STARS

So I'm going to be publishing a series of articles on stars starting now.

What is a Star?

Well,  according to Wikipedia,  the answer to that question is "A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity"

I would define it as an entity which is forced to consume itself in order to exist. Basically,  it cannot be a star if it doesn't undertake nuclear fusion using gases which it is composed of.

How do stars work?

Well, in the simplest of terms, due to the heavy mass, temperature and pressure in the core, the hydrogen atoms are ripped off their electrons, and are squeezed to such an extent, that their protons fuse forming Helium producing a LOT of heat and light in the process. Fusion continues to happen until they run out of Hydrogen to fuse, but if they are massive enough, they can fuse helium too and this goes on until they eventually 'die', we'll cover that soon. Now to understand this better, lets take the example of the sun.

The Sun:

How does the sun run?

The sun is massive -1.989 x 10^30 kg. That is such a massive number that you could very well fit a few million Earths in it! It contains 2 OCTILLION TONS of gas[mostly Hydrogen]. The pressure at the sun's core is a staggering 250 BILLION times the pressure on you in the Earth. In comparison to other stars, it's still in the top 10% of stars, classifying them by their populations, but if you look directly at the size, the sun is somewhere in the lower middle of the spectrum.

The innermost layer of the sun is the core. The pressure at its core is an immense 1 billion times the pressure on you in the Earth. This core is mainly composed of hydrogen gas. At this pressure,  the temperature in the suns core is a staggering 15 million degrees celsius!  At this temperature and pressure,  the electron is ripped off the hydrogen,  and the protons are squeezed so hard together that an event I would say is the root cause of all life happens-they fuse and form Helium. Every second, the sun converts 800 tons of hydrogen into 790 tons of Helium, the remaining 10 tons are released as energy. The energy released is enormous- enough to power a STAR. An unimaginable amount of energy is released in the form of heat and light,  enough even to supply and support life on a planet which is 149 million km away. The energy released is the equivalent of millions of times the entire nuclear arsenal present on Earth and this happens every single second, I repeat every single second. So much for the Tsar Bomba.

 The energy released heats up the gas above the core, however not enough to fuse Hydrogen above the core. Hot air rises due to convection. It then cools and sinks back to the core. This layer is known as the convective layer.

Above this, is the photosphere. The density here makes the layer transparent, completely allowing light to pass through. After this, it travels and reaches us!

Above the photosphere is the corona or the solar wind. This extends for millions of kilometers! This basically is like a torrent of subatomic particles flooding the nearby space. It travels on average at a speed which is around 0.01% the speed of light, and can reach even higher! And mind you that is NOT a small number. It is equivalent to 277777.778 m/s!

Also, the light which reaches you, has to make it's way from the sun's core. The way this works is, a photon of a certain energy moves and strikes the next photon, losing some energy in the process, until eventually it breaks free from the sun to roam into space. This is a LONG process, and recent calculations show this takes around 250,000 years, around the same time early men roamed the Earth!

Another key, key feature regarding the sun is magnetism. I mentioned earlier that conditions inside the sun are so hot, they rip the electrons from the Hydrogen atoms. This group of negatively charged particles is called plasma. By Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetism[in simple terms, a charged particle generates a magnetic field], sun has a magnetic field. The sun's rotation, along with convection, moves around plasma and creates this magnetic field. When plasma reaches the sun's surface[the photosphere], it cools. Some of these multiple magnetic fields generated by plasma, may get tangled up, thus preventing it from sinking down the sun's core. Due to it cooling, it loses it shine, producing a dark spot on the surface of the sun, something which is known as a sunspot.

Plasma also moves along these magnetic fields, creating large arches known as a prominence. It still is a mystery, and we don't understand this fully, but will do so in the future. 

Magnetic fields can also get interlocked, and sometimes as they contain a LOT of energy, they can even snap. All the energy which is stored now expands outwards in an explosive way, an event that is perilous and is known as a solar flare. These are mind-blowingly powerful, with the stronger ones emitting even 5-15% the entire net energy the sun emits! 

The blast of debris ejected during a solar flare can even hit the Earth, causing immense effects. Our atmosphere, coupled with our magnetic field reduces the high intensity light along with deflecting the electrons ejected. In most cases that is. But sometimes, the Earth's magnetic field interacts with the magnetic field causing an aurora at the Northern and Southern Poles, also known as the Northern and Southern Lights. The exact details as to why this occurs is still a mystery though. And these lights form multiple shapes, depending on the magnetic field's shape. BUT, there are a lot of disadvantages.  As the magnetic fields interact, they produce an EMP[electromagnetic pulse] which overloads power grids, causiing blackouts in mass. In 2012, a huge such event was detected and luckily for us, it missed the Earth. Had this hit us, it would've caused blackouts in many areas, apart from frying circuits of most satellites.

Another type of a solar flare is a CME[Coronal Mass Ejection] and this well, is HUGE, and unlike a solar flare is not localised as they occur higher in the surface of the sun! 

So this is basically how the sun goes about its daily business, it eats itself and every now and then ejects a lot of subatomic particles!

Significance of the discovery of Gravitational Waves

It has been a bit of a hiatus for me. The extremely over hyped 10th board exams are coming up next month in March. I strongly believe exams must never have a role in deciding the capabilities of a person. Every person will have a field where they're brilliant, only exams won't identify those people. Extremely smart people might still fail to perform to the best of their abilities during examinations due to various reasons- from pressure to exam fear. One day, when I take humans to Mars, I will make sure that the first thing that is instituted is a proper education system. *Sighs and wakes up to realize I'm still a nobody and we're still on Earth with my Boards in a month.*

Now to get to the topic and the purpose of writing this article, which I just could not resist writing being a science fanatic, despite pressures from family, friends and teachers to seriously spend time studying.

Gravitational waves are basically ripples in the space-time continuum or the fabric of space and time, the existence of which was brilliantly predicted by Albert Einstein almost a century ago(98 years).

Mass bends space. In a more simple way, take space to be like a long piece of sponge. If you apply pressure on the sponge, it bends due to mass of your hand right? The harder you press, the more it bends. Similarly, due to the gravitational forces of various bodies, space gets 'bent' and disturbed from its original position.

Gravity doesn't act as a force, in fact there are no 'forces' in the gravitational pull, it is actually because due to the mass of both the objects, space bends due to which the objects move closer to each other. Now, imagine two ends of a paper sheet. Mark an edge as 'A' and it's opposite side as 'B'. Now to go from an edge to the other, you need to go via the diagonal right? Now, what happens if you fold the sheet via the other diagonal. This reduces the distance and now A is literally on B right? This is exactly what happens when celestial bodies attract each other due to a bend in space time caused by the mass of their bodies(gravity), only there is more space between them unlike when A is on top of B(LOL).

ANYTHING with MASS and ENERGY can create gravitational force(even me and you). If you run around, even then you cause ripples in the fabric of space-time, although it will be undetectable and very, very, very small. Now, to cause such a massive distortion, you need something very very big moving very, very fast for us to detect it. This is why gravitational waves were possible to be detected only from 2 massive black holes moving at incredible speeds

And yes coming to it now, there is only one way to detect gravitational waves which bend space and time. Take a guess. And before taking one, let me give you the facts. Say you want to measure the distance between A and B which is originally 10 cm. Even if you make markings equally spaced between each other, you wouldn't be able to notice and detect any change, as a bend in the space-time continuum say which causes A and B to come closer will also cause the markings to come closer, so you wouldn't be able to identify any difference.

The only thing which doesn't get stretched is light(the speed). Say due to the disturbances, the distance between A and B gets stretched further, then light will take more speed to reach B and if it gets bent and becomes smaller, then light will take lesser time to reach B. This is exactly how they detected the existence of gravitational waves at LIGO(Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). There are 2 tunnels there, perpendicular to each other, When a gravitational wave is detected, one of the tunnels stretches while the other contracts. The interference of the lasers as the waves bounce between the different points in the vertex is measured to check whether space-time has been bent or not. It is super mega ultra giga difficult to do this and successfully measure the differences. Like say measuring a difference of 50 cm from the original size of a rod which is 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 m long. I bet you can't even read the number correctly! Adding to the difficulties is the extra noise which heightens the difficulty of successfully detecting a gravitational wave. This is done by comparing the ripples gotten in experiments to the ones in actual space-time ripples. It's like a 10000 different songs being played at the same time and you're trying to identify a melody whose volume is the lowest.

The significance of this achievement is well, SIGNIFICANT as it provides a completely different view and perception of the universe. Until today, gravity was thought of as a normal force. But now, it has been clearly proven that space and time can be bent. You can now look at things from a totally different angle. Like say, you initially were only able to see 2 dimensions, but now you're able to see the 3rd and this completely changes your understanding of the world, nothing is flat anymore. It is absolutely incredible how a man who lived almost a century ago, was able to see with such foresight and predict such an 'absurd' thing as this. Maybe he was born in a future world and he traveled back in time and unfortunately lost his time machine and enlightened the world earlier than when it was supposed to understand various stuffs. If he did that, the consequences would possibly only be known to him and could affect the world adversely. Oh hell, only the worst critic of Einstein would put forth such a theory and somehow manage to criticize him. For all we know, Einstein was a great man, a fabulous human being who has made the world a more knowledgeable one.

And now that it has been proven that space time is like a sheet which can be bent, I just can't wait for the sheet to become 3 dimensional! That'll deepen further our understanding of the research able
universe.
This is one great step in the quest for knowledge and understanding of the universe and the physics behind it.

Dreams

We dream about 2-6 times almost every night(or day), but we never wonder what they actually are and most of the time, you forget what you dreamt of when you wake up and even sometimes when you remember, you just put it aside and focus on more worldy thoughts. None of us realize though, that our  brains can think the clearest and deepest while we're dreaming. So here's how I understand dreaming. 

I would define a dream as ideas, emotions and thoughts that converge to form a sort of a movie in your head which you sometimes can, but sometimes can't control. Although I''m no oneirologist or a psychoanalyst, this is my view about dreams.

For me, dreams usually materialize based on my last thought before falling asleep. So, therefore before going to bed, I think about stuff which I like and stuff which I wonder a lot about, like Chelsea winning, rebelling against your genetic composition etc, and sometimes when I'm in my dream I command the world and can therefore try different scenarios to put to bed my curiosities.

While you're fully conscious, there are stuff which are highly impossible to successfully recreate in the conscious world. In a dream, even the sky is not the limit. You can achieve ANYTHING in a dream. The world belongs to you. All you need to do is know how to control it. They can help you get creative and give a sense of inspiration and ideas. You can actually solve problems better in your dreams than in a conscious state.

Dreams can also be re-visualizations of good or scary moments of the past which affect you emotionally, either causing anxieties and fears or happiness and nostalgia. You dream about happy moments of the past which you wish to relive or about repressed memories and phobias during which you fathom about what would happen if such a thing were to occur in real life. You go through different possibilities, of how you could've made a good moment better, or of how you'd react were to be placed in an unpleasant situation which you fear while conscious. You get ideas on how to tackle such situations and to beat your fears.

Sometimes, in rare cases, you will come to understand that you're dreaming. How you do varies from person to person. Like for me, during rare instances when I suspect that I'm dreaming, a door with a sunflower on it suddenly appears which makes realization dawn on me. I have absolutely no idea why it's a sunflower door nor can I change it. It has been the same from when I was young and is probably because of my experiences then. If I choose to stay, I can sort of influence the events in the world of dreams, but I also wake up if I open the door and walk through it. I have no idea why this is so and find it incredibly bizarre. This is basically known as lucid dreaming. You are aware that you're dreaming and sometimes, can even control and influence the events occurring in the process.

Dreams consolidate newer memories and reinforce older ones combining them with your thoughts to provide you a better view and ideas to sate your curiosities and abate your deepest desires which widely vary from person to person. They help in enlightening you and broadening your view on subjects. They also serve as reminders for things which you should do in the future or bring back visions of people who were in your life in the past who you dearly miss.

Sometimes, they also serve as warnings for future occurrences which may probably take place due to a series of events culminating into one big showdown. Sometimes, people get premonitions or visions about future events that are going to take place. Many put forth a religious and spiritual point of view to these 'premonitions' like astrology, divination, necromancy etc but this is my view on this. Some people have a very good IQ(Intelligence Quotient). Usually, these are the ones who get these visions about the future in their dreams. I would say this is because their mind is sharp enough to analyse certain small and seemingly insignificant events, but all of which might have possible consequences. There are people who have 'predicted' future disasters and are being called 'Oracles' or so but they are probably those whose minds are intelligent enough to put together a few factors which might cause a disaster in which man might have had a role to play. Like say, in EM Forster's, the Machine Stops, although he wrote it as science fiction, he was able to successfully predict a world which is highly dependent on machines and the Internet and instant messaging services back in 1909. He had such good foresight, that it almost seems as if he travelled through time and wrote the book back in 1909. These kinds of people have incredible IQs and could possibly be able to put together events which may culminate with them predicting the final event in the future subconsciously. They are basically the ones we revere and call Oracles. At least, that is my opinion

The most difficult part I face is that about 90% of the time, when I realize that I'm dreaming, I wake up and am unable to continue the dream. It is very difficult to maintain a subconscious state once you realize that what you're experiencing isn't real and has no effect on you. But after a while, sometimes you master it, and for sometime you control the world of dreams where the Laws of Physics don't apply and you can try out different things which you'd have always wanted to do in real life. You can also gain answers to questions and be inspired by the happenings of a dream. But, sometimes, instead of being affected by the outside environment and waking up, the brain incorporates this as a part of the dream resulting in continued sleep.

The toughest part though is to recall and remember a dream, and even when you do it is extremely unreliable as most of the time, you mix reality with the dreamscape and get an altered version of the dream. But, that said, if you awake while in the middle of the dream, you'll be able to fully recall and remember it, but what use is it when you wake up while in the middle of solving something. Mostly, you'll be able to recall dreams which are vivid and interesting in content making you curious.

So yeah, this is my interpretation of dreams. If your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough, so dream big!

PS: Not taking anything away from EM Forster for he was one of the best science fiction writers in the world. Plus, this is just my view of a dream, you may not agree with this, but this is what I believe.

Happy New Year!

Well, first off, Happy New Year to y'all! From the point of view of a 10th grader, I hardly see anything worthwhile in celebrating the new year, in fact, it actually reminded me that I have just about a month left with my friends in school after which the exams begin and everybody goes their own separate ways. It's pretty horrible when you think forward and realize that you aren't going to be seeing the faces of your chums very often.

Even after annoying and making jokes at my expense, I cannot fathom what I would do without these weird faces with whom I've had such messed up talks and fun that an outsider would think that we were born mentally retarded and need psychiatric help. From tolerating my pathetic 'yo momma' jokes and my non-stop drone about football about why every club apart from Chelsea suck to playing FIFA and Call of Duty, at which, I admittedly suck, and to those who've actually had the patience to debate with me and help me see logic, I owe you guys one. Y'all have stood by me through everything, consoling me when I got bad grades, resisting the urge to slap me when I annoy you guys when I'm bored to actually listening to me on the phone when I drone on and speak about things which are scientifically impossible, you guys are friends which I will never find in the future, and no matter what I will never forget y'all and I thank you dudes for all you've done for me.

Looking with foresight into the future and assuming I will live another 50 years, I probably have very little to do with my life. I have maybe a 100 reunions with my friends left, a size able amount of scientific advancement which I will witness and hopefully, I will be alive the day we become an inter-plantery species, I really hope I will not die on this planet and that I will be lucky enough to witness another world. I probably will have 100 hours in the future to look back at the past with nostalgia and hopefully I will be satisfied with what I've achieved in my life.

So well, in my opinion, the new year is not something we should celebrate, instead it is something which we should mourn as we are getting a year older and have a year less to live. But let's not dwell on that, instead we should make the year such that in the next we can look back at the past year with pride and nostalgia and be happy.


For me personally, this could be a year to rejoice if the hyperloop is tested, Chelsea win trophies, SpaceX perfects the vertical liftoff and landing. Although, this has no effect on me directly, it will make me proud of the world and be happy that the future is secure. I will aspire to play a role though, in conquering space and colonising Mars.

But well, according to everybody, the biggest event of this year is my board exams which I will face in a couple of months. Although I don't believe an exam is going to shape my future in any way, I still will have to study to please those who support me.

So, best of luck to everybody this year and may technology's advancement to save mankind continue!