So Does This Mean Time Travel Is Possible?

This news is deemed more important than even the "discovery" of the Higgs Boson by many Physicists.  And the news is that Albert Einstein is even smarter than he thought!

With the discovery of the first ever evidence of gravitational waves recently, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was further confirmed.  Even Albert himself was hesitant to support the existence of them even though his own Theory predicted them.  Double-crossed by himself!

The evidence and the extreme engineering, computations and effort to find them is truly a remarkable tale. It is summed up well in this Salon article, especially for us Physics-challenged peons.

Everything You Need To Know About The Groundbreaking Gravitational Waves Discovery

I hope to hear from our Group's Physics advisers about what this means for the Quantum Theory, String Theory and Dr. Brown's DeLorean.

Update:  I asked Ron Moore how this affects quantum physics, if at all? (General Relativity and Quantum Physics cannot be merged.  The Universal Theory still eludes us. And String Theory laughs at all of us!)

Ron Moore: 

If you mean "Do we now have a complete quantum field theory of everything?", the answer is no. It's another beautiful confirmation of general relativity - extremely strong gravity, but not on tiny (Planck-length) distance scales where quantum gravity effects become important. Nevertheless, making the first *direct* observation of gravitational waves is Nobel-worthy. One can make a limit on the graviton mass (the quantum particle of gravity, akin to the photon for electromagnetism), and they do it in the paper, but it doesn't improve on limits from other indirect means.

 

Finally, A Physics Post With Some Excitement! Thinking Caps On

The entire Physics world is abuzz with the possible confirmation of gravitational waves postulated by Albert Einstein's century-old General Theory of Relativity.  It's the first really big news since the Higgs Particle was finally seen in the CERN facility several years ago.

This article seems to explain things pretty well.  Remember though, Physicists need a lot of confirmation before they stick their heads out of the burrow.

Scientists struggle to stay grounded after possible gravitational wave signal

Correct again?

 

My Thinking Cap Must Be Broken

As the mornings appear more and more frozen in nature, it was only a matter of time until the Spring Penn State Tuition Bills came.  Sure enough, the emails have flooded in this AM to all my various accounts.  Now that bills come mostly in the parent's name, I get to relive those glorious days again like in 1977.  But back then the $333 ($500/semester) or so* tuition per term barely fazed me, even though they were in my name.  Now it's $6,359 per semester.  And it's the government that you have to pay back at more interest than there should be! 

But then our thoughts invariably turn to academics, and in my case Physics.

Russian Screw-Up Tests Einstein

*I think tuition was actually $750 for my first year of college.

Golf and Physics On Your Phone: And An Update on That Peeing In the Pool Thing

Yesterday's listing of some Track and Field Android apps garnered a nice little bump in readership, so I thought I'd slow things down a bit and introduce some Golf and Physics apps for the Android Phone.  And then ruin your lunch by bringing back that thing about peeing in the pool.

There are literally hundreds of apps out there for figuring out how far you are from the green on just about any golf hole on just about any golf course in the world.  Not that that would help me at all, but it seems to bring joy to those who can consistently hit a little white ball toward a small hole on a carpet of grass.

• iGolf - Golf GPS (free)  from L1Technologies is one of the most prevalent.
• Golfshot from Shotzoom. I have this one on my phone for what that is worth!

Neither of these help me at all since my 9-iron is as likely to burn worms as my 3-wood.  I can't hit a club a consistent distance, so what's the use?

There are also thousands of golf games out there, many of them free.  I've never played any of them.  My lack of an attention span doesn't allow me to get past the first shot in any of them. Let me know what you think is best?

But here's one I may use, as Tiger Woods is out of the current Masters!

• The Masters Golf Tournament from Masters Tournament has just about everything you could want short of a ticket or a caddy assignment. Tee times, photos, videos, scores, maps.  I mean everything.

For those who love Physics, there are a surprising number of great apps out there.

• Pocket Physics (free) from Geokonization is a learning aid with formulas and descriptions and images.
• Learn Physics (free) from Paul Cotarlea has some tutorials to learn at your own (snail's) pace!
• Physics Cheater (free) from UJJ_Laptop has all the formulas necessary in one discrete packet.

If you want to hear Albert Einstein there's an app with recordings of some of his thoughts. Or just the written quotes from someone who married his cousin and didn't care what color each sock was:

• Albert Einstein in his Own Voice ($6.93) 
• Albert Einstein Quotes (free) from Redobot

For the Gamers out there:

• Cat Physics (free with ads) from Donut Games.
• Space Physics ($1.99) from Camel Games.

But my favorite is the Physics Quiz (free with ads).  Somewhat easy, quick answer quizzes that are timed for scoring. But don't think you'll ever make it to the top of any of their lists!

And previously we talked about the large percentage of people who admit to peeing in the pool and introduced some thoughts about how toxic chemicals are created with the chlorine that are unhealthy.  It turns out that it would take a lot of people peeing in an Olympic-sized pool to make it actually harmful to humans.  Like 3 million people or so!  So dive in everybody, the water's fine!

Einstein Right Again and Who Had the Better Mustache?

Before Physicists had the fancy instruments and "Big Bang Theory" street cred, they had to actually come up with ideas and test them in their minds.  Problems arose when theories couldn't be tested and seemed out of whack with "reality".  So it was when Albert Einstein put forth some ideas on Quantum Physics.  There was no end to challenges to his brave and strange ideas.  Albert always pointed out that it only takes one person to shoot down any of his ideas. And not many have been shot down.

So it is with Spooky Quantum Entanglement.  For some reason I don't understand, the theory means that

individual entangled particles don't exist in a particular state until they are measured, and that, once measured, the particles could somehow communicate their state to each other at a rate faster than the speed of light which seemed to violate Einstein's theory of relativity. (Recent research suggests the entangled particles interact at a speed that's 10,000 times faster than the speed of light.)

Now with the advent of the aforementioned fancy instruments, the theory has been confirmed again, eliminating a key loophole.

Einstein scores again.

And check out tonight's TV Show about the Rescue of Jessica McClure from the well in 1987 on Nat Geo at 6:30PM to compare Dave Felice's 1980's mustache to the 1970's version of Greg Fredericks. Vote on the sidebar for your Best Mustache.

Time to Relax!

The hard work is done, and I have herded as many cats as I possibly could to the reunion this year.  Clark has me lined up to do a little work at the event, but I may have to sublet it all to my children.  This unrelenting blogging is tiring work!  I deserve a little rest...

Einstein's Desk Was Worse Than His Hair

This was Albert Einstein's desk at The Princeton Institute when he died in Princeton on April 18, 1955.  He certainly worked on things right up to that day and there are some pretty hefty math equations on his chalkboard. He lived in Princeton for 20 years, so I'll bet that's 20 years of clutter on his desk.

Here's Blog Muse Rob Whiteside's photo of his home at 112 Mercer Street complete with Wrist Band!

His death occurred 50 years after his 1905 paper on Relativity first appeared in print. There are those who still harbor the belief that his cousin and first wife was a coauthor of that paper.  As Sheldon Cooper would say, "Bazinga."

Einstein is Always Right in the End

Neils Bohr thought he had bested Albert Einstein in one of the greatest "Physics Pheuds" ever.  In 1930 Einstein posited that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle wasn't as cut-and-dried as everyone thought.  He thought there was a way around it, but never quite came up with the coup de grace formula.

Turns out, that after all this time, Einstein was correct, but only with the accumulation of quantum mechanics knowledge over the past 80 or so years. 

And of course, Einstein's entire Theory of Relativity was recently rocked by the discovery of neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light.  Except, they weren't.  Turns out a faulty clock with a weak connector made all the data up.  As The Simpson's Nelson Muntz would say:

Physics Updates: Insanity and Brilliance Co-exist

Everyone is quite aware of Einstein's proclivity to mis-match socks, and his disregard for combing his hair.  His eccentricities were viewed as comical, at least as long as he didn't cause a police stand-off like a colleague of Brian Boyer's at LANL in the western deserts!

Richard Morse is being taken to Las Vegas for a mental health evaluation following his increasingly bizarre behavior of late. (Vegas would be the last place to take someone to better their mental health. I would think!) Considering he started with bizarre tendencies in the early 60's, that's saying a lot. He is redeemed in my eyes by having only 7 cats and being mentored by "The Great One" (Richard Feynman) as a student at Cal Tech.  Here's a photo of his living room, used as sorta evidence of his mental deficiencies.  Although it is quite like any of the dorm rooms I inhabited in North Halls back in the day.  I mean none of this to impugn Dr. Morse.  I wish him well, realizing that brilliance and insanity pal around quite readily!  Thanks to Brian Boyer, we were one day ahead of The Drudge Report in bringing you this news!  All the news that's fit for idiots!  I'm submitting this to the Pulitzer People just in case.

Speaking of Albert Einstein, here's a great article discussing one of his real world contributions, a better refrigerator than was available in his day.

And two more, discussing aspects of Matter and Antimatter.  That's enough for now, we have Indoor Track to think about.....

Physicists About to Come to Blows?

Stephen Hawking is still swinging for the seats.  This time he contradicted his earlier proclamation that "The Big Bang" and God can coexist quite nicely, (A Brief History of Time).

Now that he no longer cares what others think of him he states,

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,"

But the Bard of Rob Whiteside's current town once said,

“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”

Gentleman, back to your corners, let's keep it clean, and come out fighting at the bell.  (Who would win a fight between an ALS sufferer and a long dead heavyweight of his field?)

Another Contest Entry and A New Prize Just for Women!

Rob Whiteside enters the contest in a Big Way. This is a photo of Rob's wrist band in front of Albert Einstein's Princeton home! E=mc(2) for sure.

And the idiot officers are announcing another new prize to be inaugurated at next year's tourney. The "Kathy" will be given to the most valuable woman golfer at the tourney. Named for Kathy Mills, PSU great and one-time US record-holder in the 5000 M, the prize will be added to our list of rotating prizes started last year. I'm not sure what the prize will be yet, but I'm leaning toward a piece of fine jewelry. Helping us introduce the prize is Beth Shisler, probable winner of 4 or 5 of them if I had been intelligent enough to have thought of it earlier! An idiot is an idiot.... Spread the world, our Kingdom for some women!




Addendum: Congrats to James Carney on another great performance, 10th at the Peachtree Road Race in 28:18.