Carl Sagan : Astronomy's Greatest Promoter!!

This is an article about the memories of Carl Sagan, Astronomy's greatest promoter written by Dave Eicher, after Sagan's death! It is truly touching and it is my humble request to everyone that they read this article. A Legend who helped us to visualize the universe differently.
 

Carl Sagan, (1934 - 1996)

The Universe lost one of its best friends a few days before Christmas 1996.

Carl Edward Sagan died of pneumonia on December 20 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, after a two-year battle with bone marrow disease. The death came as a shock to some who treasured his friendship, as only several weeks before he seemed to be improving and, in his words, "operating at about 80%." The disease that plagued him was myelodysplasia, a form of anemia. Sagan had undergone a bone marrow transplant to counteract the disease at the Hutchinson Center in April 1995.

Sagan will be remembered as a giant in astronomy for his long record of professional accomplishments, his superb writing, and his outstanding ability to communicate complex ideas in simple ways. Despite an extraordinarily busy schedule, he took time to do and say kind and helpful things. He inspired many young astronomers and most of the editors working on the staff of this magazine. Sagan was brilliant. At a conference on comets and the origins of life, he was likely to rattle off details of bonds in organic molecules or launch into a discussion of politics and NASA funding. He seemed actually to know it all -- and the details of it all. But he could tell you with an inclusive smile that made you feel like an insider.

Sagan was born in New York City on November 9, 1934. At the time of his death he was David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he had been since 1968. 

He played a leading role in the American space program since its inception. Sagan was a consultant and adviser to NASA since the early 1950s, briefed the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon, and was an experimenter on the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo missions to the planets. He helped solve the mysteries of the high temperature of Venus (answer: a massive greenhouse effect), the seasonal changes on Mars (windblown dust), and the reddish haze of Titan (complex organic molecules).

For his work, Sagan received numerous awards, including the NASA Medals for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and (twice) for Distinguished Public Service, as well as the NASA Apollo Achievement Award and the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientific community didn't always embrace Sagan's tireless efforts with science

popularization. Yet he accomplished more to interest the public in astronomy and space exploration than anyone else of his time, and for that, all who admire science should be eternally grateful to Sagan.

All of us at ASTRONOMY will feel the loss especially deeply. Sagan had served as an advisor to us on occasion and had agreed to take a leading role on the magazine's new editorial board.

The universe shines a little more dimly now.

Dave Eicher.

CALCULUS : A New Horizon from Ancient Roots!!

Calculus, sometimes called the "mathematics of change", is a branch of mathematics concerned with describing the precise way in which changes in one variable relate to changes in other. In almost every human activity we encounter two types of variables : those that we can control directly and those that we cannot. Fortunately, those variables that we cannot control directly often respond in some way to those that we can. For example, the acceleration of a car responds to the way in which we control the flow of gasoline to the engine, and the level of an antibiotic in a person's bloodstream responds to the dosage and timing of a doctor's prescription. By understanding quantitatively how the variable we cannot control directly respond to those that we can, we can hope to make predictions about the behavior of our environment and gain some mastery over it. Calculus, founded by Newton and Leibniz, is one of the  fundamental mathematical tools used for this purpose.

                Isaac Newton                                             Gottfried Leibniz

Calculus has enormous, but often unnoticed, impact on our daily lives. Here are a few areas of research where calculus is used extensively. All of these applications involve other branches of science and mathematics, but they all use calculus in some essential way.

FBI FINGERPRINT COMPRESSION

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation began collecting fingerprints and handprints in 1924 and now has 30 million such prints in its files, all of which are being digitized for storage on computer. It take about 0.6 megabyte of storage space to record a fingerprint and 6 megabytes to record a pair of handprints, so that digitizing the current FBI archive would result in about 200 x 10^12 bytes of data to be stored, which is the capacity of roughly 138 million floppy disks. All this would cost roughly 200 million dollars. To reduce the cost, FBI's began working with several other Institutes and groups to devise compression methods for reducing the storage space. These methods, which are based on wavelets, are proving to be highly successful. Thus, calculus paved the way!!

MUSIC
Researchers at Yale University have investigated the application of wavelets to sound synthesis (music and voice). To approximate the sound of a musical instrument or voice, samples are taken and decomposed mathematically into numbers called wavelet packet coefficients. These coefficients can be stored on a computer and later sound can be reconstructed (synthesized) from the computer data. This area of research makes it possible to reproduce complex sounds from a small amount of data and to transmit those data electronically in a highly compressed form. This research may eventually speed up the transmission of sound over the Internet.

WEATHER PREDICTION
Modern meteorology is a marriage between mathematics and physics. Today's meteorologists are concerned with much more than predicting daily weather changes--their research delves into such areas as global warming, holes in the ozone layer and weather patterns on other planets. In 1904 the Norwegian meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes proposed that the state of the atmosphere at any future time can be determined by measuring appropriate variables at a single instant of time and then solving certain hydrodynamic equations. Although, it is difficult to apply this principle. However, new mathematical discoveries have dramatically improved meteorological predictions and spawned enormous
economic benefits.

MEDICAL IMAGING & DNA STRUCTURE
Advances in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) have made it possible to determine the structure of biological macromolecules, study DNA replication, and determine how proteins act as enzymes and antibodies. Related advances in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) have made it possible to view internal human tissue without invasive surgery and to provide real-time images during surgical procedures. High-quality NMR and MRI would not be possible without mathematical discoveries that have occurred within the last decade.

CONTROLLING CHAOTIC BEHAVIOR OF HUMAN-HEART
Chaos theory, which is one of the most exciting new branches of mathematics, is concerned with identifying regularities in phenomena that on the surface seem random and unpredictable. Today's research literature abounds with applications of chaos theory to almost every imaginable branch of science. Researchers at Georgia Tech University collaborated with physicist at the Emory University Medical Center in applying chaos theory to control the chaotic behaviour of heart tissue that is undergoing ventricular fibrillation (cardiac arrest). The research, though experimental, is already showing promising result.

DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION
Alexander Wolszczan of Penn State University may go down in history as the first scientist to identify a planetary system beyond our own. While searching the radio sky, he discovered a new pulsar, PSR1257+12, that seemed to wobble as it travelled through space. As a result of an extensive mathematical analysis, many scientists are now convinced that the wobble is caused by two or three planets orbiting the pulsar. Although scientists have been able to detect pulsars for some time by searching for faint periodic radio signals from outer space, it is only recently that the mathematical techniques have been developed to analyse the data in a way that stands up to scientific scrutiny.

Finally, we can see that today's life has an exciting applications of calculus but, it has roots that can be traced to the work of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, but the actual discovery of the fundamental principles of calculus was made independently by Isaac Newton (English) and Gottfried Leibniz (German) in the late seventeenth century.

Calculus drives our lives today, and further advances will help us achieve even greater heights!!

An Expanding Universe.

Most of you might know that our Universe is expanding and it has also been observed to do so. Galaxies are moving away from each other. Hubble discovered this. But, I question that what would be the future of an expanding universe like ours, what will be its ultimate fate? There are several theories that answers this question, and still people all around the world are searching for answers.
Actually, the future of an expanding universe is bleak. If a cosmological constant accelerates the expansion of the universe, the space between clusters of galaxies will grow at an increasing rate. Stars are expected to form normally for 1×10^12 to 1×10^14 years, but eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. Once the last star has exhausted its fuel, stars will cease to shine. According to theories that predict proton decay, the stellar remnants left behind would disappear, leaving behind only black holes which themselves eventually disappear as they emit Hawking radiation. Ultimately, if the universe reaches a state in which the temperature approaches a uniform value, no further work will be possible, resulting in a final heat death of the universe. But, this might not be completely true. There are many probable ways for our universe to end. Here I discuss the most widely accepted facts. 
 

The universe is currently 1.37×10^10 (13.7 billion) years old. This time is in the Stelliferous Era. About 155 million years after the Big Bang, the first star formed. Since then, stars have formed by the collapse of small, dense core regions in large, cold molecular clouds of hydrogen gas. At first, this produces a protostar, which is hot and bright because of energy generated by gravitational contraction. After the protostar contracts for a while, its center will become hot enough to fuse hydrogen and its lifetime as a star will properly begin. Stars whose mass is very low will eventually exhaust all their fusible hydrogen and then become helium white dwarfs. Stars of low to medium mass will expel some of their mass as a planetary nebula and eventually become a white dwarf; more massive stars will explode in a core-collapse supernova, leaving behind neutron stars or black holes.

The Andromeda Galaxy is currently approximately 2.5 million light years away from our galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy, and the galaxies are moving towards each other at approximately 120 kilometers per second. Approximately three billion years from now, or 17 billion years after the Big Bang, the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy may collide with one another and merge into one large galaxy. Because it is not known precisely how fast the Andromeda Galaxy is moving transverse to us, it is not certain that the collision will happen.
Assuming that dark energy continues to make the universe expand at an accelerating rate, 2×10^12 (2 trillion) years from now, all galaxies outside the Local Supercluster will be red-shifted to such an extent that even gamma rays they emit will have wavelengths longer than the size of the observable universe of the time. Therefore, these galaxies will no longer be detectable in any way. By 10^14 (100 trillion) years from now, star formation will end, leaving all stellar objects in the form of degenerate remnants. This period, known as the Degenerate Era, will last until the degenerate remnants finally decay.

It is estimated that in 10^14 (100 trillion) years or less, star formation will end. The least massive stars take the longest to exhaust their hydrogen fuel (see stellar evolution). Thus, the longest living stars in the universe are low-mass red dwarfs, with a mass of about 0.08 solar masses, which have a lifetime of order 10^13 (10 trillion) years. Coincidentally, this is comparable to the length of time over which star formation takes place.

After 10^40 years, black holes will dominate the universe. They will slowly evaporate via Hawking radiation. A black hole with a mass of around 1 solar mass will vanish in around 2×10^66 years. However, many of these are likely to merge with supermassive black holes at the center of their galaxies through processes described above long before this happens. As the lifetime of a black hole is proportional to the cube of its mass, more massive black holes take longer to decay. A supermassive black hole with a mass of 10^11 (100 billion) solar masses will evaporate in around 2×10^99 years.

After all the black holes have evaporated (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, neutrinos, electrons, and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other. Gravitationally, the universe will be dominated by dark matter, electrons, and positrons (not photons). By this era, with only very diffuse matter remaining, activity in the universe will have tailed off dramatically (compared with previous eras), with very low energy levels and very large time scales. Electrons and positrons drifting through space will encounter one another and occasionally form positronium atoms. These structures are unstable, however, and their constituent particles must eventually annihilate. The universe now reaches an extremely low-energy state. 

What happens after this, is speculative. It is possible that a Big Rip event may occur far off into the future. Also, the universe may enter a second inflationary epoch, or, assuming that the current vacuum state is a false vacuum, the vacuum may decay into a lower-energy state. Finally, the universe may settle into this state forever, achieving true heat death.

Well, that's one probable way that our universe is gonna die. It might be true but we still don't know.

Time Travel : Protecting The Past-2

So, in this blog I am gonna continue from where I had left in my previous blog. As I had posted that we can answer the question whether the laws of physics allow spacetime to be so warped that a macroscopic body such as a spaceship can return to its own past; in many levels.

According to Einstein's Theory, a spaceship necessarily travels at less than the local speed of light and follows what is called a timelike path through spacetime. Thus one can formulate the question in technical terms : Does Spacetime admit timelike curves that are closed--that is, that return to their starting point again and again? These paths are referred to as "time loops" by the famous physicist Stephen Hawking.
There are three levels on which we can try to answer this question. The first is Einstein's General theory of relativity, which assumes that the universe has a well-defined history without any uncertainty. For this classical theory we have a fairly complete picture. However, this theory can't be quite right, because we observe that matter is subject to uncertainty and quantum fluctuations.

We can therefore ask the question about time-travel on a second level, that of semiclassical theory. In this, we consider matter to behave according to quantum theory, with uncertainty and quantum fluctuations, but spacetime to be well defined and classical. Here the picture is less complete, but at least we have some idea of how to proceed.

Finally, there is a full quantum theory of gravity, whatever that may be. In this theory, where not just matter but also time and space themselves are uncertain and fluctuate, it is not even clear how to pose the question whether time travel is possible. Maybe the best we can do is to ask how people in regions where spacetime is nearly classical and free from uncertainty would interpret their measurements.
To start with classical theory : the flat spacetime of special relativity (relativity without gravity) doesn't allow time travel, nor do curved spacetimes that were known early on.

Time travel "horizons" (the boundary separating the region of time loops from the region without them) are rather like black hole horizons. While a black hole horizon is formed by light rays that just miss falling into the black hole, a time travel horizon is formed by light rays on the verge of meeting up with themselves.

Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important to understand why it is impossible. But, mathematically it may be possible. The probability that one can go back in time and kill his/her grandfather is 1/10^[(10)^60] or in other words its less than 1 in 10 with a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion zeroes after it but its not zero; that means its not an impossible event. Thus, whatever may be the correct answer for time travel, one thing is certain that it is one of the toughest and exiting questions in modern science. May be we can know about that in the coming centuries!! Till then.......Good Luck!

Time Travel : Protecting The Past!

Once Again, While browsing through Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell I stumbled upon one of the most intriguing questions in modern physics; The possibility of Time Travel!!

It is tricky to speculate openly about time travel. One risks either an outcry at the waste of public money being spent on something so ridiculous or a demand that the research be classified for military purposes. After all, how could we protect ourselves against someone with a time machine? They might change history and rule the world. Physicists disguise the fact by using technical terms that are code for time travel.

The basis of all modern discussions of time travel is Einstein's general theory of Relativity. The Einstein equations made space and time dynamic by describing how they were curved and distorted by the matter and energy in the universe. In general relativity someone's personal time as measured by their wrist-watch would always increase, just as it did in Newtonian Theory or the flat spacetime of special relativity. But there was now the possibility that spacetime could be warped so much that you could go off in a spaceship and come back before you set out.

One way this could happen is if there were wormholes, tubes of spacetime that connects different regions of space and time. The idea is that you steer your spaceship into one mouth of the wormhole and come out of the other mouth in a different place and at a different time.
Wormholes, If they exist, would be the solution to the speed limit problem in space : it would take tens of thousands of years to cross the galaxy in a spaceship that traveled at less than the speed of light, as relativity demands. But one might go through a wormhole to the other side of the galaxy and be back in time for dinner. However, one can show that if wormholes exist, you could also use them to get back before you set out. This is a variation of the Grandfather Paradox. Of course, this is a paradox only if you believe you have the free will to do what you like when you go back in time.

But whether the laws of physics allow spacetime to be so warped that a macroscopic body such as a spaceship can return to its own past?? There are many levels on which we can answer this question, but for the time being let me keep it as a secret. I'll disclose the answers in my next blog post!........Keep searching for the answers till then! Thank You!!

Engineering Masterpieces!!

This time let me show you some of the greatest cars that have or are in the process of being made. They have totally changed they way man thinks about Cars. Amazing Power, awesome beauty, dashing style all combine to make these Engineering Masterpieces. I am not mentioning the names of these cars to create suspense and maintain their delicacy. All of the images are of High Quality, so click on them to get a nice view!!

Beauty....!!

Its Truly said that "The World Is Just Awesome!". Sometimes, nature shows us such a mesmerizing scene that we all get stunned!!. The world we live on is a heaven in itself!! Can't believe me..............Just take a look at this!!

License To Drive!!

Hi everybody!! Now, this time I am writing about how I got my Driving License? This whole procedure was tiring, frustrating, surprising etc. but Ultimately I received my driving license, and that too for a long period of time : 20 years!!  Here is how things began!

I learnt how to ride a scooter/bike, a two-wheeler around 2 years ago, when I was 16 years old, ineligible to get a License. When I became a smooth rider, and mastered the act of driving, I became eager to drive it more, mainly for pleasure and joy!! But, there was a big problem, I had no Driving License, so if I got caught by the traffic police, I had to not only pay the fine, but I would even lose my permission to drive, which I got from my father. So, I didn't drive much, but I still did when it was required, and in areas where there were no police, or where they didn't check for license. :-P

One day, after two years, that is in April 2011, surprisingly my Father brought the form that was required to submit for requesting a new License. I was 18 years old and was eligible. I was really happy! As I was busy giving my engineering entrance exams, so I decided to do all the process after my exams. On 17th May, all my exams were over and now I was free to start the procedure of getting a new license. According to the form it was compulsory to get the signature and attestation of a registered doctor. This was the easiest part, my doctor, who is also very friendly to me as I have been consulting him for the past 14 years, signed and attested my photograph. As the form said; I had to submit it in the District Transport Office (DTO) with an date of birth proof and address proof. So, I took my Board's Mark Sheet at the proof for my date of birth and my school I.D card as my address proof, assuming that it will be accepted.
Again, next problem was that I didn't know where the DTO is? So, I took a random guess and thought that it would be there. When I reached that place I couldn't find the building, so I randomly entered one of the offices, thinking that I would get any information. But, rather that turned out to be the office of the RBI. I was puzzled, then I came out of the building and asked a Tea-Stall which was in the vicinity, but that went in vain as they couldn't tell me anything. So, I finally decided to find it on my own. To my surprise, I saw a beautiful building with the Glass-exterior, so I thought to check it out, and yes I was correct. I was finally at the right place. But, the second problem was just waiting for me...........in the form of a long line with approximately 45-50 people ahead of me. I was shocked, but I still decided to take the line and to pass a long time of 2.5 hours, I listened to music, but got bored out of it. Finally, my turn came and I happily moved in. The third problem was just coming........as soon as I showed my school I.D card to the person in the counter, he rejected it saying that it is not accepted. On asking what I had to do, he just told me to bring my or my father's Election Card......and there was no way that it could be done that day so I had to come another day. I was so damn frustrated that time but all I could do was go back home. Think, It was so difficult to find the DTO, then I spent around 3 hours in the line and all in vain. Damn it! After this I took my father's EC card as a proof and again spent 2-3 hours in the line but this time it worked and they accepted my documents. A sigh of relief!

Now, I had to wait for almost 2-3 weeks and then my learner's license would be ready. So, I waited and when I got my learner's license I was a bit relieved as now I had the official permission to drive a vehicle as a learner. But still the process was not yet completed. Now, what I had to do was take a Driving Test and Pass it in first attempt.......and what I had to drive????......A CAR... a four-wheeler, I had no idea how to drive a car!! But thanks to my father that he helped me learn it in a simple and fast way. With a little practice I went to take the test!! Surprisingly and Brilliantly, I was successful in the first attempt! Whooo..... then after all this I just submitted the form along with the result of the test, and was told to wait for 4 weeks to get my final Driving License Smart-Card!! Yippee.......now I was happy. Finally, after a month, I got my license and now for the next 20 years I can ride and drive!! So, finally things turned out to be pretty cool.

   

Nostalgia....!!

I was just organizing my certificates and documents, where I found my Std. 10th "Class Photograph". For a moment, I felt like I had experienced a bit of "Time-Travel" and returned to my past life. I really got stuck with this photograph, so to express myself I decided to blog away. I know that it is not too long, but I feel that Time is something that you cannot measure with clocks; 'tis actually what you feel on the inside. Sometimes, even a long period of time, say 15-20 years might seem like 'twas just yesterday, while on the other hand some occasional few moments make you feel like its been years. What I found out was that I was really missing my good old school days.....:-(

Where do I begin? Yeah, 'twas April, sun high out in the sky.......I was too exited to study in Std. 10, it was a new year, a year of opportunities. In the beginning everything seemed so nice, but later we got to know that, everything is not going to be simple, Board Exams seemed as if it was the most difficult thing on the planet. Still, we had lots of fun.......each and every classmate became a special friend......we enjoyed every moment we spent in the class.....these were the happy memories!!
I was revisited to all these memories as soon I saw that photograph. Even the teachers were so nice and friendly, except for some who scolded our class each and every time we met! But rest, the year was so fantastic.....only then we realized that these moments are precious and we are never gonna get them back because we will be separated after this, everyone will be in different schools. And now, here, at this moment I really miss all my Friends, classmates, teachers......everyone!!!!!!!....Hope that Future meets us all!! Here is that Photo!...


Class-Photograph....Find Me!!

HOW STARS ARE BORN?

Now, this is a question that almost all of us have thought about or asked someone. Isn't it?
Well, for me it was one of the most important and interesting questions when I first stumbled upon it? I got a clear and convincing answer much later when I read Michio Kaku's fantastic book, Parallel Worlds.

A typical star like our Sun begins its life as a large ball of diffuse hydrogen gas called a protostar and gradually contracts under the force of gravity. As it begins to collapse, it begins to spin rapidly (which often leads to the formation of a double-star system, where two stars chase each other in elliptical orbits, or the formation of planets in the plane of rotation of the star). The core of the star also heats up tremendously until it hits approximately 10 million degrees or more, when the fusion of hydrogen to helium takes place.
After the star ignites, it is called a main sequence star and it may burn for about 10 billion years, slowly turning its core from hydrogen to waste helium. Our Sun is currently midway through the process. After the era of hydrogen burning ends, the star begins to burn helium, whereupon it expands enormously to the size of the orbit of Mars and becomes a "red-giant". After the Helium fuel in the core is exhausted, the outer layers of the star dissipate, leaving the core itself, a "white-dwarf" star about the size of Earth. Smaller stars like our Sun will die in space as hunks of dead nuclear material in white dwarf stars.

But in stars, perhaps ten to forty times the mass of our Sun, the fusion process proceeds much more rapidly. When the star become a red supergiant, its core rapidly fuses the lighter elements, so it resembles a Hybrid Star, a white-dwarf inside a red-giant. In this white-dwarf star, the lighter elements up to iron on the periodic table of elements may be created. When the fusion process reaches the stage where the element iron is created, no more energy can be extracted from the fusion process, so the nuclear furnace, after billions of years, finally shuts down. At this point, the star abruptly collapses, creating huge pressures that actually push the electrons into the nuclei. (The density can exceed 400 billion times the density of water.) This causes temperatures to soar to trillions of degrees. The gravitational energy compressed into this tiny object explodes outward into a Supernova. (about which I have discussed in the next post.) The intense heat of this process causes fusion to start once again, and the elements beyond iron on the periodic table are synthesized.

The red supergiant Betelgeuse, for example, which can be easily  seen in the constellation Orion, is unstable; it can explode at any time as a supernova, spewing large quantities of gamma ray and X-Rays into the surrounding neighborhood. When that happens, this supernova will be visible in daytime and might outshine the moon at night.

It was once thought that the titanic energy released by a supernova destroyed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. A supernova about 10 Light-years away could, in fact, end all life on Earth. Fortunately, the giant stars Spica and Betelgeuse are 260 and 430 light-years away, respectively, too far to cause much serious damage to Earth when they finally explode. But some scientists believe that a minor extinction of sea creatures 2 million years ago was caused by a supernova explosion of a star 120 light-years away.

Hence, we are safe for the time being, so no worries but, beware as any big cosmological event can indeed end Life on Earth!! :-)
 

THE GRAND DESIGN!!

Recently, in my free time, I was re-reading a book named The Grand Design written by the famous physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. This book has left a deep impact on me. It has revolutionized my way of thinking about the universe and ultimately the questions of our existence.
In this book the authors have described elegantly that how regularities in the motion of the astronomical bodies such as the sun, the moon, and the planets suggested that they were governed by fixed laws rather than being subject to arbitrary whims and caprices of gods and demons. At first the existence of such laws became apparent only in astronomy (or astrology, which was regarded as much the same). The behavior of things on earth is so complicated and subject to so many influences that early civilizations were unable to discern any clear patterns or laws governing these phenomena. Gradually, however, new laws were discovered in areas other than astronomy, and this led to the idea of scientific determinism : there must be a complete set of laws that, given the state of the universe at a specific time, would specify how the universe would develop from that time forward. These laws should hold everywhere and at all times; otherwise they wouldn't be laws. There could be no exceptions or miracles. Gods or Demons couldn't intervene in the running of the universe.
At the time that scientific determinism was first proposed, Newton's laws were the only laws known.
 The Laws of nature tell us how the universe behaves, but they don't answer the why? questions  that are as follows : 

Why is there something rather than nothing?
Why do we exist?
Why this particular set of laws and not some other?

Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way. It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exist that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. We claim, however that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science and without invoking any divine beings.

The word "game" in the Game of Life is a misleading term. There are no winners and losers; in fact, there are no players. The Game of Life is not really a game but a set of laws that govern a two-dimensional universe. It is a deterministic universe : once you set up a starting configuration, or initial condition, the laws determine what happens in future.
What makes this universe interesting is that although the fundamental "physics" of this universe is simple, the "chemistry" can be complicated.

Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue torch paper and set the universe going. The universe is the way it is!!

BLACK HOLES!!

I think nowadays, We are all aware of what a Black Hole is?......Ain't we?....Alright, after reading this post I am sure that you will completely understand about Black Holes.
First of all, the definition : A black hole is a region of space-time from which nothing, not even light, can escape. Now, that's a classy definition of a black hole. But what is it actually and what would it be like?

The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform space-time to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that marks the point of no return. It is called "black" because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing, just like a perfect black body in thermodynamics. I think now you might have got an idea 'bout this whole matter. Black Holes are some of the few bodies in our universe that have so strong gravitational pull.......in fact in our knowledge the strongest gravitational pull, that even light cannot escape. But after all how are they formed out in the space and how do they survive?

Black holes are generally formed when a star, say 20 times the mass of our own sun collapses due to its own gravity. One point to note is that, the existence of a star is due to a delicate act of balancing between its own internal gravitational force which tends to crush the star and the nuclear energy generated by the process of nuclear-fusion inside the star which tends to blow the star apart. When such a star, completes its life cycle i.e burns out all of its fuel which are mainly Hydrogen & Helium, it has nothing left to balance it against the enormous force of gravity, so it starts to collapse. Generally, the star collapses, but it mass remains the same and volume almost decreases to zero and in turn its density tends to infinity.
At the center of a black hole as described by general relativity lies a gravitational singularity, a region where the space-time curvature becomes infinite. For a non-rotating black hole this region takes the shape of a single point and for a rotating black hole it is smeared out to form a ring singularity lying in the plane of rotation. In both cases the singular region has zero volume. It can also be shown that the singular region contains all the mass of the black hole solution. The singular region can thus be thought of as having infinite density.
The defining feature of a black hole is the appearance of an event horizon—a boundary in space-time through which matter and light can only pass inward towards the mass of the black hole. Nothing, not even light, can escape from inside the event horizon. The event horizon is referred to as such because if an event occurs within the boundary, information from that event cannot reach an outside observer, making it impossible to determine if such an event occurred. 
As predicted by general relativity, the presence of a large mass deforms space-time in such a way that the paths taken by particles bend towards the mass. At the event horizon of a black hole, this deformation becomes so strong that there are no paths that lead away from the black hole.
The simplest black holes have mass but neither electric charge nor angular momentum. These black holes are often referred to as Schwarzschild black holes after Karl Schwarzschild who discovered this solution in 1916. According to Birkhoff's theorem, it is the only vacuum solution that is spherically symmetric. This means that there is no observable difference between the gravitational field of such a black hole and that of any other spherical object of the same mass. The popular notion of a black hole "sucking in everything" in its surroundings is therefore only correct near a black hole's horizon; far away, the external gravitational field is identical to that of any other body of the same mass.
Solutions describing more general black holes also exist. Charged black holes are described by the Reissner–Nordström metric, while the Kerr metric describes a rotating black hole. The most general stationary black hole solution known is the Kerr–Newman metric, which describes a black hole with both charge and angular momentum.
Once a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing additional matter. Any black hole will continually absorb gas and interstellar dust from its direct surroundings and omnipresent cosmic background radiation. This is the primary process through which supermassive black holes seem to have grown (One of this is situated at the center of our galaxy, Milky way). Astrophysicists searching for black holes thus have to rely on indirect observations. A black hole's existence can sometimes be inferred by observing its gravitational interactions with its surroundings. Thus, it is clear that Black Holes are one of the strangest object in outer-space. 

It has many deep and dark secrets in it, waiting for it to be explored. If anyone out there is interested in going inside the black hole, provided you have the required technology, contact me because I will be more than happy to join you!! That's All. Enjoy!!

SUPERNOVA & HYPERNOVA!!

Hey Folks!! In this post I would be informing about Supernova and a little 'bout Hypernova. What is a supernova? Well, most of us might know that a supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova.
Clearly, the prefix super implies that, but a supernova is much more than that. 
Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months. During this short interval a supernova can radiate as much energy as the Sun is expected to emit over its entire life span. The explosion expels much or all of a star's material at a velocity of up to 30,000 km/s (10% of the speed of light), driving a shock wave into the surrounding interstellar medium.

Astronomers have classified Supernova according to the absorption lines of different chemical elements that appear in their spectra. The first element for a division is the presence or absence of a line caused by hydrogen. If a supernova's spectrum contains a line of hydrogen (known as the Balmer series in the visual portion of the spectrum) it is classified Type II; otherwise it is Type I. Among those types, there are subdivisions according to the presence of lines from other elements and the shape of the light curve (a graph of the supernova's apparent magnitude as a function of time).

TYPE Ia : If a carbon-oxygen white dwarf accreted enough matter to reach the Chandrasekhar limit of about 1.38 solar masses (for a non-rotating star), it would no longer be able to support the bulk of its plasma through electron degeneracy pressure and would begin to collapse. Within a few seconds, a substantial fraction of the matter in the white dwarf undergoes nuclear fusion, releasing enough energy (1–2 × 1044 joules) to unbind the star in a supernova explosion. An outwardly expanding shock wave is generated, with matter reaching velocities on the order of 5,000–20,000 km/s, or roughly 3% of the speed of light.

TYPE Ib & Ic : These events, like supernovae of Type II, are probably massive stars running out of fuel at their centers; however, the progenitors of Types Ib and Ic have lost most of their outer (hydrogen) envelopes due to strong stellar winds or else from interaction with a companion. Type Ib supernovae are thought to be the result of the collapse of a massive Wolf-Rayet star. There is some evidence that a few percent of the Type Ic supernovae may be the progenitors of gamma ray bursts (GRB).

TYPE II : Stars with at least nine solar masses of material evolve in a complex fashion. In the core of the star, hydrogen is fused into helium and the thermal energy released creates an outward pressure, which maintains the core in hydrostatic equilibrium and prevents collapse.
When the core's supply of hydrogen is exhausted, this outward pressure is no longer created. The core begins to collapse, causing a rise in temperature and pressure which becomes great enough to ignite the helium and start a helium-to-carbon fusion cycle, creating sufficient outward pressure to halt the collapse. The core expands and cools slightly, with a hydrogen-fusion outer layer, and a hotter, higher pressure, helium-fusion center. (Other elements such as magnesium, sulfur and calcium are also created and in some cases burned in these further reactions.)  
This process repeats several times; each time the core collapses, and the collapse is halted by the ignition of a further process involving more massive nuclei and higher temperatures and pressures. Each layer is prevented from collapse by the heat and outward pressure of the fusion process in the next layer inward; each layer also burns hotter and quicker than the previous one—the final burn of silicon to iron consumes its fuel in just a few days at most. The star becomes layered like an onion, with the burning of more easily fused elements occurring in larger shells.

Thus, a supernova is a really an interesting topic of study in astronomy. It is really exiting.
But, there are something which are even more powerful than this event and that is HYPERNOVA. Hypernova refers to an exceptionally large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan but in a different manner as compared to a Supernova. The core of a hypernova collapses directly into a black hole, and two extremely energetic jets of plasma are emitted from its rotational poles at nearly the speed of light. These jets emit intense gamma rays and are a candidate explanation for long duration gamma ray bursts. These gamma ray bursts are so powerful that it burns anything that comes in its way. So, that's all. 

Beware, and keep an EYE in the SKY!! lol.

Random Thought!!

Just while browsing the Internet I came to know about an awesome muscle car : The 2012 CHEVROLET CAMARO ZL1.This is a masterpiece. This cool car just left me speechless!! Take a look at it!

Huh, What do you say??

An Awesome Day!!

What is an awesome day really like? (Feel free to Share). Huh.., I had no idea of it till I experienced one!
It was Tuesday, 17th May 2011. Now, this day was not like the other days, maybe because I had to take important entrance exam on this day. Yeah, I had my BITSAT on this day which if I would have cleared I could today be studying in the most prestigious engineering college of India, BITS-PILANI obviously after the IITs. But, its okay whatever happened!
So, on this morning I got up at 5.30 a.m as I had to get ready and report to the exam hall by 7.45 a.m. Well, clearly the day didn't begin very well. I was a bit tensed, because this was a tough exam, a bit curious, because this was my first computer based exam and a bit relieved, because this was my last engr. entrance exam! Anyways, I got ready and reached the centre too early. I had chosen to give this exam in one of the most popular cities of Eastern India, Patna. Well, the weather was too hot, temperatures soaring and really humid! (Actually, the weather was so damn hot that as soon as I landed in Patna, and walked a few steps on the Airport, which obviously was fully air-conditioned, I began sweating, started to feel the heat. Surprisingly, this was the condition with all the passengers there). I had stayed in my Uncle's house for the last few days with my cousin, Sharad Jha who is a year younger to me, it was fun to be there!
So, my Uncle & I waited at the centre, till it was time to go in. Here I met one of my best buddies Himanshu Shekhar, who was also there for the same purpose. I was a little relieved to see him there. 
We took the test and I was really annoyed after it because I had scored too less!. For a moment, it felt to me like it was the worst day I had seen, but that thought vanished after I reached my Cousin's home who made me feel that I might get another chance and that I shouldn't give up. Well, he was right!

Now, here is where the fun began! All my exams were over! So, I was free. Since, I had to leave the same night, Sharad & I decided to go out and explore the city!. We didn't care for the scorching sun and headed directly to one of the most popular places in Patna, Gandhi Maidan. After reaching there in about an hour, we took a stroll there for some time and then decided to go to The Shrikrishna Science Centre!
After entering the Main Building, we were amazed to see variety of things present there! We began with a simple trick of illusions and then saw some really cool stuffs, like the Infinite Well, variety of optical illusion, Special Mirrors which formed a really funny image of me and Sharad!. Then, we moved on to a room named dine with yourself where you could sit and five images of yours were formed giving a feel that you were dining with yourself.

It was really an enjoyable time, a day I would never forget.

But, this was just the beginning. We then clicked a lot of pics inside the main hall with really fantastic stuffs. After viewing inside and knowing a dozen of scientific facts, we came out in the open where there were again numerous things. We started with the Jurassic Park. In this section, there were a lot of dinosaurs which looked really scary on the first sight because they were movable creature. The head, eyes, hands, and tail were perhaps controlled hydraulically which moved after a specific time that enhanced its beauty. After this we went on to see the last section of the Science Centre.

This part was the funniest part of the whole journey. We saw two robot-like sculpture standing at a distance of about 50 m. This was to demonstrate how sound travels through strings. Now, Sharad went on to speak from the other robot's mouth and I was at the other end listening to him. But, my Robot, has an extra hole on its head. Now, I didn't know where to speak from. So I said something from the Robot's head but Sharad couldn't hear anything. Suddenly, a stranger told me that I had to speak through its mouth. Then, I realized that the hole on its head was just because it was defective one. It was so funny, that moment was totally hilarious. After this, we moved on to a special chair which could rotate and it had weights on both of its sides between two long rods so that one could move them.
Now, this was meant only for children, but curiously, I and Sharad sat on it. First, Sharad sat and I helped him. As soon as he brought the weights near him, the chair started to rotate at a tremendous speed. Also, this was meant for children so the chair was too small. He began screaming and asked me to stop, but that was not possible because the chair was at great speed. Then, I asked him to release the weights which eventually worked out and stopped the chair. It was so funny, the look on his face!

After seeing all of the sections outside, including the Biplane which was really cool, we took some pics and came out of the centre.

Then, Sharad took me to a restaurant named Dosa Plaza, where I was surprised to know that there was more than a 100 varieties of Dosas available. I was shocked to know that there were actually these many varieties available....from Mexican Cheese Dosa to the very popular Masala Dosa. Then after having some Snacks we decided to go home. I was reluctant to go but I had to because I had to leave that night for Ranchi. So, finally an awesome day came to an end!! You can see more pics of our journey at this link An Awesome Day !!

This was a day that I will never forget!!