Gravity. It's the law.

thatscienceguy: Picture from Hubbles Deep Field Project The...

thatscienceguy — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:51:01 -0400

Picture from Hubbles Deep Field Project

The hubble space telescope glared at 1 spot in the sky continously for 50 days to produce this Amazing, and detailed, Picture!

thatscienceguy: An air cannon using Pascals Law to turn a...

thatscienceguy — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:38:29 -0400

thatscienceguy:

An air cannon using Pascals Law to turn a relatively low force into a high pressure point, forcing the air to rush through the small gap at high speed.

*note: there is no machinery invloved, all they are doing is hitting the drum on the back of the device.

Gif thanks to Hawaado, go check out his blog http://hawaado.tumblr.com/

thatscienceguy: The highest temperature produced in a...

thatscienceguy — Sun, 19 May 2013 05:36:32 -0400

thatscienceguy:

The highest temperature produced in a laboratory was 920,000,000 F (511,000,000 C) at the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor in Princeton, NJ, USA.

That is almost 1 million times the surface of the sun!!

thatscienceguy: I Love Technology!

thatscienceguy — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:38:16 -0400

thatscienceguy:

I Love Technology!

saveplanetearth: Today, for the first time in human history,...

thatscienceguy — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:03:43 -0400

saveplanetearth:

Today, for the first time in human history, global CO2 levels have risen above 400 parts per million.

We can look at this day as a sad reminder of what we are doing to our planet - or we can look at it as the last push we need to enable the renewable energy revolution we need worldwide.

The Energy Revolution is not only possible - it’s already underway @ Greenpeace

thatscienceguy: The longest and brightest solar eclipse of the...

thatscienceguy — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:31:53 -0400

thatscienceguy:

The longest and brightest solar eclipse of the 21st century! Next one is not expected until 2132.

Photo credit: Miloslav Druckmüller, Peter Aniol, Vojtech Rušin, Ĺubomír Klocok, Karel Martišek, Martin Dietzel

neuronsandneutrons: Happy birthday, (May 11th) to my literal...

quesojust — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:25:28 -0400

neuronsandneutrons:

Happy birthday, (May 11th) to my literal favorite person in the history of humans, Richard P. Feynman.

thenewenlightenmentage: The LHC Might Have Created The...

quesojust — Thu, 09 May 2013 21:00:07 -0400

thenewenlightenmentage:

The LHC Might Have Created The Smallest Drop Of Liquid Ever

A tiny drop could have big implications for our understanding of particle collisions.

Over the past few months, the Large Hadron Collider has been ramming protons and lead ions together in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), one of its particle detectors. After each collision, some of the newly produced particles zoom away together like a school of fish, in a scientific puzzle called the “ridge effect,” rather than bouncing off in all directions.

Continue Reading

Photo

quesojust — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:30:23 -0400

infinitylooper: The effect shown in the gif is called...

quesojust — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:00:47 -0400

infinitylooper:

The effect shown in the gif is called gravitational lensing.

What is gravitational lensing?

Gravitational lensing is the effect seen when an object behind a massive object is in the line of sight with the earth. For example:

Earth ————>Massive Object—————->Far away object

When we try looking at the far away object, the massive object bends space-time around it, causing the light rays from the far away object to travel in a curved path around into our line of sight.

As a result of this, we can often see the far away object magnified which helps astronomers understand the early universe. The gif shows a far away galaxy being gravitationally lensed by a closer black hole.

singyulam: Iron filings and magnet.

quesojust — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:30:16 -0400

singyulam:

Iron filings and magnet.

What is a Quantum?

thatscienceguy — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:30:00 -0400

musingsofamoron

Today the science world is full of the word quantum - quantum physics, quantum optics, quantum chemistry, quantum gravity, quantum computer, quantum electronics, etc.. Its gotten to the point where it’s rather hard to find a scientific branch in which the word isn’t used!

But do you actually know what the word quantum means?

It’s actually quite simple to understand! Let’s start with it’s origin: it comes from the Latin word quantus which means how much. Pretty easy so far, right? If you need some help remembering, the word quantity comes from the same word!

Now here’s the explanation: Imagine cutting a loaf of bread in half. Then you cut it’s half in half. Then you cut it’s fourth in half, and so on, and so forth. Would you be able to continue on cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces forever? (We are using a very, very sharp and thin knife that can cut crumbs, our knife has no limitations in this scenario, it can cut anything we want it to.)

The obvious answer is no, you can’t, because that would mean our loaf of bread would be made out of an infinite amount of something. Your bread is finite, it has a specific mass, you can eat it all up! That means we can reach a limit - a certain “crumb” that is so small it can’t be divided anymore, and that all the other crumbs and halves and loaves are made up of it.

That “crumb” is called a quantum. A quantum is the smallest amount of physical quantity that can exist independently. Basically, it is the smallest unit, the one brick, the one LEGO out of which everything else is composed.

So quantum mechanics is the science of the mechanics of the smallest units of the universe, quantum optics is the field of research that deals with the smallest units of light, quantum tubes and dots are tubes and dots that are made out of the smallest units.

Obviously most of the fields of study that use quanta(the plural form of quantum) are very, very complicated and difficult to understand, and this post is in no way a reliable source of information on these subjects! If you truly wish to learn about them you should apply to a physics department of your university, as it take years of studying under proper professors to fully grasp any of the listed fields of research!

This post is just my attempt to enlighten the casual reader on what that fancy sounding word that everyone tacks on to normal words means. I hope I’ve succeeded in this, and cleared up some confusion!

P.S. Please note that this is applicable only to physical property! This is because physical property is actually made up of something physical - in math, on a purely theoretical plane, we can easily make up a number out of infinite parts:1=1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16+1/32…. This is because numbers are theoretical, and don’t exist in the real world! You can have one of something, you can write or draw or express the number one, but the actual number one doesn’t exsist! You won’t find it anywhere in the universe!

P.P.S. If you actually have a degree and/or know your way around the field of physics and my explanation sounds familiar - it should. Ancient Greek philosophers have formulated this explanation(minus the vocabulary) way waaaaaaay before me, and, unlike me, they did it based purely on logic, which is a lot more impressive.

erikrasmussen: Happy Fibonacci Day, everybody! It won’t happen...

quesojust — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:14:02 -0400

erikrasmussen:

Happy Fibonacci Day, everybody! It won’t happen again for 3019 days!

Physics Doesn’t Bohr Me Available today only on...

quesojust — Thu, 09 May 2013 02:11:00 -0400

Physics Doesn’t Bohr Me

Available today only on shirt.woot!

"The Kepler spacecraft has certainly turned out to be a rock star of science"

quesojust — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:23:04 -0400

“The Kepler spacecraft has certainly turned out to be a rock star of science”

- John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Kepler has recently discovered 2 planetary systems, Kepler 62 and Kepler 69. The thing is that there are 3 super-Earth-sized planets in these systems that are in the habitable region of their star. That is exciting news indeed !

The Kepler-62 system has five planets; 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has two planets; 69b and 69c. Kepler-62e, 62f and 69c are the super-Earth-sized planets, we are most interested in.

Two of the newly discovered planets orbit a star smaller and cooler than the sun. Kepler-62f is only 40 percent larger than Earth, making it the exoplanet closest to the size of our planet known in the habitable zone of another star. Kepler-62f is likely to have a rocky composition. Kepler-62e, orbits on the inner edge of the habitable zone and is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth.

The third planet, Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth, and orbits in the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus.

It is not certain as to whether these planets have liquid water, but there is certainly a nice chance that there is.

Relative sizes of all of the habitable-zone planets discovered to date alongside Earth. Left to right: Kepler-22b, Kepler-69c, Kepler-62e, Kepler-62f and Earth (except for Earth, these are artists’ renditions). Image credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech.

Kepler is turning out to be really awesome !! Will it ever find an exoplanet just like Earth ? Who knows, it just might.

(via carbonstuff)

thatscienceguy: a Lazer ignited the tops of bottles filled with...

quesojust — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:32:42 -0400

thatscienceguy:

a Lazer ignited the tops of bottles filled with a flammable gas! Not really relavent, but still awesome!

Frickin lazers!

Photo

quesojust — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:59:50 -0400

what is a rydberg molecule?

quesojust — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:59:11 -0400

This should help you.

laughingsquid: Astronaut Chris Hadfield Describes Common Sounds...

quesojust — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:47:58 -0400

laughingsquid:

Astronaut Chris Hadfield Describes Common Sounds Aboard the International Space Station

This guy is just the coolest

On gravity affecting massless photons: here's a better way to think about it. Imagine that spacetime is a blanket of stretchy fabric. Put a heavy ball on it, and it stretches the fabric, creating a well. Roll another ball across and the 2nd ball feels the pull of the first -- it goes towards the well. Like normal gravity! Cool. Light travels in straight lines on the fabric, but the fabric itself has been stretched! Hence to us, it looks like it has been bent by gravity.

quesojust — Mon, 06 May 2013 05:16:25 -0400

I really like that explanation - not that I didn’t really see it that way already, but it was very well put.

Also, your URL is awesome!