Posted on 11/12/2009 7:51:26 AM PST by LibWhacker
People who think science is dull are wrong. Here are 10 reasons why.
Physics is weird. There is no denying that. Particles that don’t exist except as probabilities; time that changes according to how fast you’re moving; cats that are both alive and dead until you open a box.
We’ve put together a collection of 10 of the strangest facts we can find, with the kind help of cosmologist and writer Marcus Chown, author of We Need To Talk About Kelvin, and an assortment of Twitter users.
The humanities-graduate writer of this piece would like to stress that this is his work, so any glaring factual errors he has included are his own as well. If you spot any, feel free to point them out in the comment box below.
Equally, if you feel we’ve missed any of your favourite physics weirdnesses off the list, do tell us that as well.
If the Sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot
[*Snip*]
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Or one in which intelligent life has communicated with all other ones...I agree that the infinite universes with infinite possibilities is a weak hypothesis.
Very good!
I believe that Chrissy got a tingle up his leg.
Or could it be a tinkle down his leg?
Hey Chris, did you have to change underwear (or panties, as the case may be)?
Bananas are mostly starch (C6H10O5) and sucrose (C12H22O11). The fats contain glycerol (C3H5OH3), and the other components contain potassium nitrogen, iron, zinc, chlorine, and trace quantities of a few other elements.
The core tempreature is sufficent to generate nucleosynthesis. This leads to the Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen chain, which increases fusion of helium and raises the temperature. If it gets hot enough, the model has to account for carbon fusion. I suspect that Dr Hawking, et al., have never contemplated this eventuality.
The core temperature wouldn’t affect the atmosphere. Our own core temperature is 6,000 degrees, and Saturn’s diameter is about 19 times that of the Earth.
It’s not actually that difficult to calculate the temperature. We know the mass of Saturn based on its affect on other planets and its orbit around the sun. We know its size by direct measurement. We know the effect of gravity. Given that information, we can make a good estimate of what happens at its core.
The difference is, the Sun's surface is dealing with a massive heat flux generated on a massive scale by fusion at the Sun's core. The heat flux on Saturn doesn't come from fusion and is minuscule in comparison. Saturn's surface has no trouble dumping it off into space before it can build up.
But give Saturn the heat flux of the Sun and we can absolutely guarantee it would be very fiery surface indeed!
Light speed is the speed limit of the universe. So if something is travelling close to the speed of light, and you give it a push, it can’t go very much faster. But you’ve given it extra energy, and that energy has to go somewhere.
If they are passing through an insulating medium that slows light down, they can actually travel faster than the light around them.
If the Sun were made of bananas, it would be just as hot
That's nice, except for that little thing called nuclear fusion. Despite the amount of potassium in bananas emitting alpha radiation smushing them together is not going to start a nuclear reaction.
Oops. I flipped my italics.
Right, there's no hydrogen, helium, beryllium, etc., in a banana as far as I know. I think your banana star would start to collapse right away and about the time it was the size of the Earth, you'd see Carbon, first, then Nitrogen and Oxygen start to fuse.
As far as the light speed thing, c only represents the speed of light in a vacuum, not in other materials. So there's no contradiction if you push some mass past 38mph, the speed of light in whatever material we're talking about. Is that what you were asking?
Slightly cooler, actually. The initial compressive heat would rip the molecules apart into free H, C, O and a bit of other elements. The majority being hydrogen, fusion would begin - but there not being as much hydrogen as the sun has now, less fusion would occur. The other free elements are too heavy for the Sun to fuse, so they'd just get in the way.
All the matter that makes up the human race could fit in a sugar cube
This "10 weirdest" list shows a misunderstanding of matter being particles vs. waves. The old Boer model, which predicts this "mostly empty space" concept, just isn't strictly correct - not because it's wrong, but because it's a misunderstanding of how things work at that level. It's not so much that there's empty space, just there's less probabilities there.
If you did throw the human race into a black hole to compress it (us), the resultant nuclear slime would take up about the space of a sugar cube. Thing is, we have no subjective mental grasp of why/what that is.
Events in the future can affect what happened in the past
Well...er... Methinks the example given is a case of "observing" being a matter of influencing (see another poster's blind-man-with-a-cane analogy) that which is being observed. The photon passes thru both slits as a wave, but the process of observing "which slit did it come thru" causes a wave which cancels out the wave signature regarding the other slit. Kinda like "noise canceling headphones" which silence a sound by playing that sound, inverted, at the same time. (Ok, that's my guess on the issue. Point is there's more to what's really going on than an ignorant "hey! it's time travel!")
Almost all of the Universe is missing
I'm chalking the "dark matter & energy" theory up to scientists observing a phenomenon they are unaware of, and imposing inapplicable concepts thereon. Kinda like the long-held theory of "ether" being the conduit for light - until someone proved there isn't any.
Things can travel faster than light; and light doesn’t always travel very fast
Nothing travels faster than light. What "slows" light is the interaction of light with the physical medium it passes through. You might be able to run X MPH, but put a parking lot in your way and you'll slow down while going around/over/through cars. Some things might interact with that physical medium differently, giving it a speed advantage and thus some novel effects - but casual discussion ignores the fact that impeding medium aside, light is still traveling faster.
There are an infinite number of mes writing this, and an infinite number of yous reading it
We don't know, and by definition can't know, what's "outside" the universe. Professional thinkers kicking around novel concepts end up with some pretty strange theories as a result (which may explain why Leftism is so popular on campus). Kinda like Netflix radio commercials: Q. If a rhombus has four sides, what is the inverse of blue? A. Purple
Black holes aren’t black
The hole is black. The barely-escaping bits of matter being ripped apart while crossing the event horizon isn't.
Vague analogy: a white wall isn't white, the "white" is just the thin layer of paint on it.
The fundamental description of the universe does not account for a past, present or future
An incomplete comment; the text goes on to observe "...Time frames are relative". The fundamental description of the universe DOES account for a past, present and future - but their arrangements around stuff is a lot more complex (based on relative speeds) than just A past, A present, and A future.
A particle here can affect one on the other side of the universe, instantaneously
Ok, that one (to wit: paired particle spin) is just plain weird. Kinda like Schrodenger has two boxes containing twin live/dead cats: open one box to find a live cat, you just killed the other one.
The faster you move, the heavier you get
Makes perfect sense - if you understand "relativity".
Maybe this is why Americans have a cumulative weight problem - we're all running around so fast.
The Sun radiates it away, also, that much heat would cause those materials, especially the hydrogen they claim is there, to ignite.
The heat that is claimed, over the mass it extends, would make Saturn and Jupiter the most turbulent of planets, but also on fire.
Not liquid oxygen/hydrogen/ammonia/methane/whatever.
I agree. But I think this. If belief in a theory requires the creation of new mental gymnastics to support it, then that theory has left the scientific realm.
What’s kind of interesting to me too, though, is observing the larger trends in thinking. Chemistry and alchemy were once branches of the same tree, so to speak.
So too - in a sense - with physics and metaphysics.
You’d enjoy this article/thread. I have.
Perfect!
t is the sixth planet from the sun and, before the invention of the telescope, was the farthest planet that could be observed with the naked eye.
Huh? I quit reading right about here as even after the invention of the telescope it is the farthest planet that can be observed with the naked eye.
All physics, as well as everything else we believe, is predicated on metaphysical presuppositions.
If one considers the solar system as a unit, do the planets represent accretion points of materials blown out from previous stars, which occurred far enough from the mass center that they avoided being included in the lighting of the central furnace? Did the heavier elements originate from hydrogen/helium furnaces finally blowing out of their fuel supply ... losing enough mass such that the gravitational compression no longer kept the fuels in proximity?
Why did the universe as a unit 'explode' into a limited volume which allowed for accretions? ... All of these simple questions, when arranged alonside the reality that the very small (atomic scale and quark scale) behaves very differently from the large, molecule size. In fact, few realize that the atomic scale behaves very differently from the quark scale.
As ctdonath2 pointed out (I hope I'm paraphrasing correctly) nothing is really faster than the speed of light if you measure it against anything else in the same medium. It's only when you manipulate the medium of one test subject, in this case the light, that you can achieve this phenomenon. Now if I recall my lectures from nuclear power school correctly there is a theory about anti matter particles that travel faster than the speed of light, and therefore backwards in time. Of course you also have to ask questions like what particles have actual mass and which ones don't? Einstein theorized that an objects mass approaches the infinite as its speed approaches light speed (The "C" speed, not the retarded one).Then again, Einstein fought against quantum mechanics until his dying day. He was wrong about that one. He could be wrong about the mass / speed relationship at ludicrous speed.
Okay. That's enough, I'm going to have to go find a Mehgan McCain thread to lurk on now.
11. The dark is afraid of Chuck Norris,
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