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Varun's Blog - At the Speed of Light !

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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Friday, January 05, 2007

Comet McNaught plunging towards sun



HOT COMET: Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) is plunging toward the Sun having its closest approach on Jan. 13th. It will be much closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury. The comet will experience fierce heating and it could brighten considerably, emerging from the encounter brighter than a 1st magnitude star.

For the next few mornings, northerners can see Comet McNaught before it disappears into the Sun's glare. It's an easy target for binoculars hanging low in the eastern sky at sunrise. After Jan. 11th, only SOHO (the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) will be able to track the comet as it angles toward the bright Sun. SOHO images are posted in near-real time on the Internet, so you can watch the comet-sun encounter and see what happens.

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Monday, January 01, 2007

Order it for me !!

Hi !


A very Happy New Year to all the readers. Keeping science apart, lets have some fun..

There are two delectable pictures below. It just awaits conversion into reality. Oh ! I wish it could come out of the screen … “How do you feel after eating a chocolate?”
I just start floating into past sweet memories of fun and leisure when my friends and me used to sit at the last bench and eat chocolates. Of course, the teacher never knew but it was indeed enticing to do all this. The taste fills my heart with alluring thoughts... Just love it !

By the way, how does one feel after eating a chocolate ? Please post your thoughts.



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Monday, November 13, 2006

FOUR PLANETS

FOUR PLANETS: Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury are all crowded around the sun this weekend. The great conjunction is invisible to the human eye (too much sunlight), but SOHO can see it. The spacecraft's coronagraph is able to block the glare and reveal the planets.

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Monday, November 06, 2006

Transit of Mercury


On Wednesday, Nov. 8th, Mercury will pass directly in front of the sun. The rare transit will be visible from the Americas, Hawaii and all around the Pacific Rim. It begins at 2:12 p.m. EST (11:12 a.m. PST) and lasts for nearly five hours.

Because Mercury is so small, only a tiny fraction of the sun will be covered. So don't stare at the sun on Wednesday; it will be as blinding as ever. Instead, try to view the event through a properly-filtered solar telescope. Mercury's tiny, jet-black silhouette passing in front of solar prominences, filaments and sunspots should be a marvelous sight.

Informative Links
Live Webcast NASA
Optical Projection & Filter

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Thursday, October 19, 2006

You can remember your future !


Reversal of Time

Well, humans might be able to remember events in the future. This means if you placed a bet with your friend, you will surely win because you would know the result beforehand. Sounds little absurd, eh? I will try to answer this question in very simple words and easy logic.

One thing we have to agree with is that there are always more disordered states than the ordered ones. Consider a Jigsaw puzzle. There are many disordered states but the ordered state is only one i.e. only one arrangement will complete the puzzle.

Now, suppose that a system starts with small number of ordered states. Eventually, as time progresses, it will evolve according to laws of science and will become disordered because disordered states are always more in number for the system. This means that with increase in time, disorder will tend to increase. In simple words, disorder of a system increases as time progresses obeying the initial condition of high order.

Consider that god wants to finish the universe in a state of high order. Now, the situation is totally opposite to what we have seen in the above paragraph. Universe has to “end” in a state of high order and it is for sure that in “early stages” of universe, it would have probably been in a disordered state. As the time progresses, the end of the universe comes closer. In other words, disorder will decrease, as the universe will approach its end. We can also put it like this – “Disorder is decreasing with time.” Now, keep this statement in mind and read further.

This means that we would see broken tea cups pieces gathering together and jumping back on the kitchen shelf.

A human living in the same universe would see this and this would have a psychological impact on his mind. He will remember events in the future, and not the events of the past. When the teacup was broken, he would remember it being on the shelf, but when it was on the shelf, he would remember it being on the floor in the broken form. So, every event that he will remember is in a way “of the future”. It is difficult to talk about human memory and perception as we don’t know its working in thorough detail.

If the universe begins to contract, we can say that the universe is nearing its end and disorder is decreasing with time. Now, would we be able to remember events in the future ? Would we be able to remember tomorrow’s prices and make a fortune on stock market ? The problem is we can’t observe this because the universe would not contract for at least another 10,000 million years. But there is a way out to check this: Jump into a black hole. Entering a black hole is same as experiencing a collapse of the universe. Suppose an astronaut enters a black hole, he would be able to make money at roulette by remembering where the ball would go before placing the bet. But, unfortunately, he would not be able to bank his winnings, as there is no way out from a black hole.

The idea is attractive because it means contracting phase of the universe will be reverse of expanding phase. Therefore, people would die before they were born in a contracting universe.

I know the entry has exceeded the word limit (as our English teachers say – “Marks will be deducted for exceeding the word limit.”) but I hope it has put the point across.

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This is science !

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

Photos of Comet Mcnaught !
Astro-photographer? Send your photos to pics@exploreuniverse.com and have them featured on this blog with your name. Comet Mcnaught : Pictures taken with Nikon D100 on 19/1/07 from Manning Point, northern NSW, Australia by Mr. Peter Enright.
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