Black holes have always been one of the most fascinating things about our universe. I’m sure everyone remembers how the internet went insane when this photo was released. Black holes are everywhere in popular media like movies and video games. The concept that something so massive exists and nothing can ever escape from it astonishes and intrigues many, including me. The most notable example of black holes in media to me is the movie Interstellar in which they go into a black hole and suddenly have the ability to reach the fourth dimension and they can time travel and its crazy. Anyway, the fun part about that is that is that no one knows what goes on once an object goes into the singularity, or middle, of the black hole. The line that once crossed means it can never come back is called the event horizon. Since nothing can escape, even light, this is why black holes appear black, and that is how they got their names. However, I like to think of black holes as the only things in the universe that we know of that are completely invisible. Since no light can escape then there is no light for your eyes to see. We do of course see the light surrounding black holes, which kind of ruins my whole “invisible” head cannon, but I still like to think of them that way.
Category: Science
-
Paradoxes are always interesting to contemplate, and the Fermi paradox is no different. First proposed by Enrico Fermi (above) the Fermi paradox in a nutshell is if the scale and probability of our universe favors intelligent life developing elsewhere, then why have we not found any evidence of that life. This paradox sparked Frank Drake to create the Drake equation we looked at in class. Many scientists have contemplated this paradox for years, but no real solution has come about, and one likely never will in our lifetimes. However, the theory I most subscribe to is the Great Filter. The Great Filter is whatever natural phenomena that would cause the evolution of intelligent life so rare. Having taken biology and seeing all the processes and events that led up to our evolution it’s a surprise that we are even here to begin with. I am open to hearing other’s thoughts on the matter.
-
Ever wonder how we know how old dinosaurs were? Or how long humans have been on the Earth? Well, it all comes down to a technique that scientists use called carbon dating. The process starts with the Sun’s radiation colliding with a N-14 causing a proton to fall off and creating C-14. This C-14 reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere to create CO2, which then follows the food chain. The interesting part is that when an animal dies, it stops consuming C-14. C-14 is an unstable isotope meaning that it will eventually go through radioactive beta decay to become N-14 with a half-life of 5,730 years.
This means that by looking at the ratio of the amount of C-14 to C-12 left in the remains of organic life, you can tell roughly how old long ago that specimen lived. C-12 is notably stable meaning its concentration will remain and will not decay any further. Carbon dating does have a limit as beyond a certain half-life the concentration of C-14 becomes too small. However, if you want to date much older things the same principle of carbon dating applies to other radioactive isotopes with much longer half-lives.
You must be logged in to post a comment.