy that move in nine spatial dimensions: as with guitar strings,
different modes of vibration carry different amounts of energy, each
identifiable with an elementary particle of matter.
The goal of elementary particle physics is to obtain a description of
matter in its most fundamental form. These indivisible bits of stuff
have certain properties, such as mass and electric charge, and can
interact via four forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and two that only
manifest themselves at nuclear distances, the strong and weak forces. A
Final Theory would unify these four forces into a single one, showing
that, at very high energies such as those prevalent near the Big Bang,
these four forces were one. As the universe expanded and cooled, this
force would gradually split, until it became the four forces we know
today: unification dissolves through cosmic history. At present, superstring theories
are the best candidates for such unification, although they remain far
from achieving this goal. Such theories actually go beyond the notion of
elementary particles: the fundamental entities are wiggling strings of
energy that move in nine spatial dimensions: as with guitar strings,
different modes of vibration carry different amounts of energy, each
identifiable with an elementary particle of matter.
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Microsoft Word - InterviewWithMaryJaneRubenstenTheMultiverse.doc - InterviewWithMaryJaneRubenstenTheMultiverse.pdf
Microsoft Word - InterviewWithMaryJaneRubenstenTheMultiverse.doc - InterviewWithMaryJaneRubenstenTheMultiverse.pdf
Goldilocks principle.
Goldilocks principle.
This one is just right, and I've got a
Universe. So the question is, how did each of these constants
--
the weak nuclear force, the strong
nuclear force, gravity, the cosmological constant, the mass of the electron
--
how did all of these
get precisely to t
he value they need to be so that we could get the kind of Universe we have?
And strictly philosophically speaking, the easiest answer is, well, somebody must have done it. I
guess somebody must have set each of these constants just right to give us this k
ind of Universe.
What the multiverse does is it gives you an alternative explanation. It says, look, if Universes are
being generated all the time, then those Universes could each try on different values. You could
have a Universe with a whole lot of gravi
ty, and a Universe with a whole lot of cosmological
constants, and the ones that wouldn't support life just wouldn't work out. But every once in a
while, a Universe will have the right combination of constants that it needs to give us a Universe
filled wit
h stars, and we seem to be in one of those Universes.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Microsoft Word - InterviewWithDavidKaiserTheMultiverse.doc - InterviewWithDavidKaiserTheMultiverse.pdf
Microsoft Word - InterviewWithDavidKaiserTheMultiverse.doc - InterviewWithDavidKaiserTheMultiverse.pdf
Now, there are proposal
s, as you know. Some people wonder, if these really are separate
bubbles
--
I tend to think about the multiverse as like a big bathtub. And like in a bathtub, you can
have lots of bubbles. And sometimes in a real bathtub, some bubbles will coalesce. This is
something you've studied in detail, right, for a long time.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Microsoft Word - TheUniverse.doc - TheUniverse.pdf
Microsoft Word - TheUniverse.doc - TheUniverse.pdf
That is, the matter that makes up galaxies, etc. Doing that, plus using a different set of
observations, scientists are actually able to tell how old the universe is
--
that is
--
how long it has
been expanding. T
he current answer is that the universe has been expanding for 13.8 billion
years,
that is, the time since the origin of the universe, the event we call the Big Bang. Our cosmic
horizon is then the bubble of information where we live, the distance light ha
s traveled since the
Big Bang, a sphere with a radius of about 46 billion light years. There may be more universe out
there, like there is more ocean beyond the horizon, but we can't see it.
Circling back to the nature of reality, we see that cosmology te
lls us that there are aspects of the
world that are unknowable to us.
The Importance Of Being Human : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
The Importance Of Being Human : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
It's easy to bash humans. We are making a mess of this world. We kill
each other. We are incapable of respecting differing points of view. We
are selfish, destructive, parasitic. I'm sure you could add a few
derisive comments of your own here. I remember, as a teenager, how
infuriated I became when I learned about holy wars, about how people can
actually justify killing others based on faith. Not that other wars are
any better. But what happened, I wondered, to the most basic of
notions, shared by all major religions, that life is sacred?
The jumps from single-celled to multi-cellular organisms and then to
highly functioning, intelligent beings are immensely unlikely, depending
on a series of random, unrepeatable accidents. Even if complex life
exists elsewhere in the cosmos, and we can't say that it doesn't, it is
so far removed from us that for all practical purposes we are alone. And
if we are alone and can think, we are rare and precious. And if we are
rare and precious, we have a new directive that goes beyond the
destructiveness that has ruled human history for millennia. We must
preserve life at all costs, be the guardians of this world. To counter
the Copernican Principle, we should develop a "humancentrism":
we alone have the power to ruin or to save this precious world we live
in. And I don't mean this in some kind of naive, la-la way. I mean it
quite literally. If we don't mend our ways, we will only have ourselves
to blame. Judging from the past few thousands of years, no one, alien
intelligence or God, will come to our rescue. It's really up to us.
It's easy to bash humans. We are making a mess of this world. We kill
each other. We are incapable of respecting differing points of view. We
are selfish, destructive, parasitic. I'm sure you could add a few
derisive comments of your own here. I remember, as a teenager, how
infuriated I became when I learned about holy wars, about how people can
actually justify killing others based on faith. Not that other wars are
any better. But what happened, I wondered, to the most basic of
notions, shared by all major religions, that life is sacred?
The jumps from single-celled to multi-cellular organisms and then to
highly functioning, intelligent beings are immensely unlikely, depending
on a series of random, unrepeatable accidents. Even if complex life
exists elsewhere in the cosmos, and we can't say that it doesn't, it is
so far removed from us that for all practical purposes we are alone. And
if we are alone and can think, we are rare and precious. And if we are
rare and precious, we have a new directive that goes beyond the
destructiveness that has ruled human history for millennia. We must
preserve life at all costs, be the guardians of this world. To counter
the Copernican Principle, we should develop a "humancentrism":
we alone have the power to ruin or to save this precious world we live
in. And I don't mean this in some kind of naive, la-la way. I mean it
quite literally. If we don't mend our ways, we will only have ourselves
to blame. Judging from the past few thousands of years, no one, alien
intelligence or God, will come to our rescue. It's really up to us.
Welcome To The Third Copernican Revolution : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
Welcome To The Third Copernican Revolution : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
As Earth became just another planet in the First Copernican revolution
and the Milky Way just another galaxy in the Second, our Universe would
become just another universe among countless others, each with its
properties, private histories, and creation events. This would, among
all of its remarkable consequences, be essentially a Third Copernican
revolution, now removing the centrality of our Universe in favor of an
eternally-existing multiverse.
As Earth became just another planet in the First Copernican revolution
and the Milky Way just another galaxy in the Second, our Universe would
become just another universe among countless others, each with its
properties, private histories, and creation events. This would, among
all of its remarkable consequences, be essentially a Third Copernican
revolution, now removing the centrality of our Universe in favor of an
eternally-existing multiverse.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
It’s Albert’s world. We just live in it. - Technology & science - Science - A Century of Einstein | NBC News
It’s Albert’s world. We just live in it. - Technology & science - Science - A Century of Einstein | NBC News
Rigden suggested that “the first contribution that Einstein made that
dramatically affects our lives was that he did it with the power of his
mind.”
Einstein “wasn’t blessed with experimental data — it was mostly abstract ideas,” he said. “That is a distinctive aspect of homo sapiens: We have a big brain. ...
“He is a standard because of what he did. And how he did it.”
Rigden suggested that “the first contribution that Einstein made that
dramatically affects our lives was that he did it with the power of his
mind.”
Einstein “wasn’t blessed with experimental data — it was mostly abstract ideas,” he said. “That is a distinctive aspect of homo sapiens: We have a big brain. ...
“He is a standard because of what he did. And how he did it.”
Microsoft Word - GeneralTheoryOfRelativity.doc - GeneralTheoryOfRelativity.pdf
Microsoft Word - GeneralTheoryOfRelativity.doc - GeneralTheoryOfRelativity.pdf
So now, when a planet is moving on it, it's going to have an orbit which deviates from a straight
line, like this. And so Einstein's insight was to say that planets go around the sun in elliptical
orbits, because the cu
rvature of space around the sun makes it so. And that's what we call
gravity.
Compare Einstein's gravity with Newton's. In Newton's world, gravity acted instantaneously at a
distance, like some kind of ghost. Newton didn't like this, but his theory was go
od enough to
describe many phenomena. Einstein changed everything. Space became a physical entity,
deformable by mass and from the relationship between mass and energy, E equals mc squared,
also by energy. Even light, heavy energy bends space. In Einstein'
s world, space is plastic, part
of physical reality, as is time.
n 1917, Einstein applied his new theory to the universe as a whole. If we know how much
matter there is in the universe, we can calculate its geometrical shape. Hence is born modern
cosmology, the application of
general relativity to the whole universe.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Microsoft Word - EinsteinsMuse.doc - EinsteinsMuse.pdf
Microsoft Word - EinsteinsMuse.doc - EinsteinsMuse.pdf
Einstein's new theory with the speed of light being constant for every inertial observer had
amazing consequences. First, an object in motion shrinks in the direction of that motion
--
something called "length contraction." Second
, clocks in motion slow down
--
that is, they tick
-
tock slower. Third, the mass of an object in motion increases. The closer to the speed of light the
object moves, the shorter it is, the slower time passes, and the more massive it is.
Sunday, April 09, 2017
The Equation That Blew Up The Cosmos : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
The Equation That Blew Up The Cosmos : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
To a large extent, the equation also changed the way we understand
ourselves, as suddenly, from its folded mathematical convolutions, the
universe itself became a dynamic, evolving entity, endowed with a
history. Within this history, the birth and death of stars, and the
creation of the chemical elements and their gathering into complex
compounds in nascent planets, became a persistent feature. Life unfolded
here, as it could have elsewhere, as part of this grand cosmic drama of
which we are integral players. Big Bang, black holes, warped spacetime,
wormholes, time machines, even our GPS devices all depend in some way
on Einstein's remarkable creation, a new way to describe gravity.
To a large extent, the equation also changed the way we understand
ourselves, as suddenly, from its folded mathematical convolutions, the
universe itself became a dynamic, evolving entity, endowed with a
history. Within this history, the birth and death of stars, and the
creation of the chemical elements and their gathering into complex
compounds in nascent planets, became a persistent feature. Life unfolded
here, as it could have elsewhere, as part of this grand cosmic drama of
which we are integral players. Big Bang, black holes, warped spacetime,
wormholes, time machines, even our GPS devices all depend in some way
on Einstein's remarkable creation, a new way to describe gravity.
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