pwn physics 365: physics history, vocabulary, and resources every day of the year

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On this day in physics: 31 March 1966- The Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the moon, which was launched by the USSR.

Word of the Day- Atmosphere is a gaseous layer surrounding a planet or other body which has a strong enough gravity to hold gaseous substances to it. Think about that. The gravity of the earth is the only thing holding those gaseous particles in place on our planet. Earth's "atmosphere" has several different "layers", including the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere (where many meteors are observed), thermosphere, and exosphere. The atmosphere also highly contributes to trapping sunlight and thermal heat on our planet, making it suitable for life. By contrast, the moon has virtually no atmosphere, similar to that of Mercury. They do not have the substance of gravity to significantly bind matter to the planet. 

Question of the Day- Do you appreciate your atmosphere?? 

Keywords: Atmosphere, Luna, USSR, Moon

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On this day in physics: 30 March 1922- Happy Birthday to Arthur Strong Wightman who would have turned 94 today. "[He] was an American mathematical physicist. He was one of the founders of the axiomatic approach to quantum field theory, and originated the set of Wightman axioms." 

Word of the Day- Air resistance is a force which acts opposite an object traveling through air, or any gas. The particles in the gas collide with the object, and even though the molecules are microscopic, many small parcels can create a serious amount of force. It is what cars must oppose to maintain speeds on highways, and why cars are designed to look like they do, they are optimized to minimize air resistance, or drag. It's what pushes sails on sailboats and what can even create enough friction to cause extreme heat and damage upon reentry of satellites, space shuttles, and maybe even....UFOs!

Question of the Day- Do heavier objects fall more slowly than lighter objects? Answer: In the presence of no air resistance, objects fall at the exact same rate, and what changes their fall in the presence of air is AIR RESISTANCE. Check out the video to see a feather and coin fall at the exact same rate in a vacuum.

Keywords: Air, Resistance, Force, Space Shuttle, Drag

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On this day in physics: 29 March 2010- The particle accelerator CERN officially went online, a year and a half late. 

Word of the Day- Gravitational Lensing is a phenomenon which involves light from very far away and very massive galaxies. When a galaxy emits light which passes close to a very massive object like a star or a black hole, it can bend the light such that the galaxy can be behind the galaxy and appear as one or multiple galaxies to the side of the massive object. In 2011 an astronomy pic of the day featured a star which warped the light from a galaxy creating a gravitational lensing mirage. 

Question of the Day- Do heavier objects fall more slowly than lighter objects? 

Keywords: Gravitational Lensing, Mirage

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On this day in physics: 26 March 1938,Happy Birthday to Sir Anthony James Leggett, who turns 78 today. "Leggett is widely recognized as a world leader in the theory of low-temperature physics, and his pioneering work on superfluidity was recognized by the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics." [Source]

Word of the Day- CETI is an acronym meaning communication with extraterrestrial life. The idea is to transmit messages that could theoretically be decoded by other intelligent civilizations. One of the most famous CETI attempt was done by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake at Arecibo observatory, in 1974. They transmitted a message from the Arecibo observatory in Puerto Rico of 1769 binary digits which form a picture when placed in sequence which can be seen here. We have as of this writing not received any known transmissions from this or any other CETI attempts.

Question of the Day: If you could communicate with extraterrestrial life, what would you say???

Keywords: CETI, Extraterrestrial, Superfluids

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On this day in physics: 25 March 1655- Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, was discovered by Christian Huygens. 

Word of the Day- Lava Tubes- I came across an article in the National Geographic which stated that scientists had discovered Lava Tubes on the moon, and that they are currently being scouted to house a permanent moon base. So Lava Tubes are tunnels under the surface of the Moon, where lava once flowed. Now they are hollowed out caves of drained lava, but proof of volcanic activity on the Moon. Now they can be used to protect our first Moon base from space shrapnel such as asteroids and other hazards like direct exposure to the Sun. 

Question of the Day: Would you live in a Lava Tube on the moon???

Keywords: Lava, Tube, Moon, Lunar, Titan, Huygens

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On this day in physics: 24 March 1820- Happy Birthday to Edmond Becquerel, a French physicist who is credited with first observing the photovoltaic effect. His father was Henri Becquerel, the discoverer of radioactivity, and the namesake of the SI unit of radioactivity, the Becquerel.

Word of the Day- Deimos is the second and smaller moon of Mars. It is much further away than Phobos, 23,000 km from Mars, compared to Phobos' 6,000 km. Because it is further away, it has an orbital period of roughly 30 hours, compared to Phobos' 7.5 hrs. In Greek mythology, Deimos is the twin brother of Phobos. It is half the size of Phobos and is very similar to a C or D class asteroid in makeup.

Quote of the Day- "It shouldn't be humans to Mars in 50 years, it should be humans to Mars in ten." -Robert Zubrin

Keywords: Becquerel, Radioactivity, Deimos, Mars

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On this day in physics: 23 March 1882- Happy Birthday to Emmy Noether, a Female German Jewish mathematician who made contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics. She contributed to the explanation and relationship between mathematical symmetry and the physical laws of conservation. She was named by such giants as Albert Einstein as the most important woman in the history of mathematics...and I really don't know anything about her.

Word of the Day- Because Phobos is so close to Mars, it actually orbits Mars faster than Mars itself rotates around its axis. It takes roughly 7.5 hours to go around Mars, whereas the Martian day is about the same but slightly longer than the Earth day, 24.5 hours. Another feature of how close Phobos's proximity to Mars is is that we can say fairly certain we know about its demise. In 30-50 million years, it will either collide with the Martian surface, or break apart and give Mars a lovely ring not unlike Uranus, Saturn, or Jupiter. In Greek mythology, Phobos was the son of the God of War, Ares, also known as...Mars.

In lieu of a quote of the day today, I present to you a song from the Tony Levin album Pieces of the Sun, named Phobos. Check it out! Very spacey!

Keywords: Women, Conservation, Phobos, Moon, Mars, Connected

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On this day in physics: 22 March 1995- Russian Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov triumphantly returns to our terrestrial home of Earth after a staggering 437 days at the MIR Space Station. To date he has logged over 22 months in space.

Word of the Day- Phobos is a moon orbiting mars. It is the largest of the two moons which orbit Mars, and orbits closer than any other moon that we know of. It is roughly 6000km from the surface, which is roughly the width of the United States. Phobos itself, on the other hand, is very small. Its kind of egg shaped, with the dimensions being roughly 27 x 22 x 18 kilometers. To put this in perspective, it's roughly a third of the size of Long Island, NY, my current home which is 118km by 37km, roughly.  You could fit three Phoboses side by side and they could kind of fit on Long Island, with room to spare. 

Quote of the Day: "We are all connected, to each other biologically, to the Earth, chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically." -Neil Degrasse Tyson

Keywords: Cosmonaut, MIR, Phobos, Moon, Mars, Connected

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On this day in physics: 21 March 1768- Happy Birthday to Joseph Fourier, who would have turned 248 today. I can't say it better than his wikipedia article: He was "best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's law are also named in his honour. Fourier is also generally credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect."

Word of the Day- A Moon Dog is a phenomenon of a bright spot seen on a lunar halo, roughly 10 moons in diameter, as seen from observers on earth. They look like little swatches of light around the halo, which are caused by small ice particulates in our atmosphere at cirrus cloud height. There is a fantastic picture of moon dogs photographed in Alaska as the astronomy picture of the day, which you can see here.

Quote of the Day: "Mathematics compares the most diverse phenomena and discovers the secret analogies that unite them." -Joseph Fourier 

Keywords: Moon Dog, Moon, Sphere, Night, Sky, Woodstock, Physics, Superconductor

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On this day in physics: 20 March 1942- Happy birthday to Gabriele Veneziano, who turns 74 today. He has performed the most experiment at CERN ("Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire"), in Geneva Switzerland, and holds the Chair of Elementary Particles, Gravitation and Cosmology, at the College of France. 

Word of the Day- Magnetic Monopoles are currently a theoretical particle or object which has a net magnetic charge. Magnets have a north and south pole, but a magnetic monopole would have only a north or south pole. While they are considered "allowed to exist" by current physical theory, they have yet to be observed in nature. Question: Why aren't electrons and protons considered magnetic monopoles?? Answer: They are electric monopoles. 

Quote of the Day: “A physicist Is an atom's way of knowing about toms."

-George Wald

Keywords: Magnetic, Monopoles, Atoms, Cern, Elementary Particles