esa – TheTimeDok

One of my “friends” who reads my ramblings commented on my mention of the Higgs.

Truth be told, just about everything interests me to some degree. Particle physics fascinates me as with science, there is one truth. When you deal with people, ideas, philosophies and heaven forbid, politics; the truth seems to belong to whom can talk the longest or loudest or speak the most eloquently!

With Science and especially math, there is one truth. So it is no small wonder that back in the day when the “god particle” was conceived, that interested me.

Currently we have the standard model which puts the higgs as the “glue” that holds everything together. The folks at the LHC spent years proving that it existed only to find that its “weight” was neither light, nor heavy but right in the middle.

Why do I suddenly feel like Goldilocks?

If it had been 115 GeV that would point towards symmetry where as a heavy Higgs would suggest Multiverse. Multiverse really points towards chaos where symmetry would mean that physics here is the same everywhere. Because the Higgs is 126GeV that leads some to believe that it is not very stable. It neither proves symmetry or the multiverse theory so now those that do this for a living, get to create new models.

I lean towards the Multiverse theory personally, because we do have the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy is what it is, and I see no reason that it would not apply to particle physics as well.

Than again, all of this is above my pay grade.. 🙂

On a personal note we here in Texas spent a lot of money to start this project before “politicians” got involved. We spend our resources foolishly and we hold back humanity by giving them fish(instead of teaching them to fish). I realize that there is a large percentage of people who are far from caring about such things and only worry about things like making the rent, to getting their next fix. On top of wasting our resources on making an industry out of incarcerating people; we try to be the world’s police. We send resources all over the world and for what? Are we buying friendship or loyalty? These same people that we are sending our resources to cuss us, and yet we continue. I would make a lousy politician as my actions would be far more pragmatic, than political.

Truth be told, if those that cuss all Americans could know us, without looking through the lens of propaganda, they would find that we have more in common than not.

I mention this because the folks that make CERN what it is, are people from all over the world. There are folks that come from countries that are at war with each other; they see the bigger picture. CERN should be a model for the rest of the world. That model and project could have, and should have been here in Texas. A project like that in Americas back yard might have inspired many to do something with their education in the engineering field. One would think with NASA in our backyard would inspire American’s but this administration has cut funding. We are getting rockets from the Russians “which don’t seem to work too well.” We are hitching a ride to the space station via the Russians! The ESA put a Lander on a comet, not the USA or NASA!

We just celebrated the anniversary of Sputnik. October 4th 57 years ago the Russians successfully put a low earth orbit satellite in orbit. While this was a huge technological breakthrough for the time, this was a political move to try and find where the US would draw the line. Truth be told we too were trying to find out where the line would be drawn so brinkmanship once again was the play.

When adults get back into the White House, it is my sincere prayer that they prioritize things and put education high on the list. I would like to see our foreign policy restored with our friends and allies but, that is another blog for another day.

I am sure this is more than my friend hoped for regarding my thoughts on the Higgs Boson.

-Best

Hats Off to the ESA folks!

So we landed a man made device, a probe if you will on a comet. The probe or “lander,” Philea was named after an Obelisk found in the Nile some years ago. The reports are that it bounced upon impact.

The comet traveling at over 41K miles per hour was a moving target to say the least.

The mission is to learn more about comet and the creation of the universe. The mission is already a huge success in that the ESA was able to launch a spacecraft, negotiate several gravity assist from different planets, the earth 3 times as the matter of fact and I think Jupiter just to get the thing going fast enough to reach the comet. Not only did they reach it, they had the day planned “November 12^th” as when they would land the probe.

Many of you have no idea how huge this is and why this is important. If this comet had been going to hit the earth; it would be a life-ender, period. Game Over…!

That is what it would look like if we could just set it on LA.

As a perpetual geek, I like this example better, who know a Borg Cube was that big?

We need to be pouring resources into these types of projects as one day we may very well need to deflect one of these bad boys and it would be nice to know that we can do it. The first step of course is; can we even get to one.

As a science fiction writer I often wonder why it has taken this long to try this sort of thing. Could it be that we are pissing away too many of our resources on those that refuse to work or those that want a war with anyone for anything?

You can’t really blame the technology, as the technology that landed man on the moon was less than what you have in your calculator, much less your smart phone.

Most of you have no idea where we are in this galaxy?

Let me shed some light on space travel for you. I won’t use math so, just read along.

As you sit there at your computer reading this, you are currently spinning around the outside of this globe at 1000 mph. The reason you have night and day is because the globe has a rotational velocity of 1,000 MPH or for my Non-American or metric friends that is a RV of .47 km/sec.

Now as you are rotating along blissfully unaware of it, you are also orbiting the sun at a whopping 67,000 MPH or 29.8km/sec!

Celestial mechanics fascinate me. It requires some out of the box thinking.

So let me throw in a few more fun facts for you.

Not only are you happily moving at 1000 mph as well 67,000 mph you are also moving in other ways.

Notice that fuzzy little blob of light at the bottom of the photo.

You see, the Milky Way is also in motion. We are located in one of the arms of the milky way that has a RV of 600,000 mph!

Our current position in our rotation of this arm of the milky last time was 225 million years ago. The last time we were here, Dinosaurs were just making the scene.

If that is not enough to expand your thinking, let me add one more fun fact for you.

Scientist calculate that one day, 4 billion years from now our nearest galaxy; Andromeda will be paying us a visit.. Through the Hubble we have seen other galaxies in some sort of dance as they re-establish themselves into a cohesive galaxy, so we know that it happens.

According to those who know, Andromeda is making an approach to the Milky Way at 110km/sec or roughly 247,000,000 mph. My thoughts on this are that Andromeda is not the only galaxy in motion here. My thoughts are that we too are in motion; which adds yet another movement to your “space motion.” For sake of argument lets assume that the speed that Andromeda is headed here is half its and half ours. That would mean on your Y axis you would be moving 123,500,000 MPH.

I think that would also tie up the loose ends about the red-shifting and blue-shifting expanding shrinking universe questions. Blue shifting, we are moving toward it, red away…That simple.

If you go back and look at the traditional picture of the solar system and instead of looking down on it imagine you are looking at the sun in the solar plane, the earth and all of the other “stuff” that is orbiting the sun is being dragged on the Y axis as well as the X axis. All of the orbits make perfect sense to me. The Y axis begs the question “why?”

What form of gravity is large enough to drag galaxies around? Are they being dragged or pushed?

There is also of course this whole space time thing that muddies the water. If time is relative, does our velocity through space in all of these different directions have anything to do with it? Time and Gravity are the enigmas, and I believe tied together in major ways.

So if my musings interests you, please let me know. If you pass along my thoughts please give me credit for them. Link this page or what have you. Science fiction “what I like to write,” interest me in that a lot of it turns into science fact.

-Best