The Science thread

[Mire Mare]

I love this kind of stuff. Black holes fascinate me....i don't understand it all properly, but the concept of time slowing down, stopping and even reversing as you approach one always blows me away. I know it depends on whether you're an observer or the actual...well....'victim'. Also spaghettification is one of those weird and wonderful concepts. I think its as you pass the event horizon (the point at which you can't escape the black hole's gravitiational pull) your legs would be closer to the singularity than your head....so they get pulled further, faster...so in essence you get pulled into a long string of 'spaghetti'. Awesome stuff

I love the fact scientists don't understand why Newtonian physics breaks down when you get into the REALLY small scales....so they can't reconcile quantum and Newtonian physics into a unified theory of everything. I don't think we should know it all.....we'd only end up blowing up the universe

To you, at the event horizon and subject to massive gravity - lets imagine you can be suspended at the ev comfortably someway and not get crushed or asphyxiated(!), time moves at the same pace. You wouldn't notice any difference on your retro led watch so long as it can stand being in outer space. To someone watching from a great distance, with a pair of huge binoculars , you would appear to move slower and slower as you move towards the black hole because the light is taking longer and longer to reach their eyes. Because of this effect, theoretically, the observer could see both the front and the back of your head at the same time.

[nokgod]

See.... now that's interesting stuff. How can people say science is boring?

Still can't say i understand it though

Dark matter is another thing that intrigues me. They (some scientisty blokes) reckon most of the universe is made up of it....yet we've never found any

And those little particle things (not sure what they're called) that just pass straight through everything, including the Earth, without seemingly losing any velocity... or even seeming to interact with matter at all.

The universe is a strange, yet wonderful place.

[Havantgottaclue]

And those little particle things (not sure what they're called) that just pass straight through everything, including the Earth, without seemingly losing any velocity... or even seeming to interact with matter at all.

Neutrinos

I was on the train the other day and a load of schoolkids were looking through their revision guides. They were studying the solar system and I had half a mind to go over to them an ask whether their guide was updated to take account of the fact that Pluto was effectively struck off the roster as a planet in 2006 by the IAU. It's now a dwarf planet because there are other bodies in and around its orbit. This all came about because another object called Eris was found that actually exceeded Pluto's size and a more stringent definition of the term planet was therefore deemed to be required.

Of course, I didn't ask. It's really not the done thing as 30-something adult to go up to a group of teenagers and ask them about celestial bodies.

Anyway, one thing I remember doing recently was browsing through the chemical elements on Wikipedia. My understanding of much of the text is relatively limited but you do get the odd nice picture now and again!

[Mire Mare]

And those little particle things (not sure what they're called) that just pass straight through everything, including the Earth, without seemingly losing any velocity... or even seeming to interact with matter at all.

Neutrinos

I was on the train the other day and a load of schoolkids were looking through their revision guides. They were studying the solar system and I had half a mind to go over to them an ask whether their guide was updated to take account of the fact that Pluto was effectively struck off the roster as a planet in 2006 by the IAU. It's now a dwarf planet because there are other bodies in and around its orbit. This all came about because another object called Eris was found that actually exceeded Pluto's size and a more stringent definition of the term planet was therefore deemed to be required.

Of course, I didn't ask. It's really not the done thing as 30-something adult to go up to a group of teenagers and ask them about celestial bodies.

Anyway, one thing I remember doing recently was browsing through the chemical elements on Wikipedia. My understanding of much of the text is relatively limited but you do get the odd nice picture now and again!

I know that the primary school my son attends teaches that Pluto is a dwarf planet. I was pleased they have it correct!

This is a pretty cool picture. Science followers will probably already have seen it, but it's worth posting whilst neutrinos are mentioned.

It's the sun, at night. The neutrinos are emitted from our Sun, they pass through the planet - like it isn't there, detectors pick up the neutrinos and an image is created from the data. Brilliant. A simple way of thinking about this is that the image was taken by a neutrino detecting camera looking through the Earth at the sun.

[sscott]

One of the most important images of all time cosmologically speaking. Apparently that it's not completely evenly distributed radiation is what make it interesting, otherwise there would have been no stars, planets, nowt.

[Mire Mare]

One of the most important images of all time cosmologically speaking. Apparently that it's not completely evenly distributed radiation is what make it interesting, otherwise there would have been no stars, planets, nowt.

A well used and important image. The story behind the discovery if cbr is quite amusing. I forget the name of the scientists involved, one I think was Ralph Alpher. Anyway, they mistook the interference they were detecting for various things including bird droppings on the inside of the dish, apparently they scrubbed the thing clean(!), before realising what they'd discovered.

[sscott]

Yeah, is amazing how many things are discovered almost by accident!

[DPrinny]

Could alien life on Europa look like this?

The White Sea is an inlet of the Barents Sea, in the northwest coast of Russia. Its waters are cold and apparently devoid of life—until you do deep and discover an alien world full of colorful creatures that look from other planets.

[Katzkatz]

On a similar science related note, check out 'Bucky balls'. A strange name I agree. Or Buckminsterfullerene as it is properly called. It is an fullerene of carbon by the way. There was a Horizon program about it a while ago. Fascinating stuff about carbon. The fact that it can go from being so soft(in graphite in your pencil, and conduct electricity) and being so hard(in diamonds).

[Spector]

Could alien life on Europa look like this?

I think that due to gravitational forces, life on Europa could look like this:




What I don't know is whether any of the life on Earth that exists due to geothermal heat as mentioned before always existed that way, or did it evolve from life further up that lived in waters heated by the sun. If so, then maybe there couldn't be life on Europa because that evolution couldn't take place. It'll take 100 years to find out anyway, because the ice is about fifty miles deep and I don't know how they'll break into that. With a hammer, maybe?

[sscott]

Plus, those moons are really, really chuffing' cold!

[crusto]

Im watching Two Thousand Year Old Computer at the moment on BBC Four. Unbelievably interesting, if a little over my primitive head. As it stands, some real clever fucker built a computer that could predict all sorts of lunar happenings/eclipses etc. Amazing.

[nokgod]

Im watching Two Thousand Year Old Computer at the moment on BBC Four. Unbelievably interesting, if a little over my primitive head. As it stands, some real clever fucker built a computer that could predict all sorts of lunar happenings/eclipses etc. Amazing.

Yeah, i watched that. I first saw that machine in Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World book in the mid '80's. They just didn't have a clue what it was back then. What was it.... about 1500 years ahead of its time? Fascinating. Imagine if someone came up with something so far advanced now....what could it be?

[Mire Mare]

Hubble Space Telescope: The best images from over two decades in orbit (Hubblecast 54).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... kHSO6K2hNs

[crusto]

Im watching Two Thousand Year Old Computer at the moment on BBC Four. Unbelievably interesting, if a little over my primitive head. As it stands, some real clever fucker built a computer that could predict all sorts of lunar happenings/eclipses etc. Amazing.

Yeah, i watched that. I first saw that machine in Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World book in the mid '80's. They just didn't have a clue what it was back then. What was it.... about 1500 years ahead of its time? Fascinating. Imagine if someone came up with something so far advanced now....what could it be?

A flying delorean, that actually works