I’m getting ready for the FFP10 meeting later this month. In reading the abstracts of those who will be giving talks or posters, I came upon “Analyses of the 2dF deep field” by Chris Fulton, Halton Arp and John G. Hartnett. The abstract is about the relationship between low redshift and high redshift astronomical objects. The claim is that some quasars have redshifts that do not give their true distance; instead, they are much closer. Looking on arXiv finds: The 2dF Redshift Survey II: UGC 8584 – Redshift Periodicity and Rings by Arp and Fulton.

If these high and low redshift objects actually are related, this places doubt on the Hubble relation. In addition, when low and high redshift objects appear to be related, their redshifts are related by quantum values . From observations, Arp has proposed that quasars evolve from high to low redshift, and finally become regular galaxies.

Now for quasars to have redshifts that differ from their true distances implies that their redshifts are determined gravitationally; that is, what we are seeing is partly the redshift of light climbing out of a gravitational potential. And if these redshifts are quantized, this gives a clue that the structure inside the event horizon of a dark hole is not a simple central singularity but instead there must be repetitive structure.

In a classical dark hole, the region inside the event horizon can only be temporarily visited by regular matter. Even light cannot be directed so as to increase its radius in this region. Let’s refer to this region as the “forbidden region” of the dark hole as it is near the central singularity. For the classical dark hole, this includes everything inside the event horizon. We will be considering the possibility that the forbidden regions of a dark hole occur as infinitesimally thin shells, and that between these shells, light can still propagate outwards:

Forbidden regions shown in red.

Event Horizons as Quantum amplitudes

If we were looking for a quantum mechanical definition of the inside of a dark hole, we could define it as the region where particles have a zero probability of moving outwards. We could say that the transition probability for the particle moving outwards is zero. However, in quantum mechanics probabilities are defined as the squared magnitudes of complex amplitudes. The way we compute transition probabilities is from complex transition amplitudes. If the transition amplitude between two states is zero, we say that they are “orthogonal”. Zero transition amplitudes correspond to points where a sine wave mechanics is zero; at these points, deviations to either side give nonzero transition amplitudes:

How to get zero probabilities from nonzero in QM.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Vint Cerf, Google’s internet evangelist, has unveiled a new protocol intended to power an interplanetary internet.

The Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol emerged from work first started in 1998 in partnership with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The initial goal was to modify the ubiquitous Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to facilitate robust communications between celestial bodies and satellites.

Cerf and his team were eventually forced to acknowledge (ACK?) that TCP simply couldn’t cut the mustard, with massive delay and data loss caused by celestial motion rendering TCP useless.

“There was a little problem called the speed of light,” joked a typically playful Cerf, as he outlined the idea to the OpenMobileSummit conference in San Francisco. ‘When Earth and Mars are closest, we’re 35 million miles apart, and it’s a three and a half minute trip one way, seven minutes for a round trip. Then when we’re farthest apart, we’re 235 million miles – 20 minutes one way, 40 minutes round trip.’”

Vint Cerf, Google’s internet evangelist, has unveiled a new protocol intended to power an interplanetary internet.

The Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol emerged from work first started in 1998 in partnership with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The initial goal was to modify the ubiquitous Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) to facilitate robust communications between celestial bodies and satellites.

Cerf and his team were eventually forced to acknowledge (ACK?) that TCP simply couldn’t cut the mustard, with massive delay and data loss caused by celestial motion rendering TCP useless.

“There was a little problem called the speed of light,” joked a typically playful Cerf, as he outlined the idea to the OpenMobileSummit conference in San Francisco. “When Earth and Mars are closest, we’re 35 million miles apart, and it’s a three and a half minute trip one way, seven minutes for a round trip. Then when we’re farthest apart, we’re 235 million miles – 20 minutes one way, 40 minutes round trip.”

…

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2009-11/06/google-unveils-protocol-for-an-interplanetary-internet.aspx

As a skeptic this movie had me practically rolling on the floor. When Clooney’s character talks about stabbing an enemy in the neck with a pen to create “Psychic disincentive”, I practically fell out of my chair. Of COURSE if you cause someone severe pain they will be less lakely to attack you. They will, instead, be grabbing the pen in their neck and screaming.

The movie “The Men Who Stare At Goats” is based on the book, The Crazy Rulers of the World” by Jon Ronson. The main character, Lyn Cassady, (whose real name is Glenn Wheaton) played by George Clooney, claims to have witnessed a Green Beret kill a goat simply by staring at it.

From the perspective of a skeptic, I have to wonder what else was going on in the room at the time. I have seen news stories about a breed of goat that suffers from a condition mytonia congenita. When startled these goats faint. They become rigid and drop over for a period of 10 seconds or more. (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jimknapp/goats.html). While it is not an actual ‘faint’, it could be interpreted as the goat having died. So if someone startled the goat while the Green Beret was trying to kill it with his mind, the sudden tipping over of the goat could have been interpreted as success.

If anyone else has more information on the book, the movie or the people involved, I would love to hear it.

Silver screens, if they are well made and installed, can have minimal hot-spotting, but they still have what I call shading.  I make a distinction between hot-spotting and shading.  Although they may come about from the same reflective characteristics of the screen, shading has to do with an asymmetrical change in brightness across the screen and is typically dependent upon where you are sitting.  Shading happens quite noticeably when sitting in the worst seat in the house, say in the front row way on the extreme left or the right. In fact, the worst seats in the house for viewing a 2-D movie on a matte screen become even worse when viewing a polarized light stereoscopic movie on a silver screen from a bad seat.  Read the rest of this entry »

I found this channel on youtube-a little too late- and it’s been the best help with Calculus that I’ve seen on the  net. The speaker uses MS Paint to break down many abstract topics that many math teachers go over too quickly. Since its a video, I can pause and rewind instead of asking a question in class and feeling like a dumbass.

Not only does he teach Calculus but also:

Precalculus |  Trigonometry |  Algebra |  Finance |  Pre-algebraArithmetic |  Geometry |  physics theory |  SAT Preparation |  ProbabilityLinear Algebra |  Differential Equations |  Credit Crisis |  Banking and Money |  Paulson Bailout |  California Standards Test: Algebra IICalifornia Standards Test: Algebra I |  California Standards Test: Geometry |  Venture Capital and Capital Markets |  Statistics |  Geithner Plan |  Current Economics |  Brain Teasers |  Valuation and Investing | Chemistry |  Biology |   |   |   |

Here is the Khan Academy on the Financial Crisis: (As seen on CNN)

Here’s Another One on Value Investing:

Here’s on on Calculus: (Implicit Differentiation)

So yeah it’s been a while since I’ve posted something up, but I don’t think anyone noticed…but whatever, So yeah I’ve finally chosen what College I want to go to……and that’s Ilford County High School…It’s a really posh Grammar school, which expects the best from all its students, which basically means, they expect me to get all A’s in my AS Levels….no pressure…..xD. So yeah, for my AS Levels I’m taking Chemistry, Biology, physics theory, Maths Mechanics and Critical Thinking…..yeah it’s a lot….and it’s a lot of hard work…. oh and erm I’m going to keep my promise and tell you what my GCSE grades were…. trust me….they weren’t that good…..

Chemistry: A*
Biology: B
physics theory: B
Maths (Linear GCSE): A
Maths (IGCSE): A
Maths Statistics: A
English Language: B
English Literature: B
Food Technology: A
Business studies Double award: BB
Mandarin (That’s Chinese!): B

Now for a normal person, that’s ok….but my parents are Asian, which means If you don’t get all A*’s then it means your SH**. Yeah I’m regarded as the Disgrace of the family…..so yeah I’m going to have to prove myself in A-Levels’….A’s across the board……I’m going to need that especially due to the fact that my life’s ambition is to become a Neurone-consultant or a Cardiologist…….so yeah…….that’s really about it…….don’t worry…..i’ll update this thing more often…..don’t worry…..

Well thanks again for reading this ;D Love you all

With only seventy-four days until I leave for MDRS, the crew and I have been gradually learning about each other and figuring out what exactly we’ll be doing. Thankfully, because I’m a little anal and will be buried in work in a few weeks, I’ve been refining my own ideas over the past few days. It’s also necessary for a few sponsorships that some of my crewmates are trying to get, so having what we’ll actually be doing out in the desert written down helps us get money and plan everything out. I’ve also written a bio about myself for the crew website and the MDRS website, but that’s not up yet… So, let’s get on to the research!

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Synopsis: A subset of three to seven Algol (EA/SD) variable stars will be observed using the Musk Observatory 0.36m telescope and CCD camera. The stars will be observed while watching for the two luminosity dips during one complete period, which will be measured and analyzed to extrapolate physical characteristics of the dimmer companion. Two exoplanet transits (HD 209458 and TYC 1987-1212-1) will also be observed in a similar fashion, but in the case of TYC 1987-1212-1 those observations will be to either confirm or deny the existence of the exoplanet. These projects will give a good indicator of what research can be completed on the planet Mars, and at MDRS, in future missions.

Description: Algol-type (EA/SD, eclipsing binary) stars are binary systems where the dimmer companion passes within the line of sight of the observer by moving in front of the brighter companion. This leads to a cyclic drop in luminosity twice during the entire orbit: once when the dim star is in front of the bright one and once when the dim star is behind the bright one. During the two times of occultation, the luminosity is for the most part constant once the dim companion is completely in front of or behind the brighter star, as viewed from our solar system.

The periodic luminosity changes of seven EA/SD Algol stars, with three (TX CMa, R CMa, and AK CMi) being the primary targets of the study, will be analyzed from the Musk Mars Desert Observatory (Musk) at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) near Hanksville, Utah. By observing the luminosity changes and the duration of the minima, the size and orbital separation of the stars, thereby refining the observed measurements of the variable stars.

Similarly, the current search for exoplanets involves observing planetary transits, such as the current Kepler mission. The basic premise for observation is the same: observe the target star to watch for luminosity changes due to the transiting planet. Two such targets will be analyzed, the parent stars being HD 209458 and TYC 1987-1212-1. The first star is a known exoplanet, so the observations would center on refining the measurements already obtained. As for TYC 1987-1212-1, the transiting exoplanet has not been verified, so observing these transits would either confirm or deny the existence of that planet.

Both of these experiments rely upon careful calibration of the equipment, long observing sessions, and careful analysis of the data. Due to the non-linearity of the luminosity changes, these observational targets are tough to observe, especially with periods of inclement weather poor observational conditions, and other weather-related variables. Such conditions, however, would be frequent on Mars, so a successful data set would verify that such research could be performed on the surface, as well as other less fickle projects.

Really, I appreciate all the feedback from visitors I’m getting (still not much, but I was told it takes up to six months for a blog to get regular visitors). So thanks. One thing I did want to say is this: YOUR QUESTIONS DO NOT HAVE TO BE physics theory BASED!!!

I’m not sure where anybody got the notion that questions had to be on physics theory and such, and they don’t even have to be science based. I mean, physics theory, of all things. Really? That’s like, the most boring subject I’ve ever faced. So just remember, you can include other questions based on recent events, arts and entertainment, history, geography, mathematics, or general trivia, although I prefer more original queries rather than internet memes that have gotten passed around for 10 years.

Send all queries to noignoranceblog@aol.com, and I’ll answer it maybe.