Photons and electromagnetic waves are hardly topics I choose to think about on a regular basis. Once in a while, I’ll be reminded that it takes 8 minutes for light from the sun to reach the earth, but that’s about it. My father would often say to me when I was a child, looking up to the stars, that I was seeing millions of years into the past. Technically, we see nothing but the past.
Light is both energy and mass at the same time. Light can fall; that’s why black holes are named that way—surrounding light gets sucked inside.
In 2005 it was predicted that there was an attractive and repulsive force component to light. They have since discovered the attractive force, but have only now discovered the repulsive force.
Physics and science in general have become a passion of mine a long time ago. I now find that as time goes by, I am ever more humbled by what we have found out about nature. I recently spoke about my appreciation for Richard Feynman. Some of his lectures on physics have been made available by audio on box sets, which could be purchased at over $150 US. The first time I heard the audio of the lectures at Caltech, I had never heard of the man. To say I was mesmerized would be an understatement. He was an expert at effectively communicating science and knew how to add humor to the material being taught. It helped me begin to gather what was being taught and appreciate its meaning.
I say all this, hoping I still have your attention. If I do, you may be interested in the other discovery I made today.
In the 1960’s, a young man by the name of Bill Gates stumbled on those same lectures and loved them as much as I. Since then, he has purchased the rights to the video of his lectures and has posted them online for free, in what is called Project Tuva. The catch is that you have to download the video player required to see all that is to be seen on the website of Microsoft Research, Silverlight. It is hardly an inconvenience, as it is a 10 second download, and a quicker install, and very much worth your time, if you are interested.
Now you may watch the lectures, in excellent quality, with great extras that are still unobtrusive. I’m not in marketing, but if there was any trick I knew to get people to at least watch the first of the lectures, then I would do it.
If I got a single person to watch even a single lecture by having posted this, it would be worth far more than my time and effort. It just may lead to someone starting think about light a little bit more.
The pro-life v. pro-choice debate is an important one to be had. For one who has read the arguments from either side, it is apparent that abortion is a very important topic for many people. Unfortunately, there is usually a gap between debate and a mere exchange of words; it is a topic that has the potential to bring emotion out of the best of us, compromising the proper exchange of ideas.
My opinion on the debate is a complicated one, that has changed with time. In the past, I have been a staunch supporter of pro-choice. Since then I have given way, albeit not completely, to the pro-life aspect of the debate.
That way, I could upload in people’s minds whatever it takes to fully appreciate, say, Richard Feynman. Everything from his lectures to when he tells the story about his (hilarious) stint at Los Alamos. Once you get to know how funny, kind and brilliant this man is, then you can fully appreciate chats like these:
But then again, such a machine could just as easily corrupt many people’s minds if false information were purposely forced upon them. I think it would have more of an impact than the Atomic Bomb on our entire race.
Here are things I’ve read recently, but don’t have the time to write about:
10 of the 20 basic amino acids necessary for life may be destined, thermodynamically, to occur whenever they can. The simple version can be found here, the medium summary here, and the actual article here. Not that anyone will be interested in reading them.
University of Colorado at Boulder has released details of it’s research on Mars, and the results are fascinating.
Artist's rendering of how the lake would have looked about 3.4 billion years ago
Sediment data from the European Space Agency’s Infrared Imaging Surveyor, and high-res images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, HiRISE, provide unambiguous evidence of this large lake.
Whatis of particular is not only the fact of this lake’s existence, it’s when it existed. From Astrobiology Magazine (emphasis added):
In addition, the evidence shows the lake existed during a time when Mars is generally believed to have been cold and dry, which is at odds with current theories proposed by many planetary scientists, he said. “Not only does this research prove there was a long-lived lake system on Mars, but we can see that the lake formed after the warm, wet period is thought to have dissipated.”
Planetary scientists think the oldest surfaces on Mars formed during the wet and warm Noachan epoch from about 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago that featured a bombardment of large meteors and extensive flooding. The newly discovered lake is believed to have formed during the Hesperian epoch and postdates the end of the warm and wet period on Mars by 300 million years, according to the study.
Now we know where to look for a search for life on Mars. Deep under this ancient lake, there are chances that microorganisms can be found. As mind-numbingly awesome as this is, there are still people out there who aren’t impressed by possible life on other planets, and still think this research is a waste of resources.
Vision can now be restored for some forms of blindness, and it’s just as fast as it is cheap. If you have one healthy eye, and the other has suffered from a certain affliction, say a burn, stem cells may be cultivated and placed on contact lenses in order to repair your bad eye.
Your vision can be fully restored in a matter of weeks.
It’s too bad, because while the rest of the world is teaching their kids about hard science, subsequently creating a more informed workforce. I thought Alberta was the patriotic priovince that wanted Canada to lead like we did over half a century ago: So they decided to make optional what they do not understand. I thought education was about challenging yourself, and learning things outside of your scope—to broaden your limited horizons. I wonder how they’ll go on about teaching geography to the class with a mix of students who have or have not taken evolution.
“The Appalachians, many millions of years ago, was the tallest mountain chain in the world. Much moreso than the Rockies and the Himilayas.”
“Well I was taught that the world was created in 6 days about 6000 years ago. That’s what I’m going to put on my test answer sheet. Deal with my parents and the press. I like to have an open mind.”
Great, now Canada will have a bunch of voters who’s environment lead them to believe that human history is actually significant in the universe. Of course Genesis takes 6 days. Do you really think they’re going to write 14 billion years of history before they get to the couple of thousand years of ancient human history? Isaac Asimov put it quite well
“In the beginning,” he said, “exactly fifteen point two billion years ago, there was a big bang and the Universe–”
But I had stopped writing. “Fifteen billion years ago?” I said incredulously.
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m inspired.”
“I don’t question your inspiration,” I said. (I had better not. He’s three years younger than I am, but I don’t try questioning his inspiration. Neither does anyone else or there’s hell to pay.) “But are you going to tell the story of the Creation over a period of fifteen billion years?”
“I have to,” said my brother. “That’s how long it took. I have it all in here,” he tapped his forehead, “and it’s on the very highest authority.”
By now I had put down my stylus. “Do you know the price of papyrus?” I said.
“What?” (He may be inspired but I frequently noticed that the inspiration didn’t include such sordid matters as the price of papyrus.)
I said, “Suppose you describe one million years of events to each roll of papyrus. That means you’ll have to fill fifteen thousand rolls. You’ll have to talk long enough to fill them and you know that you begin to stammer after a while. I’ll have to write enough to fill them and my fingers will fall off. And even if we can afford all that papyrus and you have the voice and I have the strength, who’s going to copy it? We’ve got to have a guarantee of a hundred copies before we can publish and without that where will we get royalties from?”
My brother thought awhile. He said, “You think I ought to cut it down?”
“Way down,” I said, “if you expect to reach the public.”
“How about a hundred years?” he said.
“How about six days?” I said.
He said horrified, “You can’t squeeze Creation into six days.”
I said, “This is all the papyrus I have. What do you think?”
“Oh, well,” he said, and began to dictate again, “In the beginning– Does it have to be six days, Aaron?”
In the same light, here’s a video of a meeting of Glenn Beck fans on the current state of the USA. Note the speech starting at 2:00, listen for his telling people to get their kids out of college 4:40, and for the off-camera screaming of “burn the books” at 4:48. Even the cameraman is bewildered:
