Tvindy

Saturn's Hexagon

[Addendum: About a day after writing this, it occurred to me that people might assume it is some sort of April Fool's joke. Amazingly it is not. However, I have managed to discover a more plausible explanation for Saturn's hexagon.]

Remember the Cassini probe to Saturn and its moon Titan? Well, it's still going strong. The above image shows a distinct hexagonal formation directly above Saturn's north pole. The shape is 15,000 miles wide (large enough to encompass nearly four Earths). Apparently the Voyager probes had detected it on their flybys in the 80s, but this is the first time that the entire hexagon has been captured in a single image. And it confirms that this is a real longterm (perhaps permanent) phenomenon. What I find interesting is that so far, scientists haven't put forth even the most tentative theory as to how such a structure could form or maintain itself. (Obviously it was built by intelligent Saturnians.)

Saturn's south pole has a radically different, yet no less dramatic, appearance. It actually looks to have a form more appropriate to Uranus.

Great Mysteries #3

A Couple of Physics Questions

I've got a couple of physics questions that have been bothering me for the past several years. The first concerns acceleration and the speed of light. While I understand that we can't currently build interstellar or intergalactic spaceships that can approach anywhere near the speed of light due to our being unable to produce sufficient energy over a sustained period of time, one thing I'm not clear on is whether manned spaceflight at near light speed would be impractical due to the effects of acceleration. In other words, assuming we did have a spaceship equipped with a powerful enough engine, if we stuck a crew of astronauts inside, set a course, and accelerated the ship continuously at 1 G, how long would it take for it to approach 90% of the speed of light? I've never taken physics, so I can't work it out on my own. As far as I know, it could take a week or it could take a thousand years. In the latter case, I think we can just give up on manned missions to other stars. Also, I should say that when I talk about time, I mean the time for the astronauts in the ship and not for outside observers still on Earth.

My second question concerns the fourth dimension. What I want to know is simply this: Is it or is it not time? I've heard convincing arguments for both sides. Some people say that it's not literally time. We only think of time as the fourth dimension because of the convention of using it as a fourth parameter to plot the location of a point in space. First you work out its spatial x, y, z coordinates and then use a fourth variable for time if it's not stationary. But I've also heard that just as a sphere is a two-dimensional plane curved in upon itself in the third dimension, so too is our three-dimensional universe curved into a sort of four-dimensional sphere. And spacetime does affect time, especially around black holes. So it would seem that the fourth dimension may actually be time. If this is the case, then I have additional questions:

• Why four? Shouldn't time be the first dimension or the last dimension?
• Would beings in a two-dimensional universe (flatlanders) not be able to experience time, since they are two dimensions away from it?
• Is the fourth dimension the only non-spatial one, or are there a few higher dimensions that also specify some non-spatial attribute? Is there a dimension for chocolate?

Great Mysteries #2

What's up with helium balloons?

Helium balloons have puzzled me since I was a small child. I actually have several unanswered questions about them. First, I've never understood the concept of helium becoming "tired" and causing three-day-old balloons to start coming down off the ceiling. This is patently absurd. Helium molecules are lighter than the oxygen and nitrogen molecules. What would cause them to acquire extra mass? Yet balloons do seem to lose their rising power over time, even when tied with a firm knot and without diminishing in size. Even if the plastic had microscopic pores allowing the gas to gradually drain, this would still make the balloon observably smaller. When I was in second grade, my class released balloons with messages attached to see if anyone would find them and write back. We were to release them on a Friday, but due to rain, we had to postpone until the following Monday. My teacher expressed concern that the helium, still compressed in tanks, would lose freshness over the weekend and our balloons might fail to rise when they were filled on Monday. So apparently helium becomes tired even when stored under pressure. (Or maybe my teacher was an idiot.)

I'm also curious and have never encountered an answer as to what typically happens to a balloon after it is released. How high does it reach at its highest point? What causes it to descend? (Tired helium?) At first thought, I would expect the balloon to burst at some point as the outside pressure diminished. After all, if you thoroughly inflate a balloon at the bottom of a swimming pool and release it, it will pop before reaching the surface. But my impression is that balloons released outside eventually make their way back down to earth. Perhaps the plastic of the balloon exerts enough tension to keep the helium compressed even as the air outside becomes less dense until it reaches an altitude where it achieves neutral buoyancy and then just floats around until its helium gets tired. If it weren't for weary helium, the balloon should theoretically stay up there indefinitely (or even just stuck to the ceiling). What about hydrogen? Does it get tired too?

And for a related question, how come balloons attached to the wall with static electricity invariably come unstuck after a few minutes? Surely the electrons don't become tired and lose their negative charge. A more plausible explanation would be that the negative charge is gradually dissipated into the surrounding air. So would they stay up if they were in a vacuum? (Obviously the balloons would have to contain far less air.)

Also related, on Farscape Rigel farts helium whenever he becomes nervous. How is this possible? (Obviously it is, because he does it.) Helium is an element and a noble gas. The atoms don't bind to anything, so they can't be extracted through digestion from food molecules (since they never occur in molecules). Rigel's food and drink may be laced with large quantities of helium. This is not entirely implausible. After all, here on Earth we carbonate soft drinks with carbon dioxide; they may do something similar with helium elsewhere. But Rigel eats the same food as his companions, and you never see them farting helium. The only other possibility is that his digestive system can somehow transmute one element into another. But that would be as implausible as the ability to poop gold bricks.

Titan

The big news tonight is the Cassini probe landing on Titan. You can get up-to-date information here. Probably by the time you read this, it will already be there, and the first photos ever of Titan's surface will be available. Exciting stuff!

Solstice Hoax?

The solstice is tonight. Kimberly came across this article in the Seattle Times stating that we will have the longest night for thousands of years. If true, this is extraordinary, but I couldn't find any other information about it anywhere on the internet. Could this be a solstice hoax?

Fucktard of the Week

I subscribe to Discover and received the latest issue today with this delightful article. The kinds of animal experimentation that go on in the world are truly appalling, at least to me, especially when the experiments are done by doctors. This fellow is a neurologist, yet here he is blithely administering concussions to restrained rats. Would you want someone capable of that operating on your brain? I could go on and on about this, but really I just wanted to share the caption and photo.

Hobbits are Real!

Lately it seems I've had no shortage of blogging material. One very exciting development in my life is the birthday present my parents are sending me. (I'll be blogging about that later.) Even better news is the fact that michael is alive and blogging. But tonight I want to interrupt my regularly scheduled mediocre blogging (not that Michael is in any way mediocre), so I can be one of the first to talk about this, which I learned about from Receptionista.

Here's the gist of it. Thousands of years ago there were these teeny-tiny three-foot-high people who lived on an island. They were very smart, since they made tools and apparently some kind of boat to get out there in the first place. They lived in a magical world that they shared with tiny elephants and giant rats and fearsome komodo dragons. (Can you imagine being that tiny and sharing and island with these guys?) And then one day a volcano erupted, and they all died. (Well, at least we assume they all died.)

SETI Loves Me

It seems only yesterday that I completed 500 units. Now here I am at 1000 and still no alien signal.

Gonzo Science

I know finding great new music to download isn't anything new, but since I got my new iPod Mini, my interest in this practice has been revived. As I said before, I have made a few additions to my playlist, but finding an absolute gem is very hard. I'm not easy to please music-wise. I tend to like songs that are highly lyrical and a little bit silly. Yesterday, though, I came across a veritable treasure.

Here's how I found it. I was reading Bill's latest post, in which he offered a download to an obscure song that he believed was no longer available anywhere else online. A commenter replied with a link to a site that did, in fact, offer that song as well as the entire album which contained it. I checked out the site, and, on the off chance that they might have something else of interest to me, I scrolled down and checked out the other albums. That's how I discovered this.

Gonzo Science is the work of Jim Richardson and his brother Allen, both of whom believe that scientific orthodoxy unnecessarily holds back new ideas which may be valid. Each track of the CD is the defense of a theory not generally accepted in the mainstream of science. But it's also a song. You can play it and rock to a defense of the Aquatic Ape Theory or to a criticism of the Big Bang model of the Universe. And the music is good. You could easily include one or two tracks in a party mix without anyone thinking you're some sort of wackadoo. (Of course for me, it's a bit too late to be worrying about that.)

But what I really like about these guys is that they're not nutcases. I love non-conventional theories, as anyone who has been reading this blog for any amount of time can attest. The problem is that most people who defend such ideas are usually a little nutty. They have no concept of the scientific method and are willing to pretty much believe anything, and if no one believes them, they think there's some big conspiracy out there trying to suppress the truth. For example, Coast to Coast AM is a great radio show, but they take everything seriously, including ghosts, UFOs, alien abductions, governmental conspiracies, and the fact that one of their regular guests was incommunicado for a couple of weeks, because he was traveling through time.

The Allen brothers, on the other hand, have a much more critical eye for such theories. This is perhaps more apparent on their website entries than in their lyrics. They consider the existence of the Loch Ness Monster highly unlikely, and they also don't believe that the US government has secretly acquired extraterrestrial technology. Most of the ideas they defend are things that I agree with, many of which I have already blogged about, such as the Aquatic Ape Theory, and life on earth originating in space. (The Expanding Earth Theory was new to me, though.) For more information on their scientific philosophy, listen to the interview on NPR and check out Debunking the Skeptics.

Jungian Personality Typology (part III)

This will be the third and final installment analyzing my personality in terms of the INTJ type. Today I will be quoting and and commenting on passages from this description.

It is assumed that INTJs have no regard for authority when, in fact, what INTJs have is a lack of respect for authority that is not "learned" in ways that will benefit the system - a lack of respect for authority that is not "in the know", for INTJs respect knowledge above all and want only to deal with those who "know". Then, they are very capable students, co-operative co-workers and faithful disciples. They know, almost as no other type knows, that a "weak" head means a weak system and work will be in vain. Wasted time, effort and energy are terms for failure to INTJs and INTJs do not like to fail.

Wow. I could write an entire post about this one point alone. I do have a great deal of respect for authority, but a lot of my past bosses and teachers might take issue to that statement. Some people just can't understand that, when I am complaining about something they do (or don't do) or when I suggest another way of doing something, it is not personal. I'm not trying to be difficult or challenge anyone's authority, and I'm definitely not trying to find ways of getting out of work; I'm trying to make everything run as smoothly as possible for everyone (including the boss), and I happen to be aware of a huge obstacle preventing that, usually one that could easily be removed.

INTJs do not need to be the centre of attention and, though they may be extremely critical of others' ideas, they, nonetheless, will work to bring about the dreams and schemes of those they care about once their (the INTJs) views have been made known. Often the point is missed that INTJs often employ debate but are quick to recognize a higher truth, though they will debate until truth arises or someone "quits".

This is also very apropos to my life. Often someone will make a statement that I disagree with or that isn't convincing. So I say why I disagree, and we go back and forth. Quite often, people think I'm fighting with them. To me, though, it doesn't even qualify as a debate, since my interest is not so much in convincing them that I am right as it is to work out what the truth is. I would be more pleased to find out they they are right, because then I would be learning something about which I was previously mistaken, and I usually take it for granted that they feel the same way. I don't see why everything has to be taken personally.

INTJs are born executives and are totally dependable and dedicated to any project to which they commit themselves. They are unstinting in perseverance, intolerant of weakness and demanding of any under their authority. While being great taskmasters, they are nonetheless unstinting in seeing that due credit is given to those who deserve it and are not grasping for honours for themselves. They only truly appreciate praise when it is really deserved or comes from those whom they admire and are in a position to truly know that the praise is really deserved for perfection is their standard.

That's true. People see me as very demanding, but they usually go along with me, because they can see that I hold myself to the same standards. And I don't really appreciate praise unless it is sincere and deserved. In other words, I find it annoying to be praised just because the boss wants to be polite or encouraging. Also, I am very aware that the success of any group endeavor is determined by its members, even if I am the one in charge. If a project is a success, I am always extremely grateful and make sure to richly reward them at the end.