CYSIASTS: January 2014

Our universe is a wild place and for all of history man has been trying to make sense of it. Although we've come a long way in our understanding, with every passing day new discoveries are made. Whether it’s an alcoholic gas cloud floating in the center of our galaxy or Einstein’s theories of relativity, it’s enough to make
an astrophysicist go wild. But don’t worry, this stuff is cool enough that by the time you finish reading these 10 crazy facts about the universe we’re pretty sure you’ll be going wild too.
1. Einsteins Theory of Relativity-

Without getting too complex, Einstein essentially came forward with the revolutionary idea that not only is motion relative, but time is too. In fact, they are linked together. The faster you move, the slower others will perceive that time has passed for you. Why? Well imagine this. As you are sitting in the bus you shine a beam of light at the opposite wall. Lets say in 1 second it covers 2 meters before hitting the other side of the bus. Now, lets think of this from the perspective of the person on the street. To them the bus is also moving so the beam of light actually covers 15 meters in that same second. Why is this weird? Think about it. Here we have an object that just traveled 12 meters farther in the same amount of time…but it was moving at the same speed. The only logical explanation is that to the person watching you from the road, it actually took the beam of light longer to reach the other side of the bus. This means that while you percieved the event to elapse in only 1 second, they percieved it in 2. To them your clock is ticking slower. While this was exactly the kind of nonsense scientists were trying to avoid, Einstein took it at face value and accepted the conlusion. Still don’t believe it? Thats why we’re moving on to…

2.Adding a nanosecond to your life by never climbing stairs-

Remember high school physics? Because the force of gravity increases near the surface of the Earth, so does your acceleration which means exactly what you’re thinking – time slows down. Once again, this is very relevant to modern day society because at different altitudes clocks tick at different “speeds”. Also, remember that since the earth is rotating, someone standing near the equator is moving faster than someone on the north pole. Once again, their clock is ticking more slowly.

3.Twins Paradox-

If you have been keeping up so far then this won’t be too much of a leap. The famous twins paradox postulates that if you put one twin on a spaceship that was moving near the speed of light through space and left another on Earth, due to the effects of relativity, the twin in the space ship would return to the planet significantly younger than his Earth bound sibling.

4.Other Galaxies-

If this makes you feel small, it should, because scientists estimate that there are hundreds of billions more galaxies in the universe, none of which you can see without a telescope. Moreover each one of these galaxies has billions of stars which brings the grand total number of stars in the universe to 10 billion trillion which is 10 followed by 21 zeros. Thats more stars than the number of grains of sand on the Earth.

5.The Ponzo Illusion-

Have you ever noticed that when the moon is directly on the horizon it appears to be a lot closer and larger? Well, it’s not. What’s happening is actually something that your brain does all the time. Think about what happens when you see one of your friends on the horizon. Although they appear to be really small your brain doesn't actually interpret them as being that tiny. Something similar is going on with regards to the moon. Known as the Ponzo illusion, your brain inflates the size of the moon to make it appear larger than it really is. Don’t believe it? Next time you’re looking at an oversized moon block everything else out with your hands and watch it shrink.

6.Biggest Diamond Ever-

In 2004 scientists discovered the largest diamond ever. In fact it’s a collapsed star. Measuring 4000 km across and having a core composed of 10 billion trillion trillion carats it’s roughly 50 light years from the Earth.

7.Venus’s day is longer than its year-

Strangely enough Venus completes an entire orbit around the sun before it manages to turn on its axis once. This means that its day is actually longer than its year and in Venusian time, World War II ended only 56 days ago.

8.Constant motion-

You are standing on a planet that is spinning about its axis while rotating around a star that is revolving around the center of galaxy that is itself barreling through space. Sounds like enough to give you motion sickness right? Well, before you take your Dramamine lets visit our next point.

9.The Speed of Light-

Going back to the bus example. If you were to shoot an arrow out the window at a target down the road in front of you how fast would it be moving when it hit hit the bulls eye Well, essentially it would be going the speed of the bus – about 60 km per hour – plus however fast you shot the arrow. Now what if you shined a beam of light at it? Since the light travels at 186,000 miles per second, we would just add the 60 km per hour right? Wrong. Scientist found that no matter what, light travels the same speed. Which brings us to our next point…

10.Moving Clocks-

Everything we just talked about is very relevant to modern technology. In fact, the clocks in onboard computers and navigation equipment have to take into account the effects of relativity. For example, if you measured the time that had elapsed on a fighter pilots wristwatch, you would find that it lagged behind your watch by several nanoseconds.

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