Tag: space

Posted in Science & Nature

Verneshot

Posted on by Jinavie

If there is one thing we learn about dinosaurs, it is that they were wiped off the face of the Earth by an asteroid impact. Another feasible theory is that a supervolcano eruption completely destroyed the ecosystem, wiping out all life on Earth by either directly destroying them via a massive shockwave (if they were within range), or by slowly starving them as the resultant plumes of smoke would have blotted out the sun for years. But interestingly, scientists looking back over some extinction-level events of the past, discovered signs of both an asteroid strike and a volcanic eruption. This sounds to be extremely implausible, as the odds of both happening in the same era are near impossible (unless there is some extremely vengeful deity that hated the dinosaurs).

One theory that tries to explain all of this is the verneshot theory. To better understand the concept of a verneshot, imagine a cartoon character such as Yosemite Sam (the beloved red-bearded, gunslinging cowboy character on Looney Toons) shooting his gun wildly into the sky. Cartoon logic dictates that his bullets will eventually fall back on some unwary bystander. Now imagine if the Earth did the same thing, but instead of a bullet it shoots a giant piece of rock capable of causing mass extinction into the sky.

A verneshot occurs in a similar way a supervolcano erupts, where there is an incredible build-up of super hot molten rock. A supervolcano would be when this molten rock erupts as lava. In the case of a verneshot, massive amounts of carbon dioxide build up instead, leading to a pressure build-up under the crust. When the pressure becomes too much, the crust explodes, with the piece (of indeterminate size) being rocketed into space. However, the giant rock does not end up in space. Instead, it is only launched to a sub-orbital altitude, meaning it will come crashing back down to Earth due to gravity. Thus, a verneshot is when a volcanic eruption acts as a giant cannon to launch a piece of the Earth into the sky, which falls back to Earth as an asteroid-like object.

Posted in Science & Nature

Newton’s Apple

Posted on by Jinavie

Common belief is that Newton discovered gravity after an apple dropped on his head. Although there is no historical evidence to support this myth, it has become a popular story. There are two common responses to this story: the first is “Wow, Newton was a smart cookie” and the second is “Pfft, I could have discovered gravity without an apple, it is such an easy thing.”

The latter group of people are idiots. Newton did not “discover” gravity. Human beings have known that objects fall to the ground since the dawn of time and have utilised it in ways ranging from sports to killing other people by crushing them with giant rocks. Even animals know of the concept as seen by eagles dropping turtles on rocks to crack the shell. In fact, if you could not figure that out, then you would really be an idiot.

The reason why Newton is famous is not because he found that apples fall from trees, it is because he observed the phenomenon, noting that it was always perpendicular to the ground, which in combination with the knowledge that the Earth is round suggests that objects tend to fall towards the centre of the Earth. Again, Newton’s brilliance was not that he simply observed an apple falling, it was that he pondered it and spent years researching it until he discovered the way gravity behaves. He devised formulas to estimate how gravity functions, even applying it to predict how the moon orbits around the Earth. Thanks to Newton, we are able to model the world around us and send rockets to the moon without launching our astronauts in to the depth of space with no hope of recovery. 

Interestingly, physicists still do not know what causes gravity. There are many theories, such as particles called gravitrons attracting two objects to each other. Although the mathematics of two objects attracting each other has been accurately calculated, it is unknown what causes it. Only after you discover the truth behind how gravity functions can you say that “I could have discovered gravity in my sleep” (actually, even then you probably spent decades just trying to grasp the concept).

Before you criticise, know what you are criticising. 


Posted in Science & Nature

Dimensions: To Infinity And Beyond

Posted on by Jinavie

So far we have covered 6 dimensions: point, length, width, depth, time, alternate universe and travelling between possible futures being the key feature of each. Hopefully, you as the reader have caught on to the pattern of dimensions so far: point (0D) -> line (1D) -> branch (2D) -> fold/point (3D) -> line (4D) -> branch (5D) -> fold (6D)… This pattern of point/line/branch/fold continues past the 6th dimension. Therefore, the 6th dimension acts quite similarly to our 3D world in that we can assume it to be a point.
The 3rd dimension was a point in time. So what could the 6th dimension be a point of? The answer is infinity.

It was mentioned that the 5th dimension carries all of the possible alternate timelines that are created from a certain point. In the 6th dimension, these branches fold up to meet so that we can travel freely between every point. Therefore, the 6th dimension is a point that contains every possible timeline – where anything that can happen in the universe exists. This is infinity.

But by definition, infinity encompasses everything as there is no “end”. Then has our journey ended? In a fascinating turn of events, it turns out that we can not only ascend to the 7th dimension, but there are still 3 more dimensions to travel through.
By now we know that as the 6th dimension was a “fold/point” dimension, the 7th dimension must be a line connecting different 6D points (infinity). How can there be more than one infinity? Actually, infinity is only as great as the initial conditions from whence it was born – the Big Bang. In terms of universes, these initial conditions are the laws of physics such as gravity, the speed of light and hundreds of other constants. For example, gravity is 9.81ms-² in our universe. But if this value was off by even 0.0001, our entire universe would be completely different. Ergo, our universe and all the timelines that have and will form depend on the Big Bang. This also means that there can be many other “infinities” with different laws of physics. The line that these infinities lie on is the 7th dimension.

A good analogy for this is genetics. People’s lives have different outcomes depending on their choice, actions and random chance, but they cannot escape their pre-programmed genes. For example, it is not expected that a boy will (naturally) grow into a woman or sprout wings and fly. But if they were born with two X chromosomes or born with the DNA of a bird, this life would be possible.

Now let us follow the basic pattern to move to the 8th dimension. Here, the 7D line branches to meet yet another point of infinity (6D). And yet again, we can bend these branches through the 9th dimension to jump from one universe to another.

Lastly, we can take all of these branches and folds that encompass all possible timelines and all possible universes and draw it as a single point in the 10th dimension. This one point is the relative and absolute “everything”.

But what now? It is impossible to reach past the point of “everything possible”. This means that we cannot jump up another dimension as no other 10D point exists to be connected to. Ergo, the highest possible dimension is 10D and this is the basis of string theory. The 10th dimension is where the so-called superstring vibrates to form the subatomic particles that are building blocks of every matter in our universe.

As mind-boggling a journey it was, if you were able to follow through from the start, we have travelled from a single point that occupies no space to another point that encompasses all things possible in our universe in all possible timelines. We have zoomed out to the point that there is no longer a box to “think outside of”.

Can one ever reach that point where one knows everything that was, is and will be? To know every piece of knowledge that is the absolute yet relative truth? Although we cannot physically jump through dimensions, our minds can keep rising up to raise our level of understanding and enlightenment higher and higher. As we only live in the 3rd dimension, we have no less than 7 more dimensions to explore and understand. Only when we have reached the 10th dimension can we say that everything possible has been discovered.

Until then, anything is possible.

(This post is part of a series exploring the concepts of dimensions. Read all of them here: https://jineralknowledge.com/tag/dimensions/?order=asc)

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Posted in Science & Nature

Dimensions: Time Warp

Posted on by Jinavie

The first three dimensions covered the three variables that determine space: length, width and depth. Then what could the fourth dimension possibly add? The answer is duration. The third dimension effectively becomes a point and the 4th dimension connects different 3D points to form a line that we refer to as time. For example, the “you” at this exact time is different to the “you” in five years time. These two “you”s are different (3D) points that lie on a 4D line (more specifically, your life). This is exactly the same principle as the 0th dimension being points in a 1D line, except three dimensions higher.

As a “moment” in 3D space is just a point on a 4D line, travelling from one point in time to another (i.e. time-travelling) would be as easy as walking along a straight line for a four-dimensional being. This concept is mind-blowing for us as we cannot fathom the concept of manipulating time. We are unable to see time as a dimension as we exist in a lower dimension. Every single moment in our lives is a brick that paves the road called time, meaning that we can only see each individual brick and not the overall picture. This is exactly the same as how a Flatlander could not understand the concept of depth and how we can be above them.

Although we see time as linear and straight, we are under the same illusion as the ant walking down the Mobius strip. Time is actually twisting and turning in the fifth dimension, creating multiple timelines that branch out like a tree of possibilities. These branches are influenced by our own choice, chance and the actions of others.
In other words, if a man proposes to girl A then he will go down the branch where he marries girl A. However, if he chose not to propose, he would end up marrying a different girl (or not at all). Therefore, he has entered a different branch than the girl A branch.
Now, if the man wanted to go from a timeline where he married girl A to another timeline where he married girl B, what could he do?

One method would be if he bent the 4th dimension (time) on itself through the 5th dimension to travel back in time to when he met the girl and not ask her number. This is exactly like folding a 1D line into a 2D circle to make the end point meet the starting point. However, to marry girl B he would have to make the right sequence of choices that lead to him marrying girl B (much like a role-playing game). This is the long-way round that would be too time-consuming and complex.

A simpler approach would be if he folded the 5th dimension through the sixth dimension and jump from the ending of timeline A to timeline B. This would be like the finger-lifting analogy we have been using time after time. If we pretend that the 5th dimension was a piece of paper, then we could fold it into a 6D cylinder so that the two edges meet. Now we are able to jump from one ending to another effortlessly, just as we did in the 2nd dimension.

It is easy to confuse the 5th and 6th dimension as they both deal with “alternate realitites”. Here is one way to differentiate the two: 5D space is like a 2D space for time – a flat plane where different timelines cross each other. Therefore, it can contain all of the possible outcomes from an initial condition – that depends on an action, choice or chance – such as your conception (visualise a dot on a piece of paper with many lines radiating out from it).
If we were to put a dot on a piece of paper above the first piece of paper (in the 3D space for time), we have entered a universe where there is a completely different starting point (before your conception), such as dinosaurs not existing. This means that the line called “you” may not even exist, and the two pieces of paper would never meet. The only way to jump from one piece of paper (5D) to the other would be through the 6th dimension.
Therefore, by jumping up a dimension, we gain a degree of freedom where we can move in yet another direction. This is seen between every dimension, such as 2D versus 3D. The 6th dimension merely lets us travel between different sheets of 5D paper.

So somehow we have reached the 6th dimension where one can not only time-travel, but jump from one alternate reality to another. Shall we venture further into the seventh dimension – infinity – and beyond?

(This post is part of a series exploring the concepts of dimensions. Read all of them here: https://jineralknowledge.com/tag/dimensions/?order=asc)

(Stick figures from xkcd)

Posted in Philosophy

Untitled

Posted on by Jinavie

Solve the following riddle:

It is greater than a god and more evil than a devil.
The poor have it while the rich lack it.
If you eat it, you will die.

To find the answer, you must look within yourself and travel against the flow of time.

Continue reading “Untitled” →

Posted in Science & Nature

Water Bear

Posted on by Jinavie

A water bear, also called a tardigrade, is actually an insect and not a bear. The nickname is due to its slow, bear-like gait. It ranges in size from 0.1 to 1.5mm and resembles a short caterpillar with eight legs.
The reason for the water bear’s fame is its amazing survivability. In short, a water bear can live anywhere.

Water bears are capable of cryptobiosis. This can be seen as an extension of hibernation and it is an organism’s ability to lower its metabolism to near-death rates in order to survive a harsh environment. In this state, a water bear can survive for indefinite amounts of time.

Why is cryptobiosis useful? The answer can be found from the water bear’s natural habitats. The water bear is found on the highest point of the Himalayas, the deepest oceans, hot springs and virtually any location from the North Pole to the South Pole. It can survive temperatures from 151°C to minus 273°C, the intense pressures in deep seas and even vacuum states.
Furthermore, water bears can survive in space. A recent experiment by NASA on the International Space Station found that not only can they live in space, but they also mated and laid eggs that later hatched. They can even survive heavy doses of radiation and toxic chemicals.

Ergo, if a cockroach can survive a nuclear war, water bears can survive even if the Earth was split in two. If we took a leaf out of the water bear’s book and lead a slower life, could we live a longer and happier life?

Posted in Science & Nature

Star Wars

Posted on by Jinavie

Star Wars is packed to the brim with epic scenes of starship dogfights. The many “pewpews” of laser cannons and massive explosions characterise this classic science fiction film series. However, this is an example of a classic “unscientific fiction”.

The great explosions of ships would never generate a loud sound as in space, there is no air or any medium to carry the sound waves. As the tagline for the movie Alien states: nobody can hear you scream in space.
In this regard, 2001: A Space Odyssey is most accurate in its portrayal of space. Not only does it have absolute silence during its scenes outside in space, but it also has accurate portrayals of space-science such as magnetic boots and rotating toilets to generate gravity.