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The
Write Way
16 May 2008 A Really, Really Good Idea OR ... Greetings, You know how I love all things scientific (even though my little grey cells hurt when I try to follow some of the ideas). Well, I've come across the Good Idea to end all Good Ideas, maybe quite literally. Allow me to explain ... We've chatted before about a TOE, waxed lyrical about numbers and pondered the possibility of time travel, so you can understand my delighted anticipation when I saw an ad for a program on telly about a mob of scientists who've come up with what can only be described as a somewhat ambitious plan to recreate the Big Bang. No, not actually the Big Bang, but the nano-seconds after ... In order to do this, they've built a neato cubby-house called the LHC or Large Hadron Collider, and the aim of the exercise is: "To smash protons moving at 99.999999% of the speed of light into each other and so recreate conditions a fraction of a second after the big bang. The LHC experiments try and work out what happened." The boys (and girls) aren't messing around with this and the LHC itself is "being built in a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference. The tunnel is buried around 50 to 175 m. underground. It straddles the Swiss and French borders on the outskirts of Geneva." Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that such an experiment wouldn't come cheap, and you'd be right, because the cost of this little experiment, dear reader, is a trifling $6 billion. That's billion with a B. After hearing this, I was agog with excitement as the show began, but there were three thoughts that occurred to me as I was battling to follow the commentary: 1. If someone approached you and said, "I have a really, really good idea ... I want to recreate the moment a billionth of a second after the Big Bang when out of nothing came everything. C'n I have $6 billion, please?" What would you say? 2. By their own admission, the boys (and girls) aren't 100% certain what's going to happen if they succeed. As one chap said on the show, "We might create a black hole ... but there's an extremely small chance of this happening ... and if it does, it will only be a little one." 3. Who exactly is paying for all this, and more importantly, what do they expect to get out of it? Read all about it here. By the way, according to the website, the first experiment is scheduled for this month, "First collisions at high energy are expected mid-2008 with the first results from the experiments soon after." So, if the newsletter is late arriving from now on, you'll know it was swallowed by a black hole ... but only a little one. And that'll be my excuse for my redundant state earlier ... for as you well know, agog means "full of excitement or interest; eager, keen," and as such, it's a bit silly to be in a state of excited excitement. The word comes from an Old French term en gogues meaning 'in mirth. "They all laughed when I said I was going to tell a joke. Well, they're not laughing now!"
And a black hole story ... An English major at a university was taking an astronomy course to satisfy the science requirement. During the last lecture of the semester, the professor spoke about some of the more exotic objects in the universe including black holes. Despite his teacher's enthusiasm, the student showed no interest, as was the case for all his astronomy classes during the semester. When the bell rang, the student turned to his friend and said, "The prof says that black holes are interesting, but I think they suck." This week's Little Something Extra takes us to the coolest place in the Universe and also introduces a seriously good idea (and a bit of a rambling background story ... but you're used to that by now!) This week's quiz: Let's see how well you know your Universe ... Match up the terms and definitions below: proton, isotope, penumbra, neutron, nebula, electron, chromosphere, positron, corona, neutrino 1. extended outer atmosphere of the Sun or other star 2. any of two or more forms of a chemical element, having the same number of protons in the nucleus, or the same atomic number, but having different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus or different atomic weights 3. an elementary particle having no charge and mass slightly greater than that of a proton 4. outer layer of the solar atmosphere sandwiched between the photosphere and the corona; prominent features include spicules, bright hydrogen alpha emission lines and calcium H and K emission lines. These emission lines suggest a temperature higher than the photosphere 5. fuzzy, diffuse astronomical object 6. a positively charged elementary particle that is a fundamental constituent of all atomic nuclei 7. subatomic particle with very small mass and zero charge, that rarely interacts with matter 8. an elementary particle that is a fundamental constituent of matter, existing independently or as the component outside the nucleus of an atom 9. partial shadow cast by Earth or Moon that surrounds the total shadow 10. an elementary particle having the same mass and spin as an electron but having a positive charge equal in magnitude to that of the electron's negative charge; the antiparticle of the electron "Pick a letter.""Y." "Just because. Do you always have to be so difficult?" And wouldn't you agree that there is too much sax and violins in music? Did you know that every newsletter is archived? So if you've missed anything since 1998 or want to revisit some favourites, you can do so any time! Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK. For all the flash new browsers, you'll have to do a search on my mate google to find what to do. There's a search box on the archives page!) If you've received this little missive from a friend, you can get your very own issue, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed every Friday morning by clicking here: mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@yahoogrups.com And I'm even prepared to offer a shameless bribe. An Ape that wants to play Hamlet after being type-cast as King Kong, a talking anvil and that rottweiller ... Dr Morgenes is still caught in the nightmare that is the casting couch. Help him find a plot! Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them). I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark. Last week's quiz: See how many of Shakespeare's words have worked their way into your vocabulary: indigest, articulate, immediacy, impair, monumental, incarnadine, primogenitive, obsequiously, besmirch, swagger 1. stain carnation-red colour - INCARNADINE 2. behaving in the appropriate way towards the dead - OBSEQUIOUSLY 3. authority immediately derived; representativeship directly delegated and not intermediately obtained - IMMEDIACY 4. walk or strut with a defiant or insolent air; to boast - SWAGGER 5. enter into articles; set forth in articles - ARTICULATE 6. detract from the honour or lustre of; to soil or tarnish - BESMIRCH 7. mass of confusion or disorder, a chaos or chaotic state - INDIGEST 8. exceptionally great, as in quantity, quality, extent or degree; massive - MONUMENTAL 9. injurious, detracting, entangled, unworthy - IMPAIR 10. the claims or right of the first born - PRIMOGENITIVE A Little Something Extra Visit the coolest place in the Universe ... in every sense of the word. And now to that seriously good idea I mentioned earlier, but first a little background ... When the Love of My Life and I were married (I did warn you there was some background to this story!) he asked one of his good friends to be Best Man (as you do). A year or so later, we attended our friend's wedding, and we all had our children around the same time (again, as you seem to do); we had a boy and a girl and our friends had three girls. Time passes ... Their eldest daughter married her childhood sweetheart, and they in turn had two children. Her husband got a job as a quantity surveyor with a US company, and they headed off to live with our 'Murkin cousins for a couple of years. They had some great experiences and took the opportunity to see as much of the country as possible during their free time. But on the July 4th weekend a couple of years ago, they had to make a hurried return home from their sight-seeing, because Steve had taken ill. What they first assumed was simply a case of eating something that disagreed with him, tragically turned out to be colon cancer. Our friends have sung the praises of Steve's American employer and say that their daughter, Rebecca, could not have coped as well as she did without the unwavering support she got from Steve's boss. He organised for them to get the best treatment possible in the US and later for them to pack up and fly home. Sadly, Steve's cancer was in advanced stages when he was diagnosed, and last September he died at the devastatingly young age of 34. But now Rebecca and her friends are doing something to celebrate Steve's life and help others by taking part in the Sydney Half Marathon to raise money for the Australian Cancer Research Foundation.
Aussie scientists and doctors have a good record when it comes to research, as this short sample will show: * the invention of the electric heart pacemaker in 1926 * the development from the 1940s of cheap and lightweight stainless steel braces to straighten teeth * cochlear implants invented in 1978 at the University of Melbourne (since then, the bionic ear has brought hearing to more than 50,000 people in over 80 countries) * Dr John Frederick Joseph Cade's discovery that lithium can be used successfully in the treatment of mental illness * surgeon Professor Earl Owen's design and development of instruments used for microsurgery and the techniques for using them * the world's first anti-flu drug developed in Victoria * the 1982 discovery by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren that it's actually the Helicobacter pylori bacterium which causes stomach ulcers and gastritis, which led to methods of treatment being developed * the world's first vaccine to
prevent cervical cancer developed by Professor Ian Frazer, the late Dr Jian Zhou
and others at the University of Queensland during the 1990s (The vaccine doesn't
act against cancer but against the virus that causes cervical cancer.) Speaking
when he was named Australian of the Year in 2006, Ian Frazer said, "Women
living in poverty in the developing world, where Pap smears are not widely
available, account for most of the 250,000 deaths from cervical cancer each
year. * Dr Fiona Wood developed the technique of using spray-on-skin for burns victims. She first came across the emerging US-invented technology of cultured skin in 1992 and used her spray-on-skin refinement successfully on burn victims of the 2002 Bali terrorist bombings. These last examples show how research in one country can spread and inspire scientists from other countries, and how people around the world benefit from the treatments and cures that result. And that, dear patient reader, brings me finally to the point, which is to remind you of how small our world is and how we all benefit from medical research and developments wherever we live. So if you'd like to support Rebecca Patterson's team to help fund research into finding better treatments and a cure for cancer, just follow this link and make a donation: You can leave a short comment when you donate, so please take a moment to tell Bec who you are and where you are and perhaps also to dedicate your donation to someone you may have lost to cancer, as so many of us have. Word of the week: Perihelion (n) the point in the orbit of a planet or comet at which it is nearest to the sun This great word comes from the Greek (as do most of our scientific words). It joins the prefix peri- (meaning “about” or “around) plus helios (sun) with the suffix -on (used to create nouns). Oxymoron of the week: laboratory astrophysics And a Latin phrase we might all be uttering after the LHC experiments ... Fac ut nemo me vocet [FAHK OOT NAY-moh MAY WOH-ket] (Hold my calls) Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)? Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Just $17 a year seems a small price to pay for all this wit and wisdom, don't you think? C'mon, that's just a tad more than 30 cents a week! 1.Toss a few pennies into my Running Away Fund at PayPal (Send to jennifer @ write101.com ... without the spaces, of course) OR 2. Click here to subscribe for a full year OR 3. Use your credit card on my secure order form. (You can also access the PayPal subscription link from this page if the link above didn't work for you. With PayPal, you can use your credit card, PayPal account or pay online using your own cheque account.) OR 4. Send a cheque (made payable to Jennifer Stewart) To unsubscribe from this list, send
a blank email to: mailto:WritingTips- Copyright Jennifer Stewart 2008 Individual articles copyrighted by their authors. |
