We still don't have internet at the house, so I'm using the miracle of modern technology of a DSL connection and a MMC/SD card reader at my in-laws' house!
Want to see the house with some furniture in it?
We still don't have cable TV. The people came on Friday, and they couldn't get a signal at the post outside. They promised someone would be out yesterday (nobody came out). There's a new episode of House on Tuesday ...I don't watch much telly, but I don't want to miss the new 'House' in the new house. Although I have to admit, I get a lot more done without the distractions of technology...
Listen : Kill Your Television - Ned's Atomic Dustbin ... Television, The Drug Of The Nation - Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy ... Television, Television - OK Go.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Well, we took our sweet time about it, but tomorrow is the day. We move house. This is the twelfth place I have ever lived in; four counties in two countries. We could have moved right at the end of August, but we couldn't get a moving company so we decided to do it nice and easy. Which it isn't, it's a bucket of stress. One of these days I might actually manage to stay put for a decade!
Listen: Moving - Supergrass ... The Old Apartment - Barenaked Ladies ... Movers and Shakers - The Clash.
Listen: Moving - Supergrass ... The Old Apartment - Barenaked Ladies ... Movers and Shakers - The Clash.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
This, like most ideas, came to me after waking up. If the Universe, black holes and theoretical physics is just the sort of thing that makes you fall asleep at your keyboard ...well, you might want to look elsewhere on the web. Or be happy with this picture of a kitten. It's extremely cute and furry and purry.
Aw, the cuteness!
OK, what do we know about the Universe we're in? Here are a few things we're pretty sure of.
1 - Universe's boundary is accelerating away from us at the speed of light, to our observations (and we're inside of it) so nothing can escape the Universe. Not even light.
2 - Because of this, we have no way of telling what is outside the Universe. We can hypothesize that there's either nothing of any form outside the Universe or that if there IS something beyond the boundary, it can't see in.
3 - There's a lot of debate about what happens to the matter in our Universe with all this expansion. Will gravity eventually get the better of it all and pull us back into a big crunch or will the matter fly off, eventually expanding to the point where all there exists is a cold nothingness? One molecule every light-year or more, or all the molecules back in a single point? No light or discernable energy because the Universe is spread so thin, or the ingredients for another Big Bang? That kind of thing.
OK, that's part one of three. Part two is: what do we know about black holes.
1 - because of the nature of a black hole, nothing pulled inside (beyond the point of no return called the 'event horizon') can escape. For us outside, it seems that time slows infinitely for the thing or person pulled in. To the observer getting pulled in, time dilates so the stars are born and die in an instant. If anyone survives, it would appear, we can speculate, that even going at the speed of light will not get them out of the black hole. The event horizon is accelerating away from their point-of-view at the speed of light. Like the Universe, light can't escape it.
2 - Because of this, we have no way of telling what is inside the black hole. We can hypothesize that there's either nothing of any form inside the black hole or that if there IS something beyond the boundary, it can't see out.
3 - There's a lot of debate about what happens to the matter in a black hole with all this expansion. Will tidal forces eventually get the better of it all and pull it all into a big crunch or will the matter expand as the hole does, eventually expanding to the point where the black hole slowly evaporates its mass as energy (and yes, black holes do this, as Hawking proved as described here)? And the bigger the black hole gets, Hawking said the hole radiates less radiation.
That's where the final part occurred to me this morning. Nothing inside can get out, no way of telling what's happening either side of the boundary, no idea yet if the end result is all or nothing. When we're describing what happens to a theoretical Universe, it's the same as a black hole. Are they both the same thing, just observed from different locations?
Professor Stephen Hawkin once said that "this would imply that the area of a horizon of a black hole could only increase in time, never shrink". But he also says that, because of Hawking Radiation, energy density can sometimes be negative on the quantum level and (true enough) that's why black holes can radiate.
But that applies more as the black hole is small. The larger the hole, the less it radiates. So; as the black hole (or the Universe) gets bigger, can we say it can only radiate less into the domain beyond its boundary? And also, that the Universe and the black holes inside it continue to grow?
In effect, is our visible Universe nothing more than just a black hole devouring up matter from beyond its Universal Event Horizon, and are the black holes in our Universe merely doing the same? Could there be an infinite number of steps, getting sucked into an infinite number of Universes within Universes? Is the idea of other Universes a valid one, but wrong in the respect that the Universes aren't like bubbles in a bath but more like an infinite number of Russian dolls?
I want to be the first to say yes. Seabrook's Layered Dimensional Theory, until someone else comes up with a better name for it.
You are here. In one of these layers. Anything further in from your layer appears to be a singularity, anything further out appears to be expanding away from us at the maximum speed possible. Not so much an explosion in a black hole as postulated here but the contents of an outer level's singularity in and of itself. This means that there would not need to be a white hole because the entire outer horizon of the Universe you're in IS the point where matter seems to be created.
I hope it's an infinite thing, otherwise one Universe will end up with all the matter. Like having one room in the world having all the furniture, it would make it a lot harder to sort out the space!
Listen : Out There In The Universe - Spacetribe ... Supermassive Black Hole - Muse ... The Emptiness Of Nothingness - Amorphous Androgynous (FSOL).
Aw, the cuteness!
OK, what do we know about the Universe we're in? Here are a few things we're pretty sure of.
1 - Universe's boundary is accelerating away from us at the speed of light, to our observations (and we're inside of it) so nothing can escape the Universe. Not even light.
2 - Because of this, we have no way of telling what is outside the Universe. We can hypothesize that there's either nothing of any form outside the Universe or that if there IS something beyond the boundary, it can't see in.
3 - There's a lot of debate about what happens to the matter in our Universe with all this expansion. Will gravity eventually get the better of it all and pull us back into a big crunch or will the matter fly off, eventually expanding to the point where all there exists is a cold nothingness? One molecule every light-year or more, or all the molecules back in a single point? No light or discernable energy because the Universe is spread so thin, or the ingredients for another Big Bang? That kind of thing.
OK, that's part one of three. Part two is: what do we know about black holes.
1 - because of the nature of a black hole, nothing pulled inside (beyond the point of no return called the 'event horizon') can escape. For us outside, it seems that time slows infinitely for the thing or person pulled in. To the observer getting pulled in, time dilates so the stars are born and die in an instant. If anyone survives, it would appear, we can speculate, that even going at the speed of light will not get them out of the black hole. The event horizon is accelerating away from their point-of-view at the speed of light. Like the Universe, light can't escape it.
2 - Because of this, we have no way of telling what is inside the black hole. We can hypothesize that there's either nothing of any form inside the black hole or that if there IS something beyond the boundary, it can't see out.
3 - There's a lot of debate about what happens to the matter in a black hole with all this expansion. Will tidal forces eventually get the better of it all and pull it all into a big crunch or will the matter expand as the hole does, eventually expanding to the point where the black hole slowly evaporates its mass as energy (and yes, black holes do this, as Hawking proved as described here)? And the bigger the black hole gets, Hawking said the hole radiates less radiation.
That's where the final part occurred to me this morning. Nothing inside can get out, no way of telling what's happening either side of the boundary, no idea yet if the end result is all or nothing. When we're describing what happens to a theoretical Universe, it's the same as a black hole. Are they both the same thing, just observed from different locations?
Professor Stephen Hawkin once said that "this would imply that the area of a horizon of a black hole could only increase in time, never shrink". But he also says that, because of Hawking Radiation, energy density can sometimes be negative on the quantum level and (true enough) that's why black holes can radiate.
But that applies more as the black hole is small. The larger the hole, the less it radiates. So; as the black hole (or the Universe) gets bigger, can we say it can only radiate less into the domain beyond its boundary? And also, that the Universe and the black holes inside it continue to grow?
In effect, is our visible Universe nothing more than just a black hole devouring up matter from beyond its Universal Event Horizon, and are the black holes in our Universe merely doing the same? Could there be an infinite number of steps, getting sucked into an infinite number of Universes within Universes? Is the idea of other Universes a valid one, but wrong in the respect that the Universes aren't like bubbles in a bath but more like an infinite number of Russian dolls?
I want to be the first to say yes. Seabrook's Layered Dimensional Theory, until someone else comes up with a better name for it.
You are here. In one of these layers. Anything further in from your layer appears to be a singularity, anything further out appears to be expanding away from us at the maximum speed possible. Not so much an explosion in a black hole as postulated here but the contents of an outer level's singularity in and of itself. This means that there would not need to be a white hole because the entire outer horizon of the Universe you're in IS the point where matter seems to be created.
I hope it's an infinite thing, otherwise one Universe will end up with all the matter. Like having one room in the world having all the furniture, it would make it a lot harder to sort out the space!
Listen : Out There In The Universe - Spacetribe ... Supermassive Black Hole - Muse ... The Emptiness Of Nothingness - Amorphous Androgynous (FSOL).
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Over a month, eh? Time I put in another blog entry, otherwise people might think I was too busy.
Which I still am. Building a house is a stressful thing, but this video shows you why it's all worth it. It's 90 seconds long, and is me running through the house (front room, dining room, kitchen, hall, half bathroom, up the stairs, main bathroom, two spare rooms and the master suite).
Ooooh, first streaming video on my blog. Might use that function in future. If you can't hear anything, that's because my little digital camera has no microphone.
So, apart from the house, what else do I have to report? Well, I had my first eye exam since 1998. That one was in the medical for work after my car crash. Since then, my eyesight has 'mellowed' from 20/15 to 20/30. I 'm very slightly near-sighted in both eyes and so I have decided to wear glasses. I'll be buying a pair or two this weekend.
Look at me, I'm old!
Listen : Eyesight To The Blind - The Who ... Glass - Joy Division ... Visible Noise - Hybrid. I might be taking the whole 'glasses' thing a bit seriously!
Which I still am. Building a house is a stressful thing, but this video shows you why it's all worth it. It's 90 seconds long, and is me running through the house (front room, dining room, kitchen, hall, half bathroom, up the stairs, main bathroom, two spare rooms and the master suite).
Ooooh, first streaming video on my blog. Might use that function in future. If you can't hear anything, that's because my little digital camera has no microphone.
So, apart from the house, what else do I have to report? Well, I had my first eye exam since 1998. That one was in the medical for work after my car crash. Since then, my eyesight has 'mellowed' from 20/15 to 20/30. I 'm very slightly near-sighted in both eyes and so I have decided to wear glasses. I'll be buying a pair or two this weekend.
Look at me, I'm old!
Listen : Eyesight To The Blind - The Who ... Glass - Joy Division ... Visible Noise - Hybrid. I might be taking the whole 'glasses' thing a bit seriously!
Monday, June 12, 2006
I didn't have time to talk about dad's funeral, and the trip there and back. To tell the truth, I have been busy. I know that people say "I'm busy" as an excuse for one thing or another, but I have really been busy. Painting a house takes a lot of time and uses muscles I never knew I had. I know I have them now because they ache.
The plan for dad's funeral was this: fly overnight on Wednesday, arriving at Gatwick on Thursday morning after five or six hours of sleep. Train to Victoria, tube to either Euston or Kings Cross and then the train to Northampton (near my sister Wendy's house) or Arlesey (nearest station to the village the funeral is to take place). Spend the night at my sister's house, up early for the return trip to Gatwick and get the flight to Philadelphia, then the connecting flight home.
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men...
The trip from the US to the UK wasn't too bad, apart from the 150 middle-schoolers off on the same flight to London. All wearing Union Flag t-shirts, making them conspicuous targets for any and all London pick-pocketers and scam artists. Three young lads sat across the aisle from my seat, playing with each others' lights ("you stop it!" "no, YOU stop it!"). And thirty minutes after dinner was served, one of the young fellas threw up over the other two.
This wasn't just a little bit of sick. It was like The Exorcist. If there was a Projectile Chunder event at the Olympics, this kid would have won gold for the USA. The stench was unavoidable, and people were fussing over the boys for hours. Changing clothes, wiping things down, being loud.
I got two hours sleep on the flight, tops.
By the time I got through passport control, I knew that Northampton was out of the equation. I called my sister and told her to pick me up at Arlesey. There was a Thameslink train, the company I used to work for, so I went via Kings Cross Thameslink (the station I worked in for over fiver years). It hasn't changed a bit. It certainly brought back a lot of memories of the late eighties and early nineties.
I missed one Arlesey train by two minutes, so I called Wendy on her mobile and gave her the new ETA. I changed and freshened up at dad's house when I got there.
The funeral was in a small church just a short drive from the house. The funeral company were great, very professional and sombre. I had prepared a eulogy just in case, but Margaret (my eldest sister) had too and she read hers. Then we went outside and buried my dad. We put roses on the coffin, threw dirt in. Dad would have been proud at the turnout. Family, friends, villagers. There was a function in a village pub afterwards, where I showed Margaret my version of the eulogy and we were amazed at the similarities. After everything, I eventually got to bed at midnight for six hours sleep.
Then the trip back. For reasons of clarity, I'm now going to give all times at East Coast USA times (even though a lot of this happens in England) because I haven't been in Britain long enough to switch time-zones. My body is still on East Coast Daylight Saving Time. I just want you to count the hours like I did. So; 6am wake-up time in Northamptonshire is 1am to my body. Get it? Got it? Good.
Wake up at 1am. Driven to Northampton to get the train to London Euston just after 2am. Into Euston at 3am, height of the rush-hour. Tube to Victoria station, train to Gatwick. My flight is at 6.45am, and I arrive with plenty of time to spare. The flight will leave late because it arrived late; there'a a storm moving over the Eastern US. The flight takes 7 hours, so I should land in Philly at 3pm. Plenty of time because my connecting flight leaves at 6.55pm.
Coming over New Jersey, we see the thunderheads on the clouds. That storm is still over the Northeastern States. We circle for over an hour but can't land because of the severity of the storm. We have to divert to Baltimore to refuel on the tarmac because the plane will run out otherwise. It's only 20 minutes or so away, but it takes another 45 minutes to refuel. Then we get back in the air, circle some more, and eventually land in what looks like a monsoon.
I'm still OK, because it's not 6pm yet and the connection is at 6.55pm.
Connection cancelled, couldn't make it through the storm so it turned back. Next flight is at 10.45pm, and hopefully the storm will be well over the Atlantic.
Ha!
I change my ticket for the later flight and call Beth to let her know I'll be arriving around 11.45pm. The incoming flight lands late because the storm decides that Philadelphia is a great place to spend a Friday night and just kept on raining. Then all personnel are pulled from baggage duty because the lightning starts up again.
Think about lightning for a second. It goes for the path of least resistance, so it usually strikes the tallest conductor around. An airport needs to be as flat as a billiard table, so the tallest things near an airport departure gate would be the tails of all the wet aircraft outside. If one of them gets struck when someone's pulling luggage out in the wet, they can pretty-much kiss themselves goodbye. It was another 50 minutes before they got the luggage from the previous flight and got the new stuff on.
Now we're waiting for the new first officer. The co-pilot from the incoming flight has left for his next job, and our man is on a flight from Chicago. A flight currently circling PHL, waiting for another break in the storm.
He arrives after midnight. Fortunately, this flight is a Canadair Jet (not one of those Dash turbo-prop things that goes half the speed) so we're up and down in less than half an hour. The storm was passed after five minutes. It stuck like glue to Philly for hours. I eventually got home at 2am Saturday, quickly got ready for bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
That's 25 consecutive hours awake. After two days with a combined eight hours of sleep.
Listen: Insomnia - Faithless ... Asleep From Day - Chemical Brothers feat. Mazzy Star ... I'm WIde Awake, It's Morning - Bright Eyes.
The plan for dad's funeral was this: fly overnight on Wednesday, arriving at Gatwick on Thursday morning after five or six hours of sleep. Train to Victoria, tube to either Euston or Kings Cross and then the train to Northampton (near my sister Wendy's house) or Arlesey (nearest station to the village the funeral is to take place). Spend the night at my sister's house, up early for the return trip to Gatwick and get the flight to Philadelphia, then the connecting flight home.
Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men...
The trip from the US to the UK wasn't too bad, apart from the 150 middle-schoolers off on the same flight to London. All wearing Union Flag t-shirts, making them conspicuous targets for any and all London pick-pocketers and scam artists. Three young lads sat across the aisle from my seat, playing with each others' lights ("you stop it!" "no, YOU stop it!"). And thirty minutes after dinner was served, one of the young fellas threw up over the other two.
This wasn't just a little bit of sick. It was like The Exorcist. If there was a Projectile Chunder event at the Olympics, this kid would have won gold for the USA. The stench was unavoidable, and people were fussing over the boys for hours. Changing clothes, wiping things down, being loud.
I got two hours sleep on the flight, tops.
By the time I got through passport control, I knew that Northampton was out of the equation. I called my sister and told her to pick me up at Arlesey. There was a Thameslink train, the company I used to work for, so I went via Kings Cross Thameslink (the station I worked in for over fiver years). It hasn't changed a bit. It certainly brought back a lot of memories of the late eighties and early nineties.
I missed one Arlesey train by two minutes, so I called Wendy on her mobile and gave her the new ETA. I changed and freshened up at dad's house when I got there.
The funeral was in a small church just a short drive from the house. The funeral company were great, very professional and sombre. I had prepared a eulogy just in case, but Margaret (my eldest sister) had too and she read hers. Then we went outside and buried my dad. We put roses on the coffin, threw dirt in. Dad would have been proud at the turnout. Family, friends, villagers. There was a function in a village pub afterwards, where I showed Margaret my version of the eulogy and we were amazed at the similarities. After everything, I eventually got to bed at midnight for six hours sleep.
Then the trip back. For reasons of clarity, I'm now going to give all times at East Coast USA times (even though a lot of this happens in England) because I haven't been in Britain long enough to switch time-zones. My body is still on East Coast Daylight Saving Time. I just want you to count the hours like I did. So; 6am wake-up time in Northamptonshire is 1am to my body. Get it? Got it? Good.
Wake up at 1am. Driven to Northampton to get the train to London Euston just after 2am. Into Euston at 3am, height of the rush-hour. Tube to Victoria station, train to Gatwick. My flight is at 6.45am, and I arrive with plenty of time to spare. The flight will leave late because it arrived late; there'a a storm moving over the Eastern US. The flight takes 7 hours, so I should land in Philly at 3pm. Plenty of time because my connecting flight leaves at 6.55pm.
Coming over New Jersey, we see the thunderheads on the clouds. That storm is still over the Northeastern States. We circle for over an hour but can't land because of the severity of the storm. We have to divert to Baltimore to refuel on the tarmac because the plane will run out otherwise. It's only 20 minutes or so away, but it takes another 45 minutes to refuel. Then we get back in the air, circle some more, and eventually land in what looks like a monsoon.
I'm still OK, because it's not 6pm yet and the connection is at 6.55pm.
Connection cancelled, couldn't make it through the storm so it turned back. Next flight is at 10.45pm, and hopefully the storm will be well over the Atlantic.
Ha!
I change my ticket for the later flight and call Beth to let her know I'll be arriving around 11.45pm. The incoming flight lands late because the storm decides that Philadelphia is a great place to spend a Friday night and just kept on raining. Then all personnel are pulled from baggage duty because the lightning starts up again.
Think about lightning for a second. It goes for the path of least resistance, so it usually strikes the tallest conductor around. An airport needs to be as flat as a billiard table, so the tallest things near an airport departure gate would be the tails of all the wet aircraft outside. If one of them gets struck when someone's pulling luggage out in the wet, they can pretty-much kiss themselves goodbye. It was another 50 minutes before they got the luggage from the previous flight and got the new stuff on.
Now we're waiting for the new first officer. The co-pilot from the incoming flight has left for his next job, and our man is on a flight from Chicago. A flight currently circling PHL, waiting for another break in the storm.
He arrives after midnight. Fortunately, this flight is a Canadair Jet (not one of those Dash turbo-prop things that goes half the speed) so we're up and down in less than half an hour. The storm was passed after five minutes. It stuck like glue to Philly for hours. I eventually got home at 2am Saturday, quickly got ready for bed and fell asleep almost instantly.
That's 25 consecutive hours awake. After two days with a combined eight hours of sleep.
Listen: Insomnia - Faithless ... Asleep From Day - Chemical Brothers feat. Mazzy Star ... I'm WIde Awake, It's Morning - Bright Eyes.
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