42 (The Answer to Life the Universe and Everything)

So the history of the Earth has been discussed in a previous post, but what was not discussed was the mind blowing stuff that preceded it.

Before the sun existed, there was another star, a big one, that one day just up and exploded into a nebula. This cloud of dead star bits expanded out into the area that would eventually become our solar system, though that was still several million years away.  Eventually, this cloud began to spin (due to conservation of angular momentum) and slowly collapse in upon itself into a huge disk. At its center a baby sun. However this baby is not like any toddler that you have ever met. It is not the cute, slightly chubby adorableness that we appreciate in human babies. No, this is a rapidly expanding fiery baby of death to all those within as certain proximity. It absorbs anything that gets to close only adding to its mass, until, eventually, it stabilizes, matures, and stops eating for a change. around it, smaller variations of this event take place, forming what would eventually be the eight planets.  But this process of planetary creation was detailed in an earlier post. This process, if you the reader so choose to learn more about it, is called The Solar Nebula Theory.

But what caused this, well, scientists believe that they have found the answer in someone who has been dead for nearly 300 years, Sir Isaac Newton. Newton is the creator of the three primary laws that govern the way that we understand Gravity. These laws are creatively named,  Newtons Laws of Motion, who would have guessed. Anyway, these three laws are...

1. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion with the same speed and direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
           A. Loosely Translated this means that in general, objects will remain in a state of motion unless acted upon by an "unbalanced" force, like friction. (this is the reason why eventually things that are moving do stop.

2. Force equals Mass Multiplied by Acceleration(F=MA)
          A. This one is pretty self explanatory.

3. Every action has an Equal and opposite reaction.
         A. This means that when I push on an object, it "pushes" back. This should not be taken literally, but more figuratively as in when you push, it gives back the same.

How does this tie into the aforementioned solar nebula theory, you may ask? Well you see, these laws show the way the objects interact with one another in regard to gravity.  Without them, there would have been no gravitational pull to keep everything in check and bring the cloud together.  But it is more then just that, these properties are the withstanding reason how gravity, inertia and matter interact.

Now, fast forward a few million years to our now formed solar system. Why is it, that the planets, in their motion around the sun, do not stay in perfect circles. There is one center, right...Right? Wrong. The planets travel in elliptical orbits because their are infact, 2 foci, the sun and a random point in space. This is the first of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion. These laws explain why the planets move in the way they do.
 The second law details, that if a line were to be drawn from a given planet and have an small arc representing a period of time from that line. The area of the shape created by the arc and the line, will remain a constant throughout the entire orbital cycle.
Finally the ratio of the squares of the periods(orbital times) of two planets, is equal the ratio of their distances from the sun cubed.

The Fist of Science

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Delicious Water and Fiberglass served with a side of Poly-isocyanurate

Hello, friends and enemies attempting to take our ideas, we are back! After a month hiatus we are back on the job doing what we do best: breaking things in the name of science.

This time we were experimenting with heat transfer and insulation. This was inspired by a recent auditing of our corporation building and realizing that we are paying exorbitant amounts of money due to inefficient insulation. However, before we began ripping insulation out of the walls, it was decided that we should attempt to see if we could properly insulate a cold water bottle because, as you young scientists know, water bottles are exactly like large buildings when it comes to insulation.

For this project we teamed up with the guys at Big Boom Science for this feat of epic proportions.These guys are trained professionals and I highly suggest you read their posts, they are FAB-U-LOUS!!!!

So we started with a water bottle. (Shocking, I know.) Then wrapped it in green foam, which unfortunately voided all sense of creativity this project held. That was then wrapped in bubble wrap, which was a true test of will for The Fist not to pop. Finally, an outer layer of foil face was applied, which somehow deflects radiation. Unfortunately, due to a large joint scientist team breaking things, we were only able to get a 1.6°C △T

Though there was some discrepancy as to how well our insulation actually performed it is official that our design is far superior, however, we still do need a slightly better understanding of how insulators work before properly insulating our base of operations (What? the Fist of Science is admitting that we need work on something...How Absurd!)

Fools! You think that we would admit that we are not perfect. Well you are poorly mistaken, this was all a test to attempt this thing called being “humane”, we are unfamiliar with this term and experiment results are pending.

The Fist of Science

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Plate Tectonics

This week the topic of interest of the Fist of Science Corp. is plate tectonics. This process may sound familiar to many of our readers, but to those of you who are unfamiliar, here is how it works. Deep within the center of the of the earth, the superheated magma swirls around solid  inner core. This heat wants to escape and balance out the colder magma at the surface(note: colder magma, does not mean COLD, it just means not as hot, this stuff still melts solid rock like its butter on warm toast)

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This CONVECTION (10 point vocab word right there) moves the rigid Lithospheric plates around causing them to crash into, pull away from or rub up against one another. These interactions are the reasons why we surface dwellers are plagued by earthquakes, volcanoes and the like.

The first pieces of  this theory were brought to our attention in the early 1900’s by Alfred Wegener (pronounced Veg-ner,  He’s German, don’t judge). This first step was the theory of Continental Drift. What he realized was that there were fossilized flora and fauna that were found on all continents in ways that did not make sense, it was almost as if the continents were once one supercontinent. On further investigation, he realized that the continents fit together, rather like puzzle pieces. However, he had no clue as to how the continents moved.

Many years later, based on the discoveries of patterns on the ocean floor that indicated global polarity shifts, and the given age of different parts of the seafloor, some rather knowledgeable guesstimations were made. The hypothesis is theory of Plate Tectonics which was explained in paragraph 1, so we won't repeat ourselves.

So to recap, Wegener looked at continents and questioned why they fit together and have similar features, but are not attached; he had not clue why. Then some scientists had this CRAZY, but well educated guess that the mantle was actually swirling around and moving massive chunks of the crust. The interactions of these chunks are what cause natural disasters and other problems like that.

Finally one final word of advice from our sponsor in regard to Plate Tectonics, Don’t Talk About the Mediterranean, It's super complicated and even the Science of the Fist of Science does not fully comprehend.

The Fist of Science

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A Summary and our Opinion of ITER and Fusion Based Energy

SUMMARY

Recently the cause of world concern has been the decreasing amount of available world resources, and with that the increasing need for power. However, within the past few decades there has been a group of scientists have begun work on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or ITER for short.

ITER when built will be over 100 feet tall and weigh nearly two times as much as the Eiffel tower. The structure, which sports an massive amount of magnets, holds a "magnetic bottle" in the center of the vacuum chamber. This Magnetic bottle is the only way thus devised to contain the nuclear fusion and the energy produced. no other material can withstand the heat.

Nuclear fusion is the process in which two atoms are forced together and then expel unnecessary particles producing massive amounts of energy. In the case of ITER, it will be using two isotopes of Hydrogen: Deuterium and Tritium.

The Energy released is non-polluting, and the atoms necessary for creating Tritium(lithium) is abundantly found in the ocean, we have a supply  that will last for close to  thirty million years. Though building the ITER is not cheap, it could eventually save the energy crisis by giving mass amounts of clean energy to the world.

Our Thoughts

The entirety of The First of Science lab team, namely two people, agree that the ITER should not only receive more funding, but also support from more countries. The ITER should be able to produce energy with little to no pollution. Not to mention the ITER can contain heat that is hotter than the sun. Fusion is the future of energy, and honestly what needs to happen is support on a global level, and together as a united world, we can solve the energy crisis.

Citation

Nuclear Fusion. N.d. Electropedia. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. <http://www.mpoweruk.com/nuclear_theory.htm>.

The Fist of Science

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