So -1 divided by 0 = - infinity!
Imagining the boffins of Project SWORD laboratories pondering the geometry of a 'minus infinity' and similar mind-boggling problems facing the fleet's Commanders in a hostile universe, I recalled a friend mentioning that a very real and age-old Scientific debate is still raging.
It concerns Pitch. Specifically whether such substances as pitch are solid or liquid. Often tar based, the most well-known is Bitumen and an experiment was set up decades ago to answer one simple question: will it drip?
There are a number of so-called pitch drop experiments and the most famous in Australia eventually proved that a drop fell around every ten years. The ninth drop fell in 2014.
A similar experiment has been running in Dublin and they managed to film a drop falling. You can see it on the Nature website speeded up to help viewers watch:
A further old experiment has been discovered in Aberystwyth in Wales.
Such brain-frying phenomena as the ten year drip would have no doubt taxed Project SWORD brains to the max as they traversed the galaxy for new minerals and resources.
What other incredible nuggets of SWORD physics do you know readers?
All the galaxies in the universe are moving away from each other faster and faster and nobody knows why.
ReplyDeleteThey obviously can't stand to be in the same universe as each other! Seriously, its enough to make you go mad. If galaxies are moving away and entering new space, where has the new space come from? Or is space expanding too?
ReplyDeleteIt is the space that is getting bigger. Having no idea what is pushing the galaxies apart, scientists call it 'dark energy'!
ReplyDeleteSpreading space. It is enough to make you go bonkers. Usually things spread out if they have been heated up or spilt or set free in some way. Maybe even fed! But normal English doesn't help I imagine and dark energy, just two words, is no doubt beyond conventional thinking and language.
ReplyDeleteIf you want another mind blowing one. There is an experiment you can do with electrons where the result depends on whether you are watching it or not!
ReplyDeleteI've heard of Shroedinger's Cat, which can be in two places at once. Is that similar?
ReplyDeleteThe cat one is a way of explaining some of the weird nature of quantum physics. He didn't really do it (luckily for the cat!). The electron one is real and is one of those things that makes you think we really don't understand reality!
ReplyDeleteYou will have to tell us more Kevin!
ReplyDeleteIt's complicated but basically, firing a single electron through a slit gives an image on a detector screen. That image is different if you watch the experiment than if you don't! I have simplified that a lot but it is real and it is weird!
ReplyDeleteWow! I've heard of that I think, the slit test. But how do they know there is anything on the image if no one watches it. Is the screen photographed or recorded in some way?
ReplyDeleteI think that there is some way of detecting it but I've even heard of time travel as a way of explaining the results! The world of the very small is extremely strange indeed.
ReplyDeletetime travel eh, easy enough to build into an experiment!
ReplyDelete