Geminid Meteor Shower

The Geminid meteor shower is due to peak on the 14th and 15th of December 2011, and usually gives one of the best displays of meteors of the year. If you wish to see this shower, it is best to go somewhere away from streetlights after about 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening (here in the UK) and look to the east. However your vision of them may be impaired by the waning gibbous moon that will preside over that portion of the sky for the majority of the evening.

In other News, tomorrow Cern are due to make several announcements about the Higgs Boson. Whilst it is extremely unlikely that they will announce its discovery, it is believed that they will reveal the amount of evidence that they currently have in the search for what has been named "the God Particle". I'll post tomorrow with a summary of their announcement.

 Happy stargazing (and meteor watching) Folks!!

StudentAstro on Youtube!!

  Yes folks, Ive just started a youtube channel, on which i shall hopefully be making videos full of use tips on stargazing, exam revision for physics and sciences, a bit more of what I do on here and whatever else you kind folks comment and ask for from the StudentAstro Channel!! (StudentAstro1011 is the channel name by the way)

 Happy Stargazing everyone

News update

Ok guys, sorry that I've not been broadcasting at my usual rate, but life here at Uni has been pretty mad, what with exams and revision and the like.
Well, lets do the news: Remember the Faster than light neutrinos? Well, the experiment was repeated with the same result, so they have decided to move the experiment to the LHC complex at CERN, to observe the particles close up when they travel at high speeds, as some particle physicists have discovered that if neutrinos can travel faster than light, then there should be a particle decay occurring (the higher energy particle losing energy by emitting other particles) which they should be able to see at the LHC.

Happy Stargazing folks

Big News Folks!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you news, big news. Literally big news, not “big” in the sense of the discovery of the Higgs boson or anything quite like that, but BIG.

An asteroid, with a diameter of 400 metres (or, if you’re a fan of the imperial scale of measurement, 1,300 feet) is currently passing by the Earth. The asteroid will reach its closest point to the Earth in its “flyby” at 23:28 GMT, and will be 325,000 kilometres away (or 202,000 miles) from the surface of our planet.

  To put this into some perspective, the moon is 384,399 kilometres (238854 miles) away from us. This means that this asteroid will be passing by the earth between the Moon and ourselves, and will be inside the moons orbit.

 Whilst we have been assured that the trajectory of the asteroid is not one that would lead to a collision course (and modern astrophysicists can predict the trajectory of these asteroids for many hundreds of years) it is the closest “flyby” of any near Earth object (which is the term given to any object that passes through the trajectory of the Earths’ orbit) since 1976, and we shall not receive another such close visit until the year 2028.

The asteroid (named 2005 YU55) will not be visible to the naked eye astronomer (if it were, we should be worried!!) but any of you with a telescope with a diameter of 15cm or larger should stand a very good chance of seeing the largest asteroid flyby that we have ever known about in advance as it travels across our sky between now and Thursday the Tenth of November.

  If I am able, your very own StudentAstro shall attempt to see and photograph the asteroid tonight as it passes across the sky over  StudentAstroHQ (my Uni digs).

Happy Asteroid hunting (and stargazing)!!! 

Newtons Laws of Motion

Sir Isaac Newton is definitely most famous because of his exploits with an apple tree, and apple and (probably) a sore head, which infamously enabled him to proclaim the existence of a Force of nature which he called "Gravity" but he did discover something else, something which is still used today, and in the exact same form as Newton first discovered. (Unlike Gravity, (which has been improved upon by the likes of Albert Einstein) His Laws of Motion are still used today to enable physicists, engineers, mathematicians, and many others to calculate the behaviour of any object that is moving.

Newton devised just 3 simple laws of motion, all of which are essential to anybody with an interest in physics or engineering.

The First law was worded thus: Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform (unaccelerated) motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force

Now, whilst this may seem fairly obvious to everybody reading this, as it simply means that (for example) your computer (which is presumably stationary as you read this) will remain stationary until you pick it up, or push it away or pull it towards you. But this law has one part that people at the time had trouble grasping: uniform motion without the application of a force. And, if you think about it, the notion of something moving without you putting any force into moving it does seem to contradict our understanding of "the way things are", however; Newton explained that forces of friction were always present, so the object was being acted upon by invisible forces. Only in special cases, such as upon a frozen lake, where friction is practically zero, can Newton’s first law of motion be easily observed.

Another point of the First law was a concept of inertia, which is defined at the reluctance of a body to move from a stationary position (such as pushing a heavy box) or to stop when it is already in motion ( for example a person falling over the handlebars of a bike when it crashes into a wall). The law shows that in cases of inertia, a force must be applied. The mass of a body is effectively a measure of its inertia. If an objects velocity only changes by a small amount when a force is applied, then we say it has a high inertia (and usually a high mass). Centripetal force is another concept derived from Newton’s first law, which states that an object must have a force applied if it is to move in a circular fashion.

Newton’s Second Law of Motion is the more famous of the three, and has the majority of the mathematical concept and formulae within it. It is worded as: The rate of change of momentum in a body is directly proportional to the external force acting on the body and takes place in the direction of the force

The formula for momentum can be written as p=mv as it is the product of an objects mass and its velocity, and the applied force, stated in Newton’s law has the formula F=ma and is the definition of the Newton (unit of force and weight) with one Newton being the force which produces an acceleration of 1ms^-1 in a mass of 1kg. This brings up the question of the difference between mass and weight, which are often incorrectly used interchangeably. Mass is a fundamental property of all objects and cannot change. The weight of that object is the force acting upon the object due to gravity.

Finally, Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that: If a body A exerts a force on a body B, then B exerts an equal and oppositely directed force on A.

This law suggests, therefore, that all forces act in pairs, for example, I am exerting a force upon the chair on which I am now sat, the force being equal to my own weight, and the chair is exerting an equal force upwards, against my weight, which is why I do not simply fall through the chair.

 So, that was a (fairly) brief explanation of the 3 Laws of Motion put forth by Sir Isaac Newton, I hope that you have found this useful, please feel free to comment with questions, and suggestions for further posts.

 Happy Stargazing folks!!

METEOR STORM THIS WEEKEND!!!

Ok guys, once in a lifetime news here, the draconid meteor shower is due in October, as per usual, but this time, as the comet that produces the debris that we view as the shower passes, we shall see it from up close, and pass through a cloud of its debris from an earlier pass by the sun. This shall cause a meteor storm to occur, with possibly more than 1 meteor (sometimes known as shooting stars) per second. This is truly worth going out to look for, it doesnt happen very often. If i can do, I'll post pictures of it on here, and if not, please feel free to send me yoyrs to include on this blog.

 Tips on viewing the storm: you dont need any equipment like telescopes or binoculars, just avoid looking towards the moon, as it is a gibbous moon and will therefore be quite bright. Look out between the hours of 6pm and 10pm on the 8th of October, and try on the 7th and the 9th just in case.


 Hope you all see an amazing event!!
 Happy meteor gazing!!

STUDENTastro

Its official dear readers, this is now definitely STUDENTastro. I moved into university digs two weeks ago, and I have just managed to set my laptop up to the internet, so lets resume the blog!!
   Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for reading this in the first place, I only do this because it seems that you enjoy reading my ramblings about the universe and all it holds.
   But, going back down to business, I'm sure you'll have read somewhere, or heard someone mention (especially if you follow me on twitter) that the folks over at CERN thought that they had managed to accellerate a neutrino to a speed greater than the speed of light. It now trandspires that this wasnt correct, and there was a malfunction in some of the equipment used to measure the speed of the neutrino.
  I therefore presume that you're wondering why I'm mentioning something that didnt happen? Well, its because if it had happened, it would have had massive repercussions for the entire world in which we live, not just the realm of high energy particle physics.
  Essentially what it would have meant was that Albert Einstein was wrong about there being a "cosmic speed limit" at which only light has the ability to travel. This would have meant that General Relativity, as well as Special Relativity would have been greatly compromised as valid scientific theories, as would any theory that has come since, and has been based off this idea of a cosmic speed limit.
 So, besides kncoking us back 100 years in terms of our understanding of the universe, how else would this news have effected us? This is where things get... Interesting. If an object can travel faster than light, the time travel would be much more possible, as would teleportation. However, the more unusual repercussion would be to our understanding of cause and effect. As it stands, action 2 can cause action 2, but action 2 cannot have caused action 1 because it occured after action one had been completed. But if objects can travel faster than light, this wouldnt be the case. Actoin 1 could both cause AND BE CAUSED BY action 2. Weird isnt it?
   So this is why physics sighs with relief that this was not the case, and it was just an instrumental error. Or was it...? The folks over at CERN are going to recreate the experiment a few more thousand times, just to make sure.
   Hope you enjoyed this post, and I'm glad to be back on your internets!! Feel free to comment below with suggestions for future posts and your questions!!
  Happy stargazing guys

Recent Updates

Ok. Let's get back in business tonight. Well, to begin with, I must once again apologise for not blogging this last week ladies and Gentlemen, but sue to the rioting that has occurred in Manchester and the nearby towns, as well as London, it has just been too manic to be able to sit down and write a blog about anything other than the sheer panic that these sporadic outbursts of violence has caused.

So, anyway, let's get up to date with recent developments, all of which shall be further explained in their own individual blog posts as soon as I am able to write them up. So, first order of business is one that occurred last weekend. Due to solar flares and geomagnetic storms, the Northern Lights were visible as far south in the UK as Birmingham (for those of you unfamiliar with the geography of the UK, Birmingham is in the Midlands of England). But, defeated by cloud cover once again (as with the lunar eclipse) your friendly StudentAstro was unable to see the Lights. Which is very sad as it is a lifes ambition of mine to see them. Now, theoretically you should get this oppotunity to see them over the more southern regions of the Northern hemisphere every ten years, as I will explain in further blogs, but the truth is that solar storms of sufficient size rarely occur in the direction of the Earth. Why the Northern lights occur, and why we should see them more every ten years will be explained in a future post.

Right, more news. Big news. NASAs is believed to have discovered liquid salt water on the surface of Mars. Now, this is a truly massive piece of news in the world of astrophysics, cosmology, astronomy and the whole scientific world in general, because it greatly effects the Fermi Paradox, and therefore the odds of finding extra-terrestrial life forms elsewhere in the Universe, and even within our own solar system!! But, again, more about this in an upcoming post.

Ok, so, other news, which is more in line with upcoming events more than current news. We are due a fly-past from 2 comets, and an asteroid over the next few months and years. An asteroid is due to fly past the Earth at its closest proximity to the Earth in the entire of its orbit. But it is nowhere near close enough for mass death and destrustion, so please don't panic!!! And the two comets are Elenin and Gerradd. Gerradd will be visible in the sky until 2013. But once again, more will be coming on this is future blogs, along with where the comets will be visible, how to spot them and even a few pictures.

Hope everyone is safe, well and continuing to enjoy reading this blog. Please comment with any questions that you may have.

Happy Stargazing folks!!!

apologies and Thanks

I would like to apologise for my absence from the internet this past couple of months, but I have been suffering from technical difficulties. However, I shall soon be able to resume your normal service of blogs about Space, Astronomy, the Universe and anything else that you might find interesting.
Next, I would like to thank you, dear readers for being patient with me, and it seems, for continuing to show your support for this blog by continuing to follow it.
In my next entries I shall try to write about things that will be much more interesting for all of you to read.
If you have any requests or comments, please feel free to comment, or to drop me a line on Twitter. My username is @Waltonluke

Happy Stargazing

Galaxies and other objects in the fantastic Lunar Eclipse image

I did say that I would point out a few of the galaxies and other objects visible in this amazing picture of the Lunar eclipse that took place on the 15th of June 2011 and here it is:

·         M17 is the Swan Nebula, which is a star formation region of gas and dust, about 5000 light years away from the earth.

·         M18 is an open star cluster in the constellation of Sagittarius, is approximately 32 million years old, and is 4,900 light years away.

·         M20 is known as the Trifid Nebula, and is also a star forming region, approximately 7600 light years away from the Earth, and is a favourite amongst amateur astronomers to try to spot, due to its bright colouring.

·         M21 is another open cluster of stars, with about 57 small, dim stars to be found within it, due to its young age, as it is only 4.6 million years old.

·         M22 is a globular cluster (meaning that all the stars in it orbit a galactic centre point, like a super massive black hole, or a very massive star), located some 10600 light years away from the earth.

·         M23 is another open cluster, approximately 2,150 light-years away from Earth

·         M25 is an open cluster, with a diameter of 19 light years, and is 2000 light years away from our planet.

·         M8, more commonly known as the Lagoon Nebula, has an area of 5500 light years, and is estimated to be between 4,000-6,000 light years from the Earth.

·         M6, or the Butterfly cluster, is an open cluster in the constellation of Scorpius, compromised of numerous hot blue stars and the K-type orange star BM Scorpii, and is 1600 light years away from the Earth

Constellations of the Southern Hemisphere

For anyone living in, or travelling to the Southern Hemisphere, these are the constellations that you can expect to see. Happy stargazing!!

A Solstice Guide

Ok, today, being the 21st of June, is the summer Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the Winter solstice in the Southern, and well, I thought that a brief explanation of what they are, and why they occur might be in order, as it seems to be an event that is almost taken for granted during the modern era.

Well, as to why it occurs, this is also due to the reason that seasons occur, and equinoxes happen as part of this. They all occur because the Earth is tilted upon its axis by between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. This tilt, whilst being a relatively small angle has the ability to ensure that the two hemispheres of the Earth (northern and southern) have different exposure to the sun at all times during the year, causing the natural seasons to occur.

It also means that, on certain days in the year sunrise and sunset occur roughly 12 hours apart, these being called equiluxes, and these are usually mistaken for exquinoxes. Rather, an equinox is when the sun is aligned with the Earths equator, meaning that the axis is tilted neither away nor towards the sun. Hence the equinoxes occur in spring and autumn.

Right, so let us now return to Solstices, as this is our main topic today. The sun appears to be at its most northern and southernmost points in the sky, depending on which hemisphere you are in (if you are in the northern hemisphere, when the sun is at its most northern point, this is the summer solstice, and is the winter solstice for the southern hemisphere. And when the sun is at its most southern position, it is the winter solstice for the northern hemisphere, and the summer solstice for those living south of the equator.) It’s is called a solstice, from the Latin meaning "sun to stand still", due to the apparent movement of the sun in the sky stopping, before reversing direction.

It occurs because of the tilt of the earth’s axis, which means that each hemisphere is either facing away or towards the sun, and these solstices happen when the process reaches its extremes, so when the northern hemisphere is facing the sun at its maximum exposure, this is a summer solstice for the northern hemisphere, and a winter one for the southern hemisphere, and vice versa.

I hope that this has cleared up any existing confusion about solstices, equinoxes and equiluxes.

Just an Amazing Picture.

This is a Picture of the lunar eclipse taken in Iraq, behind it you can see the milky wayand other galaxies, along with other universal objects. I shall label them, and post the picture again soon, with explanations of the objects visible... Its just a beautiful image anyway =)

Constellations of the Northern Hemisphere

It struck me that people may not be able to recognise some of the constellations that make up the night sky, so I've uploaded this handy star map of the northern hemisphere, which should assist you, dear reader, in finding your way around the night sky.

Lunar Eclipse Pictures

Well, I'm afraid to say that I was unable to take any pictures of the eclipse myself, or indeed see it firsthand. Although i did livestream it online. These are 3 of my favourite pictures of the eclipse that I have found whilst looking around on the internet. I hope that you enjoy looking at these pictures.

Lunar Geography

In preparation for tonights full moon and eclipse, I thought that I should post a diagram about some of the key geographical features of the moons surface.

Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse is due to occur tonight, being the 15th of June 2011. And it is due to be the longest eclipse for over a decade, and should therefore make quite a spectacular sight for anyone willing to take the time to look.

This of course begs the question of what exactly a lunar eclipse is, as it is often confused for a solar eclipse. Well, to put not too fine a point to it, lunar eclipses are when the Earth passes in-between the moon and the sun, thus causing a shadow to be cast upon the moon. Interestingly though, unlike a solar eclipse, lunar eclipses can last for hours at a time, and be seen by the whole side of the world that is facing away from the sun for its entire duration. Another interesting point is that a lunar eclipse can only occur on the night of a full moon, due to necessity for the sun, earth and moon to be aligned exactly. Tonight’s lunar eclipse will be a central eclipse, visible over Europe and South America after sunset, over Africa and most of Asia, and Australia before sunrise.


I shall attempt to take photographs of the eclipse, and upload them on the next blog post. Hope the skies are clear, and that you dear reader, manage to get the chance to witness this event first hand. Happy stargazing!!

The Moon

I know that this is an old picture now, as it was taken on the 19th of March, but this is an image of the Supermoon that ocurred that night. I was looking at tonights moon (a waxing gibbous moon) and it struck me how patchy my knowledge of lunar geography actually is, as well as the evident beauty of the moon itself. Did you know that we never see the other side of the moon? The other side is never seen because the moon rotates slowing in comparison to the Earth, as it rotates once on its axis every 28 days, which is the same length of time it takes to orbit the Earth, meaning that the one side of the moon remains on view to the Earth at all times.

Another Relativity help

this is a video from UC Berkeley and their physics department, about relativity, which I found useful. I know its very long, but trust me, it is very helpful.

General Relativity: A basic guide

A friend of mine today asked me "what is General relativity anyway?" and it struck me that it is a question that quite a few people might not know the answer to, even though it is arguably the most beautiful piece of mathematics and theoretical physics ever written, and it came from undoubtedly the greatest mind of the 20th century, if not one of the greatest minds that has ever lived. I'm talking of course about Albert Einstein.

   Now, the first issue that I can think of that would perhaps explain why people do not recognise the theory of General Relativity is because they mistake it for another of Einstein’s' trailblazing works; E = MC² which is actually used to describe the relationship between the mass of an object and the energy contained within it, but a more succinct explanation should be given a blog post of its own, and this is not that post. So let us swiftly return to Relativity.

  Now that we know what relativity is not, let us explore what it is, which is, in its most basic wording, the most accurate model of the universe that we can currently provide. But I think that we should go a little deeper than that in our quest to understand General Relativity, and attempt to explain what it actually means in terms of the universe.

  The most fundamental principle of Relativity (both special and general, I would explain special relativity, but again, that’s for another post) is that any object in a gravitational field should feel an effect proportional to its mass, as in the Gravitational laws of Sir Isaac Newton, but that this ceased to be the case when an object was in “freefall” when it would experience weightlessness, whether the freefall occurred here on earth or in deep space, far from a body with a gravitational field.  He also concluded that as light moves away from a body with an immense gravitational field, such as a star, light can be slowed down or stretched so that it has the frequency of the lower energy end of the spectrum, which shows as a red colour, in a phenomenon called “red shift” as a direct result of the interaction with the stars gravitational influence.

 However, the most important aspect of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is related to the infamous formula previously stated “E = MC²” and thus we travel into a confusing area. The model used for Einstein’s universe is a 4dimensional “fabric” known as space-time, which can be bent, distorted and shaped by the momentum, mass and energy of any given body (such as a planet or star) which is the CAUSE of gravitation, the interaction between an objects mass, momentum and energy (which are essentially the same thing, according to E = MC² and special relativity) and the fabric known as space-time.

 Now, I know that this may still seem far-fetched to you, dear reader, but I will attempt to explain this further over the coming weeks and months, with other posts. If I have lost you completely, please comment with questions. =)

Astronomy

Ok, to start with, I feel that I should stress that I mean Astronomy, not astrology, and that there will be no "star signs" discussed in this blog, and it is highly unlikely that they will ever be discussed on my page. This is not because I dont think that they dont have merit, just that they have no place amongst the scientific facts that will hopefully be conveyed to you, my dear reader, on these pages.
   Right, so lets get straight down to it shall we? I was initially going to blog about quantum entanglement and resonance theories tonight, but I have decided that, with recent develpments in the feild, and the fact that I can see a good 100 stars from my bedroom window tonight, a blog post about astronomy is much more appropriate. Indeed, my primary field of interest is astronomy and astrophysics, with little real difference existing between the two fields.
 Firstly then, I would like to discuss the STEREO space probes, which are two probes that are in orbit around our Sun, and are sending back many fantastic 3D images of the turmoil that occurs on the surface of our star. This is done in the hope that it will enable a greater understanding of the innermost workings of stars, and indeed help us to understand the "cycle" of peaks and troughs in the suns energy output, which can lead to large CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) which could cause massive disruption to our modern way of life. Of course, this is not the only recent development in astronomy, as the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has recently unveiled a 3 dimensional map of the local universe, which took them 10 years to make. I know at this point you're wondering what the point of such a map is, but it shows us invariably the sheer magnitude of our universe, which is an important step in our understanding of how the universe fits together and perhaps how it began in the first place.

  Moving away from largescale astronomy, to the area that I am much more familliar with at the moment, which is stargazing and the use of telescopes to view and map the night sky. Yes ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed count as a form of astronomy, and it is not merely a hobby for older people and geeks with nothing else better to do. I know it is incredably cheesy to say this, but one cannot truly appreciate the fact that we live on a small planet in the middle of a vast space until you have stood outside on a clear, pitch dark night, and looked up at the sky. Indeed, one of the most incredible moments of my life so far was standing up near a place called Gallows Hill, a few minutes from my house, watching a meteor shower, and observing the milky way galaxy in all of its beauty. Until you have seen this, I would refrain from using terms such as "breath-taking" or "awe-inspiring" because, in my experience, there is nothing quite like the realisation that we are but tiny specs of dust in comparison to the solar system and the universe itself that stretches out into the reaches of an eternity that our knowledege can never hope to fully comprehend.
  So, I would encourage you all, one night this summer, to go outside at night, go somewhere dark and look up at the sky, and try to see something interesting. I will willingly answer questions about what can be seen this summer, and provide tips on how best to see things such as galaxies and planets. Happy stargazing everyone!!!

Conservation

Dear reader, in this blog post I will discuss my recent departure from college and various developments in my life. And, for reasons unknown to science, or indeed to myself, I shall be using the conservation laws of quantum physics which are commonly found in the quark compositions of various Hadrons.

Before I begin my ramblings, I feel the need to explain these laws for those readers who perhaps are not familiar with them. During particle interactions, there are certain characteristics that must remain the same for the interaction to be possible, and these are governed by the nature of the particles component quarks; namely, the characteristics of charge, baryon number, lepton number and strangeness. This prevents Leptons (which do not contain quarks, and are hence "fundamental particles" from being able to decay into baryons, which are compromised of quarks. OK, everyone think that they have a basic understanding of that? Good, let us get down to my aimless ramblings.

Yesterday was my last day in college, and I am very sad to say goodbye to a place that I have been attending for the last seven years of my life. But I got to thinking about how some of my friends have already said goodbye to our old high school/college, and they are still some of my closest friends, maybe even this is helped by the fact that we do not get caught in the doldrums of daily routine t college, when we see each other, it has become an event, something special that I look forward to, more so than I did when we were seeing each other every day.

Perhaps my point is becoming clear to some of you? No? Me neither, then let us continue on this thought and see where it takes us. So our friendship has changed form, but has remained the same in certain aspects, which were what made us compatible as friends in the first place. All that I can do is hope that this theory works with all of my friends from college, and that they all keep in touch with me, as I shall do my damnedest to keep in close contact with them.
 I know that it will be difficult for us to remain as close friends as we were, but I feel that the friends I've made during my time at college truly deserve every effort on my part to retain contact, and ensure that our friendship does not die. As cliché as this sounds, I do truly love them all.

Entropy de la vie

The concept of entropy is defined by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system always increases or remains constant. Thus, entropy is also a measure of the tendency of a process, such as a chemical reaction, to be entropically favoured, or to proceed in a particular direction. Well, the reason that I'm talking about Entropy is a rather bizarre connection, even for this blog. It has really hit home to me today that I have a grand total of 3 days left at college full time, before I leave forever, and move on with the rest of my life and don't get me wrong, I'm sure that it will be fantastic at university. Its just I'm having trouble with the concept of not going to my college any more, I've been there for seven years of my life.

Herein lies my connection, Entropy, on both a universal and earthbound scale, is prone to increase, and that is kind of what I can see is happening to all of my friends at college, and indeed anyone going through the education system. You're still a little confused, right? OK, entropy is the tendency of a reaction or system, so if tendency increases, it is capable of doing more things, of becoming bigger and better things than it could previously, like the sand in a sand castle has a lower entropy than the sand blowing around on the sand dunes, because sand that is not in a fixed structure has more potential of "doing" things.

So I guess my point is that we're gaining a higher potential in our lives, we're becoming more capable of living our lives, and whilst that is an amazing thing, I cannot help but be a little apprehensive about what that entails for my future and the futures of all of my dear friends...

Technological Failings, along with the "Rapture"

Ok, so I know this post doesnt have a physics theme, but seeing as technology uses electricity and various wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, I feel that it's a close enough topic to be able to discuss. 
So, essentially, technology hates me today, my laptop has restarted itself several times, and my phone has decided to not deliver texts, which is annoying, because i then resent them, they still didnt deliver, and later on the person I was texting will get like 7 or 8 texts. If you're reading this, I apologise sincerely.
 In other news, today is the day that the earth was supposed to end due to the "Rapture" and all of us unholy people were supposed to be being tortured by various demons and zombies and general undead badness, and as I'm sure you're all aware, any zombie activity tonight is at its usual level, so none whatsoever. Now, I'm also going to register my mirth at the idea that the world will end in 2012, and that people have decided that because the Mayan calendar only went up untill this year. Well, dear reader, I would have to remind you that the Mayans lived a very long time ago, 4000 years ago approximately, and to them, 2012 would have indeed seemed like an age away, and to them it might have seemed possible that the earth may not have lasted after that date, because they were nowhere near as scientifically advanced as us. Thats not to say that they weren't advanced, we know that they were, but surely it is more advisable to take the word of a modern scientist as to when the world will end than it is to heed the beliefs of a very ancient civilisation, without meaning to insult their culture in any way.
 So, yeah, this is my take upon technology failings and the general idea of an apocolypse. I tend to dislike both quite vehemently.
 

 je parle bein francais? vraiment, je pense que ces phrases seront très utiles, n'est pas?

love chinese lanterns.

Opening up the Box

I've been thinking a lot recently, about many things, and I'll use a very well known experiment to explain my train of thought upon the subjects of exams and romance. Let’s take the thought experiment that Erwin Schrödinger put forth to explain quantum entanglement, which became known as "Schrödingers cat". This experiment involved putting a cat (theoretically) inside a sealed container with a Geiger counter linked to a small radioactive source, such that might only decay one atom an hour, and the Geiger counter was set up to trigger a hammer to smash a container of poisonous gas, which would kill the cat.
Well, this means that, once the cat is sealed inside the container, one cannot know how many atoms have decayed at any point, thus we cannot know if the gas has been released or not. This in turn suggests that one could view the cat as both alive and dead once it is sealed in the box, and the only way we could be sure is to open the box.
The reason I've used this example is because I'm kind of interested in certain romantic prospects, but I have doubts as to whether or not it will work. The similarity struck between this situation and my romantic affairs because, no matter how many doubts I have, I will never know if it will work or not until I try it out, and so "open the box" on that possibility.
The exams are very much the same, because I cannot possibly work out how well I will be able to do until I sit the exams, or indeed until I receive my results.
So I can’t help but wonder if I do the right thing when I sit and try to calculate the possible outcomes. Perhaps I should just "open the box" upon the idea.

Advanced Apologies

Well, this is day two, and I've been thinking about what I can actually blog about. I reckon that I'm going to end up comparing life to various experiments and giving assorted views about life in general. So be prepared for comparisons to General Relativity and Newtons' Laws of Motion, and probably many more!! Obviously when (if) I get into University this blog might become more and more nerdy.
  I hope to keep this blog interesting though, so it wont be all geeky, I'll try to "keep it real"

Lets get stared

Well, this is my first ever blog. No idea what to write, so I'll just fill in a few blanks about myself shall I? Well, I'm 18 years old, and I am a student, hoping to go to University in September, where I want to study physics, which is the only thing that I've ever really had any desire to study at that level, most especially Astrophysics. I know that that sounds really geeky, but hey, it's what I love.
 Errrm I like lots of rock and metal music and love going to concerts. If you want to know more, just ask?