Day 13-   You may be asking HOW is physics theory supporting your participation in the 90 Day Challenge?

One of the laws of physics theory is that it takes more energy to get an object at rest to move than it does to keep it moving. I want to use an example that may help you visualize what I’m saying.  The energy required to get a Rocket into the air.90% of the power is spent on the initial thrust. The remaining 10% is used to keep it in the air.

So the initial push/ the initial commitment, the inital decision to focus your energy and resources is the Largest hurdle.  YOU are over that hurdle.  The hard part has already been accomplished.  You have nearly completed 2 weeks.It takes much less to keep the ball rolling now that you have made it this far.   You should get alot of encouragement from this fact.   It should excite and remotivate you.   I have been looking at many of the blogs and daily updates.  Its exciting to see the growth. Its inspiring to see the commitment that people are putting into the Challenge.

I can let the cat out of the bag because tomorrow is Day 14 and I jumped on the scale today to see how well my diet has been going.   I have lost 6 lbs total.  Yes that is right 6 lbs total…I have more energy.  My energy drop in the middle of the day is less.  Its the combination of Supplements, sleep, Hydration, proper Diet and of course CONSISTENCY…..I’ve really excited about these results.   I hate to workout so the more weight I can loose through diet modification. Means the less I may ahve to incorporate the Exercise Component.  Exercise needs to be a part of any healthy lifestyle but I don’t want to have to be in the gym 5-6 times a week to get the results and health I am shooting for.   Very encouraging….to say the least…It is more than I expected.  Surprises are always nice.

This is a review paper i’ve written last semester. The abstract is as follows

Quantum dot solar cell has emerged as a new photovoltaic technology that brings us the possibility of breaking through the present maximum attainable Shockley-Quiesser efficiency. This report first addresses the main problems underlying the efficiency limitation of the current photovoltaic technology. These problems are due to the various relaxation mechanisms of the electron-hole pair in the semiconductor. We then focus the discussion on how the unique properties of quantum dot can result in phonon bottleneck effect and enhance impact ionization during the carrier relaxation process. Lastly, one possible quantum dot solar cell configuration namely the quantum dot sensitized solar cell, is highlighted. Quantum dot solar cell has strong potential to make solar energy a cheap and high-efficieny renewable energy source in the future.

Quantum Dot: Carrier Relaxation Dynamics and its Application in Solar Cell

( Law Yun Zhi, Wong Songhan, Xu Ke )

A couple of weeks ago I became aware of something that, as both a skeptic & science teacher, shocked me: Edmund Scientific, one of the oldest & most respected outlets for selling science equipment for educational use, has gone over to the dark side.  They are actively marketing & selling paranormal woo…

What are these products that Edmund (Pseudo)Scientific is now selling on their website?  They are…

EMF Ghost Meter – This is nothing more than a standard EMF (electromagnetic field) detector, which usually detects EMFs that are low frequency, such as radio & microwave mechanicss.  I have no beef with Edmund selling EMF detectors (I even have one in my classroom), but what galls me is the manner in which they are marketing this device.  They are actually calling it a ghost detector – and by doing so they are giving credence to the pseudoscientific flummery of the paranormal woo-meisters!  As they say on their website:

Detect Paranormal Presences

The preferred unit of paranormal investigators, this Ghost Meter can be used by laymen with professional results. The unit responds instantaneously to EMF fluctuations and spikes in energy with a detecting range of 50 to 1,000 Hz. The VLF range is 1,000 to 20,000 Hz. An easy-to-read LED display and silent on/off push switch make for seamless, simple operation.

Such devices are often used by so-called ghost hunters as they bumble around in the dark, freaking themselves out at every cool draft of wind & creaky sound they hear.  In reality, there is absolutely no reason to think that EMF meters are detecting any kind of “ghostly entities”, as a simple application of Occam’s Razor often shows that what the meters are actually detecting is the low-frequency EM-wave mechanicss given off by nearby lighting fixtures, electrical lines, or even the other equipment carried by the ghost hunters themselves!

But if you thought that was bad, it gets worse.  Here are some other gems that Edmund (Pseudo)Scientific is now selling…

Read the rest of this entry »

Science is fascinating, beneficial (when used rightly), and helps us understand and appreciate God’s creation.  New Scientist lists 13 riddles that still remain a mystery to science.  For example,

Axis of evil

Radiation left from the big bang is still glowing in the sky – in a mysterious and controversial pattern

Dark flow

Something unseeable and far bigger than anything in the known universe is hauling a group of galaxies towards it at inexplicable speed (Continue)

(Via Freakonomics)

Everyone dreams (even those who claim they don’t, do—they simply don’t remember their dreams). But not everyone can say that their dreams come true, at least not with any regularity.

I, like the character in the television show ‘Medium’, however, do have dreams of events that later occur in my life. However, unlike Allison Dubois in ‘Medium’, the events I dream have never included murder, and the only deaths I have dreamed of are usually those of family members. Usually, though, my precognitive dreams are of much more mundane matters, those typical day-to-day events that make up normal living.

When I was a child, my dreams were filled with the banal—I would dream of a conversation taking place between one of my teachers, and one or more of the students, and the next day that exact conversation would occur. The conversation wasn’t anything Earth-shattering, or even anything all that interesting. It might be that one of the students would ask a question regarding the Battle of 1812 and the teacher would then launch into an answer—as I said, not all that interesting. Yet, my nights were filled with these types of ‘revelations’.

It became so commonplace for me to dream of the next day’s events, that sometimes I wondered what the point was of getting up and going to school just so I could go through it all again. After all, if you’ve heard the conversation once, why hear it again?

When I went on to Junior High School, one of the classes I had to take was typing. The first day of typing was horrible. I couldn’t figure it out. The finger placement seemed totally alien, and the whole rhythm of the typing itself was like some foreign music that I simply didn’t understand. That night I dreamt of nothing but my fingers flying across the keyboard and the words magically appearing on the paper. The rhythm was no longer foreign, but seemed a part of my soul.

The next day when I stepped into typing class, my heart was racing, and I was sure everyone would be laughing at me again, as my fingers stumbled over the keystrokes. Instead, when the teacher told us to start typing the exercise, I was the first one done, and with absolutely no mistakes. I couldn’t believe it. Then I remembered the nightlong dream filled with typing, and realized that this time, my prophetic dream was actually an astral visit where I taught myself how to type—literally overnight. That’s when I began to see some use to these dreams I kept having. If I could teach myself to type while dreaming, maybe I could ‘memorize’ the answers to the tests in a dream and save myself from having to study.

As much as I would have liked to have ‘learned through dreams’, that wasn’t to be. Instead, my dreams took another giant leap forward in a different direction. Now, I started dreaming of what was to happen to my friends, and family. But these dreams weren’t just for the next day. In fact, they were usually weeks, maybe months, into the future.

I remember seeing my father decked out in his uniform and being handed some official-looking piece of paper by an officer while surrounded by others from his department, and they, too, were all dressed in their formal uniforms. It was all filled with a lot of pomp and circumstance and I kept seeing the letters SGT.

Well, about a month later, my dad announced that his captain had selected him to take the sergeant’s exam. I told my dad that he would do great, and he simply gave me an indulgent smile. He knew that I had no idea how difficult the exam was, but then my dad didn’t know what I did, either—that I had already seen him being awarded the promotion.

As I said at the start, the dreams of death aren’t often, and they usually pertain to someone close to me—uncle, aunt, grandparent, etc. The most memorable dream I had in this capacity involved my uncle, Uncle M. He was one of my favorites, being a scholar-cast artisan, we got along quite well. He taught me all about photography, and nature, he let me spend hours sitting in his workshop while he turned ordinary pieces of wood into beautiful guitars.

One night when I was 14, I saw my uncle walk out of his front door and down the walkway toward his car, which was in the driveway. It was early morning in the dream, and he turned and gave a little wave mechanics to his wife (my dad’s sister). Then, as he turned back toward the car, he blew up. There was a flash of flame, the sound of an explosion, and then nothing. I sat straight up in bed, panting, and overwrought.

It took me several hours to calm down, and when I finally went back to sleep, I found myself dreaming of my uncle again. This time he was in his uniform (he worked for one of the large airlines as a chef—this was at the time when they still served real meals on air flights), and for some reason he was walking across the tarmac toward one of the large jets sitting there. I saw myself running after him, yelling for him to stop, but he didn’t seem to hear me and continued walking away from me. Just as he reached the stairs going up to the plane, the plane exploded killing my uncle.

Again, I sat up, but this time I turned on all the lights and refused to go back to sleep. I watched the clock as it the time crept toward morning, all the while dreading the news that I was sure would come with dawn. But dawn came and the phone remained silent, and nothing happened.

Each morning for the next two weeks, I would awaken early and wait, dreading the news that I was sure would come. And for two weeks, nothing happened. Finally, I convinced myself that it had simply been a dream, and everything was fine, and I stopped hovering near the phone at the crack of dawn.

2 months later, I came home from school to a saddened household. My mother told me that Uncle M. had died that morning as he was leaving for work. He had gone out to the car and had a massive coronary—his heart had literally exploded—killing him instantly. I was horrified. I hadn’t said anything to anyone about my dream, because it seemed so silly. Yet, at the same time, I had believed in it enough to wait for that horrid phone call every morning for 2 weeks. Now, I kept wondering if I should have said something—after all, maybe I could have prevented his death. Maybe if I had said something, he could have seen a doctor, gotten a magic pill, or one of those operations that people had when their hearts were bad. Instead, I had done nothing.

For the longest time, I refused to allow myself to dream. I didn’t want to know what was going to happen—good or bad. I mean, what good was it, when I couldn’t stop good people from dying? As for the good news, well, most of the time is wasn’t all that good, it was simply mundania from every day life.

After about 3 years, though, I realized how cut off I felt. It was as if part of me had been imprisoned. There was vital information out there that I wasn’t getting because I wouldn’t allow myself to, and I realized that I didn’t like the feeling. I needed, and I wanted that information—no matter how mundane it may seem. Somehow, those dreams kept me in contact with the whole world, with the universe at large. Without those dreams, I was deaf, dumb, and blind in a world full of sharp edges and unexpected pitfalls.

By allowing the dreams back into my waking life, I’ve allowed myself to link up with and interact with many more people than I would have ever had the chance to meet here in the physical world. Because by allowing my waking self to remember my dreams again, I also allow myself to remember all the astral visits I make.

I’ve also allowed myself to remember those prophetic dreams again, and even though they may not allow me to stop things from happening, they do give me ample ‘warning’ so that the choices I make in response to the events aren’t made strictly through emotions. There’s a bit of thought and contemplation behind those choices, which helps me stay on the best path for me.

I’ve warned myself when I’m entering a new lesson, or when someone else has made a choice that I wasn’t expecting and which is going to affect me, and they have continued to alert me to those around me who are going to die. But that’s alright, because you see, I’ve come to understand that death is just another aspect of life, and everyone has to experience both sides of that coin—life and death. Knowing about someone’s choices ahead of time, simply lets me be a bit more prepared, that’s all.

My cat, Quark, jumps onto the counter in the bathroom. There, next to the faucet, is his toothbrush and toothpaste. With his gray paw, he pushes it toward the edge until it falls to the floor. He watches it fall, waits for a minutes, and then does the same for the toothpaste. Once both have fallen, he jumps and continues to bat them around until they hit a wall and cannot go any farther.

This is where I find him in his game of cat versus gravity.

Gravity, the elusive force that physicists have tried for generations to fully understand. A great many theories exist to try to bring together Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics, but as of right now, neither have been fully reconciled into one great unified theory of physics theory.

Perhaps the most interesting fact about gravity concerns its nature. First, space isn’t just emptiness, but as Einstein’s theories say, it is made up of this fabric called space-time that connects the universe. The mass of the sun dents space-time, and the orbits of the planets, comets, asteroids, and all the other solar system objects are essentially falling toward the sun, but most will never reach it. Why is this so? Due to the velocity of the object’s orbit, the mass of the object, and the trajectory of its orbital path. Once you account for these factors and the fact that the objects has a mass distortion of its own, the path of these objects come to an equilibrium, which keeps them stable in their paths around the sun.

Having written all of this, I now ask my readers, how may of you understood what I wrote?

I’ve encountered many a person who, upon hearing I major in physics theory, stops and stares at me in awe and tell me they could never hope to understand it. Why is this? physics theory isn’t nearly as hard to understand as people may first believe. The math behind it is a bit of a complicated language that is hard to decipher without great training, but the concepts and theories of physics theory? They can be explained.

Take for instance my gravity explanation. I first used basic physics theory terminology to explain the nature of gravity. Now I shall ask readers to visualize a large piece of rubber or some other highly flexible material – let’s make it as big as one’s living room floor. Now hang this rubber from the ceiling. Place various round or sort of round (elliptical) objects all over the rubber. This demonstration is a rather crude but effective way to visualize the idea of space-time and space in general. Each of those objects create a dent in the rubber, where they sit quite comfortably. Now send some balls rolling toward these objects, some will slide on past, others will fall into the dents. If thrown at just the right speed, a few might even stay in a dent, but never quite reach the ball at the dent’s center. That right there is the essence of gravity, and the heart of Einstein’s General Relativity.

How many readers found this second explanation easier to visualize? Does it help to understand the nature of gravity? At the very least it might spark more questions, which hopefully will lead to the person investigating the matter more thoroughly.

This is what I hope to achieve when I become a secondary school teacher. I want to be able to stand in front of my students and show them the wonders of science in a way they find easy to understand, because once you understand the concept, it is a little bit easy to learn the language of science – math – that applies the theory in a more experimental setting. The challenge is finding new ways to explain the science, new analogies, new methods of visualization, because this in essence is what will either help people understand or cause them to walk away in bewilderment.

I’m trying something new with this post.  

I received the above live concert video via email showcasing modern rocker Ariel Aparicio during a live performance of his song “The New World” at a recent show at Public Assembly in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I enjoyed the video and I wanted to share a few important things that stood out about the video with you.

You’re now a part of a new Live Fix experiment–I hope you’ll enjoy it!

What Moves You: The Emotional Inertia of Live Concert Videos

Before we get to the details of Aparico’s video, I wanted to tell you something I’ve been meaing to share for a long time.

Live concert videos always amaze me because they can present the artist uniquely, that’s different than the average music video. And depending on how and where the video director decides to film it, the video can reveal something new about the artist that a regular music video can’t.

Usually when we’re watching a concert video, as fans, we’re in some sort of passive physical state like sitting down or lounging on the couch.   But on the inside, on some level, our emotions are going up and down and side to side.  It’s what I like to call emotional inertia. It’s similar to Newton’s Third law. But since it captures my idea perfectly,  I’m going to put the Law into an emotional context and use it to discuss the emotional and creative influence it has on the live concert film or video

Taking the Moment to the Next Level

When an artist decides to film a live concert video, it singles to me that they’re aiming to take their music to the next level.

Because when an artist records a live version of their song, they’re aiming to do one of the hardest things in all of musical performance:  which is capture both the song’s and the emotional intensity of the crowd’s response to that song forever.  In essence, what they’re also doing iscapturing the emotional interia  of the performance.  And in doing so, they’re making that live concert moment more significant and meanful for us by “moving” our hearts and minds (and maybe even our bodies) to a higher place. 

Sometimes the artist and the video director are triumphant in their quest to alter, influence or enhance the Laws of concert performance physics theory, or push our emotional inertia in a positive or uplifting direction.   

And others times they’re not.

If not, the emotional inertia remains unchanged, or even worse, it’s decreased  to a lower level than the actual live event they’re capturing. I know I’ve watched certain live concert videos where I’ve been a part of the live event, only to watch the video recording and feel like the two were completely unrelated.

What is a Live Video Incision?

So why bring physics theory in to live music?  Well, simply put: I love trying out new ways of exploring live music. It keeps things fresh. And it keeps live music from being just a thing we do to escape. Because it’s far more than that. 

Sure, it’s okay to be passive at concerts. But we should never forget that live music (good or bad show) is an event that changes us forever.  And we should always on some level be actively seeking out why it plays such a major role in our lives and culture.

So instead of just simply posting the Aparicio video, I decided to create Live Fix’s very first Live Video Incision (LVI), which is a quick way to cut into the video and find out more about the video’s emotional inertia and discuss it’s creative inspirations. Consider a LVI like doing an emotional and creative backstory biopsy on the video. Sort of like when they cut into my head a couple of weeks ago but without the sedation.

The New World’s Backstory Biopsy

After watching the video a few times, I sent a few follow up questions to Aparicio and his PR Crew because there were a few things about the video that I wanted to know more about.  And his PR crew referenced David Bowie and Julian Casablancas (The Strokes) to describe the musical style, live show performance and the sound of Aparicio’ s latest album All These Brilliant Things.  So, needless to say, my interest was peaked.

When I sent the  follow up questions for Ariel and his PR to answer, part of the LIV plan was to give them a chance to elaborate on the video background and explain a little bit more about why they chose to film  the video at the Public Assembly, and why they chose the editing and producing direction they did.  

Here’s what they had to say via a short email interview;  it’s  a combination of Aparicio’s and his PR Crew’s responses. 

What inspired to shoot the video  at the Public Assembly? 
 
Ariel wanted to add a “live” video to his catalogue and thought that Public Assembly in Brooklyn was the perfect venue to do so.
 
What inspires Ariel’s physical expressions during the performance?
 
Ariel is inspired by years of watching 100’s drag queens lip sync!  He said, “I’ve learned from the best!!!”
 
You used the words “energetic and fun” to describe his live show?
 
The way Ariel carries himself on stage exudes an energetic and fun demeanor, a feeling which reflects upon the audience’s experience at any Ariel Aparicio show. Ariel’s main focus with every live performance is to have fun, rock out, and get the crowd to do the same – so energetic and fun are just two of the many descriptive words that could be used to portray the experience that is an Ariel Aparicio show.

Was I Moved by The New World?

Was there any emotional inertia?

The video certainly captures the “fun and energetic” feel of  an Aparicio performance. And I especially liked their use of the word “energy” to describe his show.  Mainly because energy plays a pivotial role in inertia, especially emotional inertia.  And Aparicio does exude a large amount of emotional energy during the performance. 

So, needless to say, there was emotional inertia in this video.

It was filmed with a lot short, quick edits as Aparicio crooned, swooned and switched from singing to jamming on his guitar. I felt like I was in the front row as Aparicio flashed intimate glares directly in to the camera–and right at me! 

I’ve never been to Public Assembly, but I hope to visit there the next time I go to Brooklyn. Because when I took  brief tour of their website, it looks like a great place to see a show. It looks like a place specifically designed to enhance the emotional inertia of a performance.

But when I cut deeper into the video and looked around beneath the surface, the one thing not in the video that I would have liked to see are the fans.  Since there weren’t any fan interaction shots, I wondered if the video was shot during a live show, or without a crowd present. I wanted to know if Aparicio had altered, influenced, or enhanced the emotional inertia of any fans during the show.

That said, I was wondering if the video was made to entertain an audience of one. Or was it created so I could share the experience with other fans at the Public Assembly? 

Nonetheless, I really enjoyed receiving the Aparicio video, and it was great way to begin the new LVI feature on Live Fix.

So I’d like to also invite any other PR, or artists, to send me your live concert videos for review to chris@christophercatania.com.

Now,  I’ve started to wonder…

What are some of your favorite concert videos?

Have you ever been part of a live concert video?

Stay tuned for an upcoming post as I answer those questions and  explore the key elements to great live concert videos and films.

An interesting unexplainable physical effect!

The flyby anomaly is an unexplainable energy increase during Earth flybys of spacecraft.

Between December 1990 and September 2005, deep-space missions were launched to Jupiter (Galileo mission), to an asteroid (NEAR mission), to a comet (Rosetta mission), to Saturn (Cassini mission), and to Mercury (MESSENGER mission).

During flight, each of these missions was targeted to one or more flybys of Earth.

When the first of these flybys, Galileo I, occurred on 8 December 1990, mission engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) noticed an unexpected velocity increase.

Subsequently, NEAR mission navigators at JPL and Rosetta mission navigators at the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt Germany noticed anomalous velocity increases in those two flybys.

Anomalous Orbital-Energy Changes Observed during Spacecraft Flybys of Earth
J.D. Anderson; J.K. Campbell; J.E. Ekelund; J. Ellis; J.F. Jordan (2008),
Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 (091102)