Capacitors

Hi Dear Readers! A comment made by Professor Siana on my Magnetic field post spoke of a room blowing up due to the large capacitors storing charge to power the magnets at Los Alamos Laboratory. I instantly thought of the large capacitor that we have in our lab that is patiently waiting for our 20 T pulse coil to be made. Note: pulsing coils are different than regular coils. Pulse coils need to be able to be cooled down very quickly. In fact, the world record for pulsing coils is circa 50 T. Significantly less than the world record on regular coils, recall it was circa 100 T (created by... Los Alamos Laboratory).

Anyhow, here is a photo of the capacitor. We have yet to test it. :)

Specifications: Capacitance- 64,000 microF ; Voltage- 2.83 kV




Below is also a YouTube video on the 100 T magnetic made by Los Alamos Laboratory.

Gamma Ray Bursts

Gamma Ray Burst are the most powerful thing in the universe. I have been wondering for quite some time, what is the single highest energy photon ever observed? I have yet to confirm this.

This will be my last blog for now, so I leave you all dear readers, with this Gamma Ray Burst youtube video! :P Enjoy!

Magnetic Fields

Magnetic fields are Awesome!! If anyone were to ask what I thought were the coolest things ever, magnetic fields would be up there on my list! Just take a moment and look at these photos....





Of course these are artistic impressions of what magnetic fields look like considering they are not visible to the naked eye.

Since I don't have much time, afterall, I do have an astrophysics final exam to study for, I will briefly outline some facts about magnetic fields in lieu of creating a Mathematica simulation. Terribly sad dear readers, don't fret, if you'd like, I can give you a tour of my lab and show off all the magnets I have made by hand!!! :) Of course, if you are not reading my blog, you'll never know of my private tour and just leave me more time to play with coils all by myself! :)

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1 tesla is equivalent to:
10,000 (or 104) G (gauss), used in the CGS system. Thus, 10 G = 1 mT (millitesla), and 1 G = 10−4 T.
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Magnetic fields:

Earth's magnetic field: Its magnitude at the surface ranges from 25 to 65 µT (0.25 to 0.65 G)

Sun's magnetic field: has a large and complex magnetic field which varies. I couldn't find an average magnitude at its surface.

Neutron star magnetic field: can have like fields approximately 50,000 T (500,000,000 G) That's insane!!!

World record for man made magnetic field: approximately 100 T (1,000,000 G)

Largest Hand made coil made by me: 980 G (which is less than 1 T)

Here are some photos:



Before and after sandblasting the mounts we used to wrap the coils.



The finished product... more than 6 hours later. :P

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Lastly, I'm very interested in magnetic poles reversing. Below, I have included some artistic impressions of the magnetic poles of the earth switching. Also, I wanted to mention, what I just learned today, that the magnetic poles of the sun reverse every 11 years! Very interesting! You can read about it Here!

The End of the Universe

Some people just don't want to think too far into the future. To be honest, I don't blame them. Thinking too far into the future can sometimes be unsettling due to the uncertainty. On the other hand, it can also bring hope since there is always something to look forward to. So sometimes, I just can't help myself and wonder about the long-term future. Not my long-term future...but the future of the universe.

So many questions to ponder. Interesting enough, I'm not the only one who contemplates such things. :)

Recently, I stumbled across the following The End of the Universe by John Baez

And for those of you who choose not to click on the above link, I leave you with the following quote:

"The past is history, the future a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present!"

Black Holes Can Dance!

[Image: The Antennae galaxies, a pair of merging galaxies named for the long tidal tails of stars, gas, and dust ejected during the merger. In the next several hundred million years, the two galaxy nuclei seen here will combine to form a single merger-remnant galaxy. Credits: NOAO/AURA/NSF, B. Twardy, B. Twardy, and A. Block (NOAO)]


A few years ago, I watched a documentary on black holes and how pairs of them have been observed to dance, or rather waltz. What does this mean exactly? Allow me to explain.

Nearly every galaxy has a central black hole. Most of us are familiar with merging galaxies, right?! The reason galaxies merge is due to their central black holes. It has been observed that there are pairs of black holes that move towards each other in a choreographed way and will eventually collide.

Back in 2010, astronomers used the Deep Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS) on the 10-meter Keck II Telescope and discovered what they believe to be 33 pairs of black holes in distant galaxies. Although, not everyone agrees with this observation. Some believe what is really happening is that one of the black holes is recoiling and being kicked out of its galaxy. Either way, as Julia Comerford from the University of Texas at Austin explained, both hint at black holes merging. Astronomers all agreed that additional observations were necessary to distinguish between a "pre-merger waltz" or "post-merger recoil".

When I first heard about this on Through the Wormhole (Yes, with Morgan Freeman!!), I was quick to read up about it a bit. I even read (I recall in the UCR news but can't seem to find the article!!) that many elliptical galaxies have black holes at their center as well.

This is all very cool, I know. :) Even more so, there is still so much to be understood about black holes! All this leaves me with so many questions. Specifically, one question that comes to mind, was there or could there have been an elliptical/spiral black hole pair? (I don't see why not. This would have had to occur during a specific time frame.) Also, it makes me think of galaxies without central black holes. Almost seems kind of strange. What do you think?

Below are a few links that I thought some of you, dear readers, would be interesting in clicking on. Please take a special peek. You can even look after finals. :P

Galaxy collisions take a lesson from dance by Julia Comerford

Black Holes by Professor Wudka

Gargantuan Black Hole Occupies Modest Galaxy

Lifetimes of Main-Sequence Stars

I am very fascinated by lifetimes.  This includes everything in which has a lifetime, from particles, to insects, to trees, to stars.

The diversity of lifetimes is amazing! Particles exist for merely fractions of a second and then stars can exist for billions of years!

I have given much thought to comparing lifetimes and masses of things, and thus decided to learn more about the masses of main-sequence stars and how this relates to their lifetimes.

Below is a mathematica simulation demonstrating the manipulation of the following equation, which outputs the lifetime of a main-sequence star based on its mass  :

Where t_ms= lifetime






This is a preview of the simulation and plot of Lifetime vs Mass of Main-Sequence Stars.




Very interesting isn't it?



To explore the simulation, you can download the file via the following links:

Mathematica file

cdf file


Can someone please validate my efforts and leave a comment?!! :) tyvm

Triple Quarky

I noticed that a number of us are into writing and reading poetry. So below is a little poem I would like to share with all of you. (It's about particles... who would have thought?! ;P)

Enjoy!


Triple Quarky

There are times when one dislikes who they are,

wishing perhaps on a star,

to change their shape or form,

or perhaps from whom they were born.

To some this might seem strange,

to others, only the need to rearrange.

But is this really odd or out of character for matter?

to merely desire for your glass to shatter?

Afterall, flavors change, neutrinos oscillate, quarks morph,

and the large blinding object in the day’s sky, is merely a dwarf.

It’s no wonder why everything is triple quarky.

[(Dedicated to a certain quarky butterfly.)]