not_exactly_rocketscience

The metaphor, analogy, theory, or reality of brains as computers? A computer is a programmable device, whether it be electrical, analogue, or quantum. Due to his dualist belief that the mind programmes the brain, Wilder Penfield said that the brain functions just like a computer. If this kind of dualism is disregarded, specifying what a brain "programme" might entail and who is authorised to "programme" the brain will be necessary in order to identify the brain to a computer. This is a metaphor if the brain "programmes" itself while it learns. This is a metaphor if evolution "programmes" the brain. In fact, the brain-computer metaphor is frequently used in the literature on neuroscience rather than as an analogy, or explicit comparison, by importing computer-related terms into discussions of the brain. For example, we claim that brains compute the locations of sounds, and we speculate about how perceptual algorithms are implemented in the brain. ...

What exactly are black holes? A black hole is a region of space with a gravitational pull so powerful that nothing can escape from it, not even light. The visualization simulates the appearance of a black hole where infalling matter has collected into a thin, hot structure called an accretion disk. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration How do black holes develop? A large star collapsing in on itself creates a region of space with a very high gravitational pull, which is how black holes are created. Artist's conception depicting the growth channels of black holes in the nearby and distant universe. In the nearby universe, smaller black holes grow by accretion while larger black holes grow by mergers. In the distant universe, the opposite is true. Credit: M. Weiss How large can black holes grow? Black holes can be as big as billions of times the mass of the Sun or just a few times it. Black holes are some of the most fascinating objects in space.  (Image credit: solarseven vi...

Although stars are inanimate objects, we tend to describe their stages of evolution as if they were alive. Just like us, they are born, live, and then die. Of course, their lifetimes are much longer than ours and they can ‘live’ for billions of years. And during their lives, stars produce monumental amounts of energy through nuclear processes in their interior, giving them their characteristic shine. So let’s start at the beginning. Where do stars come from? A Giant Gas Cloud A star begins life as a giant cloud of gas which is generally an accumulation of dust, gas, and plasma. Stars form inside relatively dense concentrations of interstellar gas and dust known as molecular clouds. At these temperatures, gases become molecular meaning that atoms bind together. CO and H2 are the most common molecules in interstellar gas clouds. Pillars of Creation. An interstellar cloud of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula,  known for its complexity and beauty. A Protostar Is a Baby Star A protostar ...

Space is big! Science is cool! Let’s talk about it. WHAT IS A SUPERNOVA? Stars are kind of like people. They are born, live their entire lives, and then die. Except, that’s an oversimplification. Stars are giants. But they’re also giant chemical reactions. Just like a fire, though, stars will eventually burn through their fuel supply. The difference is that when a fire exhausts its fuel, it doesn’t blow up into something multiple of its original size, nor does it collapse back on itself to form super-dense matter. When a star “burns out,” many things can happen. But the main one is that the forces that balance out this giant object fall into an imbalance. Here’s how NASA explains it: “Massive stars burn huge amounts of nuclear fuel at their cores or centers. This produces tons of energy, so the center gets very hot. Heat generates pressure, and the pressure created by a star’s nuclear burning also keeps that star from collapsing. A star is in the balance between two opposite forces. Th...

  WHAT IS A QUASAR? The word  quasar  stands for  quasi-stellar radio source . Quasars got that name because they looked starlike when astronomers first began to notice them in the late 1950s and early 60s. But quasars aren’t stars. Scientists now know they are young galaxies, located at vast distances from us, with their numbers increasing towards the edge of the visible universe. How can they be so far away and yet still visible? The answer is that quasars are extremely bright, up to 1,000 times brighter than our Milky Way galaxy. We know, therefore, that they’re highly  active , emitting staggering amounts of radiation across the entire  electromagnetic spectrum . Shining so brightly that they eclipse the ancient galaxies that contain them, quasars are distant objects powered by black holes a billion times as massive as our sun. These powerful dynamos have fascinated astronomers since their discovery half a century ago. In the 1930s, Karl Jansky, a physi...

  TECTONIC PLATES The solid lithosphere is believed to be made up of several crustal plates or tectonic plates (which are sixteen to twenty great slabs of rock) floating on the part of the mantle called the asthenosphere . They move in response to convection currents in the upper mantle. Magma rises from the core and lower mantle towards the surface and spreads out at mid-oceanic ridges. The plates are hot at mid-oceanic ridges but over a period of a million years or so, as these plates moved apart and cooled, the colder plate descended at the trenches dragging the surface plate with it. The asthenosphere showed at a  subduction  boundary A crustal plate is an area of continental and oceanic crust along with the upper mantle. These plates have been in constant motion and over millions of years they have formed continents and ocean basins and their irregularities. The shape of the continents is believed to have evolved and changed over millions of years due to crustal plat...