Gifted Bulletin Board

Welcome to the Gifted Issues Discussion Forum.

We invite you to share your experiences and to post information about advocacy, research and other gifted education issues on this free public discussion forum.
CLICK HERE to Log In. Click here for the Board Rules.

Links


Learn about Davidson Academy Online - for profoundly gifted students living anywhere in the U.S. & Canada.

The Davidson Institute is a national nonprofit dedicated to supporting profoundly gifted students through the following programs:

  • Fellows Scholarship
  • Young Scholars
  • Davidson Academy
  • THINK Summer Institute

  • Subscribe to the Davidson Institute's eNews-Update Newsletter >

    Free Gifted Resources & Guides >

    Who's Online Now
    0 members (), 60 guests, and 155 robots.
    Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
    Newest Members
    chrislewis, seyanizikix, scoinerc, truedigitizing, JenniferWong
    11,675 Registered Users
    May
    S M T W T F S
    1 2 3
    4 5 6 7 8 9 10
    11 12 13 14 15 16 17
    18 19 20 21 22 23 24
    25 26 27 28 29 30 31
    Previous Thread
    Next Thread
    Print Thread
    #22578 08/12/08 07:58 AM
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 2,231
    Member
    OP Offline
    Member
    Joined: Oct 2007
    Posts: 2,231
    Here is an interesting discussion on Quantum Mechanics for non-physicists:

    http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/13487

    If you would like to skip their general dialogue and get to the good stuff, simply click on the line that says Defining Quantum Mechanics right below the picure.

    Enjoy

    Joined: Aug 2008
    Posts: 17
    B
    Junior Member
    Offline
    Junior Member
    B
    Joined: Aug 2008
    Posts: 17
    Wow, Quantum Mechanics, thats some heavy stuff right there!

    Joined: Apr 2008
    Posts: 1,815
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Apr 2008
    Posts: 1,815
    copied from a HSing group:
    Quote
    TUESDAY, Sept 9, at 8 PM EST - HISTORY CHANNEL



    "On September 9, at 8 PM (Eastern),on the Eve of the first beam in the biggest particle collider on the planet, the History Channel will air the film, the Next Big Bang,

    It's a deep look at the physics of the very beginning of time. The creators of the show battled hard with the network to create something that isn't simply sensational or dumbed down, something stunningly beautiful (we think), and something that you hopefully will want to watch again, because it sparks so many questions about the nature of the universe. We feel this
    is really compelling, fascinating, challenging and immersive stuff.

    It's available in HD!

    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 412
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 412
    For all of you curious about science: Everything you ever wanted to know about black holes, but were afraid to ask. Here is a recently published article that will revolutionize the way we think of black holes and their place in the universe.

    http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/37403/title/Ultramassive_as_big_as_it_gets

    Here is a short excerpt:

    Quote
    Well listen up, this just in: It looks like there is a limit to the superlatives. Black holes can�t eat everything. If a new analysis from a Yale astronomer is correct, even black holes run out of steam, and at a fairly precise point. The biggest black holes may reach only a few tens of billions of times the mass of the sun....
    A budding new paradigm is that black holes�in a dance of mutual self-regulation�may influence almost everything about galactic origins, growth, form and ultimate fates. They are not just the overstuffed kernels in the middle of galaxies. For reasons not fully understood, it appears that the sizes of central black holes and the masses of their galaxies, especially the central bulges, are almost perfectly in step.

    It is a very nice article, and great for adding to parents' store of scientific knowledge. It will help you answer your kid's questions on how big can black holes get. Don't all kids ask such questions?


    Mom to DS12 and DD3
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,840
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,840
    Very interesting. Thanks.

    A changing speed of light and big-bang-formed black holes sidestep the major objections to this paper.

    Quote
    Case closed? Not likely. Oxford�s Silk, one of the grand figures in contemporary cosmology, calls the paper �very nicely done, very competent,� but also says that �this is pretty speculative territory.� He continues: �She starts with a weak set of assumptions. You don�t really know how to make the first, seed galactic black holes in the first place. The first galaxies and the first halos of dark matter were not so big. How exactly did billion-mass black holes form? It is one thing to say that, if you have the right ingredients, you can make the cake. But these ingredients are not so natural, I think.�

    Last edited by Austin; 10/14/08 02:07 PM.
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 412
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 412
    Here is another intriguing Science article, for anyone interested. Science is a great way to stretch those curious young minds. And sometime it is difficult for us as parents to answer the gifted kid's questions... How many stars are in the sky? Or what is beyond our known universe? Here is an article that attempts to answer that last one. I have copied of the first part of the article here. Click on the link to National Geographic to continue reading.

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081105-dark-flow.html

    Quote
    Unknown "Structures" Tugging at Universe, Study Says
    John Roach for National Geographic News
    November 5, 2008

    Something may be out there. Way out there.

    On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.

    Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour�a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

    The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger�a multiverse�and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

    The theory could rewrite the laws of physics. Current models say the known, or visible, universe�which extends as far as light could have traveled since the big bang�is essentially the same as the rest of space-time (the three dimensions of space plus time).

    Picturing Dark Flow

    Dark flow was named in a nod to dark energy and dark matter�two other unexplained astrophysical phenomena.

    The newfound flow cannot be explained by, and is not directly related to, the expansion of the universe, though the researchers believe the two types of movement are happening at the same time.


    Mom to DS12 and DD3
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,840
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,840
    The fact that this attractor is in a large void suggest something gobbled up the matter in that area a LOONG time ago at a very high rate!

    The current view in Cosmology is that black holes form from star collapse which could not started to have occured until 700 million years after the big bang. Dark Flow and observations of very old galaxies both suggest that black holes musth ave formed very early in order for these phenomena to exist.


    http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0809.4041

    Peculiar velocity surveys have non-uniform spatial distributions of tracers, so that the bulk flow estimated from them does not correspond to that of a simple volume such as a sphere. Thus bulk flow estimates are generally not strictly comparable between surveys, even those whose effective depths are similar. In addition, the sparseness of typical surveys can lead to aliasing of small scale power into what is meant to be a probe of the largest scales. Here we introduce a new method of calculating bulk flow moments where velocities are weighted to give an optimal estimate of the bulk flow of an idealized survey, with the variance of the difference between the estimate and the actual flow being minimized. These "minimum variance" estimates can be designed to estimate the bulk flow on a particular scale with minimal sensitivity to small scale power, and are comparable between surveys. We compile all major peculiar velocity surveys and apply this new method to them. We find that most surveys we studied are highly consistent with each other. Taken together the data suggest that the bulk flow within a Gaussian window of radius 50 Mpc/h is 407 km/s toward l=287 and b=8. The large-scale bulk motion is consistent with predictions from the local density field. This indicates that there are significant density fluctuations on very large scales. A flow of this amplitude on such a large scale is not expected in the WMAP5-normalized LCDM cosmology, for which the predicted one-dimensional r.m.s. velocity is ~110 km/s. The large amplitude of the observed bulk flow favors the upper values of the WMAP5 error-ellipse, but even the point at the top of the WMAP5 95% confidence ellipse predicts a bulk flow which is too low compared tot hat observed at >98% confidence level.

    And:

    http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/press/2008/pr200821.html

    Colossal Black Holes Common in the Early Universe

    Cambridge, MA - Astronomers think that many - perhaps all - galaxies in the universe contain massive black holes at their centers. New observations with the Submillimeter Array now suggest that such colossal black holes were common even 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.7 billion years old and galaxies were just beginning to form. The new conclusion comes from the discovery of two distant galaxies, both with black holes at their heart, which are involved in a spectacular collision.
    4C60.07, the first of the galaxies to be discovered, came to astronomers' attention because of its bright radio emission. This radio signal is one telltale sign of a quasar - a rapidly spinning black hole that is feeding on its home galaxy.

    When 4C60.07 was first studied, astronomers thought that hydrogen gas surrounding the black hole was undergoing a burst of star formation, forming stars at a remarkable rate - the equivalent of 5,000 suns every year. This vigorous activity was revealed by the infrared glow from smoky debris left over when the largest stars rapidly died.

    The latest research, exploiting the keen vision of the Submillimeter Array of eight radio antennas located in Hawaii, revealed a surprise. 4C60.07 is not forming stars after all. Indeed, its stars appear to be relatively old and quiescent. Instead, prodigious star formation is taking place in a previously unseen companion galaxy, rich in gas and deeply enshrouded in dust, which also has a colossal black hole at its center.

    "This new image reveals two galaxies where we only expected to find one," said Rob Ivison (UK Astronomy Technology Centre), lead author of the study that will be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. "Remarkably, both galaxies contain supermassive black holes at their centers, each capable of powering a billion, billion, billion light bulbs. The implications are wide-reaching: you can't help wondering how many other colossal black holes may be lurking unseen in the distant universe."

    Due to the finite speed of light, we see the two galaxies as they existed in the distant past, less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang. The new image from the Submillimeter Array captures the moment when 4C60.07 ripped a stream of material from its neighboring galaxy, as shown in the accompanying artist's conception. By now the galaxies have merged to create a football-shaped elliptical galaxy. Their black holes are likely to have merged and formed a single, more massive black hole.

    The galaxies themselves show surprising differences. One is a dead system that has formed all of its stars already and used up its gaseous fuel. The second galaxy is still alive and well, holding plenty of dust and gas that can form new stars.

    "These two galaxies are fraternal twins. Both are about the size of the Milky Way, but each one is unique," said Steve Willner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a co-author of the paper.

    "The superb resolution of the Submillimeter Array was key to our discovery," he added.






    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 412
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 412
    Here is a short video of two engineers popping a water balloon in a weightless environment. Pretty cool!

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97007895

    NPR has a special program on Fridays called, oddly enough, Science Friday. You may want to check out some of their programs at:

    http://www.sciencefriday.com/


    Mom to DS12 and DD3
    Joined: Sep 2007
    Posts: 6,145
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Sep 2007
    Posts: 6,145
    WAY cool! Thanks, ebeth! smile


    Kriston
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,897
    Member
    Offline
    Member
    Joined: Jun 2008
    Posts: 1,897
    I am often off in time to listen to scifri!~ love it, but I hadn't heard about the water experiment, very cool!!

    I really like the mixing of the colored water.


    Moderated by  M-Moderator 

    Link Copied to Clipboard
    Recent Posts
    Patents and Trademarks and Rights, oh my...!
    by indigo - 05/13/25 01:01 PM
    Grade Acceleration K-1-2
    by Eagle Mum - 05/08/25 07:21 AM
    Dysgraphia Remediation?
    by Cindi - 04/26/25 09:16 PM
    Gifted Test from 1987 that list E.A.S. score?
    by Cindi - 04/24/25 08:21 PM
    Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5