Take a Ride That's Impossible to Return From

Here's a simulation of what one might experience if you could fall into a black hole.




When it's done you won't be quantum foam, and can go about your business. Something impossible if you ever went on the real trip.

The "Blob" Attacks - 12.9 Billion Years Ago

A report of an amazing blob. A 12.9 billion year old, 55,000 light year sized blob of something has been observed see full article.

Basically, the scientists have no idea what it is (although that didn't stop them from making some WAGs as to its identity).

The universe continues to surprise us.

Geek Heaven.

Opening Day

Today was opening day for the Padres. A 4-1 loss to the hated Dogers (not a typo or mistake, that's what they are Dog-ers). The first loss of what will probably be a great many this year.

The good news is winning and losing are not the keys to my enjoyment. A well played game is what I go to see. This one was almost in that category. A hideous stupid needless error that lead to a run in the Dog-er 3rd was the only real mar.

NCAA final four ended. My Spartans lost to a much better team. Congrats to UNC.

But, the baseball season is underway, and all is right with the world.

Physics Foolies

Yes Foolies, not Follies.

Seems there may be two new things that the all-knowing physicists didn't know (i.e., they've been fooled).

First, on March 17 Fermi Lab announces a new particle, dubbed Y(4140) - it's rest mass is about 4140 MeV. The Fermi Lab announcement on the web says

Physicists did not predict its existence because Y(4140) appears to flout nature’s known rules for fitting quarks and antiquarks together.

We will learn something new. Cool.

Speaking of cool, six days later at the American Chemical Society there was an announcement that maybe Cold Fusion is real after all. Sounds like they have a reproducible experiment and clear evidence. They even managed to publish in a peer review journal, Naturwissenschaften. It will be interesting to see if all those folks that were so full of themselves when they denounced Pons and Fleischmann 20 years ago have enough integrity to admit they were wrong.

In any case, sounds like there may be new things to learn about science after all. Isn't that what science is all about?

Hurricane Season Finally Winding Down On Jupiter?

The (at minimum) centuries old Great Red Spot on Jupiter seems to be shrinking here.

Will it disappear completely, or merely shrink then re-grow. No one knows. Ain't that great?

Here we have an object, observed for over 100 years, and yet no one understands it.

So we all get to watch the science happen right in front of our eyes.

Gotta love it.