Showing posts with label Physics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Physics. Show all posts

2022-04-11

"The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything" by Michio Kaku

 


Publisher: double day, New York
Copyright: 2021
ISBN: 9780385542746

This is an extremely interesting book, that would make a fantastic introduction to high school or first year university students into the history of physics. In reading this book I have learned a lot that I probably should've learned many years ago when I took physics. Mind you that was a long time ago, and since then the strides that have been made in the field have been huge.

Dr. Kaku takes us on a journey through the history of physics by explaining the idea of unification, Einstein's search for unification, the rise of the quantum theory, a possible theory for almost everything, dark matter and dark energy, and finally string theory.

Throughout the book he explains the concepts extremely well and in plain language that virtually everybody will understand.

I haven't read any of his books previous to this but will definitely be on the lookout for the other nine he has written in the last few years.

2021-11-29

"Timescape" by Gregory Benford

 


Publisher: Bantam Books
Copyright: 1992
ISBN: 9780553297096

Timescape is an engrossing novel, that won the Nebula Award, and it isn't hard to see why. Mr. Benford, a "hard" science fiction author, who also happens to be a physicist, has written a tale that is immersed deep within this subject. It is true that my knowledge of physics is somewhat limited, but even so it was a fascinating story.

The world of the story is in deep environmental trouble, and a few scientists attempt to send a signal back through time to the early 1960s in hopes of correcting the problems they are now facing.

I've always found the idea of time travel, or in this case time communications, to be fascinating even though I know it'll likely never happen. But Mr. Benford explains the concepts in his book well enough that you will believe.

I reviewed another of Mr. Benford's books a couple of weeks ago, and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.

Highly recommended.

2021-08-16

"Time Travel" by James Gleick

 


Publisher: Pantheon Books
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9780307908797

    This was an extremely interesting book to read, as it began with an examination of the phenomena created by H. G. Wells when in wrote "The Time Machine" in 1895, and then went on to look at how it has been treated in other stories. Mr. Gleick also reviews the science behind time travel, as well as the philosophy of it as well.

    To say that the concept of time travel is a staple of science fiction as some authors have said is, I believe, an exaggeration as Wells was the originator of the concept, and science fiction itself existed for a considerable time before he came on the scene, even though it went by other names. 
Mr. Gleick looks at a number of different topics related to time travel such as: the concept of time itself, paradoxes, how time flows, etc.

    Mr. Gleick's research on this topic was extensive, and I am looking forward to reading some of his other books, as if they are even half as good as this one they should be well worth it.

2020-11-23

"T-Rex and the Crater of Doom" by Walter Alvarez


 

Publisher: Princeton University press
Copyright: 1997
ISBN: 9780691169668

I have been working in the field of palaeontology for 10 years now, and even prior to that likely since I first heard about it in the 1980s, I have always excepted the fact that a meteor or a comet had spelled the end of the era of dinosaurs (otherwise known as the Cretaceous), and that it had hit on what we now know as the Yucatán Peninsula.

I was unaware however of all the research, and the years it took for Walter Alvarez, his father Luis Alvarez, and scores of other scientists to prove that this had actually occurred. This book takes you on an absolutely enthralling journey of how the discovery was made.

The first chapter takes you back to a world 65 Million years ago, just before the Cretaceous era was about to abruptly end. It describes in detail what must have happened on that fateful day when either a comet or meteor approximately 10 kilometres across slammed into the Yucatán Peninsula. There was no warning as it was travelling at an estimated 30 kilometres per second (about 150 times faster than your typical airliner).

Between the time it first touched the Earth's atmosphere and it hit the ground, only 1 second had elapsed.

Dr. Alvarez'sstyle of writing makes this a very easy book to read, and provides the reader with a close look at exactly how the scientific method works, and should be required reading for anyone interested in the scientific method regardless of their discipline, as a great many people don't really seem to realize all the work that has to go in to actually examining a hypothesis, and subsequently proving a theory, or the amount of time it can take to do it.

A great book, I'm kind of sorry it took me so long to getting around to reading it.

2019-03-25

"Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku



Publisher:New York : Doubleday, [2008]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:2008
ISBN:9780385520690







This book was an extremely interesting read, and one I wish I had read sometime ago. I believe it would be very useful for any budding science-fiction writers as it it explains in general terms whether certain topics commonly found in science-fiction stories are actually possible based on real world physics. 

Dr. Kaku divides things that are typically considered impossible into three categories. In Class I are things that are impossible today but don't violate the known laws of physics. Surprisingly some of these items are force fields, invisibility, phasers and death stars, starships, antimatter.

Class II are those at the very edge of our understanding of physics, but still conceivably possible if we gain further knowledge of the physical world. These are such things as faster than light travel, time travel, and parallel universes.

Finally in Class III are things that violate the known laws of physics, such as perpetual motion machines, and precognition, so it's unlikely we'll have to worry about these, nor are they likely to be of much use to writers as they are on the edge of science-fantasy.

Dr. Kaku goes into a lot of detail to explain each of these items and why he is placed them in the categories he has. In addition he examines the history of physics as well as where it is currently headed to back up his classifications.

Even though there is a lot of detail in this book, it is easy to read and there are only one or two formulas to deal with. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is writing science-fiction and wants to get a good handle on the science as we know it today, and how they could change things to fit their stories.





2017-12-18

"Artemis" by Andy Weir

Artemis



Publisher:New York : Crown, [2017]
Edition:First edition.
Copyright Date:©2017
ISBN: 9780553448122
Characteristics: 305 pages :,illustrations ;,25 cm

Artemis is Mr. Weir's second novel, and he has followed up "The Martian" with another great story. I believe this one would also make a great movie in the event someone from Hollywood happens to be reading this blog (yeah, right!). As it has the elements of a great adventure story, with political intrigue, a strong protagonist, and much more.

The story revolves around a lunar resident by the name of Jazmine Bashara who seeks out a living (not always legally) in the only inhabited city on the moon. Her life suddenly gets very interesting however, when she is offered an opportunity she can't really refuse. But which turns out to be a little more complicated than she planned on.

Mr. Weir is one of few authors today who writes in first person, and this gives the story a very immediate feel that many novels now-a-days never get close to. Many writers seem to shy away from first person, and more writing teachers, and resource material seems to advise against using it. Now while this may be good advice for an absolute beginning writer, it is quite refreshing (in my opinion at least) to read stories told this way.

In addition, Mr. Weir definitely did a fair bit of research when planning the city of Artemis and this has really paid off, as the technology behind the story is very consistently designed, and believable.

I eagerly await his next book, as I'm sure after two hits he'll be able to keep going.

2017-10-16

"The Ancient Engineers" by L. Sprague de Camp

The Ancient Engineers




Published:
New York, NY: Ballantine Books
Year:
1986
Other Physical Details:
450 p. : illus
ISBN:
0345320298
Bibliography Note:
Includes bibliography and index.


Back when I first read this book (or at least portions of it), I was an undergrad student at the University of Alberta. The class I was assigned this in was a overview of classical technology. I don't remember the actual course designation anything but it was a very good course and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At the time I did not know L. Sprague de Camp as anything other than a science-fiction writer. I was soon to find out that he worked alongside other great authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov and numerous others who also became famous science-fiction authors.

This book is an overview of the history of engineering from pretty much the very beginning until approximately the 1960s. It was written in 1960 and this therefore limited the author in what he could talk about. In some places I felt Mr. de Camp tended to skip over or at least gloss over some of the pertinent details that led to the invention being discussed but for the most part he gives a very good review of how engineering developed, the people in involved and the historical events that were occurring at that time.

The only major criticism I have of this book (which quite likely may be a minor one for many readers) is that they were nowhere near enough illustrations and other graphical forms of information to allow the reader to understand what is being explained. However, if these were included the book would need to be expanded to multiple volumes.

The book itself is organized by time period, and this does cause some confusion when speaking about certain types of inventions, as there is significant overlap in most of these sciences. I believe it might've been easier to read if the book was to be organized based on the given type of invention and proceeded from the very beginning street to the modern times.

It would be great to see a new edition of this book be published that takes up where Mr. de Camp left off, unfortunately he died in 2000 so it will have to be by someone else.




2017-10-02

"How to Fake A Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial" by Darryl Cunningham

How to Fake A Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial


Publisher:New York : Abrams ComicArts, 2013.
ISBN:9781419706899  

Characteristics:172 pages, 4 unnumbered pages :,color illustrations
Alternative Title:Previously publushed as: Science tales: lies, hoaxes, and scams.
This book explores eight common science denial areas in cartoon format, and does it very well. Mr. Cunningham deals with the topics: The Moon landing hoax, Homeopathy, Chiropractic medicine, Vaccinations, Evolution, Fracking, Climate Change, and General Science Denial as does so in a way that will appeal to people of all ages.
A quote from Michael Specter a staff writer for the New Yorker as well as an author states the overall thesis behind this book on page 2 by saying:
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion; however, everyone is not entitled to their own facts."
The eight myths contained within this book are all refuted, by reviewing them in a rational, and logical way with simple explanations as to why they are false and providing the scientifically based reasoning behind the evidence.
While I'm sure this book won't convince the die-hard science denial fans, it will hopefully at least start to drive a wedge into their armour and therefore show everyone that their one sided opinions are not sustainable in a rational discussion.
Another quote, this time from the preface:
"... [T]he universe has amazing and strange qualities anyway for those who care to see them. There is no need to believe in fantasy in order to see the extraordinary in the world, when reality offers up so much that is astonishing." (pg. 6)
Pick this book up, and enjoy it.

2012-02-19

Science in the Movies (and television).

So far we have covered two very important parts of why it is very unlikely we have ever been visited by extraterrestrials, namely: first was the distance, and second why would they bother to come here. There have been literally thousands of television programs and feature films that fit the very broad description of "Science-Fiction" (over 5000 in fact according to IMDB) however, how many of them are scientifically accurate? Most are nowhere even close, and a great number do science such a disservice that they should really be classified as something like pseudo-science fiction. There is no way of classifying all the errors that some of these shows make, but the majority are things that any junior-high school student (and likely some elementary ones as well) know are not correct.

One of the biggest blunders that is continuously made is the sounds in space. Very elementary problem here - in order to have sound propagate you need air, and there is none in space so therefore there can't be any sound. The only movie I can think of off hand that got this right is 2001: A Space Odyssey. This same thing goes for explosions. "Bang" is a sound and therefore if there's no air there's no bang. This is taken to absurd lengths in virtually all films, and now-a-days when every space film seemingly has to have a battle sequence. Okay, I assume you get the point so I won't harp on it any longer.

Another problem that is very common in these films is that every alien is a bilaterally symmetrical biped, with stereoscopic vision (two eyes, both facing forward), two arms, etc. With the exception of the Star Wars series - which admittedly still lots of those good ol' bipeds there was at least a number of other aliens present (Jabba the Hut comes to mind). Now you'd think that with the huge budgets that Hollywood has for their films that they could do something a little original. Probably the biggest violator of this is the Star Trek franchise in which not only are they virtually all bipedal, but in some cases the difference between alien races is simply a few bumps on the forehead. In fact I can only recall one alien in the original series that looked alien and that was the Horta (an acidic rock dissolver, that looked like a large pepperoni pizza with extra cheese). Now admittedly I am not a Trekkie, and I haven't seen any of the newer episodes but with seventy some episodes in the original series and only one alien-looking alien the odds aren't too good that they've had any original thoughts since.

I don't want to harp on the silliness of Star Trek too much more, but they take things to absurd limits by not only making virtually all the aliens look the same, but also allowing them to interbreed. Come on people this is really basic biology. The prime example of this silliness is Mr. Spock. Why is it silly? For starters he is supposedly an alien, whose bodily chemistry is based on copper (not iron like ours), his parent's Amanda & Sarek - yes I had to look this up - mated (with a little genetic help it is stated), and successfully conceived a child. Now the chances of this happening (even with significant genetic assistance) is about as likely as a human successfully mating with a rose and producing a either living person that would never have to use deodorant, or a flower that can do calculus. Why, after all they did say there was some genetic help? Simple the two races have a different body chemistry (copper vs. iron remember), different chromosome numbers (humans have 23 vs. Vulcans' have some other number), different gestational periods (nine months vs. who knows what), etc. etc. ad nauseum. It was stated at one point that all races in Star Trek evolved from an ancient one, but this is absurd as well as basic evolutionary law says that species that are isolated will eventually be incompatible mates with other species. So enough about Star Trek.

So come on Hollywood lets see some science in your science fiction! Mind you when it comes down to it there hasn't been much original work come out of Hollywood for many many years so I guess the chances of anything like this happening is pretty slim.

TTFN

2012-02-17

But Why Would They Come?

Okay, so we can all likely agree that the other stars are a long way from here. But if we ignore this by saying that another civilization is using multigenerational ships to travel say something like what I'm assuming they were trying to portray in the movie "Independence Day". I say assuming as they definitely didn't saying anything about faster-than-light drives, etc. and the only time we saw the mother ship is was either moving at a relatively normal speed for spacecraft, or it was in orbit (yeah I know this is assuming a lot but I figure they didn't mention it so we can ignore it). So for sake of argument an alien race shows up in our stellar neighbourhood, the big question would be why would they bother to come here in the first place?

Let's face it human's aren't exactly going to attract any other civilizations. We've only had the ability to transmit data electronically for under 100 years (1907 for radio, 1918 for television). These first broadcast signals were very weak compared to what w have today so we can likely shave a fair number of years off these as well as by the time they got out into space any distance their signal strength would be extremely weak. So for sake of argument let's say that we have been transmitting for seventy years at a decent signal strength to reach anybody who might be listening - that puts us in 1942.

So sometime in the last seventy years a spacefaring civilization picked up our signals, and figured out what they were. After all not only would the signal strength be very weak, but whoever was listening wouldn't know any of our languages. But is we assume that they puzzled out that they were from an intelligence race of beings and decided to visit then we have another problem, which relates back to the previous posting I made, and that's distance and consequently the speed their ship can travel at.

In order for extraterrestrials to be visiting us today in 2012, and assuming they left home as soon as they detected the signal (the ships were ready to go all they had to do was shut the hatch and step on the accelerator), and further assuming they can travel at the generous speed of ten percent of the speed of light then that means the furthest away they can be from us is three point five light years (which would give them a thirty-five year journey). If by some chance they can get extremely close to the speed of light (by the way I am intentionally ignoring the time dilation effects) then this allows them to be further away but only thirty-five light years. But why do I say thirty-five is the maximum?

I set thirty-five for a maximum because I first assumed we have only been transmitting for about seventy years. Which means that the signals from 1942 are just now reaching the vicinity of Zeta Lepus (which happens to be 70 light years away), but even if a ship left there right now, it wouldn't get here until 2082 if they could travel at light speed (or close enough not to matter) and that's seventy years from now. So we're back to thirty-five year issue (thirty-five for the signal to get to them, and thirty-five for them to get to us - remember we're assuming they can travel close to light speed).

But once again why would they come? Thirty-five years ago the signals that were coming from good ol' Mother Earth were things such as "It's Your First Kiss, Charlie Brown", "Eight is Enough", "Soap", "CHiPS", and "The Love Boat" - not exactly anything that would attract an intergalactic civilization - unless of course they were intergalactic police, and wanted to protect the citizens of the galaxy from extremely poor quality writing (okay, Soap was relatively good, but the rest give me a break!).

You'll have noticed by now that I used the word "if" a lot in this article, and that is because there are a lot of questions that need answering (I mean other than why did "The Love Boat" last for nine seasons?). Also remember in the last couple of paragraphs I assumed that these supposed extraterrestrials could travel at just under light speed, which isn't likely. I'm not saying it impossible, but the technological leap that would have had to be made is a little hard to swallow.

TTFN

2012-02-15

Space is big, real big ...

I was doing a presentation at one of the schools the other day for grade six Sky Science (introductory astronomy for those of you not familiar with the Alberta curriculum) and a few of the students asked me about aliens, and UFOs, and such. I expected these after all this is what the various media outlets are feeding people now-a-days. In fact if you believed everything you saw in the media you probably think that every other person in the word was from another star system.

Now I don't want to sound like some type of a nay sayer, so to I'll make my stand clear. Yes, I believe that there is other life in the universe, and I hope that someday we will come in contact with them. This will likely be by detecting their radio transmissions, or some such as opposed to having a little green man knock on your door one morning and asking for a cup of anti-matter. But I don't believe they have ever visited us. Why? Read on for the first of my objections.

For those of you who have been weaned on a diet of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Independence Day" and various other gems from Hollywood the chances of aliens having visited us are pretty slim, in fact they are essentially non-existant. Why? I knew you ask so I here goes:


"Space, is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hughly mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

Mr. Adams wasn't kidding either, and that's why I don't really believe that we've ever been visited - there's another reason too, but I'll get to that in days to come. So everybody agrees space is big, but how big is it? Well I just happen to have my copy the 2012 Observer's Handbook handy so flipping to page 291 (Table of Nearest Stars) we see that Proxima Centauri is 4.24 lightyears (ly), Alpha Centauri 4.36 ly, Barnard's Star 5.98 ly, and Wolf 359 7.78 ly distant. So this means that the light were seeing right this second from Proxima Centauri left there 4.24 years ago. For that matter if our sun was above the horizon as I write this the light that we would see from the sun left there 8.3 minutes ago (499.0047864 light seconds to be exact)

Now a light year is standard measure of distance. Sorry to break it to you, but Han Solo got it wrong in Star Wars IV when he said it was a speed factor. It is the distance light travels in one year. Now light goes 299728.458 kilometres per second (abbreviated as c)which when multiplied out gives you 9.458 x 10^12 or 9,458,000,000,000 km in a year (299728.458 x 60 x 60 x 24 x 365.25). A long way!

Now according to a certain rather famous scientist by the name of Albert Einstein it is impossible for an object of positive mass to reach (and therefore pass) the speed of light, so that means that any visitors would have to be travelling at a speed somewhat less than this speed limit. which therefore makes their journey that much longer. So if they were travelling at half light speed then Proxima Centauri is 8.48 years away.

By the way, for the time being I'm going to ignore all the hypothetical faster than light drives that have been postulated for many years in science fiction stories, as we have no idea if it is possible, and until someone rewrites the laws of physics as we understand them it really isn't worth worrying about. I'm also going to ignore the ideas of cold sleep / hibernation etc. in case your curious.

So what we have is a trip to Proxima Centauri that is going to take at least 8.48 years (at 1/2 light speed) and likely much longer (at 1/10 light speed it's 84.8 years). So what does this give us? Well, if a civilization was going to outfit a ship to travel from say Proxima Centauri to us, they would have to provide the crew with sufficient supplies (breathing gases, water, food, spare parts, etc.) to last the journey, and they would also have to devise a way for the crew to entertain themselves for the entire trip. Now I get bored on a car trip longer than a few hours, so I don't even want to imagine being stuck in some type of vehicle for 8.48 years (or 84.8 for that matter).

So as you can see one of the biggest arguments against us being visited is simply distance. Plain and simple. Now if you do accept faster than light drives, cold sleep / hibernation etc. this all changes, but that's what I'm going to talk about tomorrow.

TTFN

Going on Hiatus

 Greetings, I have decided to put a hold on doing further book reviews for a while. In fact I'm not sure if I will resume doing reviews ...