February 2012
15 posts
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I think I’m finally decided on my choice of programs.
Astronomy and Astrophysics (Major)
Physics: Life and Environment (Minor)
Philosophy (Minor)
I honestly cannot express my excitement. Best programs ever.
existenceisfertile replied to your quote: All of quantum physics is contained in the…
the answer is probably really obvious. :|
Interesting. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that response from someone. I think like many things governed by this universe, it is something that is beyond human comprehension. It is outside the limits of our comprehension for clear reasons, I think....
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“All of quantum physics is contained in the two-slit experiment. Unfortunately,...”
– Richard Feynman
Exploring the Cosmos: What the Higgs is going on? →
exploringthecosmos:
People generally have an intuition for what mass* is, but no one quite understands it to the level that we would like. You can easily distinguish between an object that has little mass, say an ant, and an object that is very massive, like an elephant. The order of magnitude difference between the mass of an ant and an elephant is equivalent to that of the span of all masses...
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In search of the origin of mass →
Particle physics explores the structure of matter by studying the behaviour of its most fundamental constituents. Despite the remarkable success of our theories, there remains much that is fundamental but unexplained. One of our most pressing questions concerns the origin of mass. Our favoured theoretical explanation for the existence of mass also predicts the existence of a particle that has...
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The Mysteries of Mass →
Physicists are hunting for an elusive particle that would reveal the presence of a new kind of fi eld that permeates all of reality. Finding that Higgs fi eld will give us a more complete understanding about how the universe works
By Gordon Kane
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The Higgs Boson →
It could give mathematical consistency to the standard model-the theory that describes the in teractions of fun dam en tal particles. The search for the elusive particle will require new accelerators
by MartinusJ. G. Veltman; 1986
breakthrough-by-design asked: Why can't I stop finding your posts so interesting. I want to watch everything until my brain explodes from a white hole. ;) hahaha
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Planck Mass
I recently posted a question regarding the Planck Mass here, and got no responses so I figured I’d update anyone who was curious and without any answers.
I spoke to my professors and she simply stated that it’s the reason why physicists don’t understand the mechanism by which things acquire mass. The Planck Time corresponds to the smallest duration of time and the Planck Length corresponds to the...
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WatchWhere Have All the Quasars Gone?
by Dunlap Institute
An international team of astronomers has discovered two gigantic black holes with masses about 10 billion times the mass of our sun. These black holes have a mass more than 50 per cent greater than any other previously measured. “They may be the dormant remains of quasars that were extremely luminous billions of years ago,” says Professor...
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WatchMy Path to Space, by NASA Astronaut Dr. Drew Feustel
by Dunlap Institute
Ever wondered what it takes to become an astronaut? Dr. Drew Feustel worked as a car mechanic, got a PhD in geophysics and worked for oil companies before enrolling in the astronaut program. In this talk, he share his memories from his two trips aboard the space shuttle: - Three spacewalks to work on the Hubble Space...
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“Your mom’s so fat, she has translational symmetry.”
– A friend of mine during physics class.
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WatchPulsars 101, by Dr. René Breton
by Dunlap Institute
Neutron stars are among the most extreme objects populating our Universe and represent one of the ultimate evolutionary stages of massive stars that explode in supernovae. These stellar remnants are small — 10 km in radius — but have densities comparable to atomic nuclei, and yet can spin at staggering rates of several hundred...
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A question regarding the Planck mass!
For an astronomy assignment, we had to derive the Planck mass, but upon doing so, we realized that this value is much larger than say, the mass of a proton. The Planck size, for example, corresponds to the “smallest” length physically possible. But my questions is this: Why then is the Planck mass so big in comparison with, say, the mass of the proton? Planck mass has an exponent of...
January 2012
38 posts
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WatchStellar Systems 101, by Dr. Markus Janson
by Dunlap Institute
Although our own Solar system only contains one star, many stellar systems include two stars (binaries), or an even greater number of stellar components. In this lecture, I discuss the variety of architectures of stellar systems, addressing questions such as what fraction of stellar systems are multiple, and how the stars in a...
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WatchInstrumentation 101, by Dr. Suresh Sivanandam
by Dunlap Institute
New developments in astronomical instrumentation open entirely new discovery spaces in astronomy. In fact, new instrumentation has often been the driver of very important discoveries. This lecture discusses the physical processes that directly affect our ability to detect and characterize astrophysical objects. This lecture...
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WatchTaking the Twinkle Out of the Stars
by Dunlap Institute
The Rise of Telescopes with Adaptive Optics and Giant Lasers Stars twinkle because turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere —heat haze— gets between our eyes and the stars. The same thing happens when we look through telescopes —the atmosphere blurs the heavens, making them as much as 100 times fuzzier than they should be. ...
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The Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto offers monthly public talks. They recently began recording the public talks for those who couldn’t make them. From here on out, I will begin uploading them, but for those would like more information information about Dunlap, click here.
I hope you guys don’t mind that that the following posts will...
ridonculus asked: Hi there good to see you are up and running again. I sent tumblr a mail that your account was hacked and they were so kind to respond immediately removing all those pesky posts as well. Cheerio!
Anonymous asked: what instruments are used to measure a earthquake?
sparverius asked: Think you're hacked..
avarielle asked: Hey I think your blog's been hacked. Just so you know.
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Observing the Observer
A Quantum Paradox
The idea that quantum mechanics applies to everything in the universe, even to us humans, can lead to some strange conclusions. Consider this variant of the iconic Schrödinger cat thought experiment that Nobel laureate Eugene P. Wigner came up with in 1961 and David Deutsch of the University of Oxford elaborated on in 1986.
Suppose that a very able experimental physicist,...
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“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; the rest is opinion.”
– Democritus
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Quantum Seeing in the Dark →
Quantum optics demonstrates the existence of interaction-free measurements: the detection of objects without light—or anything else—ever hitting them by Paul Kwiat, Harald Weinfurter and Anton Zeilinger
Just in case any of you ever wondered how you could figure out whether Schrodinger’s Cat was dead or alive, without… you know… destroying its superposition.
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THE CAUSES OF COLOR →
They are diverse, but they all stem from the same root: It is the electrons in matter, through their varied responses to different wavelengths oElight, that make the world a many-colored place.
by Kurt Nassau
It is long, but it is worth the read.
lembarrasduchoix replied to your post: Foundations of Physics Calculus II Origin and…
I loved linear algebra. Good luck!
I was so excited for it that I had started watching MIT lecture videos online before the semester started. And I’m continuing to watch them as the course progresses. So far, I’m really enjoying how abstract it is for a mathematics course. Did you take it...
keplereleven asked: Hi, I see you like physics a lot so I was wondering if you wanted to be a member of my physics blog (you can find the link on my blog). Let me know if you like the idea, bye!
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Foundations of Physics
Calculus II
Origin and Evolution of the Universe
Physics at the Cutting Edge
Linear Algebra
In an Origin and Evolution of the Universe assignment, we were asked to compute an order of magnitude estimate of the number of grains of sand that composes all of the beaches across the planet which is supposed to represent the number of stars in the observable universe....
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WatchA training set of simulated and real galaxy-scale gravitational lenses. The real ones were found in the HST Extended Groth Strip (EGS) survey both by professional eyeball inspection (Moustakas et al 2007) and by a software robot (Marshall et al 2009); the simulated ones were used to teach the robot what lenses look like.
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The smoky pink core of the Omega Nebula
A new image of the Omega Nebula, captured by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), is one of the sharpest of this object ever taken from the ground. It shows the dusty, rose-coloured central parts of this famous stellar nursery and reveals extraordinary detail in the cosmic landscape of gas clouds, dust and newborn stars.
The colourful gas and dark dust in the Omega Nebula serve as the...
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‘Impossible’ Crystals May Have Come From Space
A unique type of crystal appears to have its origins in meteorites, according to a new study. Quasicrystals are an unusual type of crystalline structure that were initially thought to have only occurred in artificial conditions in labs, and impossible in nature, until they were found by geologists in the Koryak mountains in Russia in 2009. Their origin was unknown, but now new evidence...
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keplereleven asked: So, what if Earth had two Moons?
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New insight into the bar in the center of the...
It sounds like the start of a bad joke: do you know about the bar in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy? Astronomers first recognized almost 80 years ago that the Milky Way Galaxy, around which the sun and its planets orbit, is a huge spiral galaxy. This isn’t obvious when you look at the band of starlight across the sky, because we are inside the galaxy: it’s as if the sun and solar system...
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Ultra-compact dwarf galaxies are bright star...
Astronomy & Astrophysics is publishing a new statistical study of the so-called ‘ultra-compact dwarf galaxies’ (UCDs), which are still mysterious objects. A team of astronomers has investigated how many of these UCDs exist in nearby galaxy clusters and groups. They show that the properties of UCDs match those of bright star clusters.
Astronomy & Astrophysics is...
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Carl Sagan once said that “…astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.” It provides us with knowledge of the world in which we live; our place in the universe in which we have come to inhabit a mere moment in cosmic time. It provides the ability to turn back the cosmic clock and watch our universe unfold before our eyes. It grants us hope on the grandest of scales...
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I’m quite sick and want nothing more than to have a bath while watching Universe programs, then lay in bed reading my book, “What if the Earth had two Moons?”
Perhaps some of you would leave me questions and/or comments, I’d love to answer anything you have.
C’mon guys!
Make me feel better? :)
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Dark matter mystery deepens
Like all galaxies, our Milky Way is home to a strange substance called dark matter. Dark matter is invisible, betraying its presence only through its gravitational pull. Without dark matter holding them together, our galaxy’s speedy stars would fly off in all directions. The nature of dark matter is a mystery — a mystery that a new study has only deepened.
“After completing...