About Elements

Rather sporadically, earlier today I took it upon myself to try to look up lists of colleges that actually taught creationism or "intelligent design" as a serious part of their science curriculum, and while I was wholly unsurprised to see that nearly every school listed in every list I could find had either the word "Christian" or some other kind of Christian Sect (such as "Baptist", etc.) written right next to it, what DID surprise me was a certain article in the official "Institute for Creation Research." This article:

http://www.icr.org/electromagnetic/

Which reads:

"The visible energy from the sun is the sunshine that lights the day and the moonlight reflected by the moon at night. The range of visible colors is a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The range of visible light across the spectrum forms the colors we call a rainbow.

Chemicals give off and absorb light at specific points on the electromagnetic spectrum. By comparing the light from various chemicals with the light from our sun, we have learned that our sun is made up mostly of hydrogen. We have also learned which atoms are in galaxies far away. The chemical elements across the universe behave the same as they do for us.

The light from distant galaxies comes from explosions of hydrogen. These are nuclear explosions, which are much more powerful than chemical explosions.

Gravity draws all the sun's hydrogen together creating intense pressure. In the core of the sun the huge forces cause nuclear fusion reactions. Hydrogen atoms fuse together into helium and release huge amounts of energy. This explosive energy does not cause the sun to disintegrate and die, but the universal laws of physics keep the energy of the sun continually in balance.

The same laws of physics that hold our exploding sun together do the same for the stars that light up the night sky.

Processes today operate primarily within fixed natural laws and relatively uniform process rates, but since these laws were themselves originally created and are daily maintained by their Creator, there is always the possibility of miraculous intervention in these laws or processes by their Creator."

And I was stunned. Why? Well...because I believe that they might just be on to something here. I mean, the implications are completely and utterly astounding. This article proposes that universal phenomena such as gravity and atomic theory...are actually universal and, get this, they affect everything in the universe equally! This is a discovery deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize!...if it still were the late 1800s....

As a matter of fact, yes scientists do know that the universal laws of the universe are...well...universal.

Quite simply put, the reasons why almost every kind of star behaves the same way and conforms to the same laws of physics are because they are made of the same kind of stuff and are regulated by the same laws of physics as our sun. This should not be shocking, of course.

All the atoms of a certain kind behave the same way because they are made of the same "stuff". However, many of the laws of physics themselves are also a result of their own kind of "stuff", and one of the modern reasonings for why this is as such (and a very well supported idea as well) is that every major law of physics from electromagnetism (regulated by the photon) down to the nuclear forces and gravity (of which gravity is supposedly regulated by the hypothetical graviton).

The universe is a relatively uniform place due to the Big Bang. Uniformity in our universe, however, comes not from symmetry, but composition and function. And just as the primordial forefathers of all the matter in our current universe were seeded throughout the universe by the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago, so were the primordial forefathers of the "stuff" that regulates the laws of physics.

So in the same manner that all matter of a certain type act in the same way because they are made of the same stuff, the laws of physics function the same way universally because they too are made of their own unique but of "stuff".

This phenomena is no more proof for a creation than the tides are. So no ICR, you are wrong yet again.

The First Law

The First Law of Thermodynamics, or "The First Law" as it is more commonly referred to. Both one of the most important and basic laws of the universe, as well as one of the most misunderstood laws in the universe. A more common phrasing of the First Law usually goes along the lines of this:

"The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed."

An observation which, at least as far as our day-to-day lives are concerned, is extremely accurate. However when we begin to observe the universe under much stricter conditions, we find that this rendition of the First Law does not truly hold. Two such examples are quantum physics (the physics of the very, very small) and cosmogeny (the study of how the universe itself formed), which I will not delve into too much at the moment, but may make a post on in the near future about.

Today our goal will be a better understanding of the often misunderstood First Law. So, what is the First Law? Well, as with nearly everything in modern physics, it is a mathematical model. An equation used to explain observations that we make of the universe around us. The equation in question being:

                                                  dU= Q - W

 *Where Q and W are equal to the net energy and work (or use of energy) in the system

This presents to us our first impasse. How do we convert math into pure words? Well, with the First Law, it is relatively easy, and it actually includes some of our original statement about the first law, albeit with an added addendum. A more concise wording of the First Law, however, would be along the lines of:

"The net energy in any closed system will remain constant."

Or:

"The net energy at any point, at time, in any [closed] system will be equal to the net energy of the system's initial state."

Why does this matter? At first it seems that I have done nothing but simply change words, but a closer examination of the phrasing used will reveal a difference which in actuality is quite large. And the word here is "constant".

But, one might ask, how this change everything, or anything at all for that matter? Well, it allows us to do the equivalent of multiplying by 1. Meaning that we can change Q and W for ANY quantity we wish so long as the final answer (dU) remains the same.

And what does this mean for us? Well, our universe has a net energy of zero, or in simpler terms, it is a system in which the Q and W cancel out perfectly. This opens up many doors for the spontaneous creation of the universe from essentially nothing, something which is actually doable under the laws of quantum mechanics, and has actually been, to some degree, indirectly observed through the presence of the ghostly "Virtual Particles" that are a relatively common product of the "quantum jitters" that our universe constantly feels.

Of course, because I promised  I wouldn't go into cosmogeny, I won't go much further into that then this and save it for a later post.

Happy First Orbit Day!

On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to penetrate Earth's atmosphere. In doing so, Yuri entered into what could truly be called outer space for the first time in human history.

For all its faults and imperfections, humanity's relentless tenacity and ingenuity have helped it survive throughout its history as a species. Equally importantly, these very same qualities will be the ones that will ultimately decide our fate: a future of prosperity, or none at all. Despite our humblest of evolutionary origins and despite our bloodiest of histories, humanity has continued to persevere and push forwards despite the huge odds constantly stacked against it. We weakest, most pathetic of animals have capitalized on our weaknesses and our strengths, combining the two to form a juggernaut so potent that it is even possible that it may, in the not so distant future, gain the ability to control the forces of nature that had once subjugated humanity during its early days.

We are a species with nearly unlimited potential. We are a species which could, if we truly wished, venture out into the stars. We are a species that has continuously defy expectation and do the impossible. We are species that despite being told that we could never sore with the birds, nor share the deep with the fishes, nor venture into the heavens with the moon, achieved all those things anyway simply because we wished to do so. And this is humanity at its best.

On the rare occasion that we rise above our petty differences: our many religions, our many self imposed nationalities, flags, cultures, and most of all, our own egos, humanity has shown that it can, without exception, achieve great things. Yet Gagarin's monumental achievement was not of this sort. If anything, it was actually the exact opposite, one driven by our egos and our nationalism. An achievement greatly hindered by having access to the resources, manpower, and brainpower of only one small sect of humanity.

The question today is not only what can humanity achieve, but what more could it achieve if it could finally overcome these faults and unite as one people. Our future lies not on Earth, but in the deepest depths of space. A future which can never be reached lest we finally unite as one under our many similarities, which outnumber the petty differences which divide us today by so very much more.

To humanity. And to our achievements. And to Yuri Gagarin and the thousands of Soviet scientists and engineers who allowed his revolutionary revolution about the Earth to happen.

Happy First Orbit Day.

Correcting A Few Common Misconceptions

A relatively popular liberal (politically speaking) blog called "Daily Kos" recently released their quarterly hate-mails. Mainly composed of illegible and intellectually bankrupt rants from extremely conservative people, the hatemail consisted mainly out of baseless and quite irrational rants. I, of course, went in expecting to find nothing out of the norm. A few good laughs, and tons of stupidity, of course, but nothing all too shocking. And then I saw this post:

"Evolutionist retard, learn some math 

Its amazing how stupid you evolutionists are. You dont even have basic math skills and you dont know jack about science. Lets review: the human genome is made of nucleic bases (there are four kinds, which you morons didn't know) and the entire genome is 3 billion bases long. Understand, idiot? OK, so the probability of this genome being randomly generated is (1/4)^3 billion or basically imposible. Please note that even small mistakes in the genome will result in disases like Down syndrome, so there is very little margin for error. In other words MATHEMATICS PROVES CONCLUSIVELY THAT EVOLUTION IS IMPOSSIBLE! Also, according to evolutionist fantasy, humans have been around for millions of years. If mutations have happened this entire time, what are the odds of ALL HUMANS OVER MILLIONS OF YEARS randomly going through the EXACT SAME mutations that are now the human genome? Zero, thats what.

Her'es another thing: the genome of most animals is very similar to humans (something like 97% similar). This means that even if you could randomly create a genome similar to ours, we would be much morelikely to be ducks or ponies or anything besides humans. So why aren't we ducks or ponies? Because we are not the result of some random evolutionary crapshoot, but instead we are divinely created and the similarities in the genomes of all animals are the divine code for life.

Here's the difference between us: I've actually studied biolofgy and such sciences whereas you probably have only read some propaganda leaflet written by the George Soros Evoultionist Lies Institute. But hey, dont feel too bad. Its not your fault your a stupid retard, its your... genes! HA!

P.S. Buy a calculator and learn how to use it."

I am afraid to say...that I have finally lost hope in humanity. Well...to be frank, that actually happened about a year ago when I found about the creationist movement in the United States and just how many people adhered to the creationist movement. A condition only worsened by men such as Kent Hovind, Ken Ham, and other icons of the creationist movement.


I find it quite frankly disturbing to see how misinformed and ignorant most Americans are about science. Surely, American remains one of the most scientifically illiterate developed nations in the world, in stark contrast to its place near the very top only a few decades ago. In the vast majority of the cases this ignorance is not the fault of the person in question, it is the fault of a faulty education, whether it is one given by the parents, the church, or the federal educational system (a system sorely in need of reform and national standards in both the science and math departments).


America's shockingly low scientific literacy, however, was actually one of my main reasons for starting this blog. Along with sharing the latest news in science (most especially those in the fields of physics, astrophysics, and astronomy as well as in the field of applied science known as engineering), this blog was created in large part as a way to help to clear up many very common, yet simple, misconceptions made by the general public about very well accepted theories and facts within their relevant fields of science.. So, without further adieu, let's take this apart, shall we?