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

Myths Rundown

Hello scientists!

Last time, I said that we were going to talk about physics, but I changed my mind. Physics will be next, though! Instead, let's go over some common misconceptions.

1. The Great Wall of China is claimed to be the only man-made structure visible from the Moon. This is wrong for two reasons. The first is that you can't see it when you're higher than 180 miles, much closer than the Moon. Although it is longer than 13,000 miles, it is only 30 feet wide, putting it at a great disadvantage. The second reason the myth is wrong is that there are many man-made things visible from the Moon, such as city lights. This is what it looks like from a low-Earth orbit:

And no, it's not that line running from top-left to bottom-right; that's a river. The wall runs from bottom-left to top-right. If you can barely see it, this picture is also zoomed in from a satellite that is no where close to the Moon.

2. As we all know, bulls hate the color red. Except they don't. Red isn't even a bright color to cattles' eyes. They instead charge the matador because they appear as a potential threat.

3. Pennies falling from the Empire State Building are feared of killing someone on the ground. However, there's a scientific principle called terminal velocity. This is when the drag, or air resistance, on something falling is as strong as gravity. This results on the object neither slowing or speeding up. The terminal velocity of a penny is 30-50 mph. At this speed, a penny won't have enough velocity to crack the human skull. Granted, it will hurt, but you'll survive.

4. This one is actually one that proves me wrong. The heating of a meteor is not actually caused by air rubbing against it, but air compressing in front of the meteor. So I was wrong about those Russian meteors from two entries ago.

5. Black holes are often thought to be violent eaters of the universe. That's true, but only if the objects are very close to it. After all, if they have the same mass as a star, they will have the same gravitational pull. In fact, if the Sun was replaced by a black hole with the same mass, Earth wouldn't notice (except humans would). The only difference is that a black hole is a lot denser.

6. Not all worms that are cut in half produce two new worms. The front half will usually live with its mouth, while the rear half will die. However, some flatworms can actually produce two worms from two halves, known scientifically as anterior regeneration.

7. This one may be the most surprising of all. For years I've likced ice cream only with the tip of my tongue to taste the most sweetness. As we've all seen at one point or another, different parts of the tongue are used to taste different things, such as sweetness and spiciness. Apparently, that actually isn't true. If you recognize this:

you know what I'm talking about. Turns out that every part of the tongue can detect each primary taste almost as well as the others, although it may differentiate from person to person. To add to that, the locations of sensitivity are never the same, and there are actually five primary tastes, not four. The fifth is called umami, used to describe tastes such as meat.

8. Speaking of senses, we often think that we have five senses: sight, taste, scent, touch, and sound. We actually have much more than that, including, but not limited to: balance, acceleration, pain, body position, temperature, time, itching, pressure, hunger, thirst, when to stop eating, when to go #1 and #2, and the most famous one of all, carbon dioxide levels in the blood.

9. Sugar doesn't make people hyper, especially children. In tests, children were both given sugar-free soda and soda with sugar that tasted and looked exactly the same. After the test, both children behaved the same and had the same amount of energy.

10. As you may have guessed by now, humans don't just use 10% of their brain. This can be simply proven with an MRI. The brain is incredibly complex, but one things scientists do know is that it uses more than 10% of it's neutrons. This source of this myth can be traced back to philosopher William James, who used the phrase metaphorically.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to comment below! As I mentioned, I promised something physics related and Apocalyptic Friday is coming up, so I'm thinking I'll just combine the two. Tune in then!

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

The Best Animal Ever

Hello scientists!

It's obvious that humans rule the Earth now, but there is an animal that can survive a lot more than we can. It has survived almost every test we have performed on them, and most of us don't even know they exist. They are called tardigrades.

They look like aliens. They are tiny (1/50th of an inch), have eight legs, and kind of chubby. Here's a picture of them:

Pretty strange, huh?

Anyway, they are considered extremophiles, which are organisms that can live in conditions that would kill most other life forms. How tough is this "water bear"? Let's take a look.

How do they fare in the heat and cold? Well, they have been heated to 304 degrees Fahrenheit for a few minutes. To cool them off, scientists then placed them in a chamber cooled to -324 degrees Fahrenheit for days. Some were even able to survive at -428 degrees for a few minutes, just above the lowest physically possible temperature. A+.

What about pressure? Many deep sea fish are constantly pushing outward to compensate for the water pressure. When they are brought up to the surface, they still push their bodies outward, causing them to explode with no water pressure. Tardigrades are different story. They have survived being in a vacuum for 10 days without exploding (like the fish), and have had survived 6,000 times the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere, or the equivalent of six times the water pressure of the deepest point in the ocean. A+ again.

Camels can survive a long time without water. As famous as they are, they are put to shame by tardigrades. These little guys can go 10 whole years without water and survive. A leg twitch (which isn't really considered survival, but still) has been observed 120 years without water. A++.

Chernobyl is one of the world's most deadly nuclear disasters. It is still not safe to be around due to radiation. Tardigrades don't care. Surviving 1,000 times more radiation than other animals, scientists aren't sure how they do it. One explanation is that their low hydration (possible because they can survive without water for a while) ionizes the radiation, rendering it harmless. A+ again!

For its final act of survival, it will try to survive the most dangerous enviornment of all. As I've mentioned, it can survive a lot a radiation, and it can survive in a vacuum. Sounds like outer space to me. With an extreme change of pressure and no ozone layer to block radiation, the most hostile environment is no environment at all. Dehydrated tardigrades were sent into a low Earth orbit. Surprisingly, 68% of them survived. Pretty amazing. A+ for all of them.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to comment below as well! Next time, let's tackle a physics topic, shall we? Tune in then!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

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

The Second Apocalypse Friday

Hello scientists!

I'm sorry for not updating my blog recently. In the future, I will try to be better about doing something every day, or at least something close to it. So, without further ado, today's entry!

Today is Sunday, but this is going to be an apocalyptic blog. This topic is more related to astronomy than geology, like last time. This event has also happened before, and when it did, it wiped out Earth's dominant species. Asteroids!

The impact that we remember is the one that occurred in Russia on February 15, 2013. The damage didn't come from the meteor hitting the Earth, but rather an explosion caused by the friction of the meteor traveling through the atmosphere. Even so, the energy released was equivalent to 500 kilotons tons of TNT, or about 25 times more powerful than Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The most powerful strike in recorded history happened in Russia as well (I know, they have bad luck). Known as the Tungunka event, its destruction was caused by the meteor bursting in mid-air rather than colliding with the ground. The explosion that occurred on June 30th, 1908 released the same energy as 30 megatons of TNT, or 1,000 times greater than Little Boy, which was enough to flatten around 80 million tress around the impact site.

However, the most powerful impact ever has probably happened about 3.26 billion years ago. The meteor was probably about 30 miles wide.,  Scientists have only found evidence of the impact in South Africa in 2014. However, an actual crater has not been found yet.

So what's next? Well, an asteroid five miles or wider would trigger another mass extinction, like with the dinosaurs. The scary part? The Kuiper Belt, a ring of objects just beyond Neptune, contains about 100,000 objects more than 50 miles in diameter, many of which fall toward the Sun every year. Yikes.

On one last note, the Moon was created by a large asteroid the size of Mars smashing into a young Earth, and the debris created the Moon in a week. This is what probably happened:

Anyway, thanks for reading! Make sure to comment! Again, I'll try to be more active in the blog. Next time, we'll talk about biology, so check in next time!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

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

The First Apocalypse Friday

Today, Friday, means freedom from work and school (except today; it's spring break for me). Sometimes, it's just so amazing that you couldn't even dream of the world ending today. So, to make sure you don't do anything too crazy (or to ruin your Friday, evil me), check in on how the world could actually cease to exist tomorrow.

Recently, there's been a lot of talk about the supervolcano in Yellowstone Park. Does it exist? Will it explode? How bad will the eruption be? 

Let's be clear, there isn't a clear volcano at Yellowstone. The volcano you always think of is a composite volcano, which looks like a mountain with magma. However, if you look at Yellowstone, there isn't a clear hump.

The reason is that this volcano is not obvious is because it has exploded before, most recently 640,000 years ago. When a volcano erupts violently, the roof of the magma chamber (the supply of magma for the volcano) collapses. This makes the entire mountain sink down to form a crater, or more specifcally, a caldera. The process is shown by this diagram of Mount Mazama, Oregon:

So the volcano does exist. Now, let's find out if this volcano will erupt. The tern "supervolcano" alone worries everyone, including scientists. They are now measuring the Yellowstone caldera, which is rising 

and falling. Surprisingly, between 2004 and 2008, it rose at a rate of 3 inches per year: the fastest it has ever risen in recorded history. In addition, the volcano is 1,000 years overdue for a supereruption. Finally, animals are fleeing the area due to growing seismic activity.

Is it the end?

No. In 2009, it stopped rising as quickly, and in Janurary 2010, it was offically declared that the caldera had slowed to its normal rate of rising. The "overdue" evidence doesn't actually exist. Instead, it was a hoax created by the press. As for the animals, it's part of migration and is nothing out of the ordinary.

Sorry for scaring you, but thanks for watching! Make sure to comment below! I may not see you for a while becuase of spring break, but after that, I'm going to try to make the blog a daily thing.

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

Science: Math edition

Hello scientists!

Again, I'm sorry for not posting in a while. At home we've had many technical difficulties. At any rate, here's the post you've been waiting for.

Science and math go hand in hand most of the time, but especially in today's blog entry. We're going to talk about aliens! However, we can't just shout out that they exist because of blurry photographs or UFO sightings. We can use an equation to find out the probabibilty that they exist in the galaxy.

The mentioned equation is called the Drake equation, and it goes something like this:

There are a lot of variables here, as there should be. After all, finding extraterrestials is not an easy task. Here's a key:

N=the number of civilizations that we can communicate with by radio*

R*=the average rate of star rate formation in the galaxy

fp=the fraction of stars in our galaxies that have planets

ne=the fraction of those planets that can support life

fl=the fraction of life-supporting planets that actually have life**

fi=the fraction of life-containing planets that have intelligent life

fc=the fraction of those civilizations that release clues of its existence into space (such as radio waves)

L=the length of time those signals last

Once you figure out all those variables, you multiply them all together. Their product is the probability of other intelligent life in our galaxy.

So, what are these values? Let's start with R. There is usually about 1 star formed per year in the Milky Way, although this is sometimes considered on the conservative side.

fp is next. Out of 100 average stars, 20-50 will have planets. This means that fp is between .2-.5 .

ne is actually higher than what you expect, or at least higher than what I expected. Every star that has planets usually have between 1-5 planets that can support life, so ne is 1-5.

After this, scientists view the Drake equation as not very useful. After all, we don't know if there is alien life, so we can't figure out fl or any of the variables after that. They are also very hard to estimate. However, scientists have figured that if a planet can support life, life will somehow begin there. Therefore fl is 100%, or 1.

Scientists also assume that this life will evolve into intelligent life if given enough time, so fi is also 100%, or 1.

Interstellar communication is not an easy feat, however, so 100 given intelligent civilizations will probably have 10-20 that communicate through space. This means that fc is 10-20%, or .1-.2 .

Lastly, there is L. It is assumed that from the start of the civilization's communication, it will continue to communicate through space until it becomes extinct. This a large range. It's existence will probably occur anywhere from 1,000 to 100 million years after they begin to communicate. This means that L is 1,000 - 100,000,000.

Although some of them are estimates, we still have our numbers! Let's plug them into our equation.

Multiplying the lowest numbers possible, the equation tells us that we are the only ones in the galaxy, and probably the only ones in the observable universe.

However, the highest possible numbers provide a more optimistic answer. It states that are 36.4 million other civilizations in the galaxy! So yes, we come to the incredibly satisfying answer of there being 0 to 36,400,000 other species in the galaxy. Doesn't exactly improve our knowledge. Oh well.

Thanks for reading! Make sure to comment below! Next time, I'll introduce you to a new tradition for the blog, so stay tuned!

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

*We have to communicate with these civilizations. If we can't, it doesn't matter if they exist or not.

**Just because planets can have life doesn't mean it has to.

The Misfit Planet

Hello, scientists!

In 2006, a dreadful thing happened. One of our planets, specifically Pluto, was demoted to a dwarf planet before it had time to complete one orbit since its discovery. Why would anyone do this? Are scientists really this cold-hearted? The answer may brighten your moods about Pluto, but it may make you sad about other things.

First of all, let's define a planet. The Greeks had the best definition: if moves across the sky and was bright, it was a planet. However, this also included the Sun and the Moon, and excluded Earth. Today, we have a more accurate model, with the Moon orbiting Earth orbiting the Sun. Today's description of a planet is:

1) It orbits around the Sun,

2) it has enough mass to pull itself into a spherical shape, and

3) has cleared its orbit around the Sun. (Nothing else is its path.)

So what's wrong with Pluto? It actually hasn't cleared its path. The exact criterion is that it can't be affected by gravity by another thing, and it has to have the majority of its mass in its orbital path. This is cool, but Pluto is in Kuiper Belt, which is a larger version of the asteroid belt that is located behind Neptune's orbit. Therefore, all the space debris makes it impossible for Pluto to compete, and it only makes up of .07% of the mass on its orbital path. Also, Pluto's moon, Chiron, had gravitational influence on Pluto, so the little planet had to go.

Although you may be mad at astronomers, don't be. When the International Astronomical Union met to make the faithful decision, only 5% of the scientists voted, almost none wanting to be guilty to demote Pluto. However, votes were cast, leaving Pluto to make new friends with the four other dwarf planets: Eris (which played a large factor in the demotion of the planet), Ceres (which actually followed Pluto's fate about a century before), Haumea, and Makemake. So don't think scientists abandoned Pluto. They put it a place where better belongs.

That's all for now! Make sure to comment in the comment section below. Make sure to check in later!

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

The Night of the Undead Trees

Hello, scientists!

Today, we're going to face the greatest fear of the decade: zombies. You may be thinking that a zombie outbreak is completely fictional and impossible. Although it hasn't happened before, it's technically possible. Here's how.

Throughout all the fictional books and movies we've seen, the majority of zombie outbreaks are caused by bacteria or viruses. However, if zombies do become a reality, it will not happen like this. When either of these two kinds of life invade another organism, it doesn't build large, interior, physical structures, like zombies always appear to have. Although these kinds of infections aren't likely, there is one that is: fungal infection.

First of all, it is possible for fungus to infect humans, and they build structures. It may seem odd that they make things, like humans, so let's look at an example.

Mycorrhizae is a type of fungi that supplies a satisfactory answer to whether they build objects. Recent scientific studies have shown that plants actually communicate with each other by connecting their roots with mycorrhizae. This allows the plants to tell each other when pests are present, giving them an early warning system to build up defenses. Because it transfer information, like a nerve, fungus could infect our body and send information to our brain to do its binding, such as eating brains.

These fungal spores can actually enter our body, in ways such as inhaling them. When we die, the spores would detect that our body would be inactive, and would take action. Fungal systems would grow. It would then tell us what to do and transfer nutrients to organs needed to do work.

Although it seems like science-fiction (because it is), it has happened before. Parasitic wasps have infected hosts, such as caterpillars, and make them perform behaviors decided upon by the wasps. They aren't zombies, because they were never dead, but it shows proof that an organism can take control of another. Creepy, huh?

Again, I haven't really been able to post blogs because of my schedule. Make sure to comment, 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.

Above the Boiling Point

Hello, scientists!

Again, I'm sorry for not posting something yesterday or the day before. Homework (among other things) have kept me busy recently, so while I try to make this a daily blog, don't hold me to any promises I didn't make.

Anyway, chances are you, at one point, have wondered how it feels to fly. If you have, you're not alone. However, it actually turns out that it's impossible not to fly. You are always hovering above the ground at an atomic level. This also means that you don't really touch anything. The sensation of touch never is triggered by an object, but instead by the magnetic force between your atoms and the object's atoms. Dream come true!

Except, not really. You probably want to fly with a visible amount of space between you and the floor without a device. To that science says, "Good luck." Humans just aren't meant to fly or hover. Too bad. On the other hand, not only you can also make something fly on its own, you can do it in your very own kitchen.

That "something" is water. That's right, you can levitate droplets of water with only a saucepan and a stove. To understand this, let's review how water reacts to heat. It starts off frozen, an ice cube. As the tempurature increases to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it melts into its pure liquid form, water. At 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it boils into steam, and that's (basically) the last step. However, at 379* degrees, something incredibly cool will happen.

This tempurature is named the Leidenfrost point. At this temperature, the droplet of water will actually be protected from direct contact from the pan by a thin** layer of water vapor under the droplet. The heat also causes the water droplets to coalesce. These two factors prevent the droplets from evaporating for a longer time. These balls of water also skitter around the pan due to them being riding on a cushion of steam.

Lead was used in a dangerous experiment. This experiment consists of (don't try this at home) dipping a wet finger into molten lead. Because there is a layer of steam from the water on your finger between you and the lead, you won't get burned. At least not right away.

Because of this layer of steam, it makes water of droplets possible to actually climb uphill. All that it needs is a surface that has grooves in the right direction. Which means in theory, you could make a maze with correctly positioned grooves. If you dropped water droplets into this maze, they would skitter, like in the saucepan, but in a specific direction, and turn when needed. Eventually, the droplets would solve the maze. Which is exactly what happened at the University of Bath.

Pretty cool, huh?

Anyway, that's it for now! Comment on stuff I got wrong or missed and suggestions for next time. Just a warning: you shouldn't receive any blog updates until Sunday. Sorry. Then, we'll probably do something related to biology. Tune in then!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

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

*This is a rough estimate; it's not exact.

**Thin means .1mm of vapor at the edge of the droplet and .2mm under the center.

Star-crossed galaxies

Hello, scientists!

First of all, I must apologize for not posting an entry recently. I went to a place without Internet and haven't had the time to make one.

From the title, you may think that the galaxies we will talk about has an ill fate, and that may be true. However, read on, and you may find that I may be speaking literally.

First of all, I should introduce these two galaxies. One is the Milky Way, our galaxy, and the other is Andromeda, a close neighbor of ours. The Milky Way contains about 300 billion stars, and Andromeda contains about 1 trillion. Remember that, it will later fascinate you about how large galaxies are (if that didn't convince you already).

It's now time to look at an optical illusion of sorts. Have you noticed that if a siren approaches you, its pitch increases, and when it moves away, it gets lower? This is called the Doppler Effect, when sound waves either compress or stretch relative to an observer. Basically, waves get shorter as they get closer, and get longer as they get farther away.

I did say that this was an optical illusion, not an auditory one. This is because this doesn't affect just sound waves; it affects light waves as well. If you look at a poster, you'll see that red wavelengths are longer than blue ones. This means that if an object moves away from you or towards you very quickly, it will turn slightly red or blue, respectively. You'll probably never use this unless you're an astronomer or physicist, but it still happens.

You can notice this when looking through a very powerful telescope. Because the universe is expanding, all galaxies are moving away from us. Because this is on a galactic scale, though, they are moving incredibly quickly. This causes them to appear red. This is called red shift. Scientists often have to alter a picture of a galaxy because of this effect.

In that last paragraph, I lied to you. Not all galaxies are moving away from us. One notable exception is, as you may have guessed, Andromeda. When viewed, it does not produce red shift, but instead blue shift, meaning that is moving towards us. Scientists now predict that these galaxies will collide. Uh-oh.

We shouldn't worry, though. For one reason, the collision will happen about 4 billion years in the future. Also, the likelihood of a stellar collision is unbelievably small. This is because the closest distance between stars in our galaxy is like two ping-pong balls two miles away from each other. This means that all stars will most likely pass by each other without a problem.

Where's the proof? Well, there isn't any, there's no way to predict every star's exact birth, death, and path (or if there is, we probably couldn't figure it out in 4 billion years). However, another analogy may help. If the Sun was a pin-pong ball, our nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri, would be a pea 680 miles away, and the Milky Way would span a fifth of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. In short, nothing is actually going to collide. Probably.

Thanks for reading! Let me know suggestions for next time, mistakes, or stuff I missed in the comments below! Tomorrow we'll discuss a physics question, so make sure to check in tomorrow.

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

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

Back to the Present

Hello, scientists!

Today we are going to try to tackle another physics question. Let me warn you, however, that I'm wearing a band-aid, so there may be some typos. Let's begin!

Today's topic sounds philisophical, and it kind of is. The fact is that there is no definite past, present, or future. At first, you may argue that the year 1980 was in the past, 2014 is in the present, and 2030 is in the future. I would agree with you, but only because our time frames are almost identical. This means that one second to me is (pretty much) one second to you, and we move through time at the same rate.

If you went to work on the International Space Station, things may start to get strange for two reasons. One, satellites move at incredible speeds, often faster than we give them credit for. In fact, the fastest satellite speed is about 17,650 miles per hour. As the theory of relativity tells us, the faster an object is moving, the slower it moves through time. However, this doesn't affect the time dilation as much as another factor: gravity. It has been proven that a thing that is being affected by a gravitational pull moves through time more slowly than an object that is not being affected by gravity at all.

Because of the effect gravity has on satellites, they move through time more quickly than us because they experience less gravity, due to their height. To fix this, scientists have programmed clocks on satellites to run a little slower than they should, so they wouldn't fall out of sync with the ones on the surface. Otherwise, the loss wouldn't be tremendous (only 1.7 seconds per century), but it still would cause problems with any GPS system.

This also, amazingly, means that past, present, and future are just relative. If I took a light-speed trip around the universe, my future would be your past. On the other hand, I could just spend thousands of years in a satellite, but where's the fun in that?

This is a short entry, but this thing isn't a difficult concept to explain. Anyway, comment about stuff I got wrong or missed or suggestions for next time. I'll probably cover something about astronomy tomorrow, so make sure to check it out!

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'
Benjamin

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

The Real Apocalypse(?)

Hello, scientists!

Whether or not you usually belive world-ending conspiracies, you can't deny that an earth changing event is just over the horizon! 

This action is geomagnetic reversal, where the north and south magnetic poles of Earth switch, making the old south the new north and vice versa. Don't panic, though, because not only has this happened before, this has happened many time before. The length of time between these reversals is called a chron. The average chron is about 450,000 years.

The next geomagnetic reversal will be the most significant one so far to humans. One reason is not only is it going to be the first one in recorded history, it will happen in a time where a lot of society is based off of electronics and magnets. Another reason is that the last one happened a full 780,000 years ago. Compare that to the average 450,000 years, and you come up with an urgent problem. 

Before I mentioned that this has never happened in recorded history, so there really isn't any proof, right? Here comes the proof, you've asked for it.

Let's look at what may be the least likely location to find evidence of this: the ocean floor. Here, there is an underwater formation called a mid-ocean ridge. It occurs where two tectonic plates pull away from each other magma come up from the space between them. This cools, forming a ridge. This happens again and again, forming many ridges along the ocean floor. It's hard to explain, so here's a sped up visual depicting it.

When studying these ridges, scientists noticed something odd. As the rock cooled, it contained a iron-titanic oxide. The amount of the oxide corresponded with the direction of Earth's magnetic field. With this, scientists have been able to record our planet's magnetic field's history, and have thus predicted another magnetic reversal. It will come anytime from this instant to thousands of years into the future.

What effect will it have on us? Although it sounds silly, this event is actually dangerous. The magnetic field would become weaker, leaving the atmosphere vulnerable to high energy particles from the Van Allen radiation belts, layers of plasma above Earth held in place by the magnetic field. When these particles and the atmosphere collide, it produces radiation. Not good. A study in Greenland has shown that this has happened in the past.

Although this blog entry may have scared you, science is still on our side. Geologists have not been able to make a relationship between these magnetic reversals and extinctions of species.

The end of the chron is upon us! But don't worry. Earth will be fine. Hopefully.

That's all for today! Let me know stuff I missed and got wrong in the comments, or to suggest a future topic as well. Also, this is the first blog where you can actually follow my blog know and receive updates via email when I upload something new.

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

The Misfit Organ

Hello, scientists!

Today is going to be a short entry, but it will explain a question that many of you have probably asked or heard: why does the appendix exist? Why has it hung onto us? All it does it gives us diseases, right? All these questions will be answered today.

The first step to discovering what the appendix does is knowing where it is. It is where the small and large intestine intersect, and is also connected to the colon. These three organs are part of the digestive system, so the appendix probably helps us with digesting food. However, studies have shown that the appendix doesn't really do anything during this time. So yes, the appendix is truly useless.

Over time, humans got the idea that while it doesn't help humans now, it did in the past. Long ago, humans ate more vegetables than today and in the recent* past. As humans' diets changed, the appendix shrunk so the stomach would have more room inside the body. 

Here comes the proof.

Koalas and similar mammals have been found to have a longer appendix than humans. This makes sense so far because their main diet is leaves, not meat. Because the appendix is longer, it is able to host bacteria. This bacteria helps in digesting cellulose, material from plant walls, which surround plant cells.

In short, the appendix's main purpose is to host bacteria that help to break down veggies. No longer useful to us, but very important to other species.

I know this is kind of short, but I really wanted to address this issue. It doesn't really seem like a lot of people know about this, and it is kind of worth knowing about. Anyway, make sure to comment about missed and wrong stuff, suggestions for topics, or just regular comments! Next time we'll be covering a geology topic, so tune in tomorrow.

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

*recent refers to about the past few thousand years

Wormholes: The Coolest Tunnels Ever

Hello scientists!

Today we are going to look at an object of science that may not even exist. As you can probably guess from the title, this hypothetical thing is a wormhole.

First of all, it is debatable whether wormholes are real. The theory of general relativity allows them to exist, but they don't necessarily do. So, don't get your hopes up.

There are two types of wormholes we're going to talk about. The Schwarzschild wormhole is the first kind that humans have hypothesized. In short, this wormhole connects two points in spacetime that can be entered through a black hole that doesn't spin and not electrically charged. Somewhere else in spacetime, the particles are expelled from a white hole, the exit of the wormhole. Think of black holes and white holes as polar opposites. You can only enter through a black hole and come out a white hole, not the other way around.

This sounds a little complicated (because it is) and I may have lost you. This may not even be correct, and this is just a summarization. However, the good news is that you don't have to understand this because it is impossible (kind of). If the two points in spacetime are in the same universe (and yes, there is more than one universe, we may revisit this in another blog entry) the wormhole will collapse too quickly for light or anything slower than light to travel through it.

The other kind of wormhole is called a traversable wormhole. As the name suggests, this wormhole is a lot more useful for faster-than-light travel. Firstly, you can travel through this wormhole in both directions. Also, you can travel to either the same universe or a different universe. The problem is, you either need exotic matter or negative mass cosmic strings.

If you're confused about the last two terms I mentioned, you're not alone. Scientists, as of now, don't know how to create either. However, quantum effects may support a traversable wormhole, something that we know more about.

If you are absolutely lost, it's basically because I'm using terms that no one except scientists use. It doesn't help that we are talking about something that doesn't exist. If I got you confused, my main point is that there are two types of wormholes, and one actually may be able to be created by humans.

Let's talk about if you were to travel through one of these wormholes. First of all, a wormhole from a park to a beach would look something like this:

Pretty strange, huh?

You wouldn't be traveling faster than light. Say you traveling from Point A to Point B. If you took a wormhole, you would beat a beam of light that didn't go through the wormhole. However, if that beam of light came through the wormhole with you, the beam of light would get to Point B first.

Time travel is also possible. All you have to do is force one wormhole to move at high speeds. If you then entered through the moving wormhole and came out the still one, you would have just traveled into the past. There is a problem, though. There are many time paradoxes out there. What if you killed your grandparent before your parent was born? Would you exist? If you didn't, then you couldn't have killed your grandparent.

One way to avoid these paradoxes is that if you travel through time, you also travel to a parallel universe. After being studied by scientists, this is, in fact possible. In conclusion, this means that wormholes are possible, and it comes with cool stuff like teleportation and time travel!

This is really kind of confusing, and definitely not the best blog I'm going to post. In fact, yesterday's was probably better. So post comments if you have corrections, questions, suggestions for topics, or just want to say something. Anyway, next time we're going to visit life science, so tune in tomorrow!

Until next time,

Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

Defying Physics to Bring You Clean Energy

Hello, scientists!

I would like to note that this is my first post ever, so this may not be perfect, but I decided to see how I do! Speaking of this blog, you may be asking why I started it. Well, I like science and math, and the two seem to go hand in hand. I also decided that many people don't enjoy science as much as possible because it can be boring if presented in the wrong way. With this blog, I'll (try) to make science more interesting than you may have thought before.

Anyway, I should probably move on today's topic: the speed of light.

In many science fiction stories and movies, we always see a spaceship zooming off into the cosmos at hyper speed. However, we are told again and again that things can't travel faster than the speed of light due to Einstein's theory of relativity.

Today, let's try to prove Mr. Einstein wrong, a very difficult thing to do. We all know, either by heart or by Google, that the speed of light is about 300,000 km/s. That's incredibly fast, and it's difficult to make something travel that speed. Luckily for us, that speed is not always correct. To explain this, I created this little metaphor. I could say that cars travel at 763 mph, the top speed of the fastest car. You could easily prove me wrong by going on the highway. You won't see any cars breaking the sound barrier. The main point is, objects, like light or cars, may not always travel at their top speed. For example, light only travels 300,000 km/s in a vacuum like space, but about only about two-thirds that speed in something like water.

At this point, let's turn to a clean source of power. Nuclear reactors, although appearing just as a white, curved, dull tower at first, may be the construction containing a crucial clue to this confusing case. While creating energy, the reactor accelerates particles are close to "c", the speed of light in a vacuum. When the particles travel through water, water slows down the light around it, but not the particles themselves, and the particles will travel faster than light.

Hurrah! We have moved things faster than the speed of light! But there is just one problem. "You haven't proven anything yet," you may think, and you're absolutely correct. Here's the proof; you've asked for it.

When something, such as the particles we were discussing before, go faster than the light around it, it emits light. Scientists have named this Chernobyl's glow, presumably named after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. You can see this in action if you happen to witness a nuclear reaction. If you haven't, this is what it looks like:

This image is the fuel rods for the nuclear reaction emerged in water. The bright blue glow you see is Chernobyl's glow, signaling that particles are traveling faster than the speed of light around them.

This may have disappointed you because you still can't travel at hyper speed, but you can! The slowest recorded speed of light is a mere 36 mph. This occurred when light went through the element rubidium at extremely low temperatures. Incredibly, light has also been stopped altogether before, but it doesn't count as the slowest speed because it's not speed at all. So if you run slower than your friends, cheer yourself up by reminding yourself that you are going at speeds that people once thought were impossible.

That's all for now! This is my first rodeo, so let me know how I did by commenting! Also, feel free to comment about things I missed or got wrong. Lastly, if you have any questions, just ask in the comments and I'll try to answer them next time.

Until next time,
Ben's jamin'

Benjamin

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

Source for this info: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/6546462/The-10-weirdest-physics-facts-from-relativity-to-quantum-physics.html (among other things)