My Σlegant Universe

On Spectrograph from Compact Disc (Part I)

2011-09-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

Image (top) shows a sample of vinyl record and image (bottom) shows the groove of the record disc.

Compact Disc (CD-ROM) or its relative cousins like DVD and Blu-Ray discs works on same physical operating principle similar to the earlier vinyl records where information is etched on a trench shaped groove in spirals on the disc. A needle from the reader machine (like a gramophone player) called the stylus is then placed on one of those grooves. As the vinyl disc rotates, the stylus plough through the groove and the analogue information stored as features on the trench is then converted to electrical signals which is then electrically amplified to produce sound at output speakers which we perceive as audio recordings.

Image (top) shows logo and a sample of Compact Disc and image (bottom) shows microscopic image of the "broken groove" which composed of many tiny "pits" among a flat "land".

In essence, Compact Discs shares similar working principle with the vinyl record except that the grooves in CDs are much smaller. The reader of CDs have stylus but instead of materials, it is a beam of bright light, i.e. laser. A layer of reflective surface is applied to the top-most layer of the CD. The information stored is being "burned" into many tiny holes called pits on the flat plastic below the reflective disc surface called "land". These on and off pits formed a spiral of broken trench like the vinyl record. When laser light is shone on the bottom surface (where the pits and land is located), the difference in height between the pits and land will produce a reflection of light in different intensity which is detected by the reader. These changes of light intensity is then converted to digital signals, which then being processed to produce audio or video outputs.

On Lights From Masking Tapes

2011-08-24T23:48:00.000-07:00

About a few weeks back while I was in the dark room preparing small square pieces of x-ray films, I discovered something interesting. The x-ray films are used in plasma-focus diagnostics but that's outside of this story.

What happened was, after preparing those light-sensitive x-ray films, I have to keep them in a light tight pocket. Because x-rays can penetrate the pocket material (usually a black pvc or in my case, a home-made black paper envelope) the films contained inside the pocket will register an image depending on the intensity of the x-ray, just like ordinary films.

Now, making the paper envelope requires a type of adhesive, so I used masking tape. Since I did this in a dark environment, it led me to observe something I could not understand at first.

So this is what happened:

The moment force is applied to the peeled tape, a layer of tape is lifted from the roll. What I saw was a momentary emission of bluish-white light coming out from the contact between peeled tape and the roll. This light only emits when the tape is pulled in a sudden. Astounded by this discovery, I kept repeating it to see if there are changes when I applied force of different magnitude (strength). The colour of the light is the same, but the intensity increases with increasing applied force.

So that night I went online to search what was it and I came across this from nature.com. It appears, if I were to perform this in a vacuum condition I would get x-rays! (what's more is that the x-ray intensity would be high enough to take x-ray images of a human thumb!)

Now since I was working in a plasma technology lab, I asked my supervisor if she's able to provide me a chamber for this test (and they have x-ray detecting diodes too) but she said the set-up is too time costly and took this as a novelty phenomenon.

Well, If I have a lab myself.

It appears that visible light I saw was generated from an effect called triboluminescence, which is an effect where light is emitted when solid material is given a mechanical stress such that chemical bonds are broken/altered to produce light.

Detailed information can be obtained from Wiki.

Big Bang: How The Universe Appeared From Nothing

2011-08-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a cool video on explaining a possibility of the creation of our Universe. I got this link from Main Sequence and thought it would be awesome to share it out!

In the beginning, there was nothing and the idea of nothingness is difficult to put into picture because it is after all, well, completely nothing. Talk about space, not just the distance between stars but also the distance right in front of your eyes, the matter, and energy and light, these all don't exist in the pre-Big Bang history. So, the question was (and still is) Where did all these wonders came from?

Quantum mechanics provides an insight, that at the very early universe when all things are crushed into a tiny point (refer to my previous posts on the big bang), quantum mechanics must have played an important role in the formation process of our cosmos.

Fundamentals of X-Ray Generation

2011-07-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

This video explains one of the earliest method of X-ray generation from the heating of filaments in a high vacuum and the usage of high voltages.

The act of getting electrons from heating a filament in high/partial vacuum is called "Thermionic Emissions" where the electrons in the filament is being "boiled" off from the filament metal due high temperature.

Image du jour #3: Lunar Eclipse 2011

2011-07-03T18:20:00.000-07:00

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

This is a compilation of photos taken from my digital camera showing in a time lapse of 7 minutes and the phases of the shadowing of moon observed from the living room in my house, convenient much! especially totality (full eclipse of moon) occurred around 3.25am local time. Because the photos are taken without any magnification, the image we see is in fact a small cut-out, enlarged from a relatively high pixel camera. (from my DSLR). This leads to the badly resolved grains seen in the images.

Lunar eclipse occur when the sun, earth and moon are perfectly arranged in a straight line where the earth is in the middle, therefore lunar eclipse can only occur in the night of full moon. The length of lunar eclipse is much longer than solar eclipse is because of the relative size of the moon compared to earth. Think about it it this way:

You're inside your car waiting for the traffic light to turn green. Now you look ahead across the crossroad junction and you saw a an interesting person who catches your eye. (Say, a beautiful lady). Now it is the turn for the east side of the junction to move, and cars are passing in front of you. When a small car passes in front of you, you'll have to wait until the car passes through before you're able to see that lady in front. A car is much smaller than a bus, so, when a bus took its time to cross the road, perhaps that person has already slipped through your eyes, and there's that "oh-well" sigh.

Similarly, lunar eclipse happen because the earth is blocking the sun's light (in the analogy, the beautiful lady being the light source - sun), and solar eclipse is the moon blocking the sun's light. Since the moon is much smaller than the earth, naturally the length of lunar eclipse is much longer compared to solar eclipse.

Another interesting fact explains the mystery why the moon does not completely disappear but instead, appears to be amber or sometimes coppery-red when totality occurs. This is interesting because during solar eclipse, all that we see is a sun being 'eaten' by the moon and nothing in particular happened on the dark shadowed area of the sun.

In a lunar eclipse, the earth blocked the sun's ray. But the earth does not completely block all the light from the sun. A little part of the sunlight passed through the surface of the earth and the light is refracted due to earth's atmosphere which acts like a prism. (refraction of light is the same process that produced the rainbow where the water in the air acts like a prism which split light from sun into the familiar rainbow colours) The refraction of light produced a rainbow likened light which consist of mostly red and blue. This light is then beamed to the moon where during totality (when moon is completely shadowed by earth), the red part of that refracted light hit the surface of the moon, hence the red appearance.

The explanation of the light rays can be better explained graphically HERE.

Cosmic Rays: Concerns on Exposures

2011-07-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

#Here's a quick (and also the final segment) continuation from yesterday's post.

Although effects of ground level radiation exposure to cosmic rays are minimal to health, on high altitudes however, the radiation level is becoming a concern. (refer to the first graph on the last post)

Studies in the past have shown that commercial flight crews will receive more than 1 milli-sievert (mSv) which is the general public’s limit of radiation exposure limit. A round trip from Thailand to New York will result 0.28 mSv, which is about 10 times more than an exposure of a lung x-ray machine.Some transatlantic flight crews are even required to wear a radiation dosage badge to indicate the amount of exposures they receive on the trip.

Excessive exposures to radiation will result in the alteration of genetics and hence lead to cancer. This topic will be discussed next time.

Cosmic Rays: Interactions of Particles with Earth's Atmosphere

2011-07-02T00:10:00.000-07:00

The count rate of particles vs. the altitude of earth’s atmosphere (hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu, 2010)

When a primary cosmic ray particle enters earth atmosphere, it will encounter many atoms and collisions will occur. This collisions will send a shower of “secondary” particles which are also subatomic particles such as pions which will quickly decay into relatively stable muons, neutrinos and gamma rays. Muons will soon too decay into electron and positrons which they both will annihilate and the gamma rays will interact with atmospheric atoms.

The numbers of particle that finally reached the earth’s surface depends on the energy content of the "primary" cosmic ray particle. Most secondary cosmic rays that reached the surface of earth are muons with an average intensity of 100 counts per metre square per second.

Although thousands of cosmic ray particles pass through our body every minute, the resulting exposure to that amount of radiation is minimal, safe, and is considered as background. We can say that we are irradiated with fast particles every single moment in our lifetime with negligible health effects.

Cosmic Rays: High Energy Particles

2011-02-24T00:52:00.000-08:00

A collision between a high-energy cosmic ray particle and an atom in a photographic emulsion as viewed through the microscope. (Dr. David P. Stern, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, January 2005)

The energy of cosmic ray particles are measured in electron volts and the first measurement of a cosmic ray particle that has energy exceeding 1e8 TeV is observed at the Volcano Ranch experiment in New Mexico, 1962.

Since then cosmic rays of even higher energy has been observed and the highest so far observed is on the evening of 15th October 1991 at Dugway Proving Grounds using the Fly’s Eye Cosmic Ray Detector which the particle has an energy of 3e8 TeV (50 joules) which is equivalent to the kinetic energy of a 142 g baseball travelling at 96 km/h.

The energy of this particle is 50 million times more than any particle accelerators on earth can produce and the effective energy of collision of this particle would be 750 TeV which is about 50 times the collision energy of the Large Hadron Collider operated by CERN in Geneva.

The sources of such highly energetic particles were a mystery and the discovery was a shock to astrophysicist. There were theories suggesting these particles could have originated from the active galactic core where they come from super-massive black holes.

Image du jour #2 : Constellation Taurus

2011-02-01T21:06:00.001-08:00

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

This is the same photo from the last snap n tell, cropped out from a larger image to display the constellation Taurus.

The unclosed grey box is an open star cluster Pleiades., also called the Seven Sisters in the Greek Mythology. Being the closest and brightest star cluster to earth, it's one of the few star clusters you can see with your naked eye.

More information on Pleiades Star Cluster is available here in Wiki.

Cosmic Rays: Origins

2011-01-27T02:13:00.000-08:00

Principally, there are two types of cosmic rays – primary and secondary. For the primary cosmic rays, these cosmic particles come from extrasolar astrophysical sources such as supernova explosions and black holes. The primary cosmic ray particles can then travel through space, colliding with the interstellar matter to produce the secondary cosmic rays. The sun also produces relatively low energetic particles from the stellar nucleosynthesis that is related to the so-called “solar wind”.

Because cosmic ray particles are charged, as they pass through any object with magnetic field including earth’s magnetic field, their trajectory is bent and hence randomizing their path, making it impossible to determine the particle’s origin.

Studies of high-energy gamma rays (between 10MeV to 1000MeV) emitted when a cosmic ray collide with interstellar gas atoms indicated that most of the cosmic ray particles are confined at the rim of the galaxy, probably due to the galactic magnetic field. The collision between cosmic rays with light elements also produces nuclear fragments of radioactive isotopes such as Beryllium-10 which possess a half-life of 1.6 million years. By measuring the composition percentage of Beryllium-10 in cosmic rays shows that on average, cosmic ray particles spends about 10 million years in the outer ring of the galaxy before going into intergalactic space.

Image du jour #1 : Constellation Orion

2011-01-26T02:20:00.000-08:00

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE

This photograph is taken at my new residence in the campus. Even though the sky is dark to the naked eye, the light pollution is immense when viewed through the CMOS sensor of my camera.

Then again, I can finally get a glimpse of how the orion nebula (the square box on the right of the star labelled 'Mintaka') looked like to the naked eye. I'm happy. This photo is a reminder for myself, why I love physics and astronomy. It never fails.

Cosmic Rays: Composition

2011-01-19T08:07:00.000-08:00

Solar System and Galactic Cosmic Ray (GCR) composition (NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, Feb 2010)

By definition from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), cosmic rays are highly energetic charged particles that are travelling near to the speed of light that is coming to earth from space in all directions. The general composition of cosmic ray is mostly hydrogen nuclei (the lightest and most abundant element in the universe) which are essentially protons, but cosmic rays can also include electrons, positrons and other subatomic particles, in addition, nuclei of other heavier elements in the periodic table are also detected. The proportions are 89% of the particles being the hydrogen nucleus (proton), 10% helium and 1% other elements.

The common heavier elements present in the cosmic rays such as (silicon, carbon, oxygen, iron and magnesium) are in a proportion to the abundance of such elements in the solar system, but there are important differences in the proportion of element and its isotopes that that gives information of the origin and history of cosmic rays of galactic origin.

Electrons constitute about 1% of the galactic cosmic rays and the reason why accelerating electrons are less efficient than light nuclei is still an unsolved mystery.

In the graph above, silicon is taken as the standard (reference point) and comparing to the relative abundances of other elements in the solar system and in galactic cosmic rays. Silicon is used as a reference because of its common intermediate-weight that is relatively easy to measure.

Cosmic Rays: A Little Energetic History

2011-01-07T02:38:00.000-08:00

Today, most people who know about the existence of cosmic rays take it for granted that the earth is constantly being bombarded by particles coming from outer space since all of existence and the time to come. This is a story of the discovery of cosmic rays and human’s knowledge about it.

The journey starts from the “father” of cosmic rays studies, Victor Hess. He was a graduate in physics and during his work as an assistant in the institute of Radium research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in the early 1900’s, he was astounded by the fact that there are residue charges trapped inside a sealed electroscopes no matter how good is the quality of the instrument. Scientist of his day proposed that it was caused by terrestrial ionising radiation – radioactivity from rock minerals. Hence the ionisation measured by the electroscopes should reduce if brought up higher into the atmosphere.

Oddly, previous experiments seems to indicate that the ionisation level is actually increasing with altitude, for example in 1910, Theodore Wulf measured the ionisation levels at the bottom and on top of Eiffel tower in Paris and it is found that the ionising radiation levels detected at higher level is much higher compared to the ground which is contradicting to the proposed terrestrial ionising radiation theory. Many other scientists at that time tried other methods to send instruments to record the ionisation levels in higher altitude using balloons but the data retrieved are inconclusive due to instrument defects under the conditions of high altitude.

Now speculating that the radiation is actually coming from the sky instead of the ground, Hess improvised the experiment by designing instruments that can withstand the pressure and temperature conditions of high altitude. He also determined that terrestrial radiation will no longer produce ionisation effect in altitudes higher than 500 meters.

Hess then mounts his instrument on balloons and sent to the skies ten times in the course of three years during (1911-1913). He found that at the height of several kilometres into the sky, the ionisation level is a few times higher than the surface of earth. Hence he concluded that “a radiation of very high penetrating power enters our atmosphere from above.”

Another conclusive data comes from one of Hess’s experiment on 12 April 1912, during a near-total eclipse of the sun. The ionising level did not reduce under the eclipse means that the radiation could not be from the sun itself; it has to come from further out in space. Hess’s experiments are later confirmed by Robert Milikan in 1925 who coined the term “cosmic rays”. And for this discovery, Hess shared the Nobel Prize in physics with the discoverer of the Positron, Carl D. Anderson in 1936.

For a period of time, cosmic rays are referred to as rays because it was believed to be a part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but during the 1930’s it was discovered that the cosmic rays must be composed of charged particles because they are affected by earth’s magnetic field.

Solutions: Roots of a Quadratic Equation

2010-10-25T01:26:00.000-07:00

In elementary mathematics, one will come across a polynomial equation of the second degree which are called quadratic equations.Here's the general form of a quadratic equation:

Where a ≠ 0 (The equation will become linear instead)

In high-schools, students are generally given the quadratic formula to solve the equation. The answer for the solved equation are called the roots of the quadratic equation. The solutions can be real or complex and there are two solutions to each quadratic equation.

The formula is given as:

Here, we will go through the derivations to the formula.

We begin as the standard form of a quadratic equation:

Moving the last term to the opposite side and dividing the terms with a;

By applying completion of squares;

rearranging the equation we finally get;

My Essay Part (XIV) - Epilogue

2010-10-24T01:12:00.000-07:00

Now, I would not digress to discuss about the evolution of life as this article's concern is only on the history of the universe, but the point here is that because of our curiosity to understand the forces that shaped our existence, we have discovered a story. Through times of discovery, and myriad of logical models, we can conclude a journey from the beginning with precision and to project and predict the future based on observations.

Currently, there are many experiments under way to find out more truths about the moment of creation and the ultimate fate of our universe. Such experiments includes the recently run giant particle accelerator in the Franco-Swiss border called the Large Hadron Collider, subatomic particle detectors all around the world to detect and understand cosmic rays, laser interferometers detecting gravitational waves predicted by Einstein’s General Relativity, the WMAP satellite detecting the cosmic microwave background with great resolutions, the Hubble space telescope to discover ancient galaxies and many more.

These are the endeavours modern scientist, astronomers, physicist and cosmologist alike made to observe the heavens trying to understand the grandiose architecture of the universe, the origin, evolution, the fate and our place in it.

My Essay Part (XIII) - Supernova

2010-10-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

Supernova SN-1987a when a star exploded in a dwarf galaxy (Large Magellanic Cloud) next to our milky way galaxy. This event has been fortunate for the last supernova happened about 300 years ago. In year 1987, physicist and astronomers has the technological capabilities to examine his explosion in tight scrutiny. Separate neutrino detectors on earth detected a burst of neutrino particles on that day which is consistent with the theory where 99% of supernova energy is radiated away in the form of neutrino.

When the star was younger the energy generated will push the gas apart from collapsing due to gravity. Now that the star has run out of fuel, essentially there is no more energy to hold on and gravitation takes place, the core of the star is literally crushed. During this process, within seconds, the collapse and the rapid rise of temperature due to it will trigger a tremendous explosion: a supernova. Temperature will reach unprecedented heights again and the process makes the star a billion fold brighter, visible throughout the galaxy. Now, with an explosion of such grandeur scale, elements heavier than iron can start to form, making all the elements in the periodic table possible, uranium included.

When all the guts of the star scattered into the stellar neighbourhood, it became a seed for a second generation of stars. Elements that are heavier than hydrogen: Oxygen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Helium became abundant. Sounds familiar? These are the ingredients of life, DNA, as we know it. Our sun when viewed with special instruments revealed itself to contain about 2 percent of heavier elements because our sun is a second or third generation star.

Our solar system is therefore built from the ingredients left from the ash of a previous brilliant gem in the cosmos. Heavier elements stick together due gravity to form planets with solid surface – and that is where our picture comes in.

My Essay Part (XII) - Stellar Nucleosynthesis

2010-10-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

Graph of Binding energy per particle in an atomic nucleus versus the atomic mass number: note that before Fe-56 (Iron), lighter elements fuse together to release energy. After Iron, matter will release energy if they undergo fission. (like nuclear reactors)

This nuclear reaction will stay for quite a while as long the star has hydrogen fuel to burn. Now, this is truly an action of balance. The hydrogen will be fused together into heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, neon, and since the heavier elements are denser, they will be drawn into the core of the star faster than other elements.

Very soon, the star will have no more hydrogen fuel to do the nuclear fusion now the star seeks for an alternative fuel, the heavier elements. So, the star now started to fuse oxygen, lithium, and all the other elements in the familiar periodic table in your chemistry class into even heavier elements, now the star begin to feel heavy, literally. The core of the star contains more and more heavy elements up to iron.

Iron is the last heavy element, sort of like a nuclear waste for a fusion reaction because fusing two iron nuclei together will absorb energy rather than releasing it. Since a star is an energy factory therefore, a star is at the death row when it sees itself staring at a core of iron at its centre because it has nothing else to fuse and generate energy.

My Essay Part (XI) - First Generation Stars

2010-10-03T22:57:00.000-07:00

Photo from NASA Hubble: Ultra Deep Field - a photograph of the infant universe when galaxies are forming from clouds of gas, each speck of light is an entire galaxy of it's own, each galaxy contain millions of stars.

What we had gone through so far is the physical process of how the universe was born with all the constituents of matter is created. Now, with the majority of atoms floating around in the universe being the lightest hydrogen atom, the universe is ready to make its first batch of shining stars. Because there is a slight asymmetry in the distribution of matter in the early universe, as imprinted in the cosmic microwave backgrounds, the part of the universe that contains more matter particles begin to condense, matter starts sticking closer to each other, forming a region that is rich in atomic nuclei.

Slowly, with the help of gravity, atom by atom, the cloud of particles get closer to each other and start to pick up a spin. As the attraction region get smaller, the spin gets faster and the region became denser with atoms and eventually, it would be spinning fast enough to counter the attraction of gravity and this is how the rotating galaxies like our Milky Way was born. Other collection of atoms that clumps together but did not pick up a spinning motion will become oval-shaped elliptical galaxies.

As time went on, inside the galaxy, the cloud of atoms (also called gas) of hydrogen and helium started to break into smaller pockets of clouds, and these smaller parts of gas will also evolve just like the formation of galaxy, rotating itself forming a ball of gas. As the ball get smaller due to the attraction of gravity, more atoms of hydrogen and helium knock into each other heating up the gas, and eventually the temperature of the gas will get hot enough for the hydrogen atoms to fuse together, forming heavier elements and by doing this process, releasing a lot of energy in the form of heat and light. The first stars are hence born.

My Essay Part (X) - Cosmic Microwave Background

2010-09-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

The Cosmic Microwave Background as detected by WMAP satellite: The red region is where matter is dense and the blue region is the voids.

But not for another 380000 years does much to our soup of atomic nuclei because the universe is still hot enough for the electrons to stay away from the nucleus flying freely with the photons. Until the temperature of the universe dropped to about 3000 degrees Kelvin, the electrons start to combine with the nucleus forming the first stable atoms and this process will release visible light photons that bath our universe. As the space-time continue to expand, the photons slowly lose its energy and changes its frequency from visible light towards infrared and now microwaves.

When astrophysicist now look into every part of the night time sky with microwave detectors, they find an unmistakable fingerprint of 2.73 degree Kelvin microwave photons whose patterns in the sky retains the memory of the distribution of matter just after atoms were formed.

My Essay Part (IX) - Formation of Atomic Hydrogen

2010-09-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Light emitted from Hydrogen discharge tube - When a Hydrogen atom is excited by an external energy, the electrons will "jump" to a higher energy state and when the electron start to lose energy, it drops back to a lower energy state by releasing it's energy in the form of light.

Now, the universe is relatively cool enough not to cook up new quarks, so the remaining quarks quickly fused together to form a class of heavier particles called hadrons. Hadrons are heavier particles and they are the particles we find in every nucleus of an atom that made up all visible, normal matter. Protons and neutrons are members of the hadron family. At this time, though the universe is relatively cool but it still have the energy to spontaneously generate anti-hadrons and it will continue to annihilate with the hadrons until the universe is cool enough not to produce hadron and anti-hadron pairs. The asymmetry is still at work and the hadrons that survived the annihilation ultimately get to see the universe as they will form stars and planets and eventually us.

If the universe did not start out with the asymmetry the universe will have no particles left to survive because all would have been annihilated to produce photons.

By now, it has been one second after the Big Bang.

The size of the universe is now a few light years across, that is approximately the distance between our sun and its closest few stars. At a billion degrees, it is still hot enough to spontaneously produce electrons and anti-electrons. But, as the universe continues to expand and cool, eventually this process stops and again, there is an asymmetry between the electron and the positrons (anti-electrons) which cause some electrons to remain.

So, now we have protons, neutrons and electrons which are the primary ingredients to form any element of nature in the periodic table. As the universe continue to cool to about 100 million degrees, protons and neutrons start to stick together manufacturing the first atomic nuclei and born the universe which 90% composed of hydrogen and 10% of helium along with trace amounts of deuterium, tritium and lithium.

Two minutes has passed since the beginning.

My Essay (Part VIII) - Baryon Asymmetry

2010-08-27T21:05:00.001-07:00

The Yin-Yang symbol - symmetry requires an eye to see.

During the first trillionth of a second, when the strong force is departing from the unified forces, matter and energy played a spectacular show. True elementary particles, the constituents of every matter in the universe, spawned out of existence thanks to Einstein’s famous E=mc2. At that time, the universe is flooded with particles called quarks and leptons (Electron is an example of lepton) and also their antimatter counterpart. Bosons are present too to account for the particles interaction. In this quark-lepton era, the universe is still so dense that the distance between quarks that are fused together and those who are not are almost undistinguishable.

* * *

Here is one of the interesting parts of the cosmic evolution: For every bits of matter created in the first sliver of time, an antimatter (sort of like a counterpart of matter) is created too. Antimatter behaves exactly like a matter particle except it has different charge. For example, electron is matter particle; the antimatter counter part of electron is a positron. As the name suggest, the positron has exactly the same properties of electron but it carries an opposite charge. An electron is negatively charged and a positron is well, positively charged. If both electron and positron meet, they will collide and vanish in existence and create a pair of photons which are particles of light with the energy content exactly the same as the electron and positron combined. A process physicist called annihilation.

The magic of creation is that somewhere during the forces split; there exist an asymmetry of the particle pairs created. For every billion anti-quarks created, there is a billion and one quark. But that small difference is hardly noticeable amongst the continuous creation, annihilation and re-creation of fundamental particles of nature because the energy involved at the early universe is still highly intense. But eventually, the extra one quark (and other un-annihilated particles) managed to survive as the universe now continues to expand and cool. The universe is now the size of our solar system with temperature about a trillion degrees. It has been a millionth of second since the beginning of time.

My Essay (Part VII) - Origin of The Universe

2010-08-11T03:10:00.000-07:00

In the beginning, it was infinity and then, the beginning.

13.4 Billion years ago

This is the beginning. There was no time, no existence, not even empty space. Our universe we recognize today was an infinitely dense, infinitely hot, infinitely small object. This is the moment of creation when everything we see exploded out of existence: Space, time, matter and energy.

* * *

About one ten-million-trillion-trillion-trillionth of a second after the moment of creation, the universe we know is a hundred-thousand-billion-billion-billion degrees hot. To write that out in number will look like this: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

At this point of time, all things in the universe we see (and might not see) today are pack in such a tiny place and all the four fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong force are indistinguishable from each other due to the astronomical amount of energy being concentrated at such a tiny point. The laws of physics set a start here and until today, physicists are still trying to understand the mechanisms of the cosmos at this point of time.

Just an instant after this time, gravity, out of the other three fundamental forces of nature cut itself loose and thus set the fundamental clockwork of gravity throughout the universe. As the universe now aged 10 to the power of minus 35 seconds, cooling begins and space expands and the forces split again. This time, the strong force went independent, left behind the electro-weak force. Later still, the electro-weak force split again into the weak force and electromagnetic force; making all the four fundamental forces of nature separated nicely and each has their functions. The strong force is responsible to bind the protons and neutrons in the nucleus of an atom, the weak force is responsible for the radioactive decay of atoms, and the electromagnetic force is what we now commonly experience as light, electricity and magnetism.

By now, the universe was merely trillionth of a second old.

My Essay (Part VI) - The Expanding Universe

2010-07-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

The analogy of an expanding universe. X and Y arrows are the visual representations of a flat space and T arrow follow the forward timeline. As seen, the space is getting bigger with time and the spiral galaxies within gets further apart from each other. (Free Source)

When Einstein finished his seminal paper, he, just like Isaac Newton, believed in the static universe. That is the volume, or space in this universe is neither expanding nor contracting. He believed that the size of the universe is as it is throughout its existence. Strangely, his formulations in General Relativity predicts that the universe should be either expanding or contracting. Hence, he introduced a modification to his original paper called the cosmological constant to keep the universe static.

A ground breaking discovery was made in 1929 by a prominent American astronomer, Edwin Hubble. Using a powerful telescope, he discovered that there are other galaxies, which are huge collections of stars outside of our massive Milky Way galaxy and what is strange is that these small specks of light emitting from stars very far away appear to be moving away from us! No matter which part of the sky we look at, all the distant galaxies appear to be moving away from our view. This could only mean one thing – the space between the galaxies is getting larger making the galaxies further apart from each other. One way of viewing this is by marking ink dots on a deflated balloon. When you blow air into the balloon, the surface expands causing the distance between the dots to increase. The ink dots represents the stars and this is the analogy of stars moving away from each other due to the expanding universe.

"[If the redshifts are a Doppler shift] … the observations as they stand lead to the anomaly of a closed universe, curiously small and dense, and, it may be added, suspiciously young. On the other hand, if redshifts are not Doppler effects, these anomalies disappear and the region observed appears as a small, homogeneous, but insignificant portion of a universe extended indefinitely both in space and time." - Hubble, Edwin, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 97, p.506,The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System

Obviously mistaken, Einstein called the Cosmological Constant his biggest blunder and accepted the fact that the universe is expanding after this groundbreaking discovery. Seeing that the universe is expanding has another implication, which means the universe was a much smaller place in the past. Using precise measurements, scientist are able to compute how much time it was when the universe back then was infinitely small, infinitely dense and infinitely hot – a universe smaller than the size of an atom containing everything we see, touch and sense, in a history about 13.4 billion years ago.

My Essay (Part V) - Gravity by Einstein

2010-07-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

First page of Einstein's manuscript, explaining the idea of general relativity and gravity.

(Public Domain: US)

The problem was planet Mercury. By the late 19th century, astronomy has developed to measure the orbit of mercury so precise that they realise the orbit did not follow Newton’s law of gravitation. Instead of a steady elliptical orbit, it went through another movement we call precession. The elliptical orbit of mercury didn’t stay in place but changes it position where the long axis of the ellipse will rotate the sun at about one degree in ten thousand years. That means the elliptical orbit changes position to form a huge circle that completes a turn in 3.6 million years.

Here comes a man to rescue – Albert Einstein. Einstein published his paper called “General theory of Relativity” in 1915 that radically redefined gravity. He made the revolutionary suggestion that the very fabric of space and time itself is “bent” or “curved” in the presence of a massive object. He proposed that the physical quantity of space and time are intimately connected. The idea that space and time itself are interconnected is actually not so strange when you think about this: When you have a date with someone, you must know about the location and time. There is simply no point telling your date about the place to meet up but not the time. So, one can now think that space and time is “woven” like a fabric because each event is linked to a specific time and space.

To demonstrate how General Relativity works require a little imagination. Here is an analogy - Picture the fabric of space-time as a thin sheet of rubber. Now we pull the four edges of the sheet and lift it up from the ground. What you see is a “flat” space where space-time is uniformly spread. Now, throw a bowling ball onto that rubber sheet and you’ll notice the ball sinks into the sheet of rubber, curving the surface of the rubber sheet. Now, roll a marble towards the bowling ball and you’ll see the marble traveling in a straight line and as it approaches the bowling ball, its path will curve towards the bowling ball, circulating it before it finally sticks to the bowling ball and stop.

What you’ve just pictured was the analogy of how gravity works in General Relativity. The bowling ball represents a massive object (like the sun) and the marble on the other hand, is a less massive object (earth) orbiting it on the curvature of space-time. Now you must be thinking “How is the marble orbiting the bowling ball? Because the marble will roll closer to the bowling ball and eventually stops.” The reason is because there is the presence of frictional force between the rubber sheet and the marble. Theoretically, if we remove the friction factor (which means we are having perfect lubrication between the marble and the rubber sheet), inserting the marble in a correct angle and we will observe the marble orbiting the bowling ball forever and ever in a circular orbit. So, essentially, mass is able to bend the structure of space and time itself and the consequences are the effects of gravity. Now with Einstein’s view of gravity, the problem in physics specifically the analogous orbit of Mercury can be explained.

My Essay (Part IV) - Clockwork Universe

2010-04-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

The moon - Like any other celestial object are bounded by gravity. Gravitational attractive force is pulling moon closer to earth but this force is countered and balanced by the outward rotational (centrifugal) force which results an orbit.

Because of the three immutable laws, Newton is able to synthesise a new equation that describes the motions of planet. This is what we affectionately call “Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation”. This law is powerful because it is so short – barely five characters in the equation. Enough to predict how much force it needed to propel a rocket to space, how much force pulls us on the surface of the earth, how much force the moon need to stay in orbit. In fact, Since the discovery, the equation is still being used now by all space agencies to launch anything into orbit! Here’s the nasty bit:

Here’s how it works. The F which means the attractive force between two bodies in space is equal to the product of mass 1 (object A in space) and mass 2 (object B in space) divided by the square of distance between them. Do not mind the G. It’s a constant which has a fixed value. What this means is that for any two objects in space, now there’s a formula to apply and we get the value for the forces between them. The motions of everything in this universe became calculable.

Newton’s law stated that gravitation is always attractive. That is bodies in space will always attract each other no matter what they are made of. This has a logical flaw which is pointed out by Richard Bentley, another brilliant thinker at his time, sending a letter to Newton. That innocent looking letter packed with such a load that blows Newton back thinking about this: “If all things in this universe are attractive in nature, shouldn’t the stars all come onto each other crashing? The universe is unstable.”

In reply towards Bentley’s letter at 1691, Newton argued that such case will only happen if there are finite number of stars and finite volume of space between them. So, he proposed that in the universe, there should be infinite stars separating from each other in equal distances and space is infinite in volume. Also, God has to intervene once in a while to nudge the stars so that they will not move towards one another destroying the stability of the universe.

Newton’s law is elegant, in the sense that the law is simple yet it could predict the motions of stuff in our experiences. Take a stone and throw for example. Using Newton’s law (knowing the mass of the stone) we could predict how high the stone will fly and with a computer, we can draw a path of its precise trajectory. Ironically, it was precision that render Newton’s law at describing some astronomical observations, wrong.

My Essay (Part III) - Galileo to Newton

2010-04-05T01:46:00.000-07:00

Newton's Principia, with his actual pen-strokes on correction.

Galileo not just only discovered there are other moons on other planet. He also proposed that all things move due to acceleration of gravity. This was demonstrated by Galileo, as rumour has it, was done at the top of the Pisa tower when he dropped two balls, one ball made of iron and the other made of wood. The result is that both balls of the same size dropped at the same time landed on the floor together at the same time suggest that different weight does not affect the speed of the balls. Another experiment was he put a ball on an incline plane and let it roll from the top to the bottom and he found that the ball is moving faster and faster. We call it accelerating. So the question is what drives the ball to accelerate?

The legacy of Galileo was indeed profound and it made an impact as how science is done. As quoted from physicist Leon Lederman’s book: The God Particle

“For our purposes, he (Galileo) was a physicist, and a great one, far beyond his advocacy of Copernicanism. He broke new grounds in many fields. He blended experiments and mathematic thinking. When an object moves, he said it’s important to quantify its motion with mathematical equation. He always asked “how do things move? How? How?” But he didn’t ask “Why? Why is the ball falling?” He was aware that he was just describing motion, a difficult enough task for his time.”

Galileo didn’t mention that why the ball is falling, and that needed another great mind to solve the puzzle. Enter Isaac Newton. Sir Isaac Newton is perhaps one of the greatest minds of all time. He revolutionised the way we see how objects move and he literally created a new branch of mathematics for it. In 1687, Newton published the celebrated “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” which is perhaps the single most important work ever published in physical sciences.

In the seminal masterpiece, Newton described how everything in this universe worked – Force. In the papers were three immutable laws that describe all motions in the universe. Suddenly, the universe became a measureable, definite clockwork. The first law was the concept of inertia, which is a fancy word that simply means: an object does not move or moves in a constant velocity until an external force acts on it. This is particularly useful in your life when you tried to get your ketchup conveniently by hitting at the bottom end of the bottle repeatedly, the sudden force acting on the bottle propel the sauce out from its bottle. The second law is quite simply F = MA. It’s a simple mathematical relation. Let’s read it out loud; “Eff equals to Emm Ayy”. What that means was the force is equal to the product of the mass and the acceleration of the object. The third law is better. It says that when a force is exerted on an object, the object exerts the same force back on the opposite direction. (Every action there’s a reaction). So next time if someone bitch-slapped you, don’t bother. Because your face already slapped that person’s hand on that painful moment! (You felt pain more due to the more pain receptors on the surface of your cheek than the slapping palm)

My Essay (Part II) - A very brief history

2010-03-28T23:53:00.000-07:00

Progress in science was in a better pace after the dark ages as Europe enters Renaissance. Young minds are inspired to think. During that period, the development of arts and science flourished but, when the period where the journey of science which involves empirical analysis are about to begin, The Catholic Church has much control almost everything from politic governing to the dissemination of knowledge. They allow information to be taught only if the knowledge does not conflict with the Holy Scripture.

Based on verses in the Holy Book, The Church holds strong belief towards the Aristotelian view on the geocentric universe; that is the earth is in the centre of the cosmos and everything else revolves around us. This is somehow true because common instinct says so. Take a look at the sun. It rises from the east and sets at the west which makes it seems like it is orbiting the earth.

This concept is deceiving because a closer look at other planet’s orbit, i.e. Mars, Venus and Mercury in the night sky revealed a much complicated path called retrograde movements that doesn’t really agree with the idea of the earth is in the centre of the universe. In addition, Venus show different phases just like the moon showing different phases and complete it's phase each lunar month. There are also many other little things that annoys the geocentric view and ignorance are practiced to save people from being burnt on a stake.

A simpler model to describe such planetary movements was later proposed by a Polish priest; Nicholas Copernicus in 1514 but despite the obvious reasoning, Copernicus dare not publish his works in public due to the fact that he could be branded by the Church as a heretic. It takes nearly a century later; two famous astronomers finally publicly supported the theory. One is Galileo Galilei of Italy and another is Johannes Kepler.

The death blow to the Aristotelian geocentric universe occurred in 1609 when Galileo observed the heavens with the newly invented scientific tool now known as a telescope. He saw that mud-coloured planet Jupiter has four tiny moons revolving around its mother planet. So, a relation was made – if Jupiter, a planet, can have moons circulating it, that implies that not everything have to revolve around earth! Furthermore, at the same time, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, perfected the Copernican theory suggest that the planetary orbits does not have to be in a perfect circle but rather an ellipse (An elongated circle). That finally explained the retrograte movement of planets and with Kepler's orbit, the planets are precisely in its place.

My Essay (Part I) - Science

2010-03-02T06:45:00.000-08:00

Many times as a child, you often found yourself asking questions that sounds like this: “mom, why is the sky blue?” or “papa, how humans exist?” or “why are they stars?” Questions like this sounds simple, but they pack a punch. Usually parents (and most other people) always find it hard to answer, that’s why we always get answers like “Hush, do not talk with your mouth full.”

The fact is that for simple questions like these, the answers are most of the time not simple and it requires profound understanding in the mechanics of nature (or religion if you want to include that as well) to answer it. These questions spawned from the curiosity that is in us since our birth and that is the reason why humans are deemed as a curious race.

Since the beginning of the thinking man, question like these has always bothered people as they look up into the night sky that is filled with stars or when they sees an apple falling. Then, with humanity’s genius of reasoning and logic, we try to answer the questions by building a physical law based on mathematical relations to explain these observations. Since then the development of ideas to explain the discovery of phenomenon over centuries has been a remarkable journey as many questions have been quite satisfyingly answered. The process is never ending and it continues today and is now what we recognized as Science.

Quantum Quotes

2010-01-08T09:49:00.001-08:00

The quantum mechanics solution, that is, "Don't worry!" We can't measure it, is logical enough, but not satisfying to most human minds, which strive to understand the details of the world around us. For some tortured souls, the quantum unknowable-ability (Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is still too high a price to pay.

Our Defense: This is the only theory we know now that works. Ugly but it works.

- adapted and edited from "The God Particle" 1993 L. Lederman

The effects of Special Relativity

2010-01-04T21:32:00.000-08:00

I'll explain about the cause for odd effects of relativity soon. Stay tuned!

The science behind 2012

2009-12-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

There are no other apocalyptic movie that is more epic than 2012. All the scenes are so meticulously done by computer software that gives the viewer nothing else but the sense of awe - on how things breaks.

In the movie, we see buildings crashing down with people hanging on their dear lives on it. We see volcano explode, huge tidal waves, blasting, ripping and quenching the continent into smitherines. All these exaggerated actions, according to the movie, start from the simple alignment of celestial bodies (planets) somehow causing the sun to produce stronger solar flares and release matter interacting particles called neutrinos that boils the innards of our planet.

I think there is A LOT to say about the physics and the mechanisms behind this movie.

First of all, I do not think the world is going to end in 2012 simply because of the planetary alignments. Once, I was watching this X-file episode, it was a story about the planets align in a cross and earth is in the centre of the cross. Who ever that's born on that day will possess the powers of the cosmos because the planets "aligned" the power on you.

Think again. Our perception of the cross is all human's story. We have a history and a book that describes the cross as a holy thing thus we see planets align together as something big. But the fact is, whatever the planetary formation is, it will not do anything to anyone on earth. It's all just in our mind - anthropic.

The planets will move in their respective orbits according to the laws of nature and every now and then the planets can form any shape.

You want triangle? or square? or cross? or simply a straight line? You get those every once in a while. Because planets move in their orbits in different speed due to their mass and distance from the sun.

Second.

I think the movie went too over explaining why the earth is behaving badly and stuff. In essence, I don't think it's necessary to introduce science into the plot. It misleads people if it is done wrongly.

In the movie, Satnam (the Indian scientist) explains to Adrian that the sun is releasing a type of particles called neutrinos that interacts with anything causing water in the neutrino detector to boil hence the earth behaving badly.

I remember myself saying "impossible" in the movie before Adrian says so. My friend Alex just stared at me.. =(

Neutrinos do NOT interact with matter. At least not in THAT manner. Because they are electrically neutral (carry no charge) , they are almost massless, travels almost at the speed of light and they are able to pass through ordinary matter almost undisturbed and are thus extremely difficult to detect.

In fact, for every single second, there are 50 trillions (50,000,000,000,000) neutrinos passing through us and we won't even feel it!

*I'll explain more about these ghostly particles later if it did not fry peoples brain now.*

Anyway, here's another logic block.

If the neutrinos in the movie interacts with the water and cause it to boil and cause the earth to experience such effects.................

Shouldn't the cast (the people) in that movie be boiled to their death by their own blood?

Personal opinion

2009-12-19T06:21:00.000-08:00

When I talk about physics to my friend, usually the response from them were none too good. Generally, we all think the same way - that if one dwell deep in academics, especially physics, mathematics and computers, we are going to be branded as geeks or nerds.

This is how society builds now. People abhor mathematics as much as they can because it involves data processing. We are just too lazy to think. Ignorant. Apparently, indulgence is the top priority due to the so-called nature.

Think again. If there were no mathematics, we wouldn't have the technology as we know it today. Even a simple taste of music with your iPod is not possible.

Thing is, personally, I'm not interested in building an iPod from scratch too. Heck, I even hated physics back when I was studying in high school. It's something else in physics that makes me want to pursue it. It's what I call cosmic understanding.

In all my high school years, I have only meddled with what today we call classical physics. Which contained all the scary names you've probably heard of in your high school years. These people contributed it, i.e Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, et cetera and the stuffs we learn are quite simply arithmetic and simple derivations.

It was until my pursuit of pre-university education, I smelled modern physics. For the first time, I encountered exotic names such as photons and anti-matter, and finally one book change it all.

It was "A Briefer History of Time" by Stephen Hawking

Here, I will not elaborate on the contents. But I'll share on how the book has influenced me on choosing Physics as my major in studies.

That book literally changed my understanding about the cosmos. I finally understand the story of how this universe begin and how it will possibly end. Studies of subject like these is called cosmology. The question posed by cosmologists are profound and yet difficult; the possible answer stretch the imagination.

Has the universe always existed?

Did it have a beginning of time?

Why are we here?

I have always been interested to look for the truth. Especially on the questions like: What I am here to do? What role do I play in this world?

Hence, the search is on. I'm confident that through logic and reason, and mathematical beauty, we are able to explain the ultimate question - and I want to be a part of it.

How elegant is our Universe?

2009-09-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

Negative from the 1919 Eddington's experiment proving gravity does indeed bend light rays.

As Einstein’s general relativity is finally proven experimentally by Sir Eddington’s expedition in 1919, the good news spread like wild fire. A student asked Einstein what if Eddington’s experiment has not found the prediction of his theory (the bending of starlight due to a massive body). Einstein replied:

“Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord, for the theory IS correct.”

Of course, if the theory was disproven by the experiment, his theory of relativity will not become a pillar for modern physics as we know it.

What Einstein meant was general relativity describes gravity with such a deep inner elegance, with such simple yet powerful ideas, that he finds it hard to imagine that nature can just pass it by. General relativity, in Einstein’s view, was almost too beautiful to be wrong.

In physics, as in art, symmetry is a key part of aesthetics. Physicists describe the two properties of physical laws – that they do not depend on when and where you use them – as symmetries of nature. For example, the physics laws applies on the surface on the earth, applies exactly the same on the moon, on mars, on the edge of the galaxy and so on. By this usage physicist means that nature treats every moment in time and location in all of space identically – symmetrically – by ensuring that the same fundamental laws are in operation. Much in the same way that symmetries affect art and music, such symmetries are deeply satisfying; they highlight an order and coherence in the workings of nature.

The elegance of rich, complex, and diverse phenomena emerging from a simple set of universal laws is at least part of what physicist mean when they invoke the term “beautiful”.

-Adapted and edited from The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

Father of all science?

2009-09-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

Last week, a friend of mine suggested doing a debate as a ‘performance’ on the welcoming night for us first years in the faculty, and the title suggested by him was “which is the father of all science? Physics, Chemistry or Biology?” I think there is quite a lot to say about it.

Obviously, I’d say the father of all science is obviously Physics as compared to the other two options which are chemistry and biology respectively.

Why physics? How is physics the father of all science?

The way I perceive it, physics deals with the laws that govern the entire universe – from the smallest atomic scale to the huge cosmological scale. Physics gives the theory and the equations that explain how everything works with precise mathematical details that were developed by many brilliant physicist and theorists since centuries ago.

Chemistry on the other hand is the synthesis of physics. It was developed from the ideas of physics, notably the atomic model that describes the bonding of electrons in all of chemical reactions. Ever heard of physical or radio chemistry? All this intricate knowledge of chemistry is derived from the discovery in nature that was explained by physics. The Pauli Exclusion Principle which postulates the spin properties of electrons, the energy levels for understanding thermo-chemistry and the electron shells (s,p,d,f that stands for Sharp, Principle, Diffuse, Fundamental) that predicts the probable location of electrons in an atom are derived from the wave functions in quantum mechanics – all of them are fundamentally related to pure physics.

What about biology?

Biology is in turn, explained by chemistry. The complex life as we know it is quite simply made up of tiny pieces of cells. I’m no biologist, but as far as I know, the cells run their daily lives with all the necessities that are organic chemical compounds. They generate energy via glucose (for example) which is a form of organic compound. The DNA, is a chemical compound. The pheromone, dubbed the potion of love, is also an organic compound. All of these complex interactions inside any living being are basically chemistry at work.

This whole idea is called the “physics first” movement that was proposed by particle physicist, Leon M. Lederman. He discovered the muon neutrino in 1962 and the bottom quark in 1977. Won Nobel prize in physics for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino.

So... Who is the father of all science?

The definition of the standard metre (meter)

2009-08-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Remember the SI units we learn in physics lessons way back in our high school years?

The length that set the standards for the meter we use was actually a platinum bar now still kept in France.

But since October 20th 1960 (exactly 29 years before I was born) The length for the standard metre has been redefined in the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures as:

"1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation (light) corresponding to the transition between the 2p10 and 5d5 quantum levels of the Krypton-86 atom."

Using the multiple distance of wavelengths of light to measure distance, now that's precision!

Antimatter IV

2009-05-18T19:51:00.000-07:00

A BIG problem in physics.

With that, another question popped out in physics. And so far, no one can fully explain why is it so.

The million dollar question is:

Why is there SO MUCH matter in this universe compared to antimatter? (a.k.a Baryon Asymmetry Problem)

At the beginning of time which is the Big Bang – the beginning of this universe, everything was SO HOT back then, matter and antimatter is always spontaneously generated from pure energy.

The amount of matter and antimatter at that time should be the same. But somehow, physicist believe that there’s a slight difference in the amount that cause the imbalance. Like, for every billion antielectron, there’s a billion AND ONE electron. Both collide and left that ONE electron that survived the titanic explosion.

And we, are the leftovers.

Andromeda Galaxy. Closest major galaxy to our Milky Way.

Thank God for that.

We ARE using antimatter in hospital now.

As absurd as it sound, it is in fact, the truth. Ever heard of PET scan? It stands for Positron Emission Tomography.

Real life application - non invasive scanning technology

It is used to scan your body without any incisions involved. You’re given a radioactive sugar, you drink it. The brain consume sugar and the sugar will spontaneously release positrons INSIDE your brain. The positron will immediately encounter an electron and annihilated, generating gamma rays that can be detected outside the body.

And it will reveal clear photos of brain activity in real time!

The working brain. (Red marks the activity in that brain.)

So, the bottom line for this whole story – while antimatter is unlocking the secrets of the human brain, human brain, has yet to unlock antimatter’s secret. We’re close.

Antimatter III

2009-05-17T05:44:00.001-07:00

Making antimatter.

As simple as it sounds, making antimatter is NOTHING close to simple...

First, you need to make anti-protons. Then you need to make positrons, and bind them together - one single atom at a time.

With today’s technology, making a teaspoon of antimatter will bankrupt ANY nation. So, in the book, it’s not possible for the LHC to produce amount that is visible to the naked eye.

Consider this, making ONE gram of antimatter will cost 100 QUADRILLION dollars and the atom smasher need to operate for 100 BILLION years! [Physics of the Impossible – MK]

The Tevatron (Fermi lab), particle collider in Chicago. USA. The largest particle collider before the LHC.

Finding them in nature.

So, one might just say, “hey, if it’s so hard to make antimatter on earth, why don’t we look for it in the universe?”

Again, not as easy as it seems.

Suppose there’s a star that is made of entirely antimatter somewhere in this galaxy we stay, the star’s surface must be a VERY happening place as explosions happens ALL the time! Loads of gamma rays will be emitted and we can detect it with our detectors with ease.

So far, we have scanned the universe in gamma ray spectrum we see no signs of that.

Antimatter II

2009-05-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

Antielements, antichemistry...

Well, since every particle has its antimatter counterpart, therefore one can think about making anti hydrogen which is simply an atom comprised of a positron circulating an antiproton. And minute quantities HAS been produced in atom smasher labs. The first was in CERN.

The Hydrogen and the Anti-Hydrogen

Theoretically, making antielements from antiprotons, antielectrons and antineutrons is by all means possible.

In fact, anti-chemistry, anti-human, anti-galaxy or even anti-universe can exist.

So next time, if you see aliens descending in front of your lawn, throw a ball to he/she/it first. If that thing didn’t explode, you can take it to your leader safely.

Keeping antimatter.

Naturally, thinking of keeping antimatter in your pocket is suicide, because any contact with matter will result in an explosion. So, how do you store it?
The logical way to store it is using a magnetic hollow “doughnut”. (mathematical name - Torus)
First, we strip the antiatom from its positrons. Then it is electrically charged – called an anti-ion.

Then, we hurl the anti-ion inside a vacuumed hollow doughnut that has an intense magnetic field piercing through it perpendicularly. The magnetic field will deflect the path of the particle into a circular track. And the anti-ion is trapped inside!

Angels and Demons : Antimatter

2009-05-14T02:44:00.000-07:00

Today is the premiere of Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons”. Ever wonder what exactly antimatter is? In the book, the description of antimatter is a little misleading.

Here, I want to discuss about antimatter.

In the book, the antimatter is used as the primary fuel in the bomb to destroy The Vatican. The fact is, with that amount mentioned in the book, the bomb is capable to do much more damage than it is in the story.

As a matter of fact, antimatter is one of the MOST efficient explosives in the universe. Converting all its mass to pure energy.

So, What IS antimatter?

Antimatter is quite simply, the “opposite” of ordinary matter. A mirror image of it, sort of speak. It’s like matter’s evil twin.

At the early 20th century, physicist knows about atoms. They know atoms are made of protons and electrons. Take Hydrogen for example, they know it is a proton that is the nucleus of the atom and an electron orbiting it.

But in the 1930’s, physicist realised for every particle, there’s an antiparticle for it. They discovered electrons evil twin – the antielectron (a.k.a Positron)

The discovery of positron. Bend the opposite direction as electrons in magnetic field. Sharper bend above the plate indicate that the particle has lose energy, means the particle come from the bottom of the plate.

What’s so special about the positron is, the positron has the SAME mass as the electron, but with the exact opposite charge. For example, electron is negative charged, the positron is well, positively charged.

Interactions between matter and antimatter.

Now, the interaction between ordinary matter and antimatter is crucial. It is explosive. What happens is, when you bring matter and antimatter in contact, they will undergo a very fast process called annihilation.

An example, if you bring in an electron, collide it with an antielectron, BOTH particles will disappear from the face of this universe and because both the conservation of energy and momentum must be obeyed, the resulting missing mass will generate packets of pure energy in a form of gamma rays that travel in perpendicular direction of the collision.

Feynman diagram shows an electron-positron pair annihilation event, turn into gamma ray photon and re-convert back to positron-electron pair.

Keep in mind that, in all atomic bomb detonations, only 1% of the fuel (uranium/plutonium) will be converted into energy.

Antimatter convert 100% of its mass to energy. So, it is vastly more powerful than the atomic bomb. (well, more accurately, >50% of the antimatter will be converted to usable energy. The rest are converted into neutrinos – tiny particles that are very hard to detect due to its inert nature.)

Shattering Elegance

2009-04-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Who Ordered That? (On the discovery of Muon particles)

-Isidor Isaac Rabi

Our Understanding of The Cosmos [I]

2009-01-20T20:09:00.001-08:00

Throughout time, we humans has always wondered how things work. In the end, it always lead to certain discovery and finally, an invention that will change the course of history.

We used to assume the earth was flat. This is because our mobility at the dawn of humanity was really limited. Not until the ancient Greek finally got it right.

The Blue Marble- one of the most public photo ever copied.

With a few arguments that nature offered (through observing the nature) Aristotle finally wrote two observations of the nature that support the earth is round.

Aristotle is the right, Plato is the left (Plato is Aristotle's teacher)

I. The apparent position of North Star (Polaris) in different places. In this case, Greece and Egypt.

The star at the centre is the Polaris.

II. The moon can be eclipsed by the earth is because the earth is round, therefore able to cast a round shadow to the moon that we see as lunar eclipse.

There's even a third evidence that support the earth is indeed round.

The fact that we see the mast of a ship before we see the whole ship when it is "rising" from the horizon.

Inside the purple circle is the mast of a ship. (Click to enlarge.)

For some divine reason, Aristotle also assumed that the earth is the centre of the universe and it is stationary. The planets and the sun circle around it in their perfect circular orbits.

Earth is the centre of the universe.

Ptolemy (Ancient Greek Mathematician) later elaborated the geocentric model, that the earth is stationary, and there's eight "globe" of celestial body encased on top of another. The first shell is the Moon, Mercury, Venus, The Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and lastly, the globe of "fixed" stars.

Ptolemy

His model was accepted generally but not everyone accepted.

But the model was adopted by the Christian church. Because the model favor the advantage of the model because outside the globe of "fixed" stars, there's place for Heaven and Hell. And the model follows the Scripture.

St. Peters Basilica - The Vatican

No one bothered or dare to challenge the Church. It was until later, at 1514, Nicholas Copernicus proposed a theory, that the sun is in the centre of the system and earth rotates around it (Heliocentric model). At first, he circulated the idea anonymously, afraid to be branded as a heretic and probably burnt alive.

Nicholas Copernicus

It as another 100 years until heliocentric model is taken seriously by another two leading scientist of the day. Their name was Galileo Galilei and Johannes Kepler. Galileo Galilei publicly supported the theory. He showed everything fall on earth with the same rate despite how heavy they are.

Galileo Galilei

The Geocentric model was finally destroyed in 1609 when Galileo observed the night sky using the newly invented telescope and discovered Jupiter's moon, orbiting its mother planet. This proved that not everything have to orbit around the earth and finally the Church put him into house arrest for the rest of his life.

Once the most blasphemous tool ever invented - the telescope.

As for Johannes Kepler, he modified the theory, saying that the planets orbit the sun not in perfect circles but in ellipses (ellipse is an elongated circle, oval). Now the model fit perfectly with the observations. But to him, ellipse is considered to be ugly because it's obviously less perfect than circles.

The symbols are used by alchemists back then.

He does not understand why planets orbit in ellipses.
Until another man arrived who thinks ahead of his time. Sir Isaac Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton

He published his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica at 1687, which is one of the single greatest work ever published in all of physics.

A genius's masterpiece!

He states that matter that has mass will attract any other mass via a force called gravitation.
And he formulated the Universal Law of Gravitation.

Where F = The attractive gravitational force
G = Gravitational constant

m = Mass of the object

r = The distance between the object

F1 = F2

Suddenly, the reason why the orbit of the planets are elliptical is revealed.

But in 1691, Isaac Newton received a letter from Richard Bentley. After reading, Newton knew immediately something is wrong. It's the Bentley paradox. And it's crushing Newton's law.

"If gravity is always attractive, why not the entire universe collapse into a spot? (Where all the stars crashed into each other)"

Newton wrote a letter back saying:
There should be infinite stars distributed evenly in the universe in an infinite space. Then, the gravitational force will cancel each other out.

Newton is smart enough to know that the situation is not really stable. Should any single star moved a slightest bit away, then all the matter in the universe will squeeze into a dot. He finally concluded that God will have to adjust the position every now and then so that the universe does not collapse.

But before the 20th century, no one thought of the solution as in the universe is expanding or contracting.

It is thought that the universe has always existed since the beginning of time and will last eternally

A little thing about waves

2009-01-10T01:09:00.000-08:00

Adapted from Wikimedia. Translated and edited by myself.

The red curvy line is a representation of wave.

All the other components are noted down.

The period of the wave (wave period) is usually denoted as the symbol T.

The wavelength is usually denoted with the greek letter lambda (λ).

The frequency of a wave is given by the formula:

Where the symbol f is the frequency.

*Note that frequency is the reciprocal of the wave period.*

The unit for frequency is Hertz. (Hz)

In short, the shorter the wavelength means higher frequency (more waves in a second) and if the wavelength is longer, it means it has less waves in a second.

For musicians,they see frequency as pitch. Everytime when they play a tone, it reprisents a note with a specific frequency. For example:

Start with the middle C in piano, and it goes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. This is called an octave. As you press the keys starting from the middle C to the next adjacent keys, you are actually listening to the a note with a higher frequency each time you press it.

So, each time you press the adjacent keys, all you hear is the note with a higher pitch.

Click here for a more details about waves. (high school level)

What's matter about?

2008-12-14T04:42:00.000-08:00

So, let's start from the basics in order to understand what popular science books was telling all about superstrings, hyperspace and black holes.

First of all, we have to understand what is matter.

In physics, everything in the universe is classified into 2 very broad categories.

I. Matter
II. Energy

Matter, is simply anything in the universe that has mass. So, all object we touch or see is made up of matter. Water is made up of matter, same for iron, birds, mountains, humans and the stars.

Energy however is basically the thing that moves matter or contained in it.

Now, if you see the observable universe, you'll realise matter can be classified into a few categories. Mainly into 3 types. (there are actually more than that, the Bose-Einstein condensate and plasma are the extra two)

I. Solid
II.Liquid
III.Gas

Solid ice, liquid water, gaseous steam (cloud)

For example, water has 3 states of matter. Each state is called a phase. Ice, liquid water and steam. Each phase can exist under a certain temperature and pressure. That is, the amount of energy that the water molecules possesses.

The phase diagram of water.
Horizontal axis - Temperature
Vertical axis - Pressure

Matter is made up of tiny particles we called atoms. For solid, the atoms are arranged in a lattice and the atoms vibrate without moving apart. Whereas in liquid phase, the atoms have enough energy to move around and for gaseous phase, the energy contained inside the atoms are great so they move in the container fast, bouncing into each other and the container itself.

So, what are atoms made of?

From high school, we know an atom has a nucleus and the nucleus are made up of protons and neutrons. The nucleus are surrounded be electrons moving in their respective 'orbits'.

Now, thanks to the advent of particle collider and high energy physics, we know that protons and neutrons consist of even tinier particles we called quarks.

Generally speaking, matter is what we see, touch and smell everyday and it has five states of matter. Namely; the Bose-Einstein condensate, Solid, Liquid, Gas and Plasma. All of them are made up of atoms and the atoms are made up of smaller constituents.

About Extraterrestial Intelligence

2008-12-13T07:27:00.000-08:00

Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not.
Either thought is frightening.

-Arthur C. Clarke

Big Bang

2008-12-11T04:48:00.000-08:00

I could still remember when I was still studying in high school, I used to tell everyone how much I hated this brain killing subject - Physics.

Until I came across some videos of Prof Michio Kaku & Stephen Hawking giving speeches about physics and cosmology to the general audience. They really inspired me in my understanding of the universe we live in.

Now, I love physics so much more than I used to. Especially in fields such as quantum physics and nuclear physics.

As they say "observations of the cosmos force us to reconsider our understanding of the universe."

I realised that the universe we live in is almost perfect in physical sense. In some ways, it's elegant, in order and peaceful. And because it's so elegant, I don't believe it's created by accident. Thus, making me always in search of the entity we know as God.

Getting into Form 6 and studying physical science stream has given me the knowledge to understand some of Stephen Hawkings book with relative ease, and so, I did not regret joining Form 6.

This blog is like a small answer sheet, or it can also be a fact book.

So, if I have understood something deep, I'll post it here for you guys or for my reference in the future..