We aren’t out of the woods yet, folks. Another earthquake, possibly a 4.1 or 4.4, could be lurking just around the corner, waiting to pounce and knock your lamp over! Thus frightened, it is now my obligation to almost but not entirely allay your fears with my new feature: Earthquake Watch 2005.
Why, atoms of course! And what’s smaller than that? Protons, electrons, neutrons, gluons, gravitons, and even things that don’t end in -on like up quarks and tau neutrinos! And beyond that of course, there are strings, and then hopefully nothing else, otherwise M-theorists will have a lot more work to do. Woo, tangent.
What I didn’t know from my travels through the everyday world of things like cars and people, which are all very easy to take pictures of because untold megazillions of photons are bouncing off of them every second, is that somewhere along the line some smart people got together and figured out how to take pictures of atoms. And soon, they hope to go smaller than that! First of all, why didn’t anybody tell me we had actual pictures of atoms? Does this mean that they could actually isolate a single molecule of, say, caffeine and then slap that on shirt a la Think Geek? Further, if we will soon be able to image things half an angstrom in size, can I get a picture of a proton? Actually, I don’t think that would work. The nucleus of an atom is very small realtive to the whole atom, much smaller than even half an angstrom (which is very small indeed, two million times smaller than the width of a human hair. More if you have thick hair!).
What this has made me realize is, that while I know how small an atom is, I don’t truly comprehend it. It’s kind of the same thing with space. I know the size of the moon and how far away it is, and I can deal with that pretty well. Same with the planets (though Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, a storm three times larger than Earth, is always astounding). It’s a bit trickier with the sun, but I can still get a good handle on that. But when we start talking about stars that are a thousand times larger than the sun, at distances so vast that light takes centuries or more to cover it, or nebula that span dozens of light-years, my brain stops trying to associate meaning to the sizes. I think it’s why I’m always dissapointed when I hear the sizes of colossally huge things like galaxies and say, “Two hundred thousand light-years isn’t that big.” Oh it’s plenty big, I just can’t wrap my head around it. And so it goes for the subatomic. “Protons aren’t that small. Why haven’t you given me a picture of one yet, science?” Well? I’m waiting.
NASA is at it again. Just days after their questionable logic surrounding the Mars rover Opportunity, they are now reporting that there may be an ice volcano on Saturn’s moon Titan. Slow down there, NASA! This isn’t an episode of Star Trek, this is a little thing we call reality. You can’t just make up words like “cryovolcanic” and expect us to accept it. You can’t have an ice volcano, either. The word “volcano” derives from the Roman god of fire Vulcan. Hey, it’s another Star Trek connection! Imagine that! And besides, we already have a name for molten ice. It’s called “water.” Look scientists, we know that you’re smart. You don’t have to come up with crazy discoveries every week to keep us interested in space. Now, don’t get back to us until you find moon whales swimming in the “molten ice” under Titan’s surface.
Apparently, Opportunity received an unexepected power boost recently:
Overnight, Opportunity’s solar panels produced between 2% and 5% additional power, perhaps due to Martian dust that had settled on them being removed.
Suuure, NASA, whatever you say. Dust magically fell off of the rover’s solar panels. Wind? Where do you think the rover is, Earth? And somehow the power increase happened overnight? You know, night? As in no sunlight for the solar panels to collect? Explain that one, o mighty scientists. You couldn’t hypothesize your way out of paper bag. I could come up with a better theory in my sleep. More plausible scenarios include:
Put that in a rocket and smoke it, NASA.
Way over 50 fast. Thanks to the dreadfully named Mag-beam Propulsion, we’re talking 11.7 km/s (that’s 26,172 mph for those playing at home), at which speed a round trip vacation for three to Mars would last only 90 cozy (cramped) days and 90 luxurious (still cramped) nights. And I guess however long they decide to look at rocks and play golf once they get there.
With all of this talk of Mars, though, people are failing to look at the smaller picture. There’s a very nice planet named Venus a mere 26 million miles away, half the distance to Mars. At the proposed speed of the Mag-beam whatsit, a round trip to Venus would only take a month and a half! Granted, the surface temperature is 740 Kelvins (hot enough to melt lead), the surface pressure is 90 atmospheres (strong enough to crush lead), and the air is full of sulfuric acid (sulfuric enough to… really annoy lead), so that may not work out so well. Let’s think smaller still.
The moon. We haven’t been there in a while. We haven’t called in years. What, are we too good for the moon? Well no more! The moon is a mere 240,000ish miles away. Traveling just over 26 thousand miles per hour, we could put an intrepid group of moonologists on the surface of our favorite orbit-buddy in nine hours!! That’s faster than a non-stop plane trip from San Diego to London!! Is my increased use of italics and exclimation marks getting my point across?! It’s the moon, people! Not to be confused with “the moon people” which, sadly, do not exist. I suppose the reason we haven’t gone back to the moon is probably the lack of moon people. That and it’s unspeakably dull. Let’s work with this London idea.
Let’s say I live in San Diego. I set up my magical beam propulsion system, and have my friend Tony set another up somewhere in London. I hop in, hit play, and I’m off to England, and all the fog I can eat! Time for some math. If I am moving at 34 times the speed of sound, and London is about 5500 miles away, how long ’til I get there? Twelve minutes. That’s all! If you weren’t totally blown away by the answer, see me after class. I could be playing cricket and dining on bangers and mash on my lunch break, without missing a minute of work! This is what science is all about. Too bad all of the “scientists” are busy trying to figure out how to play golf on Mars.
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