Friday, June 10, 2011

Strings and branes

Strings and branes.

'M-Theory' is the name of the unknown theory of everything which would combine all five Superstring theories and the Supergravity at 11 dimensions together. It's not a completed theory but rather an approach for producing one. For me it's fascinating to read about (super)strings, (super)gravity, quarks, fermions/bosons, worldline/screens, (mem)branes, curled-up dimensions, supersymmetry, space and time. It makes me even more curious. Recently I heard about two interwoven, non-interacting, worlds at atomic distance. Can you imagine? Two worlds so close and not feeling their existence.

Strings and Branes
Came across a beautiful phrase: "String theory may have the capability to show that all of the happenings in the universe - from the dance of subatomic quarks to the movements of orbiting binary stars, from the big bang to the whirl of celestial galaxies - are reflections of one grand physical principle, one master equation, the theory of everything".
And what about this one?: "In string theory, the elementary particles we observe in particle accelerators could be thought of as the 'musical notes' or excitation modes of elementary strings. The strings in string theory are floating in spacetime. Nonetheless, they have tension".
A brane-world scenario with curled-up dimensions
We still don't know if string theory may be the right theory of nature:
As it stands, string theories are unproved, and perhaps unprovable, as they involve interactions at energy levels far beyond any we can handle. But they are beautiful, to those versed enough in the language of mathematics to follow them. And in their beauty (and perhaps in their impenetrability) they are the heirs to Einstein's - unsuccessful - attempts to produce a unified field theory.

Branes (M-theory)

For further reading about this subject I can highly recommend the clear introduction to String theories.

The Inflationary Model vs. the Brane Collision Model: which one will win? 
Links: 
String theories  (recommended introduction)
Official String Theory Website




Wormhole (gate to another Universe)

Monday, May 16, 2011

Sicilian moods

Sicilian moods.
Trinacria (symbol of Sicily)


Jos&Clim Travel website
Mount Etna (3300 m)

Movies about the mafia of Sicily: The Godfather, Corleone

 
Michael and Don Vito Corleone (The Godfather)




Italian Mafia: Camorra (Campania), Ndrangheta (Calabria), Sacra Corona Unita (Apulia), Stidda (Southern Sicily) and Cosa Nostra (Sicily).
Corleonesi (fraction of the Cosa Nostra Mafiosi from Corleone):
- Don Miguele Navarra
- Luciano Leggio
- Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, het beest, the beast (la belva), de korte, the short (u curtu)
- Bernardo Provenzano, de traktor, the tractor (il trattore, u trattori)
- Vito Cascio Ferro (Don Vito)

Giovanni Falcone: anti-Mafia judge (killed by the Mafia)

Saturday, April 23, 2011

WorldClock



Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Molecular impressions

Molecular impressions.

Origin of life

Stellar nursery: Molecular clouds in the Universe, vast assemblages of molecular gas with masses of 104–106 times the mass of the sun


'Spaceballs' (NU.nl)

Stars reveal carbon 'spaceballs': largest molecules ever seen in space, in a cloud of cosmic dust surrounding a distant star
Fullerene or Buckyball (carbon molecule)

10 nm, 200 MDa PG5: the largest molecule ever created by man could be used to deliver drugs

Hyaluron molecule
Glass blown virus interpretation
D-model of HIV-virus & movie
The Ribosome
Proteins as galaxies

Chiral molecules
Bijvoet Book Image - 1
Bijvoet Book Image - 2
Prof. J.M. Bijvoet (Utrecht University)
 in Dutch: bijvoet-en-spiegelbeeld  
Chirality (left and right handed molecules)