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Saturday, June 26, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Psi Day
We live in a world of tiny things, and they don't come alone. Constraints blurring the very quintessence of space and time, beautiful theories wrapped in and around our thoughts, elegant equations to which the reality submits, and what more, great and 'brave' Heroes, who dared questioning the Great Unknown.
From within the shadows of Ireland's working class, came yet another hero. Far apart from the comfortable and pomp upbringing of quantum pioneers, John Stewart Bell was the only of his four siblings to make it to secondary school as his parents were working to make ends meet.
But history did cling to the rather weak side of little John. No one seemed to notice "On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox" published in the little read and short lived journal 'Physics' which actually paid its contributors, unlike the popular 'Physical Review', which charged to publish.
Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen devised an infamous thought experiment to stir the quantum hive. It blew straight on the face of Quantum Physics, and it took more than time for quantum pioneers like Neils Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, and many more to answer. And then from the middle of nowhere, came Bell's ingenious answer.
He had produced a mathematical theorem (which was later rendered practical) to tell between EPR's challenge to quantum mechanics or quantum mechanics itself. And it turned out, Quantum Mechanics had it all.
Psi is just one of countless promises the elegant mathematics of the quantum theory holds: And it's more than a number we can envisage - the Wavefunction.
Isn't that more than a reason to celebrate Psi Day on 28th of June, also the birthday of little John?
To contemplate, all you must do is to have a Psi for your profile picture just for a day.
We shall publish more scientific information on wave function, Bell's theorem and EPR Thought experiment. Any contributions are welcomed.
- Draft technical/non-technical essays to share your knowledge in the subject. (Quantum Physics and related disciplines)
- Request essays/more information to quench your curiosity.
- Submit fan art or any other appropriate material to visually express yourself/your knowledge in the subject. (You may post them on our facebook wall)
- Ask questions. There's always more to know. (Post them on the wall, we'll get back to you.)
- Answer questions. (Advisably as comments to the question)
- Post link(s) to any related content.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Think Outside the Box, For the Box is Too Small to Exist
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Welcome to your Augmented Reality
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Doomsday 2012
This title would perhaps invite a lot more attention than anything like "2012: Scientifically Debunked" or "Lies of 2012". And why wouldn't it? Didn't the good guys get away on a cool made-in-china boat? I shall leave the tirade for another time, but Mr. Emmerich had done a bad, bad thing with the script.
Below is a list of all so called 'scientific explanations' to the 'fact' that there would be no Christmas '12. First up, 'spontaneous geomagnetic reversal'.
This is perhaps the most popular and ridiculous claim, I believe. It abuses the principle that earth's magnetic field may well be 'reversed', to say, the north magnetic poles would become south and the vice versa. Put in another way, the compasses would show the south, north and the north, south. This, coupled with a strong solar outburst (which is, in a way, the sun in a bad mood, spewing out streams of charged particles on earth. When it's not doomsday, the earth's magnetic field deflects these particles to make us at home, but the geomagnetic reversal may weaken the magnetic field, leaving us to the wrath of charged particles from the sun) would cause a terrible catastrophe which would spell doom for life on planet earth.
There seems to be a strong evidence of a due geomagnetic reversal. According to Wikipedia, the last time this happened was 780,000 years back, and it has to happen sometime soon, probably for the 26th time. This is the general consensus, given these reversals are assumed to be random.
Moreover, the solar maximum (which is an element in sun's periodic activity cycle when solar activity is considered maximum) of 2013 (and not 2012) will be fairly weak (weaker than average, in fact), as forecasted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And there had been no scientific links between geomagnetic reversals and solar activity cycle, the latter being an 11 year cycle, and the former being, as mentioned afore, random.
But that hardly is a part of the whole story. The reversal takes a colossal amount of time to complete, and it's pretty much impossible to score when it begins. The timescales involved are of the order of 5000 years. Had it already begun, we had eons to figure things out (which we would have indeed done had it been something to worry about). If it is just to begin on 21st of December 2012, we still have an eon to figure it out. More up, it won't be much of a problem if earth's geomagnetic field is reversed. It happened several times in the past, and we still seem to live.
Geomagnetic reversals are relatively less understood, but it doesn't buy 2012 'prophecies' a scientific basis.
Planet X, Niburu is yet another idea of the big day, according to which a mystical and invisible planet is on a collision course with planet earth which would of course spell the last doom for everyone alive. Ludicrous as it sounds, Niburu is perhaps not interested in planets like Jupiter and Saturn (with far more beefy gravitational influence) but instead, the fourth of the smallest planets of the solar system. Moreover, the orbital trajectory must exactly be synchronized with that of earth, and it must successfully dodge all obstacles which include the asteroid belt and 8 whole planets, in turn implying planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus should exert no gravitational influence whatsoever. Had he been alive, Newton would have committed suicide.
Next up, the galactic alignment. The earth goes around the sun, the sun goes around the center of our galaxy, or the galactic center. According to John Major Jenkins, 2012 will have the sun aligned with the galactic center, where a colossal black hole is presumed to exist. This would cause 'havoc on earth', in some mysterious way.
As the matter of fact, such an alignment occurred back in 1998. And if it happens on 21st of December 2012, the sun would be quite above the galactic plane (which can be envisaged as the 'blade' of our Milky Way galaxy. An alignment with the galactic plane 'appears' to be disastrous, given it would invite a larger flux of comets from the still hypothetical Oort Cloud, crashing down on earth. But such alignments take tens of millions of years to occur, and the last time it happened was 3 million years ago, according to evidence. The sun is, in fact, moving above, or away from the galactic plane). Let's ignore all this for a while, and assume the sun is exactly aligned with the black hole, exactly on the galactic plane. How hard would the black hole pull? According to very basic calculations, the black hole must be at least 9,461,000,000,000,000 kilometers from the sun before we begin to realize something's wrong. Right now, it's at 283,800,000,000,000,000 kilometers.
A galactic alignment is hence the last thing one should worry about.
Speaking of prophecies, there are atleast a total of 200 past doomsdays as predicted: let's just add one to the list. And, ironically, the end of Mayan long count calendar (which is one of the proposed basis) is an event of celebration. There's absolutely no scientific evidence for doomsday 2012.
Thank you for reading, this is Nasim.
Recommended links and references:
http://www.starrynighteducation.com/sntimes/2008/06/#art1
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=511
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_phenomenon
http://www.universetoday.com/guide-to-space/galaxies/galactic-plane/
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v316/n6030/pdf/316706a0.pdf (PDF file)
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Hello There, Mr. Tree! Are You On Facebook?
If you're a Facebook addict and you have that compelling urge to kill me, I'm talking about you. If you're not, it's all a matter of time. Well, it wouldn't take many Einsteins to figure that I belong to the former, but wait, when and why did it all begin?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
No wait, SRK Crater?!
This would indeed be more of a reason for Bollywood fanatics to brag around, singing "Shah Rukh Khan is on moon!" and "Shah Rukh Khan has brought the moon to Bollywood!" and "My Name is Chand!" and so on. Well, the first time I had an idea of what just happened, it was me cursing myself for supporting the IAU. Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The All New 6th Sense: It's Here, and It's Big



Monday, January 11, 2010
KHDA: First Day, First Show. Let the Drama Begin.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Principles and Implications of Authoritarianic Effect
On Astrology, Barnum & Forer Effect: How 'Real' Could Astrology Get?
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. At times you have serious doubts whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.

