RIP Neil Armstrong - First Man on the Moon
Neil Armstrong, the astronaut who became first to walk on the moon as commander of Apollo 11, has died. He was 82 years old.
He was born in the small town of Wapakoneta, Ohio, on Aug. 5, 1930.
On July 20, 1969, half a billion people — a sixth of the world’s population at the time — watched a ghostly black-and-white television image as Armstrong backed down the ladder of the lunar landing ship Eagle, planted his left foot on the moon’s surface, and said, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Twenty minutes later his crewmate, Buzz Aldrin, joined him, and the world watched as the men spent the next two hours bounding around in the moon’s light gravity, taking rock samples, setting up experiments, and taking now-iconic photographs.
“Isn’t this fun?” Armstrong said over his radio link to Aldrin. The third member of the Apollo 11 crew, Michael L. Collins, orbited 60 miles overhead in the mission’s command ship, Columbia. President Richard Nixon called their eight-day trip to the moon “the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation.”
This GIF may have just broken my computer
Physics Test Win
You are the result of 4 billion years of evolutionary success.
Goodsell Observatory, Carleton College MN
Things Travis Broyles Will Do For Money
As Broyles says, he will do nearly anything for a price. From his ad, here’s a list of suggestions.
Things I Will Do For $5
Stare at you for 5 minutes
Give a hug to the person of your choosing
Call you on the phone and seem genuinely interested…
Neil deGrasse Tyson Quote
Isaac Newton Fun FactsIsaac Newton (1642-1727) was without a doubt one of the most important scientists of all time, if not the most important. Here are some fun facts about ol’ Ike:
- Newton became a professor of mathematics at only 26.
- Newton practiced Alchemy.
- Newton was elected as a member of parliment. His membership lasted only a year.
- Newton earned the title of Warden of the Royal Mint.
- Newton oversaw the recoinage of the whole country.
- Newton was knighted because of his political activites.
- He was named after his father who died three months before Isaac was born.
- Isaac was born early. He was so small he could have put him in a quart jug.
- Isaac’s father could hardly write his name.
- Isaac was one of the worst in his class until a bully at school kicked him. Isaac challenged him to a fight even though he was smaller. He won. That wasn’t enough for him, he decided to be better than the bully at school as well.
- Isaac liked to draw, his room was even colored on the ceilings and walls.
- Newton was born on Christmas.
“That wasn’t enough. He decided to be better at school too.”
The Hair of Geniuses
What if Logos Told the Truth?
A series by Viktor Hertz.
Muons
In continuation with these fun little posts about particles, we direct our sights to the muon! It derives its name from the Greek letter mu (μ), which is used to symbolically represent it. The muon is an elementary particle that is really, really similar to the electron - with an equal negative charge to the electron and a spin of ½. It is classified as a lepton, which is a group of particles that is home to the electron, the tau, and neutrinos. As is the case with leptons, the muon cannot be broken down any further - it is fundamental.
As experiments have shown, the muon is unstable - possessing a mean lifetime of only about 2.2 µs (microseconds). All muons decay into three particles, an electron and two different types of neutrinos. The muon has a corresponding antiparticle as well - the antimuon (also known as the positive muon). Like all antiparticles, the antimuon the same mass and spin as its counterpart, but an opposite charge.
Muons have a mass of 105.7 MeV/c2, which is approximately 200 times the mass of an electron. Since the interactions are very similar, a muon can basically be thought of as a much heavier sister of the electron. Due to their mass, muons do not accelerate as sharply in electromagnetic fields and do not emit as much deceleration radiation, which allows them to penetrate far more deeply into matter than electrons.
P.S: Do you like the picture? Get awesome plush particles from the Particle Zoo!
Physics is a truly diverse science - it extends from the smallest to the largest objects in our universe. Below is a list of many specific areas of physics - which one is your favorite?
- Acoustics - the study of sound & sound waves
- Astronomy - the study of space
- Astrophysics - the study of…
ASTROPHYSICS! :D
Gravitons
All of the fundamental forces, such as electromagnetism and the strong / weak nuclear forces, are mediated by particles known as gauge bosons. For example, the electromagnetic force is mediated by a gauge boson known as the photon, and as I posted yesterday, the strong nuclear force is mediated by the gluon. Well, as its name would suggest - the graviton is a hypothetical particle that mediates the force of gravity.
Although it is still hypothetical, a good deal of properties have been proposed that the graviton must possess. Since the gravitational force has unlimited range, the graviton must be massless - and it must also be known as a spin 2 boson. Gravitons have been suggested because of the wild success of quantum field theory - all of the other fundamental forces are mediated by gauge bosons, so the graviton was created to fit in suit.
Creating experiments to actually detect individual gravitons would be extremely difficult due to the immensely small cross section for the interactions that gravitons would have with matter. For example, a detector with the mass of the planet Jupiter, operating at 100% efficiency placed in close orbit around a neutron star would only expect to observe one graviton every 10 years. However, experiments are underway to detect gravitational waves, which may be understood as coherent states of many gravitons.
P.S: Do you like the picture? Get awesome plush particles from the Particle Zoo!
Are you in high school? You probably have the opportunity to take physics sometime soon. Do it. It’ll be challenging, but it’ll be fascinating and it’ll pay off in many ways. Here are just a few reasons to study the science:
1. Most modern technology involves physics. Any technology involving…
Wikipedia has a pretty awesome list of unsolved problems in physics, which can be read here. A couple of the interesting questions are:
- Is the universe heading towards a Big Freeze, a Big Rip, a Big Crunch or a Big Bounce? Is our universe part of an infinitely recurring cyclic model?
- What…
