Einstein

New Plausible Theory of Black Holes: Gateways to Other Universes

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According to traditional physics, once you go far enough into a black hole, traditional physics simply ceases to be.  Any meaningful equation breaks down into nonsense. Insanity. Cosmic nincompoopery! Well, not anymore…

Einstein’s theory of general relativity states that if a person were to fall into a black hole they’d be shredded to the atomic level by a process called spaghettification, described as being stretched into an infinitely long strand of matter and energy by infinitely strong gravity.  This infinitely strong gravity is due to a singularity at the ‘end’ of the black hole, an infinitely dense area with zero volume.  A singularity is also used to describe the Big Bang.

There is a problem though; conventional physics cannot describe what occurs at a singularity point, so talking about the beginning of time or the core of a black hole has always been one-pointed, but pointless. Then quantum mechanics appeared.

Related Article: Life, It’s All Over the Place

By using the theory of loop quantum gravity, a merger of quantum mechanics and general relativity which describes space-time as a web of indivisible chunks about 10-35 meters in size, physicists have come up with a practical way to describe what occurs at the singularity point; the singularity isn’t there. 

There is no singularity. Gravity still increases as you get pulled into the black hole, but eventually it decreases, and you come out the other end. Although theories have postulated this idea before, the problem was that the singularity could never be bypassed. This is incredibly revolutionary because modern day physics has always taken the idea of a singularity for granted.  The universe had forever been filled with them; all of time and space began as a singularity.

Related Article: Ancient Galaxy That Shouldn’t Exist is Found Perfectly Formed

You are probably wondering what this means for you and me, what relevance this all has.  This opens the doors for even more science fiction to become science reality (consider: just about every piece of technology that exists today was written about as science fiction at one point).

According to the new theory, black holes are more likely doors to other universes, or incredibly distant areas of our own universe, or both.  Even more amazingly, using loop quantum gravity theory, if you were to rewind the big bang you wouldn’t be left with an infinitely dense point of mass and energy, you would cross a quantum bridge into another, older universe.

Related Article: Voyager 1: The Final Frontier?

This also helps explain what happens to information that approaches a black hole.  In a black hole with a singularity, the information would be lost forever as the black hole eventually evaporates after hundreds of trillions of years (give or take several hundred trillion years). As Jorge Pullin, lead researcher on the study at Louisiana State University, points out:

Information doesn’t disappear, it leaks out.

The infinite universe just became infinitely more infinite.

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettification\

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_singularity

http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity

http://mashable.com/2010/09/25/11-astounding-predictions/

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v96/i14/e141301

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v110/i21/e211301

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23611-quantum-gravity-takes-singularity-out-of-black-holes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

https://wondergressive.com/2012/08/17/life-its-all-over-the-place/

https://wondergressive.com/2012/09/21/ancient-galaxy-that-shouldnt-exist-is-perfectly-formed/

https://wondergressive.com/2013/01/12/galaxy-geysers/

https://wondergressive.com/2013/03/21/voyager-1-final-frontier/

Babies and the ‘Cost of Inaction’

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I, Healthyheartbeatz, a grown man of 25, have a soft spot for children in need. Me, with all of my bravado and manliness, me with all of my outspokenness and inclination to argue, YES I still cringe every time I see a helpless child in need on TV or displayed in an advertisement. That may have to do with my ridiculous sensitivity and sympathy, not to mention I am also very much so captivated by puppies, but that is besides the point of course! Children are our future and taking care of them is priority! We can’t let them turn into mindless zombies, something must be done!

Why must you bother me with all of this? Well, I stumbled upon a series of recent studies put together by (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights that of course made me cringe and fired up my synapses in order to reach out to you, our Wondergressivers (ererers). But let’s take it easy, I am not in any way trying to make you, our loving reader, pay anything or donate anything. This is a news group dedicated to researching and informing others! Naturally that is exactly how this will all play out, and without any final request other than for the lot of you to be “in the know”-

Onwards! The studies discussed were particularly interesting because they emphasize that poor kids that are suffering around the world are specifically suffering from inaction even when we are wasting 40% of our food as well as 25% of our freshwater daily. Sudhir Anand, speaking on a panel at The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health

Failing to intervene nutritionally to aid malnourished children can stunt them for life and failing to provide antiretroviral drugs to parents can turn their children into orphans, putting them at increased risk of falling into crime, drug abuse, prostitution, and other societal ills.

Just think, all of our non-action towards the kids of tomorrow acts as a catalyst for failure in the future. Who knows when the next Einstein will be neglected or the next Copernicus will starve to death or the next Socrates will be condemned by society… wait, just a second. Countess Albina du Boisrouvray, a passionate supporter of helping the children of the world and founder of (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, said in an interview:

There are more than a billion of these children around the world, they are living in extreme poverty. They live by codes of conduct completely divorced from ours, and the older they get, the harder it will be to reintegrate them, even at great cost. Each day, they drift further and further.  A huge percentage of the world’s adults are going to be almost a different species. This is terrible for society and for the economy — for everything officials are supposed to be worried about — as well as terrible for the kids.

But of course it’s not only the poor who are suffering, we have kids suffering daily from our public school failures as well as neglected children of our country.

There is no link to donate, there is no outcry to change your ways, its a simple message, a pass off of knowledge. So don’t forget our youngins. Babies are our future, past, present, and just about everything else. Without babies we wouldn’t exist. Some babies are super lucky being thrown into traffic and surviving unscathed. Other babies are watched over by angels as they simply survive unforeseen complications at their birth. Just a little baby power to end on a high note. Preacher OUT!

 

Research:

(FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights

The Cost of Inaction

Cost of Doing Nothing

Wasted Resources

Forum at Harvard School of Public Health

Neglect – American Humane Association

Wondergressive: Public School Failure in America

Wondergressive: TV and the Brain

Wondergressive: Fat Poor Kids

Babies (film)

Baby Survives Car Crash in Russia

Baby Born With Heart Out of Body

Laughing Baby – Caution You Will Laugh/Giggle/Tehehehe

What Does Light Look Like?

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bullet apple 2

nikiinwonderland.blogspot.com

Throughout history humans have tried to understand how the world around us works. It’s what humans are good at. We really only have two semi-unique attributes that have helped make us as successful as we are: a brain to examine the world and opposable thumbs to manipulate it to our advantage.

We study phenomena closely, and devise better ways of observing them, so we can recognize patterns and use new information to our advantage. The simplest and perhaps most profound example of this in human history is the development and advancement of agriculture. Starting from literally nothing, as agriculture is a decidedly foreign concept to mammals, over many generations and thousands of years, humans pieced together the information necessary to create an abundance of food, capable of sustaining billions of people. What environment do certain crops grow best in, how to till the land, when to plant, when to harvest, how to store and cure. As soon as these questions had adequate answers we thrived as a species, spreading out from our native Africa to literally ever corner of the globe.

An amazing new tool has been discovered to help further our knowledge of the world: Femto-photography. It’s an imaging system that takes a trillion frames per second. Because of it, we can now visually observe light. Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at MIT, demonstrates the remarkable abilities of this new technology in this Ted Talk.

light slo mo

Femto-photography. It’s an imaging system that takes a trillion frames per second. Because of it, we can now visually observe light.

In Raskar’s demonstration, he discusses ways of utilizing this new observational tool. On the more mundane side, femto-photography can be used to determine the ripeness of fruit based on the way light scatters through it. He also mentions a more practical (and military grant enticing) use: the ability to see around corners. But to me, the raw discovery is what fascinates me, rather than the current or future ways to productively utilize such technology.

Humans began to understand the world in concentric circles. First we understood our immediate environment. Then we spread our knowledge to the unseen. The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes is said to have determined the circumference of the Earth with remarkable accuracy in the 3rd century BCE. Galileo and Copernicus helped us understand the Solar System. Einstein created the Theory of Relativity and described space-time. Innumerate others helped explain sub-atomic particles and quantum physics.

Now we have a way of looking at light itself.

I am thrilled for the future applications of this knowledge. I really am. But for right now, I think it’s important to simply sit back in our arm-chairs, let out a contented sigh, and take comfort in the ingenuity of humans. It’s inspiring and assuring to realize that the species can indeed, given time, accomplish anything if it puts its mind to it (to paraphrase Doc Brown).

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femto-photography

http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/19/opinion/raskar-camera-corners

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

 

 

Mystery of Death Solved: DMT is the Key

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We now know what happens at death:

Resting comfortably in the recessed center of your brain, encased snugly within the corpus colossum, wrapped tightly between the dual-hemispheres of spongy nerve bundles, encased in the quarter-inch-thick armor-plating of skull, finally surrounded by your main and expressive organs with which you face the world, exists a tiny gland, long considered vestigial (serving little to no function), that holds the key to our interpretation of existence as we know it.  I’m speaking of the pineal gland. This minute spec, roughly the size of a grain of rice, is more heavily protected than even the heart with its literal cage of protection, because if something happens to your heart you die, but if something happens to your pineal, you can’t go to heaven.

Never heard of it?

This pineal gland has influences on both melatonin and pinoline, but our interest is in the gland’s role in the creation of dimethyltriptamine, or DMT. This chemical, DMT, may well be the reason we, as a species, are capable of sentience itself.

I’m not a chemist; break it down.

First, DMT is a narcotic, schedule 1. It’s scheduled as a highly illegal substance all over the planet, largely because DMT is one of the most potent psychedelics known to man. Intensely powerful. Yet, every day your pineal produces this stuff.

Secondly, DMT is the chemical that elicits dreams. That’s right. Each night as you drift to slumber-land, not only are you tripping on a psychedelic, but you’re also premeditatedly committing a federal offence; possession or consumption of DMT could land you a felony charge.

And third, this illegal gateway to dreamland is released in massive amounts at the moment of death. When I say massive, if a water glass of DMT evokes a dream, at death, an equivalent river excretes into your system. Any druggies reading this?

How have I not heard of this before?

Well, the pineal’s significance is neither a new idea, nor an unfounded one. Spanning the expanse of human civilization runs an undercurrent of worshipful adoration to the almighty pineal, more widely known as the inner eye, all-seeing eye, or the like – considered the body’s gateway to the soul.

Egypt had its Eye of Horus (now emblazoned on the US dollar bill). Hindu culture has its bottu (the familiar forehead dot). Even the ancient art of yoga recognizes the brow chakra, or ajna, as blossoming at the pineal, or third eye. That’s only to name a few.

The hell you say! The truth behind the cult of the pineal has gone largely unnoticed collectively, though the symbols themselves have been downright ubiquitous. Tibetan Buddhists, as well, have long carried a belief that the soul enters the fetus precisely 49 days after conception. Likely, reading this, you are not a Tibetan Buddhist – their numbers fall less than 20 million – and whether you subscribe to an eternal soul or not isn’t the point, because day 49 is the moment the pineal is formed in a fledgling brain.

Great, so what does all this have to do with death?

Well, on an experiential  level, shrooms distort perception, coke smacks you with raw energy, ecstasy grants superpower orgasms (ladies), and most notably, weed slows time – time distortion seems to go hand in hand with most psychedelics as well – so time passage then is totally subjective. Ask Einstein.

Meanwhile, among DMT smokers, out of the macrocosm of potential experiences, two major themes emerge nearly universally:

1) A stretching of time – they experience the hectic 6 or 7 minutes as a near eternity or lifetime. Imagine Cobb’s 50 year night in Inception.

2) They experience religious incarnations with a tilt toward whatever sect the subject is affiliated with.

Here’s the clincher: after death, while this massive psychedelic dose courses through the brain, there is this mysterious several minutes where the brain still functions. With our new perspective, however, we at last understand what these minutes are…

These few minutes after death, subjectively, are experienced as an eternity, engrossed in the DMT universe. Also, the trip itself is a highly personal experience dictated by the deepest realms of the subconscious.

Therefore, whatever at your deepest core you expect to happen when you die… Congratulations, that’s what’ll happen… Every religion was right.

Mystery solved. Peace on earth.

If you’re resourceful, you can find this stuff and try it. The bigger question now is: do you really want to know where you’ll be spending eternity?

 

Sources:

Vestigial

Pineal Gland

University of Wisconsin: Creation of DMT

Medical Hypothesis: Endogenous Hallucinogenics Central to Nervous System

Medical Hypothesis: Visions of Dream Sleep

DMT the Spirit Molecule 

Erowid N,N DMT Legal Status

Third Eye

Third Eye Images and Symbols Around the World

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Universe-Solved!

Theory of Relativity

Erowid: DMT Experience Reports

PopSci: The First Few Minutes After Death

Baseline of Health Foundation: Brain Functions Even After Death

Our Special Time in the Universe

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We know that we live in a special place. Earth is special as it supports the delicate conditions that have allowed us to evolve to our present state. I think it is fascinating to note that not only do we live in a special place, but the time in which we live is also remarkable.

Normally when we speak of time, we are referring to events that have or are occurring in a span that is relatively close to our own existence. Even when we discuss history, thousands of years ago, this is still very recent time as far as the universe is concerned. The time frame of which I speak is much broader, much deeper. We’re talking billions of years. Trillions of years. But trillions of years are peanuts for the universe. If the universe continues to be, and is not destroyed, then billions of years is still nothing compared to infinity. So here, when I say we live in a special time, I’m referring to a window of a trillion years, give or take.

So, what’s so special about our time? In Laurence Krauss’ book “A Universe from Nothing”, he demonstrates how our time is one when our ability to accurately observe and quantify our universe is a luxury. We live in a time when it is still possible for us to determine the size of our universe. This is possible because we can still see to the far edge of the universe, to the cosmic microwave background (the radiation that is left over from the big bang). This may not sound terribly impressive, but keep in mind that future civilizations will not have this luxury. Our universe is expanding, faster and faster, stretching space-time out as it does so. Eventually this expansion, if it continues to accelerate (which all evidence suggests that it will), will be stretching space-time out at a rate that is faster than the speed of light. Once this rate of expansion is reached, it will be impossible for light from these regions to ever reach other areas of the universe. Therefore, in a future civilization, on a different world, trillions of years from now, the greatest scientists of their era will look out through the lenses of the most powerful telescopes ever constructed and see nothing beyond their own galaxy.

This has other implications as well. Not only will these future civilizations be unable to see anything outside of their own galaxy (which will remain intact due to the local effects of gravity within the galaxy), but this will also mean that the expansion of the universe will also be undetectable. Without being able to detect the expansion, the now infamous dark energy will also remain in the dark, so to speak.

So, our time is unique in that we are able to learn key aspects of our universe that will be simply out of reach of our universal successors. The universe is a wonderfully mysterious place, and I for one feel tremendously lucky to be alive when we can appreciate intricacies such as this.

 

Sources:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaGktVQdNg

Absolute Zero No Longer Absolute

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Absolute zero, measured using the Kelvin scale, occurs when matter has reached the lowest possible level of entropy, when its atoms are utterly and totally ‘frozen.’ It is the coldest temperature anything in the universe can possibly reach, or so we thought.

Physicists at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany have done the impossible; they have created a quantum gas made up of potassium atoms that is colder than absolute zero.

Using lasers and magnetic fields, the infantile toys of researchers studying the quantum realm, the physicists were able to stabilize the atoms in a lattice arrangement. While the atoms normally repel each other at positive temperatures, the researchers decided to have some fun and abruptly alter the magnetic fields, causing all of the atoms to instantly attract. Ulrich Schneider, part of the team of physicists, explains that

This suddenly shifts the atoms from their most stable, lowest-energy state to the highest possible energy state, before they can react. It’s like walking through a valley, then instantly finding yourself on the mountain peak.

Whoa.  In the quantum world, anything goes.

Now, at a positive temperature, attraction between all of the atoms would cause the gas to become unstable and collapse in on itself, ultimately producing contempt and self loathing in already sensitive quantum physicists   Luckily, as usual for physicists, they protected the delicate balance of their emotions with trapping lasers, which were used to hold the atoms in place.  Boom! The result is:

The gas’s transition from just above absolute zero to a few billionths of a Kelvin below absolute zero.

Working with negative temperatures opens up all new realms of possibilities in the laboratory. Wolfgang Ketterle, a man with a better name than you, as well as a physicist and Nobel laureate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, reveals to us the profundity of this feat. He says that doing quantum experimentation while working with negative temperatures is like experimenting in an environment where:

you can stand a pyramid on its head and not worry about it toppling over. This may be a way to create new forms of matter in the laboratory.

By far, the weirdest part about the negative temperature gas is that it behaves identically to dark energy, the force that pushes the Universe to expand at an exponential rate despite the ever persistent pull of gravity.  The atoms in the gas also seem to want to collapse inward, but the negative temperature holds them in place.  Schneider remarks that:

It’s interesting that this weird feature pops up in the Universe and also in the lab.  This may be something that cosmologists should look at more closely.

Researchers believe negative temperatures will give rise to the creation of matter with anti-gravitational properties, rising, despite gravity throwing a temper tantrum over wanting it to fall. For all you Egyptian pyramid conspiracy theorists out there, here’s some extra fodder for the anti-gravity theories.  The Egyptians must have created negative kelvin temperatures first!

 

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6115/52

 

Mystery of the Dying/Disappearing Honeybees Solved

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Colony Collapse Disorder is a serious threat to commercial, and many wild honeybees around the world.  Scientists have been scratching their head trying to understand why so many honeybees are disappearing,  abandoning their hive and subjecting their queens to painful starvation and death.  Is it an all out bee revolution? Actually, new studies are pointing the finger at a class of pesticide called  neonicotinoids.

These pesticides, known as ‘neonics’ are used widely throughout the US and are also staples in home gardening products. The chemicals are a nerve poison to insects, and is likely responsible for the bees not being able to find their way back home.

The evidence is overwhelming.  Harvard even recreated massive colony collapse by administering minuscule amounts of a popular neonic to a hive.

Researchers at Harvard state that,

“There is no question that neonicotinoids put a huge stress on the survival of honey bees in the environment. The evidence is clear that imidacloprid [one of the most popular neonics on the market] is likely the culprit for Colony Collapse Disorder via a very unique mechanism that has not been reported until our study.”

That mechanism is high fructose corn syrup, which did not affect bees until it was mixed with the neonic in 2004 -2005. The very next year massive Colony Collapse Disorder began to affect the US.

Poor agricultural practices like monoculture, massive land development, and GMO planting may also be factors contributing to Colony Collapse Disorder.

Many countries, including Poland, France, and Germany have begun banning pesticides linked to bee deaths and have seen dramatic improvements in the overall health of their bees.  Colony Collapse Disorder is a warning, and if we act quickly to solve the problem, it will not bee too late.

It is unknown whether Einstein actually said it, but there is a famous quote usually credited to him that holds a great amount of truth nonetheless:

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.”

Time to alter our farming practices and get these agricultural monopolies out of our back pockets.  Why not empty our pockets all together!?

Faster Than Light Travel is Possible; Creating the Warp Drive

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Scientists have long speculated on the potential of faster than light travel.  If we really want to colonize other planets without terraforming lifeless rocks like Mars we are going to have to find faster forms of interstellar transportation. With our current capabilities it would take hundreds, or in most instances, thousands of years, to travel to even the closest star. We would begin an expedition to another star and our great great great great great grandchildren would complete it.

Because matter cannot travel faster than light without a near infinite amount of energy being used, scientists must use a loophole in the laws of existence.  Space-time itself, or the reality that light exists in, is able to expand faster than the speed of light, as it did just after the big bang and possibly still does.

Scientists have proposed an Alcubierre drive, or a device that contracts space-time in front of a ship and expands it in back.  This would allow the ship to, while still traveling slower than the speed of light, cover distances near instantaneously.  It’s nearly identical to the concept of a wormhole.  Imagine there is a point A and a point B on each side of a sheet of paper.  What is the quickest way to get from point A to point B?  Fold the paper so that the two points touch.  The ship would still obey relativistic laws, but space-time itself would be manipulated to meet the demands of the ship.

This is all amazing, but how much energy would this require?  According to the original Alcubierre drive plans, roughly an amount of energy equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.  But, scientists are now saying that by sightly altering the shape of the drive into a donut-shape instead of a circular-shape, the required energy would be closer to that of a normal rocket launch.

Scientists have begun experimenting with miniature warp drives in order to begin the development of the technology.

It may sound like science fiction, but remember, there was a time when moving pictures were science fiction, when going to the bottom of the ocean was a fairy tale, and when traveling to the moon was viewed as downright impossible. Nowadays we are bored of going to the moon, we speculate on how many dimensions reality is composed of, and send robots to Mars.  Whenever humans imagine, creation is not far off.