Wanna Nobel prize? Or may be two??

What lovely comments do I get... the "unbeatable" one so far was for my last blog -
[sic] "Writing about the moon. Haveyou cooled down soon. I thought you as an HOT PERSON." By Anonymous
I am not least surprised that it was an anonymous comment though I am still wondering what this really means!

Anyway, I realized that the last one was pretty dull, moon landing or no moon landing - it was an old ragged story that no one really cares about anymore... so I decided to pick a HOT topic this time... Why not talk of Nobel prizes and the black holes??? I am sure neither have lost their charm yet...

The Nobel is anyway pretty unpredictable... it's not a function of the brilliance all the times - Gandhi never got one and two guys looking for bird shit got it... it only means that me and you have more than a fair chance of getting it (well, unless you consider yourself a 'brilliant' person... and if you really are, what the hell you are doing reading this blog - do something better!)... it's worth giving a shot...

Maria Skłodowska-Curie discovered Radium almost by accident when looking for Uranium and she got a Nobel for the same - it’s a well known story.
A lesser know story is of two guys named Penzias and Wilson who discovered evidence of big bang when looking for bird shit (yes, bird shit!) and got a Nobel for the same. Well, it's not as bad as it sounds - the two blokes were working on a sensitive microwave detector to communicate with satellites when they detected this continuous background noise... first they thought it was because of the bird droppings on the detector but then they learnt of the theory of Dicke and Peebles... Dicke and Peebles had predicted that if indeed there was a big bang, the "red-shifted" (I will not get into details of red-shifted) radiation from then would still be around... The "bird shit" blokes were smart enough to realize that the continuous background noise was nothing but the radiation from T=0 (i.e. big bang)... this was the first conclusive proof of big bang and they got a Nobel for the same...
Dicke and Peebles got, well, pebbles - which does not sound fair but is fair if you know how the Nobels are awarded... A Nobel is never awarded for postulating a theory, it's awarded for real, observational proof... Am talking about the Nobel related to science...

This still does not explain why Gandhi never got a Nobel but surely explains why Stephen Hawking is yet to get one - the smartest one after Newton and Einstein...

And that is how I come to my suggestion on how to win a Nobel or may be two... and it's going to be pretty simple for a smart person like you (I know you are not brilliant, but you are smart enough for sure :) ) - I promise! And these one would not be by accident for sure - I am going to tell you the sure shot ways of getting them!

Let me walk you on the journey of Nobel(s) then...

Am sure you all know what's a black hole - the heavy body with concentrated mass - billions of tones in the size of a pinhead... it sucks everything... nothing escapes - not even the light (and hence the name black hole)... A black hole is formed when a star with the mass more than Chandra's limit 'dies' - Chandra's limit is 1.5 times the mass of our Sun... which also means that Sun will not become a black hole and we will not get sucked into it (it’s a different thing that we will get burnt because Sun would expand in its size engulfing nearby planets including Earth before 'dying' into a white dwarf - now, now, now... what's a white dwarf? - well, lets leave it for the next time)...
Btw, Chandra also got a Nobel for defining Chandra's limit and some other stuff...

Anyway, black hole is not what we are interested in - we will be looking for baby back holes... But, what's a baby black hole?

Now, there are two things that Stephen Hawking has postulated (with strong mathematical work associated, of course) -
1. Black holes aren’t completely black... he has proved (maths again!) that black holes do radiate... I know, this comes as a surprise - if even light can't escape black holes, how do they really radiate... but the fact is that they do - ever so slowly...
2. Black holes don’t need to necessarily be formed due to a dying big star... there were conditions immediately after the big bang which would have created immense amount of energy/pressure (as in a big dying star) that would have created black holes albeit of much lesser mass/size of the traditional 'dying star' black holes... And these are our baby black holes... (well, it seems CERN is creating 'babier' black holes right here on the Earth by smashing highly accelerated particles but these "black holes" have a life of 10^-23 seconds - don’t ask me how the hell they measure such a small time period and how do they detect such short lived black holes but I do sincerely hope they don’t create one big enough to engulf the Earth!!)

Now, these are 2 very important points because they can potentially earn you 2 Nobels...

Stephen Hawking also made some calculations (maths genius!) and found out the density of the baby back holes... they are more abundant than you would have thought... the closest to the Earth should not be farther than Pluto!! That pretty close, ain't it? There is no need to panic though - No, Earth would not be sucked in by a baby black hole (BBH) because, exactly, it’s a baby and not powerful enough to suck the Earth...

Nobel prize #1 - The theory is well and good but there is no conclusive proof of a BBH yet because no one has found one yet... so get you get your telescopes out and point them to the heavens and look for that BBH but, err, you cant see them with conventional telescopes... remember, nothing escapes a black hole - not even light... may be smearing some bird shit on the lens would help!
Nevertheless, if you find one somehow, a Nobel is guaranteed...

That was simple, ain't it?

Before I tell you how to get the second one, I need to tell you more about the black hole radiation...
I mentioned above that Stephen Hawking has figured out that the black holes do radiate... The rate of radiation is a function of the size - the smaller the size, the more it would radiate... while a conventional black hole's radiation rate would be very small, difficult to even detect and it would take billions of years for the black hole to evaporate, the BBHs radiate more briskly due to their smaller size... a BBH would radiate energy at a rate as good as output of 10-20 power stations...

Nobel prize #2 - This one is going to be another piece of cake... so once you get your Nobel prize #1, all you need to do is get the BBH to Earth's orbit and use couple of strong/thick enough wires to harness the power - that would be the cheapest power available to us for a few million years - Bye, bye, energy concerns!... What? Why can't you get the BBH on Earth's surface - that's because it's too dense to be placed on the surface, it would just drop through the floor and settle at the center of the Earth and it would be more difficult to harness the power from there... And how do you get the BBH to Earth's orbit? Well, all you need to do is sell the business plan to NASA to invest in a big/strong enough spaceship and Caterpillar to invest in a large enough earthmover, er!, BBH mover!! I am sure NASA and Caterpillar would be more than keen to partner with a Nobel laureate...
And that's the Nobel #2 for you...

And, ahem, it would be very nice of you if you share the credit (and moolah!) with me and a small percentage with Stephen Hawking also... I am sure it would make Mr Hawking a happy man...

And now for this week's poll... please scroll down...

Moon Landing – What a baloney!

When I saw the moon landing clip for the first time in my life (which was definitely after 1983 because that’s when the TV first arrived in my small town), the first thing I noticed was the American flag fluttering in the wind… The intelligent kid I was I knew that there was no air and hence no wind on moon… Though the intelligent kid I was I did not dare raise this issue to anyone because I thought I would be laughed at… apart from being intelligent, I was sensitive too and could not afford someone laughing at me… I let it go… of course we (i.e. humans) had landed on moon… how could someone doubt that?
Anyway, the small iota of doubt did make it’s home in the backroom of my mind…

Access to literature was limited (or may be it was lack of my awareness) and as a kid I never got to read all the material raising doubts about moon landing… I did once read somewhere a Hindu Sadhu claiming that the Moon is beyond the reach of humans and Americans must have landed on a piece of rock somewhere close to the Earth… Me being a non-religious type just read it, shrugged and forgot about it…

Anyway, the moon landings were supposed to have happened more than 35 years back and whatever amount of controversy might have been there with the whole thing... you don’t sit and ponder about it after 35 years… definitely not if you are not part of the generation that was part of the whole excitement – most of the ‘landings’ happened well before I was born…

The reason the whole thing came back like a déjà vu is because couple of things happened recently – first, the person whom I consider the best President (so far) of the United States – a person named George W Bush – announced that we (i.e. human beings) are going back to the Moon by 2020 and second, more at a personal level, an enlightening visit to the NASA facility at Cape Canaveral…

Consider the following –
1. Russians were the first to send a satellite in the space
2. Russians were the first to send a living creature in space (the poor dog died)
3. Russians were the first to send a human in the space (the bloke did manage to come back)
4. Russians were the first to send a probe to the Moon
5. Russians were the first to send a human to the Moon
6. Russians were the first to build the space station
The list goes on…

Oops, point number 5 is not correct… Russians were NOT the first to go to the Moon… in fact, they never went to the Moon… Americans beat them at it – in fact, Americans managed to send 14 men over a period of 3-4 years while Russians sent none – never ever!
So, folks, Americans were behind the Russians all along as far as space race is concerned but for one thing – Moon landing! I can't believe that most of the world genuinely believes that Americans did land on the Moon… Russians never loudly protested – may be they did but it did not reach the ears of the capitalistic world…

If you consider the timing… cold war, Russian consistently beating Americans at the biggest show off, a dashing and dynamic President, a dashing and dynamic President making promise to go to Moon, a dashing and dynamic President making promise to go to the Moon and then dying, cold war still hot… What would you do if you were caught in this situation? If you can’t go to the Moon, the least you would do is get a bunch of Hollywood directors and make a movie!!
Well, that’s the feeling I got when I visited NASA at Cape Canaveral earlier this year… well, NASA is not all about Moon but there is so much focus on telling the Moon tale and there is so much focus on trying to convince that the Moon landings indeed took place that even a believer would start doubting…
And when they tell you the whole story – Kennedy announcement, misfired rockets, people dying in Apollo explosions, landings and missed landings of Apollo 13 – it starts sounding like a Hollywood thriller… it just sounds like a Hollywood thriller!!!

The funniest explanation I read of the fluttering flag was in “Who built the Moon?”. It goes like this – Armstrong had to swivel the flag post on the Moon surface to fix it… the swivel caused the fluttering of the flag and since there is no air on the Moon, there was nothing to dampen the flutter and hence the flag fluttered for a very long time… Too bad Armtrong did not carry a hammer - it would have saved NASA from a big controversy... And what if the surface they landed on was not soft enough for the flag post to be swivelled in???
Anyways, I think the swivel theory is "brilliant" – I wonder why NASA has been more or less silent on this issue and did not use the swivel theory…

The icing on the cake is thanks to the "brilliant" Bush (BB). BB announced that they are going back to the Moon and beyond (well, you need something big and exciting to take the spotlight away from Iraq debacle) – back to the Moon by, er!, 2020… well, er, why does it take 50 years (yes, 50 years – 1970 to 2020) to go back to the Moon??? And mind it, they would start with unmanned missions first – basically going through the whole cycle again…
NASA is so brilliant – they sent people to the Moon 35 years back but still keep killing their own people trying to send them to the lower space!

Ladies and Gentlemen: Moon landing – what a baloney… a big, large piece of stinking crap…

Now, it’s time for the poll –