la_belle_laide | Entries tagged with science

So for a while I've been a big fan of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Lab. (It's the hugest RHIC at this time, but rumor has it CERN's one is going to be even bigger. IIRC, didn't Dan Brown write in Angels and Demons that CERN already had one?) So anyway, I am tiny part science geek, though I don't often talk about it because I don't know enough to talk well, and that science geek part of me loves the RHIC and loves the fact that it is on Long Island.

The hippie in me, though, who likes everything to be all natural all of the time etc., is terrificallly afraid of the RHIC and doesn't think that there should even be one. Do we really need to be messing around like this? says Earth Mother Hippie.

Science geek says, STFU! They can make a black hole!

Earth Mother hippie points to the paragraph on that page where it says, Hey, look, the RHIC works, because it didn't destroy the Earth like it could have! She points to where it says that the RHIC could have torn the fabric of space and time and could have formed a strangelet which would turn all matter into a mass of quarks.

Science geek laughs in Earth Mother Hippie's face because she thinks, What a way to go! And quarks are like the best matter ever!

Earth Mother Hippie points to the bottom of that page where it says that some have hypothesized that strangelets were responsible for some earthquakes, and earthquakes are never good.

Science Geek's jaw hits the floor.

All of me thinks that Long Island is the most interesting place in the entire world. There are just parts of me that disagree why it is so interesting, and when they fight, they fight violently and the rest of me can't sleep.

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: "Blue Bayou" - Linda Ronstadt

I'm really bummed out about Pluto losing its planetary status. I mean, I'm almost taking it personally. I'm all for science making changes and moving forward and all, it's just that, you know, Pluto was my planet. Not only my ruling planet, but it has always been a favorite of mine. Deep, mysterious, powerful Pluto, planetary ruler of the 8th house and the underworld.

I'm dejected.

In other news, hey, check it out, Taking Back Sunday is headlining over 30 Seconds to Mars in that concert I'm going to. My friend I'm going with is really into TBS. I wonder if she would mind if I bounced for the TBS show, or at least some of it, to see if I can't go and catch 30STM at a little post-concert thingie. She really wants me to see them, though. But really, how often do I get to go to concerts and maybe say hello to my favorite band? Try never. I'll have to see how it all works out. The good news is that it means we can probably leave right after the show and maybe get back to LI at a time that's not completely ungodly. I guess we will just have to see where this adventure takes us.

In other fangirling news, I've just finished the part in Dirge of Cerberus where Rosso the Crimson is the boss battle. I don't know how this story ends, obviously, but ... how weird is it of me to be sort of into Vincent / Rosso? I swear she's got a thing for him. I'll bet it's out there.

In yet other news--I've said this before and I hope not to say it again--if anyone out there on my f-list has any racist tendencies, or culturist tendencies, or simply thinks it's all right to lump an entire nation or culture into one little paradigm, please just de-friend me and save me the trouble? I really do not want to read that crap. Like, ever.

ETA: Here's something weird, I think. Is it a bad thing that, when going through my "manage friends" list, I don't know who many of the people on there are, or where I met them? O_o It doesn't sound too nice, when I put it that way.

Current Mood: annoyed

Current Mood: annoyed

I love spooky physics because I'm looking for some kind of central power, a unification that I'm waiting for mathamaticians and scientists to find (because it doesn't even fit in my brain,) but unlike scientists, I want it to be sentient. I don't want to call it god or even a god because of the stupid and outdated Christian and Biblical implications that I regard with nothing but scorn.

In fact, it doesn't even have to be sentient; it doesn't even have to care. It can play dice for all I give a crap. All I really want to know is that there's something after physical life. I halfway don't even care what it is; I just don't want to end. I especially don't want to end having seen nothing but these four dimensions. String theory occasionally proposes that there are up to eleven dimensions. Most physicists agree that if you think you understand quantum, you're not getting it. Most even say that even if you can understand string theory mathamatically, you can't feel it intuitively. I want to see those other dimensions. I want to spend like another hundred years in these four dimensions--goodness knows that even that's not enough time to enjoy them, but we can't get too greedy, ow can we?--and then when I die, I want to experience all the others. Not only that, but I want to know that I'm experiencing them. I guess that's asking rather a lot, but there it is.

The real world as string theory and even spooky quantum physics describe it is all so complex that we can't fit it into our human brains. It only seems fair that maybe we can fit it all in once we are no longer confined to our human brains. This idea also seems to imply, at least to me, that there's something out there that can fit it all into its consciousness. Because before the Big Bang, what the hell was there? Something so small and dense that humans can't even imagine it. Even Time didn't exist. These are things that don't belong in our brains. We're too small. All I want to know is that outside of the insignificant and comparitively so infinitesimally small particles and impulses that make up the human consciousness, there is a place--there is room--for all of this to fit. It's too awesome to not be understood by something. If I had an ounce of Christian or Biblical sensibility in me, I might be inclined to call it heaven. I enjoy Buddhism, so maybe it would be more pleasing to me to think of it as Nirvana. To me, Nirvana would be existing in a state to not only experience and understand the physics of the incalculably minute.

Otherwise, what the hell is the point of everything?

Also, I just plain don't want to die, ever. Is that arrogant? If so, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm human, after all, and most of us are arrogant in our assumptions about life and what we'd like it to fork over to us. I think it's maybe less arrogant than believing that if I'm better than everyone else I will sit at the right side of some immeasurably more arrogant--not to mention wrathful and jealous--Supreme Being who likes to play favorites wiht those who suck up to Him.

What I'm saying is that I think it should all even out. What is any universe without balance? Or, as Douglas Adams once asked, why does the universe bother to exist? Maybe those weren't his exact words, but it was something close to that.

I hope this doesn't even hint at the phrase "looking for God in science" because like I said, I'm not looking for god. It's entirely possible that there is a force to understand all of this madness (to clarify: there should be, otherwise why does all of this madness bother to exist?) but my primary interest isn't in god, it's in myself. What it all boils down to is my completely childish desire to keep on having fun in this fantastic jumble of universes and dimensions. Sadly enough, that's exactly what it all is for me, too. It's fun.

And, I'm not going crazy or anything, I'm just superfly tired and basically rambling. But I was thinking about all of this as I was falling asleep and I wanted to remember it, so here it is, on my blog.

Current Mood: indescribable

Current Mood: indescribable

WTF, man? Dude, how much do I love this madcrazybeautiful planet?!

( Entire glowing ocean story behind the cut. )

The link on the sea creatures inexplicably luring fish to their death using glowing, red lights is pretty freaking awesome, too. "The discovery is odd, because scientists had figured deep-sea animals can't see red light, since they live where sunlight doesn't reach and therefore have no evolutionary reason to detect the color." O_o

Dang, I love it here.

Current Mood: enthralled
Current Music: "I Feel Love" - Vanessa Mae