SpaceCam — Griffin Science

I’ve shared you all on a Google Doc we’ll use to keep ourselves organized in the planning for this monumental task, but here’s the page if you just want to follow along…

GriffinCam Into Space

Can we do it?

Yes, we can.

BBC News – Large Hadron Collider (LHC) generates a ‘mini-Big Bang’: “The Large Hadron Collider has successfully created a ‘mini-Big Bang’ by smashing together lead ions instead of protons. “

We NEED you all to become scientists to help us process this data. Help?

The New York Times has an in-depth piece that explains this more…

A Scientist Takes On Gravity – NYTimes.com: “So says Erik Verlinde, 48, a respected string theorist and professor of physics at the University of Amsterdam, whose contention that gravity is indeed an illusion has caused a continuing ruckus among physicists, or at least among those who profess to understand it. Reversing the logic of 300 years of science, he argued in a recent paper, titled ‘On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton,’ that gravity is a consequence of the venerable laws of thermodynamics, which describe the behavior of heat and gases.”

You gotta love science!

YouTube – Neil DeGrasse Tyson – Death By Black Hole

Are Backward Black Holes the Key to Galaxies’ Biggest Blasts? – ScienceNOW: “If you’re planning to be a star, steer clear of supermassive black holes that spin in the opposite direction from their surrounding galaxies. Astrophysicists now think that, for reasons predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity, such black holes tend to create unusually energetic jets of particles—powerful enough to interfere with the star-making process not only within the galaxy but also across intergalactic space. The findings, if confirmed, would solve a longstanding mystery about why some galaxies produce much bigger—and therefore more energetic—particle jets than others do.”

Fascinating.

You all are so fortunate to be living in such a wonderful moment of discoveries!

STEPHEN HAWKING: How to build a time machine | Mail Online: ” I do believe in time travel. Time travel to the future. Time flows like a river and it seems as if each of us is carried relentlessly along by time’s current. But time is like a river in another way. It flows at different speeds in different places and that is the key to travelling into the future. This idea was first proposed by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago. He realised that there should be places where time slows down, and others where time speeds up. He was absolutely right. And the proof is right above our heads. Up in space.”

Great article written by Prof Hawking himself. Go give it a read.

Today we discussed more of the differences between Newton’s ‘law’ of gravity and Einstein’s conception of gravity.

Here’s a great site that explains more of those differences (we read a small bit of it in class today).

Tomorrow we’ll be working more on our balloon racers and exploring gravity.

Bring any materials you might need to build your racers!