Things that take your breath away

[kenewbie]

Ok, so the idea is this: List some tidbit of information about physics or math or chemistry or whatever that gives you a feeling of awe / goose bumps / mystery when you look at.

I'll go first to give an idea of what I am talking about.

Some initial facts:

- For your eye to register light, you need about 9 photons within a 100 ms period of time.
- In dim light, a human pupil has a diameter of about 8 mm.

The star "Betelgeuse" is somewhere around 400 ly away from us, but we can see it with the naked eye. This means every 50 mm^2 of the surface of a sphere with a radius of 400 light years, receives at least 9 photons every 100ms. The sheer amount of photons generated boggles my mind.

k

 

[tribdog]

Actually according to Dr. Daniel Robinson you only need about 5 photons. If the five photons hit one cone you'll see it, but all five need to hit one cone. If one photon hits a rod and another hits a neighboring rod etc until 5 photons hit five neighboring rods you will see it, that's why your peripheral vision is more sensitive than looking straight on when it is dark

 

[kenewbie]

Ok. My source (from 1986 or so) said "five to nine". I still get dizzy thinking about the end product though :)

k

 

[tribdog]

that's okay I made mine up

 

[tribdog]

just kidding, I have it on a books on tape lecture

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

No wonder the ratio of photons to baryons is a billion to one.

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/1996/ph123/l6b.html"

 

[tribdog]

I'm sort of amazed at the amount of the Universe that is made up of stuff that isn't what we're made of. What's the latest percentages? 85%Dark matter/dark energy vs 15% our stuff.

 

[throng]

I'm sort of amazed at the amount of the Universe that is made up of stuff that isn't what we're made of. What's the latest percentages? 85%Dark matter/dark energy vs 15% our stuff.[/QUOTE

Yeah that's rad.

What freaks me is all these concepts are theoretical.

Light acts like photons (particles in vacuum) and like waves (refraction/colour) it isn't defined exactly.

Dark energy, negative energy (eg below abs zero). It all sounds whack but it is new discovery.

Science is becoming more broad and sometimes resembles "the secret" type philosophies. So I think that science can concur with spiritualism more and more and that's positively awesome!

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I'm sort of amazed at the amount of the Universe that is made up of stuff that isn't what we're made of. What's the latest percentages? 85%Dark matter/dark energy vs 15% our stuff.

I think it's 95/5, but don't forget, we are dark matter ourselves.

 

[tribdog]

I'm sort of amazed at the amount of the Universe that is made up of stuff that isn't what we're made of. What's the latest percentages? 85%Dark matter/dark energy vs 15% our stuff.[/QUOTE

Yeah that's rad.

What freaks me is all these concepts are theoretical.

Light acts like photons (particles in vacuum) and like waves (refraction/colour) it isn't defined exactly.

Dark energy, negative energy (eg below abs zero). It all sounds whack but it is new discovery.

Science is becoming more broad and sometimes resembles "the secret" type philosophies. So I think that science can concur with spiritualism more and more and that's positively awesome!

Then you are probably in the wrong place. I don't agree with any spiritualism in physics. I also never heard of dark energy having anything to do with abs zero and it wouldn't be below abs zero anyway. That's why its abs zero. And as far as light not being defined exactly, I don't really agree with that either. Scientists have a pretty good handle on light. Sometimes it behaves like a wave sometimes a particle. It depends what you are looking for, but whatever you are looking for you will get it every time, so it's defined pretty well.