February 2012
15 posts
hahacanstoplaughing asked: OMG first i just want to say that i've been following your blog for the longest time /checks archives.. crap.. a year now? (wow, someone's been traveling at the speed of light!) and okay i think it's superbly extremely fantastically awesome.. and now to my point: i know you're majoring in astronomy? (or at least partially, if that's possible).. i have a science olympiad...
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14-billion-years-later replied to your post: When your younger sibling doesn’t know what “f(x)”…
dy/dx muthafuckaaaaa
Wait no nvm. What have I been doing in math class?
Hahaha, that was great. Doing differential and integral calculus… How to work with basic functions again…
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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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WatchDark Matter 101, by Dr. Anne-Marie Weijmans
by Dunlap Institute
Dark matter plays an important role in our Universe: without it, galaxies and stars could not have formed. Through gravitational instabilities, the initially smooth distribution of dark matter in the early Universe started to form clumps, in which gas could cool down and form stars. Galaxy formation theories give us an idea of...
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“Your mom’s so fat, she has translational symmetry.”
– A friend of mine during physics class.
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WatchCosmology 101, by Dr. Adrienne Erickcek
by Dunlap Institute
Nearly 400,000 years after the Big Bang, electrons and protons formed the first hydrogen atoms, and the Universe became transparent. The photons that were released at that time form the cosmic microwave background that we observe today. The cosmic microwave background reveals three surprising features of our Universe: 1. In its...