Halley's comet visits us every 75 years.

--------------------- # 1560 - Halley’s Comet
-

-  Hartley's comet, not Halley's 
-
- Halley’s comet visits us and the inner planets once every 75 years. An event that happens once in a human lifetime. Hopefully we each get to see it once. I saw it in 1986. The comet orbit’s the Sun in a distant elliptical orbit extending out to the Oort Cloud, returning back again in 75 years, 2061.
-
- Humans have been recording the comet’s visits for 2, 256 years. That’s right the first recorded visit is in Chinese dated 240 BC. It was referred to as the “ broom star”.
-
- The Babylonians recorded the comet in 164 BC and 87 BC Another recording in Chinese was dated 12 BC. There was speculation that Halley’s Comet may have been the real star of Bethlehem. The comet appeared again in 66 AD.
-
- In 837 AD it came the closest to Earth passing within 3,200,000 miles. The Moon is 238,855 miles away.
-
- It was in 1705 that Edmond Halley used Sir Isaac Newton’s equations and calculated that the comet would return in 1758. He died before that happened, but, he got to name the comet. He had observed the comet himself in 1682. Kepler had observed it in 1607
-
- The comet’s orbit period is 75.3 years, so, it has made 30 loops since the Chinese first started recording the visits.
-
- By 1910 the comet was known to have a retrograde orbit, meaning the opposite direction of the planets, and very elliptical. It passed Earth within 13,900,000 miles that year.
-
- The Earth’s orbit passes through the tail of the comet twice in each year. These are called the Aquarid and Orionid meteor showers. The names refer to the Star Constellations the shooting stars seem to fall from.
-
- Halley is referred to as a long-period comet although most in this classification have 200 year orbits. These comets originate from the Oort Cloud that is a collection of icy bodies orbiting the Sun but some 50,000 times the Earth-Sun distance.
-
- Another classification is short-period comets having an average period orbit of 6.5 years. These comets are heavily influenced by the gravity of Jupiter.
-
- Comets are referred to as “ dirty snowballs” having an envelop of gas that sublimates from their surface as they approach the Sun. Sublimate means that the volatile ices on the surface transform from solid to gas directly due to the Sun’s radiation.
-
- In 1986 several spacecraft visited Halley’s comet. Their discoveries determined the nucleus to be the shape of a peanut. It was very dark reflecting on 4% of the light. It was 10 miles long and 5 miles wide. Its density was 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter. Water density is 1 gram/cm^3. This low density implied that Halley was a loose collection of smaller pieces. Its surface was adverse landscape of hills, ridges, and craters covered with a thick layer of dusty ice.
-
- The gas tail, coma, extended out 62,000 miles. The material in the gas was dated to by 4,500,000,000 years old. The same age as the birth of the Solar System.
-
- The next visit is 2061. Someone else is going to have to write about this one. I got to see the 1986 visit. There are still several mysteries to solve. For example: Halley’s maximum temperature occurs at perihelion, when it is closest to the Sun. However, its maximum brightness does not occur until 11 days later. Why is that?
-
- On February 1991, 5 years after perihelion, Halley experienced a mysterious explosion. It brightened to magnitude 6.7. A brightness increase of 470 times normal that lasted for several months before subsiding. What happened?
-
- 2,256 years of study and we are still learning with more to learn. How great is that?
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Monday, January 28, 2013

The Diversity of Evolution lead to Us?

--------------------- #1559 - They live among us - Anthropology
-

-
-
- A new species? They live among us.
-
- This review is about learning that the diversity of evolution is what survived. We do not come from a single lineage. ( See Review #1558 - Whose your Daddy ). Recent discoveries show a multitude of species have come and went, all close relatives. The bones tell us. Will this species survive? Time will tell.
-
- Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!
-
- You have all seen the pictures. The walking figures with the chimpanzee on the left. A sequence of evolution to the right becoming a caveman, then, a modern human. That is how most people perceive the theory of evolution for mankind.
-
- However, evidence is evolving too. And, the picture science is getting is much different.
-
- The most likely scenario is that over the last 8,000,000 years dozens of species and paths of our evolution took place. At the earliest of times the ancient apes had features of upright walking.
-
- “Ardi” is a nearly complete skeleton discovered in Ethiopia. She is 4,400,000 years old. And , she is more related to hominins than she is to chimpanzees. She still retains a combination of human like and ape like characteristics.
-
- A single foot skeleton was recently found in Burtele, Ethiopia, that was another up-right walking species. It was a biped different than Ardi. This foot is dated to be 3,400,000 years old.
-
- “ Lucy” is a famous find in Africa. She was 3,200,000 years old. She was about one meter tall, had long arms, a small head and walked on two legs.
-
- Findings dated over the last 250,000 years include: All existed over overlapping times.
-
------------------------ Homo Erectus
-
----------------------- Homo Florsiensis - Hobbits found on the Indonesian island of Flores.
-
----------------------- Homo Neanderthals
-
----------------------- Homo Sapiens, that’s us.
-
- The Neanderthals went extinct 28,000 years ago. According to DNA evidence their extinction did not happen before inter-marrying occurred with Homo-Sapiens.
-
- The Hobbit like Floresiensis went extinct 17,000 years ago.
-
- Before these lineages we have “ Hominins” which are primates that are more closely related to us than to chimps.
-
- During the epoch between 23,000,000 years ago and 5,000,000 years ago there were hundreds of different species of apes. Some learned how to walk up-right, then forgot, then remembered again. They adapted to whatever the environment required.
-
- There was a extinct ape “ Bambolii” that lived in Italy 9,000,000 to 7,000,000 years ago that had features associated with hominins. Features like teeth, hips were hominins but feet, fingers, and arms were apelike, fit for climbing trees.
-
- Some of the early chimpanzees had bigger brains than early hominins.
-
- To find a common ancestor to chimps and hominins you probably have to go back 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 years. But, there were multiple branches between here and there. Things got very convoluted. Very messy. At least a dozen different hominin species existed and went extinct along the way. Homo-erectus species lasted the longest from 2,000,000 years ago to 25,000 years ago. All the other paths of evolution went extinct except the last being Homo-Sapiens.
-
- Our evolution oscillated from living in trees to walking upright on the ground. It oscillated from using knuckles and palms to walk with all four to walking as bipeds. Evolution would move backwards and forwards for survival in the current environment. It was never linear. There were multiple parallel lineages in the laboratory of survival of the fittest.
-
- To learn more: See video: ScientificAmerican.com/feb2013/ancestor.
-
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Saturday, January 26, 2013

Anthropology is learning more from microbiology and geochemistry?

--------------------- #1558 - Who’s Your Daddy? Anthropology?
-

-
-
- Who’s your Daddy?
-
- That depends. How far back do you want to go?
-
- I am quite certain your Daddy was not around 4,600,000,000 years ago. That is when the Sun was first forming.
-
- You had to at least wait until the Earth first formed 4,500,000,000 years ago. But, then it was too hot and too volatile for life to form. 150,000,000 years later a planet sized asteroid smashed into Earth and splashed the Moon into orbit. 4,350,000,000 years ago that collision re-melted the Earth and reset everything.
-
- We do not know what happened in between ,but , 550,000,000 years later life was thriving. Of course it was primitive biology, but, biology none the less. 3,800,000,000 years ago chemistry had somehow evolved into biology. Geologists know this because photosynthesis organisms integrate carbon into solid matter. And, they find this evidence in the rocks. Nature puts carbon into the atmosphere. Life concentrates carbon and puts it into carbon-rich rocks. Photosynthesis was occurring. Other evidence is the oxygen released by photosynthesis created rust in iron.
-
- 400,000,000 years later the earliest fossils of cells were found. That is 3,400,000,000 years ago.
-
- 2,100,000,000 years ago multicultural life existed.
-
- 550,000,000 years ago the Cambrian era of life flourished on Earth.
-
- 250,000,000 years ago the Permian mass extinction occurred.
-
- 65,000,000 years ago the dinosaurs went extinct.
-
- 2,000,000 years ago the Homo- species evolved. In fact, going back a little further to Homo- ancestors we have evidence of tools that existed 2,600,000 years ago.
-
- Before your Daddy started evolving 89% of Earth-life time had elapsed. We all started in the last 4%.
-
- Going back 3,500,000,000 years ago bacteria and archaea were separate species but still had 60 genes in common. That is how plants and animals started, but, it took a long time from one celled organisms to get to the oldest fossils of Homo Erectus that existed 1,850,000 years ago.
-
　
- Theory has it that your Daddy came out of Africa 2,500,000 years ago. Some primitive stone tools have been found on an island 240 miles off the coast of Yemen that are 2,600,000 years old.
-
- Another theory based on discoveries in Georgia , Russia, indicate that Homo-Erectus may have migrated to Asia and then back to Africa where the first Homo-Sapiens evolved. Homo-Sapiens happened some 1,200,000 years ago.
-
- Homo- Erectus also evolved into Homo-Neanderthals, and Homo-Floresienes. This last species is newly discovered living on the Indonesian island of Flores. Evidence of fossils on these islands is a strong indication that Homo-Erectus learned how to cross open waters.
-
- So your Daddy could be African, could by Asian, could be Neanderthal . DNA evidence suggest some cross-species mating occurred in Europe. We are learning more every day. Microbiology ( genetics ) and geochemistry are providing new evidence.
-
- Science is not like religion. Science seeks evidence to be proven wrong. That is how we learn. Science changes when new evidence tells it to. There is no scientific authority. Truth simply means that predictions work. And, there are no absolute truths because new evidence can quickly change them. Ask questions, that is how you learn. You can be wrong, you can fail, that is how you learn. No one has all the answers. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Thursday, January 24, 2013

Meteorites close to home? Tektites?

--------------------- #1557 - Tektites in Healdsburg, California
-

-
-
- January 23, 2013, our local paper ran an article about the tektites found in Dry Creek Valley around Healdsburg, California, just 20 miles from my house.
-
- What in the world are tektites?
-
- They are rocks, but not from our world. They are the debris from an asteroid impact that hit the earth and splashed debris up in the atmosphere. When the rocks came down they were the size of olives. And, they were strewn over thousands of square miles.
-
- Tektites are a combination of the meteorite that impacted the earth and the molten earth that melted in the impact and splashed into the atmosphere. When they are found they are always part of a “strewn field” of pebbles covering thousands of square miles.
-
- Not all meteorites produce tektites. Conditions have to be just right. Only 4 other locations in the world have been studied as a strewn field of tektites. The tektites in Dry Creek Valley are dated from a meteorite impact 2,800,000 years ago. ( Request Review #1554 to learn about asteroids that are the source of these meteors. )
-
- The impact crater for the Healdsburg tektites has not been found. It had the kinetic energy of a one mile diameter asteroid traveling at 30,000 miles per hour. It takes that much energy to melt the earth and splash it high into the atmosphere.
-
- The largest tektite was the size of a tennis ball, most were the size of olives, the smallest are microscopic found in the sediments of the ocean.
-
- Tektites are unique because their composition is part asteroid and part earth crust. The two are melted together. Meteorites are asteroids or parts of asteroids that do not get burned up in the atmosphere and make it to the surface of the Earth.
-
- The 4 other major impacts containing strewn fields of tektites are:
-
------------ (1) Australia, 780,000 years old. Tektites found there and in South East Asia and the Philippines all from the same impact that was never found.
-
-------------- (2) Germany, Nordliger Ries impact crater that was dated to be 15,000,000 years old.
-
--------------- (3) Ivory Coast, Africa, Impact in Ghana is 1,000,000 years old.
-
-------------- (4) Chesapeake Bay impact, 34,000,000 years old with tektites found in Texas and Georgia.
-
- The Dry Creek Valley tektites have not been linked to a crater. The crater would be miles in diameter. The tektites are scattered over thousands of square miles. There would be billions of these molten pebbles created in this splash.
-
- Tektites have been collected by Dry Creek Valley residents for decades. They are the perfect size for sling shots. They are frequently unearthed by grape growers plowing their fields. The Dry Creek Tektites are composed of silicon and potassium covered with pits and striations from melting and freezing. Over 4,000 have been found between Warm Springs Dam and the Russian River. A Healdsburg geology professor has personally collected over 1,500 tektites himself and he is still searching for more. He wants to learn the full size of the “strewn field” that will tell him a lot about the meteorite impact.
-
- Most tektites are 65% silica.
-
- The tektites are dated using Potassium-Argon ,and , Argon - Argon isotope techniques from radioactive decay
-
- Most meteorites do not create tektites. Conditions have to be just right, to melt the earth, to jettison it into the atmosphere, to freeze and rain down as pebbles. You would have had to have been there.
-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) To learn more request Reviews #523, #719, #547, #1017, #1019 the Sudbury Asteroid.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Better mileage but are cars safer?

--------------------- #1556 - Better Mileage But are Cars Safer?
-
-

- Cars of the future
-
- This review tries to make the point that government regulations to improve car mileage is making cars less safe. The points are good but the trend is incorrect. Cars and drivers are safer when you take into account population growth and mileage driven. Here is the data after 3 rules of reason:
-
- Statistics do not lie, but statisticians do, or ,those who use statistics for the answers they want to give.
-
- The path to hell is paved in good intentions.
-
- The law of unintended consequences can not be avoided.
-
- The federal government had good intentions in bailing out the automobile companies as GM and Chrysler received $billions of federal loans as they still went bankrupt. Ford too received $5.9 billion low interest loans from the Department of Energy of which they have only paid back $0.2 billion to date.
-
- The costs of these bailouts is child’s play compared to the costs of federal mandates requiring auto manufacturers to meet 52 miles per gallon by 2025. ( Corporate Average Fuel Economy -- CAFÉ regulations ).
-
- Sounds great, 52 miles per gallon. What can be wrong with that?
-
- Safety!
-
- 42,000 motor fatalities occur each year.
-
- ( This is true, but see note 1 for a better perspective.)
-
- Many mileage improvements have been made but they can not meet the goal without making cars lighter and less safe.
-
- Even with electronic stability controls, anti-lock brakes, air bags and seat belts , safety measures are not enough to counter act the push for smaller, lighter cars.
-
- Fuel efficiency has benefited from direct-injection combustion, variable valve timing, sophisticated air intake and exhaust management, turbo-charging, aerodynamics, fine tuning engines with computer driven sensors and algorithms.
-
- Transmissions have improved using 8 gears automatically maintaining engine rpm within and optimum range.
-
- All of these improvements fall far short of achieving the 52 mpg federal mandate.
-
- Autos must weigh less. It is simple physics. ( Kinetic Energy = mass * velocity squared). Autos have eliminated the spare tire. More plastic is used, aluminum instead of steel. Reducing mass. But, SUV’s are still heavy and guzzle gas
-
- In 1960 Ralph Nader wrote the book “ Unsafe at Any Speed”. Ralph needs to update his book revealing the number of Americans dieing in lighter and environmentally friendly cars.
-
- In 40 mph off-set-collision tests small cars are basically obliterated. Size matters, mass matters, smaller cars are just not safer.
-
- Run the test yourself. You can get in a Cadillac Escalade or a Chevy Volt. 40 mph collision. Which car do you want to be in? Need I say more. You could be a victim of good intentions. The Chevy Volt, that tried to be saved by the bailout ,will not survive the impact. On top of that the lithium batteries will likely explode and burn on impact. It is the law of unintended consequences.
-
- Here are car death statistics:
-
----------------------1900 ----------------- 26
----------------------1910 ----------------- 1,599 ( There were 253 murders in US that year)
----------------------1920 ----------------- 12,155
----------------------1940 ----------------- 32,915 ------------ 23.6 per 100,000 population
----------------------1960 ----------------- 36,339 ------------ 20.4
----------------------1970 ----------------- 52,542 ------------ 25.3
----------------------1980 ----------------- 51,091 ------------ 22.7
----------------------1990 ----------------- 44,599 ------------ 17.9
----------------------2000 ----------------- 41,945 ------------ 14.9 Cost was $230 million
----------------------2005 ----------------- 43,443 ------------ 14.7
----------------------2011 ----------------- 32,367 ------------ 10.4 in a poor economy and high gas prices.
-
- From 1960 to 2007 there have been roughly 40,000 traffic deaths per year. But, compared with the population growth that is an improvement of roughly 4% per year.
-
- Still in 2010 we averaged 2,740 car deaths per month, 91 deaths per day. In the year 2000 Canada did a study claiming 1,064 Canadian lives were saved by seat belts and 55 were saved by airbags.
-
- In the 10 years from 1990 to 2009 the US auto deaths were reduced from 44,599 to 33,808 That is a reduction of 2.8% per year. Measured in per 100,000 licensed drivers it went from 26.7 to 18. That is 0.0018% fatalities. And, a reduction rate of 4% per year.
-
- California went from 5,192 to 3,081 deaths or a reduction of 5.4% per year. Measured in deaths per 100 million miles the reduction is 7% per year.
-
- In the US there are roughly 10,000,000 car accidents per year with 40,000 deaths.
-
--------------- In passenger cars -------- 24,100 ------------ 13,100 ------- down 6.3%
-------------- On motorcycles ---------- 3,200 ---------------4,500 -- --- up 3.4%
-------------- Pedestrians --------------- 6,500 -------------- 4,100 ------- down 4.7%
-
- Overall, the conclusion is that cars are definitely safer. But they are only half way to the 52 mpg federal mandate. Will what auto manufacturers do next to improve mileage continue to improve safety. I don’t see how. Like the Senate we need a budget to set priorities. Most important to least important. There will be many priorities on the list. Hundreds of priorities ranging from driver training to DUI laws. Thoughtful decisions need to be made on which ones are funded, executed ,with all things considered. Even the unintended consequences need to be considered. An announcement will be made shortly , stay tuned.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Wish upon a star,how old are you?

--------------------- #1555 - Determining the Age of Stars
-

-
-
- How old are the stars?
-
- Well, they are all different ages from just born to just dieing at 13 billion years old. Our Sun is 4.6 billion years old and will not die until it is 10 billion years old.
-
- How do we know how old our Sun is?
-
- Meteorites, that were asteroids that land on the surface of Earth, which were part of the accretion disk of dust and gas that formed the Sun and circled the Sun to create the planets, were analyzed using radioactive dating. Radioactive elements decay at a specific rate from a heavier element to a lighter element. By measuring the ratio of the two in a primitive meteorite we can calculate how long it has been decaying. The oldest meteorites are 4.6 billion years old. Therefore the Sun must be 4.6 billion years old. ( See Review # 1554 to learn about these asteroids formations in the early Solar System.)
-
- The Sun is half way through its lifetime as it is expected to live for 10 billion years.
-
- How do we know how long the Sun will live?
-
- The Sun is powered by nuclear fusion. The center of the Sun, the core, is so dense, and so hot, the core reaches 27,000,000 F which is hot enough to cause a thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen nuclei. Hydrogen nuclei fuse into helium nuclei. Not all the matter of hydrogen ends up as matter of helium. Some of the matter gets converted to radiation energy according to E = mc^2. The radiation energy pushes outward from the core against the gravity that is pushing inwards toward the core. The two forces are in balance as long as the Sun does not run out of hydrogen fuel. The gravity is relentless.
-
- The Sun is fusing 620,000,000 tons of hydrogen every second. That sounds like a lot but the Sun is very, very big. At this rate the Sun will have enough fuel to shine for 10 billion years.
-
---------------------- 4,567,000,000 years old is our Sun today
-
---------------------- 5,3 billion years old, just 700 million years from now, Earth will absorb all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and all the plants will die because they can no longer live on photosynthesis. Animals will go extinct too. That’s us.
-
-------------------- 6.2 billion years old all water will boil away including all life , even bacteria.
-
-------------------- 10 billion years old the Sun will have burned all its fuel and will begin transforming into a Red Giant Star.
-
------------------- 12.2 billion years old the Red Giant Sun will expand to where it will swallow up Mercury, Venus, and Earth.
-
-------------------- 12.4 billion years old and the Red Giant Sun will transform into a planetary nebula ejecting outer layers of gas into outer space and leaving behind a White Dwarf Star. The White Dwarf will cool down as a hot cinder. It will not be big enough to every start fusion again. It is a dead star. Bigger stars can end up as Neutron Stars or Blackholes but not our Sun.
-
- Our Sun is a medium size star, one Solar Mass. Every star’s lifetime is different depending on how big it is.
-
- Stars that are 10% to size of our Sun shine 1/1,000^th as bright and will live 100 times longer, 1,000 billion years.
-
- Stars that are 500,000 times bigger than our Sun shine so brightly that their lifetimes are 10,000 times shorter. Only a 1,000,000 years of lifetime before going supernova.
-
- Our Milky Way Galaxy has 200,000,000,000 stars of all sizes and all ages. Planets have already been discovered orbiting over 1,000 of these stars. It is estimated that there must be 200,000,000,000 planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. These planets are the same age as their stars. If we know the age of the star we may be able to predict if there is life on its planets.
-
- Planets that are 1 billion years old could have microbe life.
-
- Planets that are 3 billion years old could have primitive life in its oceans and on its land.
-
- Planets that are 4.6 billion years old could have intelligent life, like humans, or like orangutans. Or, smarter than humans. It all depends on the speed of evolution and the myriad of factors that affect it.
-
- The stars in the range of 1 to 5 billion years old all look alike, like our Sun. We can not tell the age from the color, color is the surface temperature of the star. Young stars are red, they get blue-white as they get older then red again when they die. Medium life spans look like our Sun are all the same color. We need another way to tell age besides color, or surface temperature and size.
-
- One discovery that helps us are Star Clusters. Clusters of thousands of stars that were all born at the same time. They all are different sizes. They all have the same composition. They all are the same distance away. They all have the same ages.
-
- All stars have a different spin rate. Our Sun spins one rotation in 25 days. Younger stars spin faster and older stars spin slower. Maybe spin rates can correlate to the ages of these medium size stars.
-
- The Kepler Space telescope that has been discovering these 1,000 planets by measuring precisely the brightness of stars and detecting the dimming of the star when the planet passes in front of the star. The Kepler Telescope stares at one spot in the sky measuring the brightness of 160,000 stars every 30 minutes. If a particular star dims a planet may be passing in front of it or a sunspot may be rotating around the surface. The orbits and periods are measured carefully to determine what exactly caused the star to dim. It could be a binary star with a Red Dwarf passing in front.
-
- When further analysis determines the dimness is a sunspot the rotation period can be measured to get the spin rate of the star. If we focus on a Star Cluster where all the ages are the same we can determine what size stars have what rates of spin. Measuring spin rates can than be used to know the age of the orbiting planets.
-
- Those planets with the ages 1 to 5 billion years deserve greater study. What is the temperature of these planets? Could there be liquid water. What is the composition of the atmosphere? Are we alone? Should we send a radio signal to say “Hello”?
Stay tuned and announcement will be made shortly.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) The astronomers study star ages are in the field of Gyrochronolgy
-
(2) See the Kepler Cluster Study for more information
-
(3) To learn the surface temperature of a star from its color.: The emitted power from each square meter of the surface of a star is directly proportional to the forth power of the Temperature:
------------------------- Power = Constant * T Kelvin^4
------------------------- Constant = 5.7*10^-8 watts / (m^2*Kelvin^4)
------------------------ To find the total power multiply by the surface area of the star.
-
(4) The color of the star is the peak wavelength of the energy-density function. The wavelength is indirectly proportional to Temperature.
---------------------- Wavelength at maximum = Constant / Temperature
----------------------- Wavelength = 2,900,000 nanometers * Kelvin / Kelvin
----------------------- w = 2,900,000 / T
---------------------- Max. wavelength for our Sun = 500 nanometers
---------------------- Max. frequency for our Sun = 600,000,000,000,000 cycles per second.
---------------------- w * f = c = 300,000,000 meters per second
---------------------- Max color is blue green, but the blue scatters out in our atmosphere and we see a yellow Sun.
---------------------- The full range of radiation wavelengths of our Sun ranges from 70 nanometers to 4,800 nanometers, from far ultraviolet to far infrared. The peak occurs at 500 nanometers of the blackbody energy-density curve. That is why the sky is blue and the Sun is yellow, and middle - aged. We have several million years yet to live before the Sun gets hotter and evaporates all the oceans.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Monday, January 21, 2013

Asteroids and Meteorites tell us a story?

--------------------- #1554 - Asteroids and Meteorites are Fossils with Stories.
-

-
-
- Yesterday, Thursday, January 17, 2013, at 5:21 AM you could have witnessed an early morning meteor that flew over northern California. I was up but must have been looking the wrong direction. Darn! It was a fireball traveling east to west from Reno to San Francisco at 10 miles per second, 36,000 miles per hour, faster than a speeding bullet.
-
- 50 witnesses reported it to the American Meteor Society. Witnesses said it “ lit up the ground like daylight.” It was a “long streak of light, the front part a huge , square- ish shape”. “It left a trail of smaller , glowing particles.”
-
- It was likely the size of a small car, disintegrating 5 to 50 miles above the Earth. ( See Review # 1540 Sutter’s Mill Meteorite that happened April, 2012.)
-
- What can we learn from these asteroids that enter the Earth’s atmosphere?
-
- We have 8 planets, well 9 if you count Pluto. But, Pluto should probably be counted as a large asteroid. There are even larger ones. But, if you count up all sizes of asteroids orbiting the Sun you get trillions of these bodies in our Solar System. Comets, are simply asteroids that formed beyond the “ frost line” where they are far enough from the Sun for water to freeze. Greater than 3 astronomical units ( 1 AU is Earth-Sun distance.) Inside the frost line all the water evaporated during our Solar System formation. How Earth got its water is another story.
-
- The majority of asteroids are orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. These asteroids would have become another planet except for the gravitational resonance, tidal forces, created by the immense gravity pull of Jupiter. Resonance occurs when gravity tugs at an object in the same direction at each orbital alignment. These resonances pull objects apart and even toss them out of orbit. Sometimes to the outer Solar System and sometimes to the inner Solar System where we live.
-
- If an asteroid hits Earth’s atmosphere it can become a “ shooting star”. The word “ asteroid” means “star-like”. If an asteroid makes it into the atmosphere it is a “ meteor” . If makes it to the surface of Earth it is a “ meteorite”.
-
- All asteroids are really just remnants of the birth of the Solar System. Not all of the accretion disk that formed the planets became planets and moons. Some of the debris was left over after multiple mergers and collisions as the matter circled the Sun in a flat disk, much like the rings of Saturn. These asteroids are 4.5 billion years old. By studying them we can learn a lot about the birth of our Solar System.
-
- Over 150,000 asteroids have been catalogued and numbered, some are named, but only 10% have enough data to be tracked, determining their orbits.
-
- The largest asteroid in the inner Solar System is Ceres, 1,000 kilometers in diameter. It is large enough to have attained a spherical shape due to the pull of gravity. The asteroids that are smaller have all sorts of shapes, most look like potato-shapes.
-
----------------- Pallas is 540 kilometers long
----------------- Vesta is 510 kilometers long
----------------- Gaspra is 16 kilometers long
----------------- Ida is 40 kilometers long
----------------- Mathilde is 50 kilometers long
----------------- Eros is 25 kilometers long
-
- Astronomers measure asteroids with the brightness of their reflected light. Infrared brightness depends on the asteroid’s temperature. Comparing the two spectrum measurements tells astronomers the ratio between reflected light and absorbed light. Then, a measurement of brightness and distance can calculate the size of the asteroid. Radar measurements of a rotating asteroid can reveal its shape. Spectroscopy measurements of reflected light can determine its composition.
-
- Asteroid composition varies from water to sand to iron. To measure the mass astronomers need a second object to be able to measure gravitational force effects. Some spacecraft have come close enough in a fly-by to measure gravitational effects. Some asteroids have “ moons” that can be measured for orbit velocities and separations. From these we can calculate mass. Mass and volume we can calculate density.
-
- Mathilde asteroid has a density of 1.5 grams / cubic centimeter. It is likely an empty bile of rubble.
-
- Eros asteroid has a density of 2.4 grams / cubic centimeter. It must be a solid rock.
-
- Science fiction movies depict the asteroid belt as a minefield of flying rocks. Actually the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter has asteroids separated by millions of kilometers on average. That would be like grains of sand separated by kilometers.
-
- Meteorites are asteroids that make it to the surface of Earth. The best way to study them is with a microscope not just telescopes. They are often identified due to their rare earth content, like the element iridium. Over 20,000 meteorites have been found and analyzed in this way.
-
- There are 2 basic types of meteorites:
-
--------------------------------- Primitive
--------------------------------- Processed
-
- Primitive meteorites are 4.6 billion years old. They are categorized in 2 basic types:
-
-------------------------------- Stony - with rocky minerals
-------------------------------- Carbon-rich - rocky minerals plus carbon compounds.
-
- Processed meteorite were part of a larger asteroid that suffered an impact. They come in 2 types:-
-
------------------------------ Metal rich - made of high density iron or nickel. Represents the core of a larger asteroid.
-
------------------------------ Rocky - less dense composition representing the terrestrial mantles or crusts of larger planets or asteroids. Some of the rock is like basalt that comes from volcanoes on Earth. Some meteorites have been identified as coming from the surface of the Moon or from Mars.
-
- Astronomers studying asteroid fragments cut them in slices thinner than 30 microns. Under a microscope they become transparent to a bright light The tiny fragments are called Chondrites and they contain tiny beads of melted material called chondrules. The optical properties of each material can be studied to determine where in the early Solar System the asteroid first formed.
-
------------------ Between Mercury and Earth < 1 AU -------- Enstatite Chondrites
------------------ Beyond Mars > 2 AU ------------ “ Ordinary” Chondrites
----------------- 3 AU ---------------------------------”Rumuruti” Chondrites
----------------- > 3 AU ----------------------------- Carbonaceous Chondrites.
-
- Enstatite Chondrites are 2% of the meteorites found and they contain the mineral MgSiO3, which is enstatite. These minerals are formed inside the orbit of Mars.
-
- Ordinary Chondrites represent 74% of the meteorites found and they were formed around the belt 2.4 AU between Mars and Jupiter.
-
- Rumunti Chondrites are meteorites found in Kenya, Africa. They have an abundance of oxygen isotopes indicating that they must have formed farther from the Sun than Ordinary Chondrites.
-
- Carbonaceous Chondrites have the presence of organic compounds indicating they must have formed far from the Sun. They were not evaporated by the Sun’s intense heat.
-
- How ere these chondrules, little beads, originally created? The process required repeated melting and cooling. One theory is that they were hit by a shockwave from a supernovae or a Gamma Ray burst. This seems unlikely. Maybe lightning bolts occurred in space? Maybe there were others sources of shockwaves, density waves, that traveled through the accretion disk? To learn more see: http://meteorites.wustl.edu/id/ordinary_chondrites.htm.an announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Saturday, January 19, 2013

An electric car that goes 400 miles per hour?

--------------------- #1553 - Electric Car goes 400 Miles Per Hour?
-

-
-
- An electric car that goes 400 miles per hour. No gas propelled car has ever gone that fast. College students have built the car dubbed Venturi Buckeye Bullet 3 which is the third electric car they have built. These students are at Ohio State University and they hope to break the 400 mph speed record this summer, 2013.
-
- In 2008 these students built a hydrogen fuel-cell car that went 286 miles per hour.
-
- In 2010 they built an electric car the went 300 miles per hour. ( see video at www.buckeyebullet.com and ScientificAmerican.com/feb2013/bullet )-
- This September these students hope to run their 3^rd electric car on Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats and exceed 400 miles per hour, for a new land speed record. There is a big , big difference between 300 and 400 miles per hour. There are many technical challenges to be solved.
-
- The bullet car is 38 feet long. It uses 4 electric motors, each 400 horsepower, 1,600 horsepower in total. It has a steel frame with a carbon-fiber shell. The cockpit is a modified Indy car chassis. It has only one mile to accelerate to the 400 mph speed. 3 parachutes will slow it down and a backup of aircraft brakes make sure it can get stopped.
-
- The driver is 62 year old Roger Schroer.
-
- The batteries are prototypes built by A123 Systems. They are iron nano-phosphate lithium-ion batteries. This company went bankrupt last summer after the failure of the GM Chevy Volt and after the bailout of GM by the Federal government. I had 1000 shares at $23 that went to 0.03 cents per share. Fortunately the students got all the spare parts out the factory back door before it closed shop. The Chinese bought the company out of the bankruptcy. The batteries exploded during some car wreck tests. This safety issue could have something to do with the failure. I am not sure.
-
- The batteries obviously pull a lot of current. One of the design changes the students had to make was to route the oil-base coolant so that it made more contact with the motors keeping them cooler. Current flow resistance increase with temperature. Cooler meant more horsepower. They had to use thinner tires that had less mass so they would not fly apart at high speeds.
-
- The salt flats are flat but they are bumpy. Student had to design a suspension systems that would keep the tires on the ground. Any momentary wheel spin would mean a loss of power.
-
- Aerodynamics is a major contributor to the design. Drag is proportional to the cube of velocity. A tail design was desired to help prevent the vehicle from loosing control and flying end for end. But, a tail fin adds drag. Computational fluid dynamics was used by computer because wind tunnels are not fast enough. The students had to find the acceptable trade off between speed and safety.
-
- The students have learned a lot. They have learned that IQ is not as important as willingness to work. They have learned that the limits are not in inventing new technologies but in understanding the limits of existing technology and overcoming them. Persistence! Ask why 5 times to understand the root of problems. Over 50 student engineers have gone through this program at Ohio State, Center of Automotive Research, Buckeye Bullet Team.
-
- Watch for the speed run in September. We wish the students good luck. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) See reviews #1475 for more on electric cars, and #1313 on the Tesla Roadster.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Friday, January 18, 2013

From Aerocars to Dream Chasers in 50 years?

--------------------- #1552 - From Aerocars to Dream Chasers in 50 Years.
-

-
-
- When I was in High School I remember being excited about a car that could fly. It was in the Popular Science magazine as the “Aerocar“. I was certain my Dad would buy one. It solves all your transportation needs in one vehicle. I guess the $300,000 price tag was a bit too much. But, in 1956 the US Civil Aeronautics Administration certified the car as fit to fly. Only 6 were built.
-
- Other flying cars included the “Transition” built by Terrafugia ,Woburn, Mass. foldable wings aircraft , carries 2 people, requires a conventional airport for takeoffs and landings.
-
- PAL-V-ONE built in the Netherlands needs only 650 feet of runway. It is a cross between a 3 wheeler and a helicopter. Rear mounted propeller and rotor on top for lift. Both aircraft cruise about 100 knots and fly 450 miles on a tank of gas.
-
- Flying cars are one thing, but flying drivers that are not pilots are another thing. It is just too dangerous. However, if the flying vehicles were drones we could safely put all commuter traffic airborne. There would be a drone in every driveway.
-
- Drones have enough smarts to safely go wherever they are commanded. With proper programming drones could respond to emergencies on their own. Google has a robotic car. The same principles apply. A car that drives and flies itself may be the safe transportation of the future.
-
- Communication networks and robust autonomous flight controls will be needed to guide flying cars along their airborne routes.
-
- Today’s military experience with controlling the operations of drones around the globe will provide a model for personal air travel.
-
- In 2010 the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency started “Transformer“, a 4-person road worthy vertical takeoff vehicle that a typical soldier could operate with no aviation experience.
-
- Science now has a “conservation drone” used to track orangutans in Sumatra. The autonomous plane , 4.5 foot wing span, uses GPS to fly preprogrammed routes and bring back remarkably detailed pictures. Cost is less than $2,000. The program was so successful the Swiss start-up company that built it was asked to build 20 more drones.
-
- The Predator military drone is already being used to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. The mission is fast expanding to nab polluters, inspect drilling rigs, making stunning movies for Hollywood. University of Nebraska is experimenting with drones used for journalism.
-
- The U.S. Department of Interior has 60 Raven planes, 4.8 pounds apiece, to observe roosting sand hill cranes, measuring stream temperatures, measuring sediment flows. Drones tell farmers when crops need water and which areas. They could chart oil spills, report traffic conditions.
-
- The FAA has banned commercial use of drones . The FAA today only allows hobbyists, government agencies and researchers to use this technology. 2015 is the projected year that restrictions will be adequate to allow commercial applications. Lot’s of debate is needed regarding safety, ethics, privacy,, etc, in a rapidly changing world.
-
- There is a different set of rules for launching people into space. Here the commercial sector is taking over from the government. NASA is retiring its mission. SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk ( see Review # 1313 on Elon’s biography). Elon was born is South Africa, became an American citizen and started PayPal in 1998. He also started Tesla Motors electric car company and Solar City, a solar panel company.
-
- Space X has proven a successful delivery of supplies to the International Space Station in May 2012. The commercial company is contracted by NASA to perform 12 of these missions in the next 3 years for $1,600,000,000. Which is much cheaper than the government could do with the Shuttle. Space X hopes to have a Mars mission by 2018.
-
- Space X is far from alone in commercializing space travel. Robert Bigelow who got his fortune from Budget Suites Hotels is spending $3 billion to develop inflatable space modules. Residential modules that will be used in space tourism, space science, and space mining. Two of these “ Genesis” modules are orbiting Earth today. They are unmanned during tests. Powered by solar cells. Manned mission are expected in 2016.
-
- Larry Page, co-founder of Google, is investing in “Planetary Resources“, robotic spacecraft to mine asteroids for vital resources and return them to Earth. Within 10 years NASA plans to land on an asteroid to collect samples. Water found on asteroids will be collected and converted to oxygen-hydrogen rocket fuel. A single asteroid mining gold, platinum, rhodium, iridium, palladium could turn a profit of $7 trillion.
-
- Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com is developing a reusable rocket booster that can return to Earth with a vertically powered landing. His company is called Blue Origin.
-
- Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, is funding “Strato Launch Systems” that will use rocket launches from a giant airplane having a 384 feet wing span lifting 6 ½ tons of rocket.
-
- Sierra Nevada Corporation is building the “Dream Chaser” space shuttle to deliver astronauts to the Space Station and return landing on commercial runways starting in 2015.
-
- “Orbital Science Corporation” launches its Pegasus rockets to put satellites in orbit from a carrier aircraft that is flying at 40,000 feet. It puts 5 ½ tons in low Earth orbit.
-
- Amazing, from Aerocars to Dream Chaser shuttles in 50 years. Announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Galactic Blackhole behavior?

--------------------- #1551 - M87 the Galactic Blackhole
-
-
-
- How do Blackholes behave? Astronomers at Stanford University have discovered a new twist in Blackhole behavior. Using very complex computer simulations astronomers have re-created the Blackhole rotation with an Event Horizon and an accretion disk.
-
- The model was constructed from studying M87 Galaxy ( See footnote 1 ). M87 has a massive Blackhole at its core. There are two types of Blackholes: Galactic Blackhole have billions of Solar Mass. Stellar Blackholes have hundreds of Solar Mass.
-
- Stellar Blackholes occur when a large star dies. Once a massive star, say 30 Solar Mass, runs out of all of its fusion fuel, which means it has fused all the elements up to the element iron, it can no longer prevent the collapse of the star due to the pressure of gravity. Iron will not fuse without absorbing energy. All the lighter elements emit energy when they fuse. This is the energy, or radiation, that opposes gravity preventing collapse. When this radiation stops gravity collapses all the mass into the core. The core will become a Neutron Star or a Blackhole.
-
- Which it becomes depends on the mass of the core and therefore the force of gravity. If the atomic structure collapse electrons into the nuclei forming neutrons the core becomes a tremendously dense Neutron Star. Billions of tons of neutrons condense into the size of a teaspoon. If the mass is greater and the force of gravity is greater the neutrons themselves collapse into a singularity, a Blackhole is formed. What makes it a Blackhole is the gravity is so strong not even light can escape.
-
- Blackholes have an Event Horizon, a spherical edge where the radius of the Blackhole is small enough and gravity is strong enough that light photons bend back on themselves and fail to go past the edge. Blackholes can spin and their immense gravity will drag frames of space-time around with them as they rotate.
-
- An accretion disk is formed by all the material that is spiraling into the Blackhole. The friction of the rotating disk of charged particles creates a balloon of magnetic field. The charged particles accelerated by the rotating magnetic field creates electric currents. At the poles of rotation these currents of charged particles shoot out the poles as powerful jets of superheated plasma. Plasma is a fluid of charged particles.
-
- Near the Blackhole Event Horizon the particles are rubbing together, heating to billions of degrees. A plasma is created of charged particles that spray out the poles at nearly the speed of light.
-
- Astronomers can not see the Blackhole, but, they can see the powerful jets. The Blackhole at the center of M87 Galaxy is 7,000,000,000 Solar Mass. It is 53 million lightyears away. The jets themselves stretch out into space for hundreds of thousands of lightyears.
-
- It is with powerful computer simulations that astronomers discovered that the magnetic field through the orbiting disk of plasma creates the electric currents that become the jets. If the axis of the disk is misaligned with the axis of rotation the jets spiral out the poles like a garden sprinkler. Eventually the jets will become aligned with the axis of rotation an become a single spray straight out of the poles.
-
- It is the magnetic field that is actually moving the disk of plasma around. The jets become the dominate force over the Blackhole. There is more energy in them than in the Blackhole itself.
-
- The escape velocity for any object is proportional directly to the mass ( gravity ) and inversely proportional to the radius. A baseball traveling straight up at 25,000 miles per hour will escape the gravity of Earth. The formula for calculating Escape Velocity is:
-
-------------------- Ve^2 = ( Mass / radius ) * 13.34*10^-11
-
- When we set Ve = to the speed of light we can calculate the radius of the Event Horizon for a Blackhole.
-
----------------- 9 *10^16 = ( Mass / radius ) * 13.34*10^-11
-
----------------- radius = mass * 1.5*10^-27
-
------------------- Solar Mass = 2 * 10^30 kilograms
-
------------------ radius = (3 * Solar Mass ) kilometers
-
- This becomes a very simple equation to calculate the radius of a Blackhole Event horizon.
-
------------------- r = 3 * Ms
-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- M87, NGC 4486 is an elliptical galaxy in the Constellation Virgo the Virgin. It apparent brightness is magnitude 8.6. 7 trillion Solar Mass.
-
- Other reviews about Blackholes, request #1508, #1441, #1244, #1350
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Using redshifts to see back in time?

--------------------- #1550 - The redshift tells us how old it is?
-

-
-
- The age of the Universe is 13,700,000,000 years.
-
- The oldest galaxy we can see formed 13,000,000,000 years ago.
-
- The Universe was only 5% of its current age when this galaxy formed. If a human was 80 years old it would be analogous to her viewing a picture of herself when she was only 4 years old.
-
-------------- 4 / 80 = 0.05 -------------- .7 / 13.7 = 0.051
-
- The time that light has been traveling towards is 13 billion years. Space has been expanding during that time. Expanding space stretches out the wavelength of the light. Longer wavelength are towards the red end of the light spectrum, thus the “ redshift” of light. Light could leave the galaxy in the ultraviolet wavelengths and arrive at our telescopes in the far infrared. The time that has elapsed is a function of the amount of redshift.
-
- Here is a formula that is given for calculating the elapsed time given the redshift. It is polynomial of the 5^th order where “z” is the redshift.
-
- time ( z ) = 0.0002 z^5 - 0.0072 z^4 + 0.1301 z^3 - 1.143z^2 + 5.014 z + 3.7677
-
- The graph is constructed with billions of years on the y-axis and redshift on the x-axis. The graph becomes a linear function at higher redshifts. The graph is from 1 to 15 redshift. The astronomers are working between 9 and 12 redshift. They would like to be using a simpler equation for their calculations.
-
------------------- Time (z = 9 ) = 13.11 billion years.
-
------------------- Time ( z = 12 ) = 13.29 billion years.
-
- Construct a straight line between these 2 points and construct a linear equation for that line that will give time as a function of redshift.
-
--------------------------- y = mx + b, is the general equation for all straight lines.
-
--------------------------- Time (z) = mz + b
-
---------------------------- Where “ m” is the slope of the line and “b” is where the line crosses the y-axis, where x = 0. First let’s calculate the slope of the line connecting the 2 points:
-
---------------------- slope = m = 13.29 - 13.11 / 12 - 9 = 0.18 / 3 = 0.06
-
- Next we find the intersection of the line with the y-axis:
-
----------------------- 13.29 - b / 12 = m = 0.06
----------------------- 13.29 - b = .72
----------------------- b = 12.57
-
------------------ Time (z) = 0.06(z) + 12.57
-
------------------ Time (8.6) = 0.516 + 12.57 = 13.086 billion lightyears
-
------------------ Time (9) = 0.54 + 12.57 = 13.11 billion lightyears
-
------------------ Time (11.9) = 0.714 + 12.57 = 13.1284 billion lightyears
-
------------------ Time ( 12 ) = 0.72 + 12.77 = 13.29 billion lightyears
-
- Note in the picture of deep field galaxies and the redshifts are shown ranging from 8.6 to 11.9. Their distances in billions of lightyears can be easily calculated with this equation.
-
- I am puzzled by the 5th order polynomial when I us it to calculate the time.
-
------------------- Time ( 9 ) = 15.7 billion years
------------------- Time ( 12 ) = 24.7 billion years
------------------- Time ( 15 ) = 48.3 billion years.
-
- Apparently many more terms are needed in this equation to get better answers. Over the range of 9 to 12 our linear redshift equation works very well. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned, until I find the answer.
-
- Redshifts less that 1.4 can use a much more intuitive formula that calculates the receding velocity of the galaxy. The further away a galaxy is the faster its receding velocity because there is more space between us that is expanding. The ratio of receding velocity, “ v” to the speed of light , “c” is:
-
------------------ v / c = z^2 +2z // z^2 + 2z + 2
-
- where z = 1.4 ------ v / c = 1.4^2 +21.4 // 1.4^2 + 21.4 + 2 = 4.76 / 6.76 = 70%
-
- The ratio of the expanding velocity to the speed of light = 70%
- The galaxy is receding at a velocity of 70% *c = 210,000 meters per second.
- The lookback time = 9,000,000,000 years
- The co-moving distance = 13,000,000,000 lightyears
- The Universe’s age = 42% of its current age
- The Universe age when the light left the galaxy = 5,750,000,000 years.
-
- The Cosmic Microwave Background light has a redshift of 1,100. It has a lookback time of 13,700,000,000 years. A co-moving distance of 46,000,000,000 lightyears
-
-----------------------------------------------------
(1) Other reviews on redshifts : #1501 Redshifting Back in Time
(2) The Redshift explained.
------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Monday, January 14, 2013

What caused our financial crisis, with common sense.

--------------------- #1549 - What caused the financial crisis we are in?
-

-
-
- First off, are we in a financial crisis? Yes, even worse than imagined.
-
- In 2012 we were carrying $16 trillion in Net Public Debt.-
-
- We have 310 million men, women and children in the U.S. That means every one is carrying $ 51,613 in public debt. Someone has to pay this debt.
-
- We have 149 million tax payers. Many of whom pay zero taxes, but, they do file. If we take this ratio every taxpayer owes $107,383 to pay off the debt.
-
- But, that is not the worst of it. That is only “ net public debt”. We still have all the entitlement programs that are unfunded promises, unfunded liabilities. Eventually we will have to pay that to. Brings the total to $100 trillion. Each taxpayer needs to come up with $671,141 today to have everything funded that is on government’s books.
-
- Obviously it will take more than one generation of taxpayers to come up with this much money. All this is over and above the normal taxes that fund the government‘s daily expenses.
-
- Is this not a financial crisis?
-
- Ok, back to what caused it. The government caused it over the last 15 years. The government wanted the banks to offer more mortgages so more people could afford the American dream of owning a home. Home ownership makes better citizens and grateful voters. A perfectly good liberal idea with good intentions. The banks made home mortgages so easy all it needed was a signature on a piece of paper. There was little concern about the ability of the home owner to pay off the loan. Banks sold the loans to the government. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now own 90% of all government backed mortgages.
-
- More mortgages easier to get meant more buyers, home prices escalated, mortgages were bought up by Goldman Sachs packaged and resold on Wall Street. Everyone was making money.
-
- The government’s “ insane policies” caused this housing bubble and it finally burst. Home values fell. Mortgages were worth more that the homes were worth. Home owners defaulted, banks foreclosed, and got into financial trouble themselves owning assets it could not unload. Mortgages tightened up. Home building dried up. The home improvement purchases stopped. The economy went into a tailspin. And, the government was borrowing 40 cents for every dollar to pay for it. The government is still printing money. Interest rates are held near zero. The crisis is far from over.
-
- Printing more money, means a cheaper dollar, means prices will rise, means inflation. The government is stealing savings from its citizens. Dollars saved are continually able to buy less due to inflation. Interest rates will eventually rise. Bond holders will loose money. It took us 15 years to get into this mess and it will take 7 more years to get out of it. If government can reverse course in 2013.
-
- You can see all these carts at “ CBO.gov” Central Budget Office. However, it is worse than even their presentation because the CBO must assume “static conditions”. Their office can not take into account “behavior changes“. That is left to the economists and pundits to do. But, common sense will tell you when taxes go up, people have less money to spend, businesses have fewer employees they can hire. Business will go off shore and leave the taxes behind. Capital always will flee taxes. These are behavior changes that are not in the CBO charts.
-
- Google: www.hillsdae.edu for more analysis on the economy.-
- Google: The CATO institute journal has more.
-
- What does the government do to reverse course?
-
- Many things: Most important, reduce the spending at the Federal level. The Fed should set priorities of what is most important and what is required by the Constitution. Stop trying to reengineer our society. Many departments should not be funded. Or, if funded they should be reduced from 30,000 federal employees to 30 employees whose only job is to coordinate and facilitate the States with these programs. The Fed should help do the marketing but not the mandated manufacturing that belongs to the States. These expenditures belong to the States where they can not print money. Better, more effective, more efficient, local government decisions will result.
-
- 2013 will begin another recession. Taxes are going up. Regulations designed to reengineer society are crippling businesses. Interest rates are held below 1% and inflation is above 2%. Anyone holding money, or retirement funds, is loosing 1% per year. The government is stealing your money. In 10 years you have lost 10% , by doing nothing.
-
- In 2013 we should change the Social Security System from “defined benefits” to a “ “defined contributions” system, like a 401K. People should retire whenever they want to collect their money. Under today’s “insane policy” wealthy, white women live to age 88. The average age of black males stops at 63. They pay into the system and never get a chance to use it. While the wealthy, white women are on a Caribbean Cruise. It is an “insane policy”.
-
- Healthcare has the same insane policies. Doctors are paid for their services, not for their results. Healthcare should be an insurance, with everyone having co-pays on some scale and have protection against major medical expenses. Read “ Escape Fire” to learn how insane our system is. 50% of doctors said they want out. Doctors get paid $1,500 for stint surgery but only $15 to spend 45 minutes helping a sick patient. You’re the doctor what would you be doing?
-
- The government has in law a “ sequester” which is across the board spending cuts. How insane is this. They refuse to pass a budget that would set priorities on what should be funded. Politicians refuse to do the hard work and receive the wrath to set priorities and budget accordingly.
-
- Spending is up 22% under President Obama and he says he wants to spend even more. Most of this spending is “unconstitutional” and belongs to the States not the Federal Government. Government steals our money by borrowing more, lowering interest rates so it pays less, printing money to pay for debt, causing prices to rise and “ inflation” to steal the property rights of savers. Government politics trump economic common sense.
-
- Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland are all “failed economies” that have gone the same route. Germany has the only surplus in the Euro. Greece has already defaulted on its debt and creditors got 50 cents on every dollar. Spain unemployment is at 25%. The Euro private sector is shrinking. The public sector is still growing. More bailouts are coming and the whole Euro of 17 countries could go under. Sad to watch. U.S Banks are on the hook too.
-
- This is certainly a “transformation” ; it is certainly a “ redistribution of wealth”; it is certainly a “financial crisis“. And, the root cause is the government implementing policies with good intentions, supported by dreamy voters who fantasize utopia. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
-------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Sunday, January 13, 2013

The Universe from the biggest to the smallest?

--------------------- #1548 - The Universe, Biggest to Smallest

-
- Since the Big Bang the Universe has gone from 10^-35 meters radius to 10^26 meters radius in 13.7 billion years. That is the scale of the “ visible Universe”.
-
------------------ 1.37*10^10 * 9.46 *10^15 = 1.3 * 10^26 meters = 80.75*10^21 miles
-
-------------------- 80,750,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles is the visible Universe looking in one direction. It is the same distance looking in the opposite direction. And, both directions are the same so the Universe must have had an era of expansion faster than the speed of light. Cosmic Inflation.
-
------------------ It took 1.37*10^10 years to get to the edge of the Observable Universe , = 12*10^13 hours
-
------------------ Speed is this ratio = 670,000,000 miles per hour , which just happens to be the speed of light.
-
- Actually the visible Universe is accelerating. Meaning the expansion of space is faster than the speed of light, so less of it is visible as time goes on. In the far distant future all the galaxies except those held by gravity in our Local Group will have expanded outside our visible Universe and we will be alone.
-
--------------- 10^26 meters is the visible Universe
--------------- 10^21 meters is the scale of galaxies
--------------- 10^7 meters is the scale of Earth
--------------- 10^0 meters is the scale of us enfant humans
--------------- 10^-10 meters is the scale of atoms
--------------- 10^-15 meters is the scale of the nucleus of atoms
-------------- 10^-19meters is the scale of quarks inside the nucleus
-------------- 10^-19 meters is the smallest distances that science can reach using the CERN particle accelerator with trillions of electron volts.
-------------- 10^-35 meters is the smallest length that theoretically exists. It is the Planck Length. It is the distance light can travel in 10^-43 seconds the smallest increment of time, the Planck Second.
-
- This scale encompasses the entire scale of the Universe from the biggest to the smallest and we are right in the middle at a couple of meters
-
- 10^-19 is the scale of the smallest particles, the quarks, in the nucleus of atoms. But what is in between the atomic particles? Well, it is the same thing as in between the galaxies. It is space, nothing, a vacuum, empty spacetime.
-
- In 1666 Newton said space was emptiness in which gravity flowed. Time was an arrow run by a Universal clock, unchanging and constant.
-
- In 1905 a 26 year old Einstein presented his theory of Special Relativity. He said that space and time had no distinction between them. And they were changing in order to keep the speed of light constant. We live in a 4-dimensional Universe of spacetime. That is curved by gravity where distances shrink and time slows down.
-
- To keep light speed constant space must shrink and time must slow down. Speed is distance / time and it must remain constant, never to exceed 670,633,500 miles per hour.
-
- This also meant that two observers would see simultaneous events differently.
-
- In 1915 when he was 36 years old Einstein proposed the General Theory of Gravity that meant spacetime curved in the presence of mass-energy. And mass-energy were the same thing separated by the speed of light squared.
-
------------------ E = m*c^2
-
----------------- Energy = mass * 90,000,000,000,000,000
-
- His theory replaced Newton’s theory of gravity forces with a curved structure of spacetime as the cause of gravity. Gravity is universal and spacetime is part of the physical structure of the Universe.
-
- How can astronomers prove that spacetime is curved? It is simple geometry:
-
- If a space is flat, it is 2-dimensional, an equilateral triangle will have 3 angles of 60 degrees that add up to 180 degrees, exactly, always.
-
- If the space is a sphere, a 3-dimensional space, a triangle on its surface will have angles that add up to more than 180 degrees. Space is therefore curved.
-
- For a 4-dimensional curved spacetime light rays in a triangle will add up to having angles greater than 180 degrees. A gravitational lens, a large mass between observation and the light source, will create images of different light rays coming from different directions arriving at different times. Astronomers have observed these images of a Quasar 8 billion lightyears away passing a galaxy cluster of immense mass creating multiple images , which is direct evidence of curved spacetime.
-
- The General Theory of Relativity and spacetime theories work perfectly well in the Universe scaled from 10^0 to 10^26 meters, maybe even as small as 10^-2 meters, a few centimeters. But, at the smallest scales these equations no longer work, gravity is no longer relevant.
-
- At the atomic scales of 10^10 meters gravity is irrelevant and overwhelmed by the electromagnetic and nuclear forces. The math moves from Relativity to Quantum Mechanics. Electrons in orbit about the nucleus no longer behave according to classical mathematics used in the macro scale. Electron’s place and velocity become a “cloud” of probabilities. Neither location nor velocity can be known with certainty. The more accurately one is determined the less accurately the other can be known. This is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
-
- Science has done 50 years of hand waving trying to explain why gravity is so much weaker than the other forces and why quantum math does not work for gravity. Why the curvature of spacetime is not the same being subjected to quantum fluctuations. The same spacetime must exist between particles as between galaxies.
-
- When you can not demonstrate something with experiment any theory will work: spacetime can be ripped, wormholes can exist, time can flow backwards, spacetime can be in the form of bubbles or foam, there could be atoms of spacetime. Maybe at the smallest dimensions cause does not precede effect? A time after and a time before may not exist? Time could travel backwards?
-
- All of these theories have difficulty with the math. Small distances and high energies produce infinities in the equations that make them useless. Quantum Gravity is a theory trying to get around this. So is String Theory. Whatever theory they come up with for the microscopic scale, the Planck Scale, it must be modeled, or translated to the macro scale in order to be demonstrated to be true.
-
- Causal Dynamic Triangulation at the Planck Scale is one of these theories being run as a computer simulation. 2-dimensional triangles are glued together with the math of curved spacetime and allowed to interact over time with quantum fluctuations. Collectively the triangles evolve into a universe that is analogous to the one we have.
-
-The initial conditions of the simulations does not allow wormholes to exist. The 4-dimensionas model evolves from the smallest 2-dimensional fractals. Fractals can exist with fractional dimensions. Light and particles become fractals of spacetime. This is “Quantum Gravity” existing in a computer simulation. Does it represent reality? An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
- Lecture by Renate Loll, professor theoretical physics, Netherlands. PhD in 1989 at the age of 27. Lecture given at Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics.
-------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Friday, January 11, 2013

A planet orbits our closest star.

--------------------- #1546 - A planet orbits our closest star.

-
- The closest star to us is the Sun. The closest star to the Sun is a 3 star system called Alpha Centauri. To the naked eye Alpha Centauri appears as a brilliant yellow-white star. It is 4.37 lightyears away. That is 25,700,000,000,000 miles away , but, that is the closest star we have. What we see is really a twin of Sun-like stars orbiting each other every 80 years. The third member of the group we can not see because it is a Red Dwarf called Proxima Centauri. It is actually 10% of a lightyear closer to us than the brighter pair. It takes 1 million years for its orbit in the system.
-
- Interstellar travel can be experienced with our spacecraft Voyager 2. This spacecraft launched in 1977 is traveling to the stars at 31,000 miles per hour. That is 100 times faster than a speeding bullet. It flew past Neptune in 1989. Even at these speeds it would take Voyager 2 another 100,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri. Although it is actually headed in a different direction.
-
- The apparent brightness of Alpha Centauri A , the brightest of the three stars is 2.7*10^-8 watts per meter^2, using a CCD detector. That is a luminosity of 1.6 Lsun. Centauri B has a luminosity of 0.33 Lsun. The Red Dwarf, our nearest star has a luminosity of 0.0006 Solar Luminosity, 0.0006Lsun. For comparison Betelgeuse Star, the left shoulder of Orion, is 38,000 Lsun. Polaris, the North Star, is 2,500 Lsun.
-
- Vega has a Solar Luminance of 60 Lsun and it is 25 lightyears away. If we had a space ship that could travel 99.9% the speed of light, 669,962,867 miles per hour, the 50 year round trip would take astronauts 2 years for them However, 50 years would pass on Earth while they were gone. Time slows down as you approach the speed of light. The astronauts stayed young and we got older in the meantime.
-
- The two Sun-like stars in Alpha Centauri are 6.1 billion years old. Our Sun is 4.6 billion years old. Telescopes glued to watching Centauri B detected a slight wobble caused by a planet orbiting that star. The orbiting distance is 6.4 million kilometers. The planet Mercury orbits at 57.9 million kilometers from our Sun. The planet takes only 3.2 days to orbit Centauri B. Mercury takes 88 days to orbit the Sun. The planets surface temperature is 1,500 Kelvin, in other words the surface is molten lava.
-
- The planet was discovered because the radial speed of Centauri B changed ever so slightly due to the gravitational pull of the orbiting planet.
-
------------------- Time ------------------------------- Radial Speed -------------------------
-
------------------ 6 hours -- --------------------- 170 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 10 hours ----------------------- 150 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 21 hours ----------------------- 110 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 33 hours ----------------------- 60 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 48 hours ----------------------- 50 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 56 hours ----------------------- 70 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 71 hours ----------------------- 130 centimeters per second ----------------
------------------ 83 hours ----------------------- 170 centimeters per second ----------------
-
- The change in speed was 170 - 50 = 120 centimeters per second, or, + 0r - 60 centimeters per second, an increase and decrease in speed over a complete cycle.
-
- A complete period of orbit was 77 hours or 3.2 days.
-
- Kepler’s third law of planetary motion says the square of the period is equal to the cube of the radius distance.
-
-------------------- ( Period )^2 = ( Distance )^3
-
--------------------- Period in years
--------------------- Distance in astronomical units. = 150 million kilometers.
--------------------- Period = 3.2 days / 365 days = 0.00877 years.
-
--------------------- D^3 = T^2 = ( 0.00877 )^2 = 7.69*10^-5 AU^3
-
-------------------- D = 0.043 AU
--------------------- D = 6.4 million kilometers.
-
- Knowing the radius of orbit we can now calculate the temperature. The square of the temperature is inversely proportional to the distance. The greater the distance the lower the temperature.
-
------------------ Temperature^2 = Constant * 1/ D
-
----------------- The constant of proportionality is 96,100
-
------------------- T^2 = 96,100 / D
-
---------------- T^2 = 96,100 / 0.043 AU
-
--------------- T = 1,495 Kelvin
-
- This temperature is between melting gold and the gas flame on a stove:
-
----------------------- 304 Kelvin -------------- butter melts
----------------------- 373 Kelvin -------------- water boils
----------------------- 1,100 Kelvin -------------- fireplace flame
----------------------- 1,336 Kelvin -------------- gold melts
----------------------- 1,900 Kelvin -------------- gas stove flame
----------------------- 2,000Kelvin -------------- molten lava--
-
- We should probably look to another planet to find life. This one is just too hot. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
-
-------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Monday, January 7, 2013

Paul Dirac's Evolution of Physics

--------------------- #1546 - Paul Dirac’s Physics

-
- Paul Dirac born in Bristol, England in 1902 was probably the second greatest theoretical physicists short of Albert Einstein. He went to public schools, got an electrical engineering degree (1921), switched to mathematics (1923) and got a Ph.D. from Cambridge in mathematical physics.
-
- He wrote dozens of technical papers and won a Nobel Prize ins 1933. This review is an article he published in Scientific American magazine on the “Evolution of Physics”.
-
- Physics prior to Isaac Newton was essentially 2 dimensional, the plane that we walk around on and up-and-down motion. Newton brought the picture to a 3-dimensional symmetry by adding the gravitational forces.
-
- Einstein brought it to 4-dimensions with the concept of space-time. His 4-dimensions were not completely symmetrical because of the arrow of time. When he wrote the equations for invariant distances, “s”, with respect to time, time had the opposite sign of 3-dimensional space.
-
------------------ s^2 = c^2 - x^2 - y^2 - z^2
-
---------------Differentiate with respect to time, to get the rate of change of space with respect to time:
-
------------- ds^2 = c^2dt^2 - dx^2 - dy^2 - dz^2
-
-------------- s = invariant distance
-------------- c = the speed of light
------------- x, y, and z = 3-dimensional space.
-
-------------- ( c^2dt^2 ) does not have the same sigh as the 3 spatial directions.
-
- To get to 4-dimensions he needed to take a 3-dimensional section and give it a frame. At a later time we have a different 3-dimensional section in a later frame.
-
- Quantum theory complicated this picture further by requiring us to take the process of observation into account.
-
- Then Einstein added his General Theory of Relativity and complicated things even further. He supposed that the space of physics is curved not the “flat space” that Newton worked with. General relativity curved 4-dimensional space-time.
-
- Physics today is trying to apply quantum ideas to these gravitational equations. A gravitational field is a tensor field. Quantum Theory is the discussion of very small things. It first appeared when Planck discovered that the energy of electromagnetic waves can exist only in multiple of a certain unit, the Planck Constant of Action times the frequency of the wave, E = h*f.
-
- This step in physics was necessary to explain the law of blackbody radiation . Einstein discovered the same unit of energy occurring in the photoelectric effect.
-
- The next new picture in physics was Bohr’s picture of the atom. He had electrons moving about the nucleus in certain will-defined orbits able to jump from one orbit to another.
-
- In 1925 Heisenberg and Schrodinger introduced Quantum Mechanics.. They were able to explain experimental data with matrix mechanics. De Broglie introduced the duality of particles and waves . Schrodinger was able to describe atomic processes with his wave equation. His equation initially was missing the knowledge that the electron’s had spin. Dirac concluded that it was more important to have “beauty” in one’s equations that to have them fit experiment. Later spin was added and the data matched the calculations.
-
- Quantum Mechanics forced physics to give up the deterministic picture. The theory does not predict with certainty rather it gives a probability of occurrence of events.
-
- The present stage of physical theory is a mere stepping stone toward the better stage in its evolution.
-
- Quantum Theory gives wonderful agreement with observation. But not all the time, it is still not prefect. We do not make progress going over the successes again and again. whereas going over the difficulties can bring progress.
-
- Quantum Theory does not work when we push the laws to extreme conditions, high energies and small distances ( Blackholes and Big Bangs).
-
- One fundamental Constant of Nature left unexplained is the Fine Structure Constant. Natural constants of the charge for the electron, Planck’s Constant of Action, and the velocity of light create a ratio that has no units:
-
----------------------- (h /2*pi) * c / e^2 = 137
-
- There is no theory of why the result is 137 yet it is fundamental to the function of atoms. Atoms do not work if it is any other value. Dirac predicted that “ e” and “ c “ are truly fundamental constants but that someday “ h/2*pi” will be derived from the other 2. “h/2pi” is also in the uncertainty relationship between knowing position and momentum of an atomic particle.
-
- When Quantum Theory tries to merge with Relativity Theory quantities that ought to be finite are actually infinite, integrals diverge instead of converging. “ Renormalization” is a method invented y physics to insert experimental data into calculating equations to get rid of the infinities. Physicists get good agreement with experiment despite the illogical method. Dirac would say it is not beautiful therefore not mathematically sound.
-
- God is a mathematician of a very high order. He used very advance mathematics in constructing the Universe. Physics needs to discover more of his equations then the physical pictures will appear behind them.
-
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Dirac worked out equations that requires there to be an electron and an anti-electron. The anti-particle had to be the exactly same particle except the opposite electric charge. Dirac discovered anti-matter in his math before it was discovered in the laboratories.
-
(2) He retired as professor of physics at Florida State University, Tallahassee.
-
(3) Dirac grew up with a father that spoke French and a mother that spoke English. His father would discipline him whenever he made a mistake with the French language. Therefore he tended to not speak at all. Why us one word when none will do
-------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------
RSVP, please reply with a number to rate this review: #1- learned something new. #2 - Didn’t read it. #3- very interesting. #4- Send another review #___ from the index. #5- Keep em coming. #6- I forwarded copies to some friends. #7- Don‘t send me these anymore! #8- I am forwarding you some questions? Index is available with email upon request. Some reviews are at http://jdetrick.blogspot.com Please send feedback, corrections, or recommended improvements to: jamesdetrick@comcast.net. ---- “Jim Detrick” -- www.facebook.com, -- www.twitter.com, -- 707-536-3272 Sunday, January 6, 2013