Returned

As with 'How's the Skull?', I've returned from a sixth month long hiatus of basically trying not to procrastinate in order to maybe just slightly pass all my exams at the end of this year. As my mocks went well with almost straight A-s I have allowed myself to return to the internet.

In order to retain my sanity I once again entered the Talent 2030 competition and though this time I did not win, I did get shortlisted and as I have nothing else to give to you this week the website that a friend and I created on the advances of bio-engineering is as follows:

http://talent2030entry.weebly.com/  

Thanks for reading guys and hopefully I'll update next week

MH

Chaos Theory and Consciousness

Apparently I haven't posted on this blog since the end of June, apologies I didn't realise how long it had been. I seem to have lost track of the time since then. But then again; what is time?

No we're not talking about that today, maybe another time, though the current theories are certainly very fascinating.

Instead we're talking thermodynamics, or more specifically entropy, the chaos theory. Now the title also says we'll be talking about consciousness, also true. But how do the two link together?

Recently I came across a newly published paper by a little known physicist, I forget his name now, that did exactly that. Of course this might not be correct and may be completely and utterly wrong, however it is definitely food for thought.

This paper proposed that entropy is the reason that we have a conscious mind, that we are aware of the mind we have and also how we apply it. The chaos within the particular law of thermodynamics would mean that a non-conscious being would have a more ordered state and that because chaos has ensued, we have formed more neural connections within our brains, resulting in our current state of conscious and intelligent life.  It is due to the entropy and the continued state of it that we have developed our understanding so that we are 'no longer at the mercy of the reptile brain' but can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space.

That's all I have for now, as I'm at an engineering course next week you may get something interesting then.

For anymore information that you may want on  Thermodynamics, the only popular science book that I've managed to get hold of on the subject is 'Four Laws that Drive the Universe' by Peter Atkins. It's very informative, though not particularly engaging so it can be a bit of a struggle to retain interest if I'm honest.

Till the next time

-M

Beautiful humour

I've just read a comedy physics book on the multiverse, it's pretty funny therefore I recommend any of you that are remotely interested in quantum physics of the many worlds interpretation, or just anyone that finds physics slightly interesting to go and read 'Doughnut' by Tom Holt. It is honestly hilarious.

As well as this, I just came a across a brilliant physics joke that I feel the absolute need to tell you so here it is:

Einstein, Newton and Pascal are all playing hide and seek.It's Einstein's turn to count so he covers his eyes and begins. Pascal runs off to hide, meanwhile Newton draws out a 1m by 1m square on the ground in front of Einstein and then stands in the middle.
Einstein finishes and uncovers his eyes, immediately seeing Newton he exclaims "Newton, I found you, you're it!"
Newton then smiles and replies "You didn't find me, you found a newton over a square metre, you found Pascal!"

I just had to share that with you sorry, you may now all continue with your day.

How will engineering solve the issues of the 21st Century?

Hello again,

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I was hoping to upload something a little more interesting today, but then I went and broke my elbow so you will have to deal with a cop out. Well I say cop out I did technically spend around three days editing and writing this, so it was a lot of work even if it was done three weeks ago. Essentially I wrote a report on engineering, full title is that of the current post and basically as typing a lot is going to kill my arm, I'm going to upload that and see if anybody actually wants to read it, just a note, this essay did just win me £1000 overall so it can't be awful.

Here it is: Engineering report

Enjoy

Warp Speed

So I've officially given up on that centrifugal force post until next week as my laptop is refusing to let me format any equations whatsoever.

Therefore I am stuck as for what to talk about.

Wait Star Trek...
...No I'm not insane, okay so I was talking to somebody the other day about the scientific issues with the Star Trek films, don't get me wrong I am a huge fan of them.

So the main problem that we thought of, not the Fermi paradox, teleportation or anything like that, was warp speed. And not just due to the fact that we can't travel as fast or faster than light for reasons that I can't be bothered right now to explain, basically we have mass.
We figured that once the warp speed had been activated they would never have been able to report back to Star Fleet Command, as they always have been able to. This is mainly because, Command would all likely be dead by now. As the starship would have been traveling at warp speed,time for them would pass slower than on Earth by a considerable amount, like being in a stasis state, therefore leaving them alive whilst the remainder of Star Fleet would age at a 'normal' rate on Earth.

Basically that was our conversation, and now you know.

Live long and prosper.

Not so normal

So I've been trying to create a rather informative post on centripetal and centrifugal forces, however the formatting has decided to go funny on me...

Therefore that post may have to wait till next week though the research into the backgrounds of the equations took aaaaages, oh well.

Anyway I thought instead I'd give you an article that just came through on my feed:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/05/06/181613582/our-very-normal-solar-system-isn-t-normal-anymore 

I'd recommend reading it, it's rather interesting.

Sorry this is so short, oh and just to say if anyone wanted to know there won't be anymore lab notes from extreme physics as they are currently stapled to a display board in my physics lab...

Code Academy

Okay, since I cannot be bothered to leave the comforts of my bed and reach for the remainders of my extreme physics booklet, you will once again be given an off topic blog post. Almost as interesting though, I assure you.

This is basically another of those: IFOUNDANAWESOMETHINGYOUNEEDTOGOANDCHECKITOUTOTHERWISEYOURLIFEWILLBEINCOMPLETEUNLESSYOUALREADYUSEITINWHICHCASEILOVEYOU kind of posts. Have fun deciphering that one.

So on Friday lunch time my physics teacher (all praise go to you Miss) told me about a computer coding site that she uses/used. This was after we were discussing my abysmal attempts at mathematics. As I want to hopefully go into the field of physics I obviously need maths and I was informed then that it may be useful to take computing A-level as well, now we don't have a computing GSCE option but we do have an AS one. I didn't take this suffice to say. Thus Miss gave me the name of a website that helps you to teach yourself both basic and advanced programming, I was given this a long with the warning of: 'It's fairly addictive' very true says I though this at least is a lot more productive than spending consecutive hours on 9gag.

Soooo here's the link to the webpage, tell me what you think of it
http://www.codecademy.com/

Don't forget to comment and check out my main blog at:
http://howstheskull-mycroft.blogspot.co.uk/