Archive for the ‘Science’ Category
I saw an amazing picture the other night on space.com Its a picture of earth taken by Voyager 1 from 4 billion miles away, 4,000,000,000. If you think about it that works out as
6,437,376,000,000 meters
6.437376e+012 meters
6,437,376,000 kilometers
6.437376e+009 kilometers
0.0006804457 of a light year lol
If you take the speed of light 3.00E+08 you can calculate that it took the picture from voyager 21,547.92 seconds or 357.63 minute or 5.96 hours to reach earth. An amazing picture in anybodys books you can see it at and many other great space shots at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/top10_images_010925-11.html
With America in the grips of the cold war scientists of the USA where given the task of building a spy satellite with the purpose of detecting the detonation of nuclear warheads. This system would pick up the tell tale gamma ray burst (GRB) produced by the detonation. When a nuclear weapon is detonated it produces alpha, beta and gamma radiation, gamma is the most penotrating hence the thickness of materials used in nuclear shelters to keep them out. Because of this they are an excellent way of detecting the testing of nuclear weapons.
Just when you thought Quantum mechanics couldnt get any weirder it does, Quantum Superposition describes the effect of a quantum unit being in multiple states at the same time. Such as a particle being in multiple positions at the same time. Check out this link for more information.
See also Superposition principle
The double slit experiment (DSE) is one of the most well known experiments of physics as it along with Einsteins theories established ‘particle-wave duality’ also known as quantum particle-wave duality. The DSE was created many years earlier to this but it was Einstein who finally pulled things together.
Atoms are the basic building blocks of matter the list of current known/theorized atoms can be found at http://www.webelements.com/. An atom is composed of electrons, neutrons and protons, the structure of the atom and its place in physics is explained below.
‘Nasa’ lets face it conjures up different meanings for different people. For some they see spectacular failure. After all, how many other companies can take a few billion dollars, send a space ship hurtling across the solar system only to design it with a faulty landing system! Or use a pegasus rocket for launching sats and keep on using it despite its 50 odd percent failure rate!
But when they succeed, they really do succeed.
If your looking for someone to blame for giving you the headaches of Relativity blame James Clerk Maxwell. Many of you have probably heard the statement “standing on the shoulders of giants” in the case of Special Relativity this is most definitely true. Maxwell on the dawn of the 1900′s published a theory in which he combined the forces of electricity and magnetism into one force electromagnetism.
Heres some pics I’ve taken of the Eclipse, appologies for the quality this was taken with a simple nokia mobile phone using a telescope or binos! The strange sparklies are caused by the phones night vision mode! What will nokia think of next. They dont do it justice but I hope you will find them intresting.
Einstein’s famous equation is probably the most well known and interesting equations in physics. His equation for finding the amount of energy in an amount of mass was one of the equations he was most upset with. Not because of its spectacular failure but due to its spectacular success. He was remember for saying if he had realised the consequences on his success he would have remained a clerk. Sad to think that one of humanities greatest minds could be so downhearted about one of his greatest achievments.
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