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...