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A fact is a simple statement that everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe. It is guilty, until found effective. ~Edward Teller

A very warm welcome to my th reader.Why speed of light ? Well, the aim of this blog is to reach the impossible by exploration and scientific fervor. Exploration never ends, knowledge never dies but Speed of Light can be achieved ....

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Thursday, July 05, 2007

Who pushed the Earth in the past ?


Recently, there has been a lot of discussion coming up on the net. Scientists have given an attempt to answer questions like – What existed before the Big Bang? The biggest hurdle in front of us is that while studying the earlier phase of the universe, calculations fail. This is because one has to divide by zero several times to reach a mathematically correct solution which explains the state of the universe just before the Big Bang. They have altered their calculations and methods to avoid divisions by zero and have tagged along a different approach to show that universe had a finite density and we can find out what existed before the Big Bang. They suggest merging the quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of relativity.
But as the research papers or any material gets confirmed, I will post it here. [link]

Then I went through space videos. One of them was about Apophis asteroid. It will hit us in 2036. The video has been exaggerated a bit showing a complete extinction of life form from earth. It is not true. Read more about the Impact Risk. According to latest updates, as on August 6th, 2006, its imapct has been lowered to Torino Scale 0.

Gradually, as I was winding up the video watching session, I accidentally came across a video titled “Does God Exist?” It has been posted by abcnews.com user. There were a lot of interesting arguments but I would cut down and post the minimum stuff. Watch the video to see the whole debate.


Theist: There needs to be a creator for anything that exists. Everything is created by God. There needs to be a painter for a painting.
Atheist: Then who is the creator of God?
Theist : No one has created God. God is just there as an eternal faith or power in one’s self.
…. and the never ending blah blah blah….

Two friends were heading for a competition. One of them was an Atheist and the other was a Theist. Before leaving for the competition they talked on phone.
Theist: John, I'll pray for your victory today !
Atheist: Thanks. I will think for your victory!

Could you make out the point from this small conversation ?

Well, earlier I had thought of writing an article on M-theory (or String Theory) because
I do know about the fundamentals of the String Theory and understand its application. But trust me, when I came to writing a post on it, I couldn’t do it. Understanding and explaining theories are two completely different tasks. And of course, you need to have the skill to explain complicated things in a simple, clear-cut technique. Also, there are various kinds of string theories, not just one. These theories are interconvertable and then you have the dual of most of these theories. But then I thought of writing about something more interesting. Try answering these questions:

Who pushed our Earth in the past?
Why is it rotating?
Will it continue to rotate?
What would happen if the Earth stops rotating?

Science has progressed so much today that it has answer to almost every question. Curious about astronomy, children do ask startling questions at times that make us spellbound for a moment. For eg. Earth is rotating at an enormous speed of 1100 miles per hour, considering this fact, if someone jumps high up then why doesn’t he land a few miles away from the place he jumped. Now, if our earth stops rotating, what would be the consequences?

Firstly, we need to understand why or what is making the earth rotate continuously. In the early years of the formation of the solar system, the disk of clouds made up of gas and dust started to condense. Gradually, they attained circular stable shapes forming planetary bodies which continued to remain in swirling motion. In the whole process, the sun remained in the center of the swirling disk of gas and dust. As time progressed, accounting to billions of years, the planets came into existence with distinctly separate bodies having a core and crust of their own. Out of the eight planets, the Jovian planets, namely, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune remained gaseous. Let’s understand the concept in a very simple manner. The disk of gas and dust swirled around the sun. It remained captured by the sun’s gravity. Slowly, the planets formed. Now angular momentum needs to be conserved because no external torque is acting on the system, therefore, the planets started rotating. To keep the angular momentum constant, mass distribution lowered (swirling gas condensed into planets) and high orbiting velocity of newly formed planets came into existence.

Now, we are all aware of the fact that there is no need of any external force to keep a ball in rotation. Same is the case with our earth. It doesn’t require any external energy or force to stay in rotational motion. But you would be astonished to know that with the use of extremely accurate atomic clocks it has been found that the rotation is slowly down. One of the reasons for this is Tidal Acceleration. Therefore, the need of Leap Second was felt. Because of changes in dynamic climate and atmospheric pressure, earth’s rotation is affected. NASA’s ESE mission is currently studying more about this.

If the Earth stops rotating, it would produce miraculous results. Firstly, it would highly disturb the earth’s magnetism. Atmospheric disturbance would cease the life on earth. The atmosphere is also rotating with the earth. If earth stops rotating suddenly, high speed winds would sweep the landmasses. Earth just has the right rotation period which helps the living beings to survive. Seismic waves might break the earth apart due to sudden halt in rotation. Moreover, the places on the dark and lightened side of the earth respectively would continue to remain like that.

So does anyone know what is diurnal motion? And folks, do post comments or questions.

6 comments:

The Keeper of the Keys said...

no, i dont know what diurnal motion is....
in fact, i have to confess, that post went mostly over my head....lol...sorry, but i dont think i'm that intellectual....
but what you wrote was very interesting, and i'm glad somebody does it, coz, u dont basically find blogs like these often...
anyway, going to the beginning of ur post, i dont think its necessary to believe in God , you just need to have faith in your own abilities
and, i didnt see the videos, i never do.

Varun Khetarpal said...

oh... hi nidhi !

actually my blog is read by amateur astronomers and other astro ppl... so basically it falls in that community. I do post humorous and light stuff in between....

Thanks for visiting... n keep commenting !!

PS:. diurnal motion is easy... see earth spins on its axis, right ? And therefore it appears as if the stars in the sky are also changing positions .... so basically this movement and the above mentioned consequence is diurnal motion.

The Keeper of the Keys said...

oh so thats what diurnal motion is ...cool

Semi Sam said...

Could the Earth reverse it's rotation? This is a recent question of mine since wondering about a few seemingly unrelated things about science. I am no amateur anything; just a guy with a lot of time on his hands to think about stuff;)

Anyhow, what got me wondering about this was the fact that it has been proven that the Earth's magnetic poles reverse every so often. Except that it is not clear why...?

When one considers the Earths magnetic field, along with the electrical phenomena of the planet and it's iron inner core; could the earth be rotating a bit like a homopolar motor does?

Being that it is the worlds most simplest motor I built one in my kitchen. It's a really neat toy!

Anywho, how does the basic principle of a hompolar motor not apply to the Earth? When you reverse the magnetic poles of a homopolar motor, it reverses its spin. The planet's poles will most likely reverse again at some point. My question is will this have an affect if any on Earth's rotation?

Pallab said...

The logical fight between the treist and the atheist was really interesting. Rabindranath Tagore, in one of his novels, has created an atheist who puts his logic in this manner:
"If there is a God, by definition, my brain is created by him.
That brain says there is no God.
Therefore, God says there is no God."

What does it prove!!!
The logic below is correct
or
The logic above is wrong.
I think everything is relative.
There was no god when I was 25.
God is showing his grin when I am approaching 50.
God will be omnipresent at my 70s.

Unknown said...

Can the Earth turn anti-clockwise? If so, What would be the effect to use human beings?

This is science !

When you are speaking to technically illiterate people you must resort to the plausible falsehood instead of the difficult truth.

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