ethanino152

[ethanino152]

Taking a Glance at the Black Hole Picture

Unless you just woke up from a long coma today, you have probably seen the recent news of the FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A BLACK HOLE. You may not be as enthusiastic about this as I am, but if you don’t agree that that’s some of the tightest shit you’ve heard then get outta here. I’m kidding, naturally; lets discuss it. 

So for many years now, NASA has been using a set of telescopes that are positioned around the globe to pic up radio waves emitted from the black hole M87. This system of telescopes is cleverly named the Event Horizon Telescopes and don’t work the same way as the traditional telescopes that you may think of. These telescopes actually detect incoming radio waves that are then converted to data to be interpreted and later hacked out by a very big program that gives us an image. Just how big is this program? Well it took a team of over 200 scientists to decipher and used up about 5 petabytes of storage. That’s 50,000,000 gigabytes. Your iPhone has maybe 128. Let that sink in for a minute to gauge the sheer magnitude of this project. This project has been the works for quite a while although I’m not certain for the exact amount of time, for reference though, I’ve been following it since about 2016. 

Lets talk about the black hole itself though. This bad boy is roughly 7 BILLION times the mass of our friendly star that gives us light. Think about the size of our sun, about 1,300,000 Earths can fit inside it. This black hole is unfathomably huge, you literally could cause your brain to implode upon itself into its own black hole due to entropy trying to understand the sheer enormity of it, and that’s a fact. M87 has a diameter of 100 billion kilometers (yes kilometers for you stubborn Americans), which is easily the distance from Pluto to the sun several times over. If this black hole were rogue, meaning its just floating through space like a very large, very scary vacuum, it would easily consume our solar system and probably have a negligible change in it’s mass.

What does this say for our very eager researchers out there. Remember the fella Einstein? That’s right, the bobble head guy from Night in the Museum with the funny accent. He predicted the existence of the phenomenon of black holes way back in 1916. Think about this. At the time of his discovery, at the time a long shot, the Ottoman Empire was still around, airplanes and cars had only recently been invented, the world was engaged in the Great War, Films were silent, most of our grandparents were probably not alive yet, and going to the moon was just a pipe dream. This Swiss clerk who pondered the universe in his free time would predict an anomaly that at its literal core, breaks the laws of physics before we had even mastered traveling through the air, and he did this with a scary amount of accuracy. It took 103 years to prove him right, that these black holes, these tears in the fabric of space-time, exist. Wherever he may be, I bet he’s smiling.

 There’s still much more to learn about black holes, specifically what happens at its center, where it is predicated that time has no meaning. Even with this image of a black hole, we aren’t even seeing the black hole itself, its physically impossible to. What we are seeing is its event horizon, or the point of no return where the gravitational pull is so strong that not even light and all its speed is helpless to escape. This photo is just a start into a new and very interesting time for physicists everywhere, may we rejoice in this new age of science. God speed folks.

P.S. If you are one of those blissfully ignorant dumb asses who are grumbling and whining over the image “being too blury”, try something you might’ve never done before get some background knowledge. Go check out the image we had of Pluto in 1996 and compare it to the image we received in 2016. Progress takes times, be patient.

#M87 Black-Hole image

[ethanino152]

The Shadow Scholar and The Douches Who Pay for Papers.

Lets start this off with saying that I can sympathize with those who don’t speak English as their first language as well as those who just can’t formulate a written sentence without so many errors that I end up having a stroke while reading it. This is really for those people who are too lazy to do their own work and have enough of daddy’s money to back them up through life. Here’s a big fuck you to you. I understand that writing is not a simple process and not everyone has the ability to write a scholarly paper at the snap of a finger, but to stoop so low that you don’t even give the effort to try you best and take credit for for the work that you pay, from what I can only assume to be, an outrageous amount of money for. It becomes ironic when it comes the subject that you are writing for, such as an ethics, or some sort of pre-law course. That’s called a contradiction you pompous dicks. I would be lying if I said that I never had an encroaching deadline and thought to myself “I could just pay someone to do this for me” but quickly become sobered by the fact that I am not the type of person to lower myself to the level of üntermenschen below me. I know that this seems like a hate article, but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t; the people who think they can skate through their life on the backs of other people is one of the few things that really grinds my gears.

[ethanino152]

30 is the new 20: My Views

Growing up as a post-millennial (and what I consider pre-gen Z) meant me and everyone I knew not being able to wait to get older. I’m not sure whether we had a collective knowledge that being a teen/early adult wouldn’t be as much of a cake walk as it was for our parents but we knew that we wanted to get in the game as fast as possible. Now I like to think that I have my life planned out and it reality I honestly think I have a solid plan for myself; graduate college with two majors, go to graduate school and work internships, get my doctorate and begin my career. But what I see from a lot of my peers is the inability to let go and make very good decisions. Its not my place to make their decisions for them or tell them what is and isn’t a good idea, but compared to my pan for myself, I wouldn’t want to put myself in there position because it would directly clash with my plans for myself. I think that because we were always trying to grow up so quickly, we never appreciated our childhood for what what it was for the majority of us: extremely easy and fun. Even into our late teens when we miss aspects of our childhood, we still try to rush to get to the “happily ever after” before we can even take our first step on the yellow brick road. I am currently 18 almost 19 and I have peers who are already married, pregnant, or a combination of the two. If that works for them then great, but they are missing the idea that they are trying to settle down before having established themselves yet. Unlike when our parents were our age, a high school diploma and a give em’ hell attitude won’t put food on the table and definitely won’t find you a good five figure salary. No, at the very least some sort of trade-school is what it takes to even get anywhere decent nowadays. So why then would you rush to get to what other people wait for in their mid 30′s, before you have even turned 20?

[ethanino152]

Body Language

First Impressions, as they say, are the strongest and this can really be seen when you are judging someone before they can even get a word out of their mouth. Just as the TED video said, people who bring themselves in to appear smaller give off a weaker vibe rather than those who spread out and assert their dominance. We as animals notice this and use it to our advantage to react to the situation we are given. Picture this, if you will, you are trying to sell something to someone who is presenting themselves as an alpha, what do you do? I for one, trying to get this person on my good side, use their display of power to my advantage and let them believe that they hold all the cards and make my physical presence smaller. In doing so you have let that person “win” and through your, what I can only hope to be, immaculate salesmanship, said person will buy your product under the assumption that it was their own idea to do so. Another example can be a handshake; I only get limp fish hands from those who hold no confidence in themselves and it establishes them in my eyes as submissive. A strong handshake is the quickest way to proving you are, if not THE alpha of the room, at least AN alpha of the room.

[ethanino152]

A Simple Stroll

Have you ever had a a head full of stress about bills, grades, time, or whatever may be ailing you, and in the midst of the turmoil you go for a walk and all that just melts away. People often tell you that taking a walk helps you to clear your mind, although I just simply do not think that is an accurate statement. When I go on a walk to “clear my mind” I end up putting more thoughts there than I had before. Let it be understood that I do not see this as a bad thing, however. You see, when I go on a walk, the breeze on my face and the beauty of nature in my eyes, my head clears of the things that bring me trouble, and fill with things that calm me. Without listening to music, or listening to music that allows you to completely dissociate from your surroundings and fall into a void of your on imagination and thoughts. Without the distraction of the sounds of voices, other senses like smells have the ability to trigger memories, mostly good ones for me. With these memories I get to thinking of the good times, my past, and fond gatherings with a special friend or a group activity of friends and I am at peace. It does, of course, bring back bouts of nostalgia that hurt in a good way which sounds odd but if you know what I mean you will understand.

The way I walk when I go on these walks influences the thoughts I have as well. Walking at a normal pace allows my thoughts to flow with the most fluidity, like water into a drain. I find that when I leave for class a little earlier so I have no need to rush, I am able to walk at my own comfortable (rather slow) pace and think about the class ahead of me, the interactions, the topic, etc. When I have to rush to class I feel stressed and no thoughts are able to flow because I am focused on getting there in time.

I have some of my best thought roller coasters when I go on my walks. I get a lot of thinking done, I return to a task rejuvenated mentally, and I just feel better afterwards. If you could take the time to go on a 30-60 minute walk a day, just to see where your mind and your feet will take you, I can promise that you will come out of it a happier person.

[ethanino152]

From Degrading to De-grading: A Synopsis

Hello all, and by all I mean the one person that actually reads this. If you look at the timestamps of my previous posts you will probably notice that I took a brief (not-so-brief) hiatus from doing these and that his been mostly my fault, but comes with some good reasoning. In between my highly unpredictable sleeping patterns paired with the work I have been doing for my other classes, my work ethic for this class has been less than pleasing. But I am going to try to get back on track and crank out these tumblr posts to the current date, so expect a lot of these coming to a URL near you.

So what we have here is a essay by a Mr. Alfie Kohn presenting the idea that grading students may be more of a hindrance to their learning than not doing so. He presents many different arguments that is both easy to understand and cited (good stuff). Me being a student with, at this point in my life, many years of traditional schooling under my belt, I have been able to see the best and the worst of teaching styles. But me also being only one person who has since developed an opinion and favored style, I have formed a bias as well. I really enjoy teachers that have a laissez-fair approach to their grading. I also have certain reservations that are not the fault of the teacher themselves, but just the incompatibility between them and the common-core itself.

Taking the stress of being graded on every little thing away from a student makes us all breathe a deep sigh of relief for two reasons really. This style usually comes with some of the coolest teachers/professors we will ever have and it takes away some of the stress that comes with having a multitude of other classes that usually get stacked on top of each other. Personally, when I don’t have to worry about getting work done for classes either before coming to the class or just having a metric ton of homework with odd deadlines, I feel more motivated to learn more about the subject in my free time, at my own pace. Whether that be looking ahead at whats to come and getting a head start, or just going back through what was done previously and really solidifying that knowledge. I am, as you so obviously already know, into physics at a pretty deep level. I find that in my free time, I enjoy learning more about my craft and even reading books about wild theories or whatever. If you know me personally this comes as quite a shock, reading books, because in high school, I for what reason, absolutely refused to be held to a ridiculous deadline such as reading 5 chapters of a complex book and annotating it in a single night. But because my schedule this semester is relatively light, at least in comparison to what it was last semester, I am able to dive headlong into my person education and even explore hobbies I haven’t been able to enjoy for while.

The only problem I can find with this teaching style is not that its ineffective in any way, because it truly does help my peers and I, its the fact that i doesn’t work well with the common-core or under-motivated kids. The common-core is a big scary monster that should scare the shit out of teachers that really care about their students, or those who care about individuality in general. While in high school, I was able to predict the outcome of myself and others lives based on a series of numbers given to us for completing tasks in classes that either would or would not benefit us later in life. The truth is, if you are not someone who takes an overwhelming interest in a subject or have a natural inclination for reading or numbers or whatever it may be, it is likely that will be your weak point. For me it was English classes and it definitely showed in my overall class grades. The other truth is, that doesn’t mean you HAVE to get a terrible grade. I didn’t care much for English but I still gave it the good ole college try and pulled a B from it. Not having a whole lot of grades won’t do too much for those who really don’t care about doing well in school, which accounts for the majority of most high school students, you know the ones, the 50th percentile and so on. Whether or not they have a whole lot of grades to keep them honest or not, they will still not pay attention and still do bad on the tests. At least with having looked over the copious amount of worksheets they may somehow be able to recall something come test time.

All in all (we’re just another brink in the wall) it really comes down to what the students prefer, and the overwhelmingly of us like not being reduced down to numbers.

[ethanino152]

Passionately Curious

I’m not too sure whether I have said much about myself on this blog or not, so for reference and sake of those interested, I am studying aerospace engineering and applied physics (astro- or theoretical I have not yet come to decide). The first impression I get from people when I tell them this runs together to be quite the same with only slight variations. These, naturally, include: “Wow, I could never do that, I’m terrible at math.” or “Then I bet you’re pretty smart!”. While flattering as it may be to hear, there is always a hint of something else that, even if not spoken, is subconsciously thought. These include pangs of jealousy to have the patience quickly followed by the relief that this isn’t something they would have to burden themselves with. This is okay and even understandable; sometimes I question why I would even like these subjects. But besides these thoughts comes another: “A man of science seeks answers, they aren’t too huge a fan of the arts or other things that creatives may find attractive”. Well this is where I have to disagree. I like to think that my creativity and enjoyment for the product there of isn’t effected, rather enhanced, by what I take pleasure in. It’s in these moments that I remember what it is I love about what I do and what I study. From the times of my childhood until now, I have been curious and searching for answers to fit the questions in my head and in a way, I too am an artist. Where an artist sees an image in their head or translates a thought into a pictorial representation, I use whiteboards full of equations to represent the universe and paint out the history of the cosmos. Art is definitely subjective, and my idea may anger some, but science is beauty to me. The release of dopamine when you have been struggling for hours to find an answer and then it finally clicks is nothing short of euphoric. To see the secrets and the laws of universe come forth before you one symbol at a time is ecstasy. So you see, there isn’t too much different between you and I, whether you like music, painting, or science. We are all passionately curious, and beautifully creative in our own respects.

[ethanino152]

Killing the Creativity of Kids

Howdy and welcome back to this weeks bit of information. This week we have a TEDTalks video with a one Sir Ken Robinson. Right off the bat I noticed that this man has a great sense of humor which he uses throughout the video to keep it interesting and entertaining enough. His main point, which really spoke to me, was the schools have a way to kill the creativity of kids by smothering their natural curiosity and energy by called them ADD and whatnot. Upon hearing this I reflected on my own childhood creativity and compared it to what it is now. The results were very sad, of course. You see, I was a weird kid although rather creative. Like any normal boy of 7-10, I loved Legos. I would follow the little construction blueprints and went off the beaten path and made my own space ships and such. However, there was one quirk with Legos that I had, and that was that I formulated a fully functioning government complete with a parliament, economy, laws, and so own. I was 8 years old and creating governments for little pieces of plastic but now I struggle to doodle because I can’t think of something to draw. Public schools have a special way of killing creativity of kids by teaching them that there is only one way to get to an answer. Sure it matters that you get the correct answer to a question in math but you are also graded for following the “correct” path to get to that answer. I will leave you with this true story. There was once was a child in grade school who was overly enthusiastic about math. He would always bug the teacher with a constant onslaught of questions until one day she gave him the herculean task to find the sum of every number between 1 and 100. Expecting this to take him quite a bit of time, she was surprised when he came back in a matter of moments with the correct answer. Had he memorized the answer from previous trials? No. He devised a new method to find the sum of numbers with a great distance between them. He is now immortalized in the world of math with his method some of may recognize called the Euler method. A mathematical concept taught to calculus students created by a child’s creativity. Creativity is an important thing, don’t kill it. 

[ethanino152]

Staying in School: Should You?

Take a few minutes to watch these two videos. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these two gentlemen are not happy with the education system that is in place in most first world countries, and their unhappiness is well justified. In the first video, there is discussion on how things that need to be taught, such as how to file for taxes, are not being taught. This is a point that many students make when arguing with their teachers over learning algebra and I agree with this in some ways. Yes there needs to be more diversity of classes with the definite additions of basic life skills but sometimes these life skills can be learned by doing extracurricular activities through ways of clubs and other organizations. The second video makes the point that some of the wealthiest business owners do not have a college degree. What he does fail to mention is that these business owners are also business geniuses who dropped out of great schools to pursue a dream that they already had in the works. Both videos make very good points in their own respects and I agree that the education system does need to be reconstructed from the ground up. I also, however, think that I would not be where I am today without the same knowledge that was offered to both of them from the current education system.

[ethanino152]

“Shitty First Drafts”: A Reaction

From the first paragraph of her article, I could tell that Anne Lamotte and I share a cynical sense of humor, which I can appreciate. Her article is full of delightful similes and anecdotes which provides for an easy and enjoyable read which is also full of useful and comforting information. She describes writing a shitty first draft sort of like a process in industry with the first draft being like resource gathering where you get all your ideas down to see what can be used later. Another idea that this can be related to is word vomit. She allowed me to a first draft from a new light where it doesn’t need to be so serious and that I can have fun with it, which helps gives me a little more confidence to be more liberal in my future first drafts making them as odd as I please in the hopes that a real gem will be pulled from it in later drafts.