I just had an idea for a stocking stuffer. I went down to a local store here ("Just Imagine") and purchased a few pieces of Pyrite. You should be able to find them at mineral shops, museums, educationally centered establishments, etc.
Pyrite is an iron sulfide that is the color of gold. It usually looks like small crystals all bunched together or like a fine lava stone.
Tomorrow I'll be going to our local dollar store to find some black play dough. I'm going to pack the play dough around the pyrite and allow it to harden (Might bake it to speed up the process) to give it the look of a lump of coal.
The "coal" can then be broken open to reveal the "gold" center.
If you're worried that the play dough might work itself into the crevasses in the pyrite you might try wrapping the pyrite with plastic wrap before packing the play dough around it. If you do it this way I'm not sure I would recommend baking it for fast drying.
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Update: OK, so here's how they turned out. I ended up wrapping the pyrite in aluminum foil so that I could bake them once encased with play dough. I baked them which took several attempts at 450 degrees for half an hour at a time. It smelled REALLY bad too. However, I was using a dollar store knock off so that is probably the reason for the smell and for the difficulty in drying it. The stuff was also very difficult to work with and had a plastic, slimy feel to it.
Once dry it had a rough texture and some cracks in it which gave it the look of a lump of coal. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find black and I only had a black marker handy so it only ended up MOSTLY black. The kids still loved it and were thrilled to find "gold" in their coal.
So...tips for those interested in doing this? 1) Use name brand play dough or find a recipe for some online that you can make and dye yourself 2) Bake it until you're sure it's done all the way through as mine got a hard shell but was still soft on the inside the first couple of baking sessions. Longer baking time won't hurt anything and a little burning isn't an issue as it's supposed to be black anyway 3) Wrap your "gold" with aluminum foil 4) Use colored dough instead of painting or coloring it after baking as it gets on your hands when breaking it open.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Our rapidly accelerating universe
So there are these super smart guys sitting around looking at data collected by telescopes and getting paid good money for it. These smart guys have noticed that it looks like the galaxies that are furthest from the center of the universe are accelerating. This is contrary to what SHOULD be happening. Because these galaxies have lots of matter behind them (relatively) and there is no apparent pulling force in front of them they should be slowing down.
Now these super smart guys are often incapable of uttering the three words "I don't know" and so they immediately started brainstorming to figure out why this would be happening. They have, to my knowledge, come up with four theories. 1) Our galaxy is in it's own "time bubble" (and yes they used that term.) 2) There is "dark matter" that is causing the acceleration (dark matter being this invisible thing that they THINK they can detect with their telescopes.) 3) A strange alteration of space/time when energy levels become extreme (which is strange because I was just sitting here thinking of writing this exact blog entry when I came across this web site ) and 4) Giant space faeries with giant space brooms sweeping the path clean in front of the galaxies (OK I made that last part up.)
I have a more simple explanation. I think they look like they're speeding up because they're actually slowing down. I LOVE it when my brain comes up with these things. But here's the thing. We have to dive into the shallow kiddie pool end of Einstein's relativity theory (so don't be scared.)
First off, everything in the universe is moving. Nothing is actually still. We are on earth which is spinning and orbiting the sun which is orbiting the center of our galaxy which is hurtling through space. You get the idea.
Now, Einstein says that as we approach the speed of light time is altered. For simplicity we'll say that someone orbiting the earth VERY quickly might experience 1 day while everyone on earth might experience 10 years in that time.
This idea goes both ways. The astronaut would look down and see a year pass on earth in only 2.4 hours his time. At the same time, if someone on earth could see the astronaut's watch with a super powerful telescope they would see that it takes a whole year for his watch to advance 2 hours and 24 minutes.
So here is where I get my light bulb moment. This time relativity thing shows that something moving more quickly than you appears to YOU to be progressing more slowly through time. It also shows that something moving more slowly than YOU appears to be progressing more quickly through time.
So let's look at the most simple answer here. These very distant galaxies have been spinning through space for a very long time. They have the drag of gravity behind them. They are SLOWING DOWN but since everything flew out of the big bang at the same speed(don't take me for an evolutionist because of that term. It would take another whole blog post for me to explain how the big bang is not contrary to divine creation)our galaxy has not encountered as much friction or gravitational drag as these distant ones have and is, therefore, traveling more closely to its original speed at time of creation.
So we are moving more quickly than these galaxies which means that to OUR perspective they APPEAR to be progressing through time more quickly than us. Since speed is equal to distance/time and time is being perceived incorrectly by us they appear to be traveling more quickly than they are. And since they're slowing down more rapidly than we are that time difference is becoming more pronounced and therefore makes them appear to be speeding up.
Weird isn't it?
Next problem...if they're slowing down more rapidly than we are that means we're going to run into them eventually...I wonder what the braking distance is for a galaxy our size.
Now these super smart guys are often incapable of uttering the three words "I don't know" and so they immediately started brainstorming to figure out why this would be happening. They have, to my knowledge, come up with four theories. 1) Our galaxy is in it's own "time bubble" (and yes they used that term.) 2) There is "dark matter" that is causing the acceleration (dark matter being this invisible thing that they THINK they can detect with their telescopes.) 3) A strange alteration of space/time when energy levels become extreme (which is strange because I was just sitting here thinking of writing this exact blog entry when I came across this web site ) and 4) Giant space faeries with giant space brooms sweeping the path clean in front of the galaxies (OK I made that last part up.)
I have a more simple explanation. I think they look like they're speeding up because they're actually slowing down. I LOVE it when my brain comes up with these things. But here's the thing. We have to dive into the shallow kiddie pool end of Einstein's relativity theory (so don't be scared.)
First off, everything in the universe is moving. Nothing is actually still. We are on earth which is spinning and orbiting the sun which is orbiting the center of our galaxy which is hurtling through space. You get the idea.
Now, Einstein says that as we approach the speed of light time is altered. For simplicity we'll say that someone orbiting the earth VERY quickly might experience 1 day while everyone on earth might experience 10 years in that time.
This idea goes both ways. The astronaut would look down and see a year pass on earth in only 2.4 hours his time. At the same time, if someone on earth could see the astronaut's watch with a super powerful telescope they would see that it takes a whole year for his watch to advance 2 hours and 24 minutes.
So here is where I get my light bulb moment. This time relativity thing shows that something moving more quickly than you appears to YOU to be progressing more slowly through time. It also shows that something moving more slowly than YOU appears to be progressing more quickly through time.
So let's look at the most simple answer here. These very distant galaxies have been spinning through space for a very long time. They have the drag of gravity behind them. They are SLOWING DOWN but since everything flew out of the big bang at the same speed(don't take me for an evolutionist because of that term. It would take another whole blog post for me to explain how the big bang is not contrary to divine creation)our galaxy has not encountered as much friction or gravitational drag as these distant ones have and is, therefore, traveling more closely to its original speed at time of creation.
So we are moving more quickly than these galaxies which means that to OUR perspective they APPEAR to be progressing through time more quickly than us. Since speed is equal to distance/time and time is being perceived incorrectly by us they appear to be traveling more quickly than they are. And since they're slowing down more rapidly than we are that time difference is becoming more pronounced and therefore makes them appear to be speeding up.
Weird isn't it?
Next problem...if they're slowing down more rapidly than we are that means we're going to run into them eventually...I wonder what the braking distance is for a galaxy our size.
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