The Great Return

Hello scientists!

First of all, let me apologize about the long time it's been since I've posted a blog. I stopped over the summer and haven't really gotten back into the swing of it since. Without further ado, let's launch right into it!

Today's topic deals with the end of physics. Well, at least the end of particle physics. The whole field of studying particle physics could be coming to a screeching halt forever if one experiment shows certain results. What experiment is this? It's purpose it to prove one particle's existence. If the experiment goes one way, then dozens of theories can be proven correct. If the experiment shows other results, all of them would be wrong.

What on earth is this experiment and particle? Why are they so important? Before we get to that, we're going have to learn a little history first. Let's go back to the early 1960's.

During this era, scientists have been able to discover many laws of nature, called symmetries. They also were able to create the Standard Model of Particle Physics. It basically contains elementary particles known to mankind. It's made up of quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons, but we really only need to worry about the gauge bosons. The gauge bosons are made up of the gluon (what keeps atoms held together), the photon (what carries light), and two bosons, the W boson and the Z boson.

Oversimplifying it, the W and Z bosons are essentially what cause a neutron to turn into a proton and electron during a type of radioactive decay. This change is known as the weak force. According to the weak force's symmetry, the W and Z bosons shouldn't have any mass, but it was then discovered that they were actually quite massive. This is a good thing, otherwise matter wouldn't be able to exist. However, scientists were confused how a symmetry didn't match up to reality.

The scientists then realized that symmetries may not be followed 100% of the time. Imagine a symmetry like rules we humans have. When going and swimming at a pool, a lifeguard's going to tell you not to run. However, this may not always be the case: if you see a tornado coming toward the pool, no one's going to stop you from running away. Three researchers concluded that symmetries could be broken occasionally, which allowed the bosons to have mass. However, for this to be true, there would have to be a mysterious field* that hadn't been discovered yet.

Doing some research, scientists stated that the field would have to extend throughout space and break certain symmetries. While doing this research, they also realized that this same field could also explain why particles like electrons and quarks** have mass. It was getting kind of frustrating though, because they realized that a field like this hadn't been discovered yet and that they couldn't prove it's existence. Well, they could find out exactly what particle was causing the symmetry to break, and that would help prove the field's existence. Why not try that? Before we move on, though, let's do some naming. The new, mysterious field is called the Higgs field, and the particle is named...wait for it...the Jelly particle! Just kidding, it's really called the Higgs boson. Too bad, scientists just don't know how to have fun.

The Higgs boson is directly related to the Higgs field, and the existence of the particle would prove the existence of the field. If the Higgs field did exist, it would mean that the Standard Model was correct. The problem with catching a Higgs boson is that it's hard to produce. To make it, you have to take two particles (usually lead particles or protons), speed them up almost to the speed of light, and smash them together. Making a machine that could do that would be unbelievable. It would take billions of dollars, tens of thousands of acres, and decades to construct.

But we did it anyway. I present to you: the Large Hadron Collider!

What's that? You don't see anything? Well, they built it underground, so I guess is a little hard to see. Let's try another picture:

That's better. The large circle is made up of tons of high-tech tubing that accelerates particles toward light speed in opposite directions. They then smash together in an attempt to create a Higgs boson. Finally, in 2012, it was finally announced that a particle was created that acted just like the predicted Higgs boson. The Higgs field's existence was proven, the Standard Model got to stay, and they all lived happily ever after. It's not the end though. What good will the Higgs boson bring?

Many people have pointed out that nothing can be created or invented with the Higgs boson right now. Don't be sad though. When radio waves were discovered, they were called sub-sonic radiation because radios hadn't been invented yet. the point is, the technology is here. Now people just need to make something out of it.

Thanks for reading! Again, I'm sorry about stopping the blog, and I promise it won't happen again. Post suggestions and comments in the comment section, and I'll see you in the next post!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

*A field is kind of like a set of data. It consists of each point of time and space being assigned a quantity. It can also mean a flat piece of land, but that's not what they meant. Probably not, anyway.

**A quark is what makes up protons and neutrons. They're more complicated than that, but I could literally rattle on about the complications about anything in particle physics. I won't though. You're welcome.

The Sky Spectrums

Hello scientists!

Again, I'm sorry for the long delay in this post. So, let's get right to the point and not waste anymore time. Today we're going to talk about rainbows, and only the kind that form in the atmosphere. No cheating by making a glass prism, only Mother Nature can create these.

The first kind of rainbow is the regular kind of rainbow, also known as a primary rainbow. Because it's simple, it's a good time to explain how rainbows are formed without getting too complicated. The light that creates a rainbow is white, at least before the rainbow's created. White light contains all the different colors of the rainbow, so it must be split up to see all the different colors. The way this occurs is that rays of light enter a water droplet, and the curved surface refracts (curves) the light. It then reflects off the back of the droplet at an angle. It then passes through the front of the droplet, refracting again. These acts of refracting and reflecting are enough to separate all the colors in the spectrum. It's hard to explain, so here are some diagrams to help you visualize this.

As the second diagram mentions, the light works best when reflected and refracted at a 42 degree angle. That means that if the sun is more than 42 degrees higher than the horizon, the would-be rainbow is beyond the horizon and cannot be seen.

However, because the outgoing rays are so spread apart, you can only see one color from one droplet, depending on the angle of the droplet. So, all of the millions of droplets (and therefore all the colors) work together and create the rainbow.

So that explains a regular rainbow. What about a secondary rainbow, commonly known as a double rainbow? Double rainbows, if you don't know, are just rainbows with another rainbow behind them. This occurs because the light is being changed by the regular rainbow, but not all of the light is reflected against the back of the water. Some simply travels through the droplet. So, light gets refracted twice, then gets changed another time by droplets of the secondary rainbow behind it. Because not much light passes through the primary rainbow, the secondary rainbow is about ten times less intense than the primary rainbow. Also, because the drops are being refracted twice as much, the colors of the secondary rainbow are inverted.

As I mentioned before, the sun doesn't produce rainbows if it is more than 42 degrees high unless you're at a high elevation. However, rainbows don't work out well when the sun is very low in the sky. Why? There aren't all the colors of the spectrum in the atmosphere. For example, the sky is always red during sunset and sunrise. So what happens if a rainbow forms then? It simply has to work with what it's got. It's missing the colors of green, blue, indigo, and violet because it's at sunrise or sunset, so it creates a monochrome rainbow.

A monochrome rainbow.

Yes, it exists, no matter how stupid it sounds. Because the colors with shorter wavelengths (yellow through violet) get scattered by air, dust, and moisture, the rainbow creates a rainbow of one color, a red-orange band.

Some rainbows aren't even rainbows at all. These are known as halos. There are multiple types of halos, including the 22 degree halo and the 46 degree halo. These occur when light is refracted in millions of hexagonal shaped ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. They then form a ring around the sun. The 22 degree halo is brighter, smaller, and more common than its 46 degree counterpart. It looks something like this:

The last kind of rainbow that we're going to discuss is the kind that form on Saturn's moon, Titan. Although not yet seen, it is suggested that rainbows form there due to its wet atmosphere. However, the water wouldn't be refracted at 42 degrees, but probably instead at 49 degrees. This is due to the light passing through methane instead of water vapor.

Four little facts before we end. #1: Rainbows don't have a definite location. They are instead dependent on where both your eyes are and the sun is, because different water drops reflect light to different locations. So if you and a friend were on different ends of a city and saw a rainbow, the rainbow is in two different places in once. This is due to rainbows not being an actual thing, but instead a non-tangable phenomenon. 

Fact #2: Rainbows form when light passes through liquid. That doesn't mean that that light has to be the sun. Lunar rainbows are a thing, although extremely rare and faint. The human eye usually just perceives them as white because our eyes don't have good night vision.

Fact #3: Although rainbows have those seven main colors, those colors mix together with each other. This means that there are actually 100 colors in the rainbow that humans can distinguish if we can observe closely enough.

Fact #3.5: There were only five colors in the rainbow when first described: red, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Isaac Newton then added orange and indigo were later added to bump the colors up to seven. This is derived from ancient Greek sophists, who believed that the colors of the spectrum, the known objects in the Solar System*, the musical scale, and the days of the week were related.

Anyway, thanks for reading! I hope you learned a lot today, even though I feel like I may not have explained some of the rainbows well. Again, I apologize for this post not coming out sooner. There has been traveling, technical difficulties, power outages, two bad topics that I had to trash, and, I'll admit, some summer laziness. Although I'll try to do better, I'm going to Spain for three weeks, and therefore will probably post blogs in Spanish there to learn the language better. So I would recommend having Google translate open then. Anyway, I'll see you in the next post!

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

P.S. Make sure to check out John's math blog at johncooksmathblog.blogspot.com.

*That is, all the objects known at the time.

Volcanoes Are Out Of This World! No, Really...

Hello scientists!

First of all, I am alive. You may have wondered why I haven't updated this blog in a while. The reason is that I've been preparing for final exams recently, and I just haven't found the time. They're done though, so we can get back on track. We're still going to be keeping with the schedule I made a few posts back, and the next posts are about geology and astronomy. That's when I found something that fits into both categories. Perfect!

Anyway, what could possibly relate to earth and non-earth science? Well, volcanoes are a popular geologic study, almost as well known as planets in the field of astronomy, so as you may have guessed by that and the title of this post, we're talking about volcanoes on other planets!

There are actually only four bodies in the solar system that have had volcanic activity, so we're going to go through them one by one. The first one is Earth. This isn't a surprise to you, and may not be as interesting as the other planets, so let's just list some stats. Mount Etna in Sicily is the most active volcano on Earth, with continuous eruptions for more than 3,000 years. The tallest volcano is Mauna Kea in Hawaii, being 56,000 feet tall from base to summit. It's next to Mauna Loa, which is the largest volcano overall.

But that's enough about us. We want to know more about the other planets that have volcanoes. Well, too bad. The other three bodies are moons, although we'll look at other planets later. There's both Enceladus and Triton, moons of Saturn and Neptune, respectively.

The last moon deserves special attention. It's name is Io, one of many moons of Jupiter. Besides having the shortest name of a moon int he solar system, it is the most volcanically active. But why? It's so small and distant from the Sun, not to mention its icy surface. Why on Earth (or Io) would volcanoes be the most prominent there? Well, the fact that it is tiny is the answer. Any astronomer knows that a relatively tiny object placed next to a goliath like Jupiter will have some gravitational issues. This enormous gravity constantly deforms Io, including producing strong tides inside the moon. This in turn makes Io a very volcanic body.

So where's the proof?

Well, first of all, Io has little craters. Granted, it is small, but the main reason it doesn't have any large craters is that matter is always coming out onto the surface and burying any craters that the moon has. Secondly, they happen on Earth. Of course, other planets are very different than ours, but that doesn't mean that it's not impossible to have volcanoes elsewhere.

And finally, we've seen the eruptions. However, they aren't what you think of when you think of a volcanic eruption. Instead of erupting lava, they erupt gases, such as water vapor, ammonia, and methane. This supports the second reason because Earth spit out those exact same gases when it was young.

One last thing. Out of all the planets and moons, we didn't cover the largest volcano, Olympus Mons. It's a volcano located on Mars that is incredibly large. The only way to put it in perspective is to compare it to something like Mount Everest. So, here you go.

That's just an elevation comparison. Here's what it would look like if it was placed on Hawaii:

As cool as this volcano is, the reason I didn't mention it before is that it has become extinct. Don't be disappointed though. Olympus Mons was a shield volcano, meaning that any eruption out of it would have been boring. Because after all, the real reason we study volcanic eruptions is because they look awesome.

Thanks for reading! As I said before, the next post is going to be about geology. After that, the playing field will be level and we'll start talking about another field of science! What field? I'll tell you tomorrow, don't worry. One last note, my summer is very busy, so the blog may take some hits in terms of not being updated, but I'll still try to do my best. See you in the next post!

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

P.S. Make sure to check out John's math blog at johncooksmathblog.blogspot.com.

The Fourth Apocalyptic Friday

Hello scientists!

I'm not much a movie-goer, but if you've been watching TV lately, you may have seen the trailer for the new Godzilla movie that came out yesterday. Well, is Godzilla possible? If so, could we take care of it?

Well, certainly nothing alive could be as large as Godzilla, right? How big is Godzilla? The problem here is that he only appears in movies, and doesn't have a definite height. In 1954, when the original film came out, the tallest building in Tokyo was the National Diet Building, which is 215 feet tall. Godzilla was then made to be 164 feet tall so he could peer over most buildings in Tokyo if he wanted to. However, as time moved on, Tokyo's building got taller and Godzilla got relatively shorter. Filmmakers had to keep updating him to make him seem large in comparison. In the 2014 film, he's 305 feet tall.

The largest animal on land is the African Bush Elephant, which can be up to 13 feet tall at the shoulders. Keep in mind that Godzilla stands on two legs whole elephants stand on four. For final proof, the elephant weighs 6 tons, while Godzilla weighs up to 60,000 tons. You don't even need to do the math to see that Godzilla's bones couldn't support his own weight.

If he was possible and he was mad at us, we could be in trouble. Godzilla runs on nuclear power, due to his awakening being at Bikini Atoll when an atomic weapon was detonated. That means that he's (supposedly*) immune to any weapon that's not atomic. Any nuclear weapon, on the other hand, will help him. He would just absorb the energy and grow stronger. The best strategy is to used something like the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful bomb ever, releasing so much energy that it would  just be too much energy for him to absorb. Either that or it would give him a heart attack.

Thanks for reading! Sorry for not submitting this on Friday, I was pretty busy. Better late than never, though, right? Anyway, make sure to comment below, and I'll see you in the next post!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

P.S. Make sure you check out John's math blog at http://johncooksmathblog.blogspot.com.

Bilingual Birds

Hello scientists!

Today we're going to cover a biology topic, one that I have personally wondered for a long time. The question: how can parrots (and other birds) speak English?

Well, they don't have vocal cords. What they have learned to do is change the shape of their trachea and blow air over it, producing sound. Humans can do this too; it's called whistling. So yes, parrots aren't talking in the usual way, they are really just whistling in a special way.

All parrots are created equal, but some whistle more equally than others. The African Gray Parrot is considered the best species in speaking English, besides humans. Here's one:

Side note: these guys are endangered.

Although they're pretty, there doesn't seem to be an advantage to talking and imitating humans. What's it good for? Well, no one really knows. Some tests have pointed to them using speech for problem solving. They have also been observed imitating other species of birds in the wild, a useful disguise to fool predators. Others suggest it's to separate the flock from strangers. Some other hypotheses suggest that it's used to mark territory, to help other birds not get lost, or just a feature that was naturally selected and evolved.

Last question (yes, I know this is a short post, but no one knows a lot about this). Do they actually understand English? Scientists disagree with each other, but some experiments hinted that they actually do understand what they're saying, such as a parrot labeling things using the human language. It's hard to tell imitating and learning apart, however.

Thanks for reading! I know this is a short post, but not a lot of knowledge is actually known about this. As I mentioned before, geology is next. See you in the next post!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

P.S. Make sure you check out John's math blog at http://johncooksmathblog.blogspot.com.

When Lightning Strikes More Than Twice

Hello scientists!

Today, I tallied up all the subjects I've covered and how often I covered them. The results are: five blogs on physics, three blogs on biology, four on astronomy, and two on geology (and one on myths, but that one doesn't count). So, to even things out, here's the schedule for the next few blogs:
Geology
Biology
Geology
Astronomy
Biology
Geology
When this happens, there will be five blogs for each of the categories. From there, we'll start the process over again. Just letting you know.

Anyway, as I said, today's blog is about geology. Today's topic is quite indescribable. If I had to put it into words, imagine if Zeus and the devil fought for many days for many weeks over Maracaibo, Venezuela. Chances are you thought of tons of lightning flashing in the dark sky over Maracaibo, Venezuela, wherever it is (in the very northwestern part). Chances are you thought of something like this:

Incredible. How does this happen? No one knows.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to comm

Just kidding. You really think I would leave it there? Before we end this, let's see what's going on.

First, let's gather some facts. Catatumbo lightning, named after the Catatumbo river, is the largest single producer of ozone in the troposphere. The clouds in the storm reach up to 3 miles in height, and it occurs about 150 nights a year, 10 hours every day, and as much as 280 times per hour.

What causes this storm that puts Mother Nature above humans? Well, this reeks of some scientific explanation about mountains affecting the wind, so topography would be nice to know. In the northwestern part of Venezuela, there's a large lake known as Maracaibo Lake. This passes through a narrow strait (next to which is the city of Maracaibo) before it empties into the Gulf of Venezuela, connected directly to the Caribbean Sea. One last note: the lake is surrounded by flat, swampy plains, which in turn are blocked by three mountain ranges: the famous Andes, the Perijá Mountains, and Mérida's Cordillera. There will be a test on this later.

When air blows into the lake, it travels over the lake and onto the plains. There, it is stopped by one of the three mountain ranges (called it!) and forced to collect there. Heat and moisture are collected as well. These two factors create electrical charges. As these charges are destabilized by the mountains, and therefore released, you get lightning. A lot of it. This isn't even considering the uranium in the bedrock, or the methane and oil humans have released into the coastal plains. That explains it. Kind of.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Yes, this ending is the real one. Sorry if today's entry is a little unclear, I don't really understand it well, and apparently the scientists don't either. There have only been a few studies on it. Make sure to comment below, and I'll see you in the next post!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

P.S. Make sure you check out John's math blog at http://johncooksmathblog.blogspot.com.

The Third Apocalyptic Friday

Hello scientists!

I'll get right to the point. We've all seen or heard those movies or conspiracy theroies about the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC) creating a black hole that will destory the Earth. Will it? Let's find out.

First of all, what is the LHC? The Large Hadron Collider is, in its simplest, two pipes shaped like an enormous circle underground. Two small things, such as atoms, are sped down these tubes in opposite directions near the speed of light. When scientists want to, they make one particle move to the other pipe, smashing them together with enormous force, seperating the atoms into its simpliest parts, useful for research. It has a 17 mile diameter and looks like this if it was aboveground:

We're worried about the atoms creating enough energy to kill off the Earth via black hole. First of all, let's make sure there's enough energy to create one.

Let's make something clear first. Atoms almost never actually touch. If you're sitting down right now, magnetic forces in between atoms repel each other, making a microscopic space between you and the chair you're sitting on. However, this isn't the case with the LHC. The atoms collide at almost twice the speed of light, forcing them closer than they usually get. The tiny force of gravity between the atoms then pulls them together and make them physically touch. This gives off much more energy than expected: enough to make a black hole.

So we can make a black hole (although it's an incredibly tiny one). Not a great start. Luckily, the man Stephan Hawking came to the rescue. He calculated that black holes give off radiation. If the black hole is too small, it overexerts itself by releasing too much radiation for its size and evaporates. We have a microscopic black hole; is that small enough? Well, the smallest possible stable black hole is about three times bigger than our Sun. So any black holes would dissipate if LHC made one, unless you want to question a widely accepted theory proposed by Steven Hawking. Only an idiot would do that

But we are idiots on this blog, so let's question it anyway. What would happen if one somehow stayed alive? Well, the energy made by the atomic collision was so strong that it would probably propel the black hole away from Earth and into space. About one out of one million black holes would be moving slowly enough to hang on to Earth's atmosphere.

What then, in case I somehow haven't assured you enough? Well, as gravity pulls things toward Earth's center, the black hole would obviously go to Earth's center. There it would stay, picking Earth away at a rate of a proton every 4 days. By the end of the universe's life, it will have only consumed a few milligrams of the inner core.

So there you have it. The Earth will lose .00000000000000000000002 pounds in your lifetime, but only in a one in a million chance, and only if Steven Hawking is wrong, and only if scientists at the LHC aren't careful. And they are.

Thanks for reading! Also, I always say this causally, but I really want to thank John from John's Math Blog for a shout-out to my blog. I will return the favor, but not because I owe him one, but because it's actually really interesting. If you like my stuff, you'll probably like what he has to say as well. Anyway, make sure to comment below, and I'll see you in the next post!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin