Speaking of the alphabet, picture the scene of a stunned little boy sitting at his desk, mouth agape, and the caption:

That moment when you realize there is no single letter known as "el-em-in-oh-pee"...

Or the kid who's just finished singing The Star-Spangled Banner and asks, "What kind of light is donzerly light?"

Sandi

Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... rp9wVO_74U

I turn into a little boy just watching this. Glee! More Fun! I Can't Wait!

If the rumors are true, this will be one of the great scientific discoveries of all time.

http://gizmodo.com/rumor-mill-heats-up- ... 1757513741

quote:

Hey, remember when we told you about those rumors that physicists may have finally found gravitational waves? It’s been pretty quiet since then, but yesterday fresh rumors surfaced that yes, the discovery is real. And we could have an official announcement by February 11.

Gravitational waves are faint ripples in the fabric of spacetime, first predicted by Albert Einstein as a consequence of his general theory of relativity. Move a large mass very suddenly—or have two massive objects (like black holes) suddenly collide, or a supernova explode—and you would create those ripples, much like tossing a stone in a still pond. The more massive the object, the more it will churn the surrounding spacetime, and the stronger the gravitational waves it should produce. We just haven’t had the technology to detect those waves directly — until now.

And why?

http://gizmodo.com/heres-why-finding-gr ... 1752286165

Why is observing gravitational waves such a big deal? Apart from the fact that it would affirm a big piece of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravitational waves can be used to probe some of the most mysterious phenomena in the cosmos. As LISA Pathfinder scientist Bill Weber told Gizmodo last month, they’re “the most direct way of studying the large fraction of the universe which is dark.”

Black holes, neutron stars, and other objects that don’t emit light are very difficult to study directly from our vantage point. But gravitational waves, which pass through such objects like a knife through butter, offer us a window. In probing the dark universe with gravitational waves, we might uncover new celestial wonders we never dreamed of.

The announcement of whatever they have found will be at 10:30 am eastern time.

And it seems more likely that the LIGO Detectors have seen gravity waves.

Looks like that was it.

Looks like that was it.

It's worth watching the press conference and the videos with their explanations. But that takes a 1/2 hour or so.

The Smithsonian website has a nice article. You only need to watch about the first 2 and a half minutes of the video. The second half is the first hand descriptions from the researchers. They are nerdy and sweet but not scientific.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... 23/?no-ist

The link at APOD - Astronomy Picture Of the Day -- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160211.html

shows the signal and just how much information was encoded in it. The final stage and merger of the two black holes was only 3 tenths of a second in duration.

However, the merger of the two black holes occurred 1.3 billion years (yes, billion) in the past. About 3 times the total mass of our sun was lost in the merger. Think about three of our suns being blown away as energy and that is the "ripple in the pond" that was detected. That's a lot of energy.

The movie -- PIXELS

Don't.

I've tried five times and never made it beyond five minutes.

Puerile, stupid, and embarrassing.

....

Dave (imported) wrote: Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:29 pm About 3 times the total mass of our sun was lost in the merger. Think about three of our suns being blown away as energy and that is the "ripple in the pond" that was detected. That's a lot of energy.

Just for perspective: I've been told that if the mass of a US dime coin were converted to energy, that energy would about equal the energy of the two atomic bombs dropped in World War II COMBINED.

So I figure one of my ejaculations has about the energy of a 1950s atomic howitzer?

Dave (imported) wrote: Thu May 07, 2015 9:47 am https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

XT5jo7aZzTw

My poor wife.