Planet Alignments

Some people believe that planet alignments cause strange stuff to happen. One example is related to this 2012 end-of-the-world hoax. In fact, some people even believe that the alignment of the planets will affect the magnetic field of Earth; they believe that the magnetic field would reverse if the planets of our solar system align. Plus, they think this will happen on December 21, 2012. All of this is a bunch of myths!

What happens when planets in a solar system align? Absolutely nothing! In fact, the planets of this solar system have aligned hundreds of times in the past, and none of the planets were affected. Perhaps something happens in a science fiction story, but in reality, it’s nothing too significant. Planet alignment is a rather rare event.

Speaking of alignment, if you could line up all the planets in the solar system together in a row, they could all fit into the Sun’s diameter! Not even Jupiter’s size is close to the Sun’s! I did the math: The sum of the diameters of the planets is 400,698 km. This is less than the Sun’s diameter: 1,392,000 km. This sum of the planets’ diameters is about 28.786% of the Sun’s diameter, leaving about 71.214% of the Sun’s diameter uncovered! The Sun is that BIG! (Pluto was excluded since scientists demoted it to an icy dwarf planetoid, but even if you include Pluto, they would all fit in.)

Here is the corresponding pie chart to the data described in the final paragraph. All the planets in the solar system together are smaller than the Sun!

Here’s a Web page I found the day I typed this blog: http://www.4thdayalliance.com/files/2012.html

This page tells more about the whole 2012 thing people are scared about, and why we have nothing to worry about.

Resizing Planets, Stars, Moons, Etc. via Radii

Have you noticed that planets, moons, stars, and most other celestial objects in space are shaped like balls? All round things have radii(plural of radius) which can be used to calculate its circumference or area if it’s 2-dimensional, and volume or surface area if it’s 3-dimensional.

If you remember your geometry, you know that a circle’s circumference is equal to 2 * pi * its radius, or pi * its diameter; the area is pi * its radius squared, or (pi * its diameter squared)/4. The volume of a sphere(or ball) is (4 * pi * the radius cubed)/3, or (pi * the diameter cubed)/6; the surface area is 4 * pi * the radius squared, or pi * the diameter squared. The diameter is always twice the radius, which in turn affects these formulas. If you square the diameter, then you have to divide the original formula by 4. If you cube the diameter, then you have to divide the original formula by 8. The divisor goes up in powers of 2 as you raise the diameter to the same power of dimensions, because if the formula was pi * r which is correct for calculating 1/2 the circumference, then substituting r with d forces you to cut the product of pi and the diameter in half for the answer to stay correct.

Now here’s the fantastic part! If you could double the radius of a planet, not only would you double the diameter, but you would also quadruple the surface area, and octuple the volume of the planet! Tripling the radius(and the diameter) multiplies the surface area by 9, and the volume by 27! If you quadruple the radius, you multiply the surface area by 16 and the volume by 64!  It’s exponential!

This kind of math is called Fractal Geometry. It tells you how the mass, volume, weight, et cetera of something(or someone) would change as you multiply its/her/his size. This can strongly relate to Alice in Wonderland! By the way, here is the size-multiplying formula:

M = k * L^d

L is the size multiplier

k is the original size

d is the number of dimensions

M is the mass of the object(or in this case, character)

Suppose Alice was 5 feet & 7 inches tall, and weighed 115 pounds; that makes her a mass of 52 kilograms & 3 elevenths. If she ate something that doubled her size, then she would be 11 feet & 2 inches tall, and weigh 920 pounds since her mass is octupled as her size doubles! She would then be 418 kilograms & 2 elevenths! Here’s the math:

For Height:

M = 67 inches * 2^1 (Since height is 1-dimensional)

M = 67 inches * 2

M = 134 inches which is 11 feet & 2 inches

 For Weight:

M = 115 pounds * 2^3 (Since weight is 3-dimensional)

M = 115 pounds * 8

M = 920 pounds

Note: An object or character’s weight and volume are always multiplied by the same number as the mass.

Like I typed before, weight & mass are not the same thing, but they relate to each other! In fact, weight is the dependent variable in this function; mass & gravity are the independent variables: Weight = mass * gravity. Altering gravity would also change Alice’s weight, but not her size. Inclusively, changing both mass & gravity would dramatically make Alice a superheavy giantess!

In conclusion, if our planet Earth changed size, then its gravity would also have to change; the larger the planet, the stronger the gravity. 

I used this Web site as a source of reference: http://classes.yale.edu/fractals/FracAndDIm/BoxDim/BoxDim.html

Now that you learned this formula about size-shifting, maybe you can solve my puzzle: http://home.comcast.net/~derekkevin123/MassMultiplication.html

Alien Calendars 2: Lengthening or Shortening the Year

Yep, this is a sequel to a previous blog! There is more that I thought about alien calendars. Whether the year were longer or shorter, it would have dramatic effects on history & the space-time continuum.

With more months on the calendar, there would be room for more holidays in the year! However, our planet would have to be further away from the Sun, so it would have a longer orbit, making the year longer. To have a year with less than 12 months, Earth would have to be closer to the Sun, so it would have a shorter orbit, shortening the year. The year would no longer have exactly 365 days(366 on leap years); we would have to add 29.5 days on the average for every extra month, and subtract 29.5 days on the average for every deleted month! A month may not be completely deleted so that only 3 weeks would be deleted from the calendar, or a month may be lengthened to have 3 extra weeks!

There are several problems with moving Earth closer to or further from the Sun. One problem is that Earth would no longer be in the Goldilocks Zone; it would be too hot if it was too close, and too cold if it was too far from the Sun to support life. Another problem is that if holidays are deleted from the calendar because there wasn’t enough room in the year, it would cause all sorts of chaos! Imagine if Christmas was deleted from the year; wouldn’t people feel miserable if they didn’t get any Christmas presents for the current year after being nice? Shortening the year could also delete Thanksgiving!(My favorite holiday of the year. I certainly wouldn’t like that!) Halloween would most likely be the next holiday to get deleted because the months at the end of the year would get deleted first. Making changes in time like this would really confuse people!

So in conclusion, it’s best if Earth’s orbit stays just the way it is. There is an infinite amount of wonderful events waiting to happen in the future for us to celebrate! These events can happen on holidays that already exist, like Christmas; then you have 2 events to celebrate! Here’s a weird fact about calendars: according to www.timeanddate.com, September 14, 1752 was the next day after September 2, 1752! Since our forefathers switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, 11 days were deleted that year, so it only had 355 days! You can click on the link to visit the Website and look for calendars of past years to find out for yourself! In fact, why don’t you click here: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/?year=1752&country=1

Sabrina Cecilia Pixie hated Halloween so much that she wanted to delete it from history! She asked Dr. John Von Foolish if she could use his time machine to do it, but he warned her that deleting any specific holiday from history would corrupt the space-time continuum.

Relativity & the Speed of Light

I made this mini-animation with 4 scenes; each scene shows a different scenario of how Dr. John Von Foolish sees a ball(or light beam) pass by on Timothy the Train. In the 1st scene, Derek dribbles a basketball. In the 2nd scene, Sally kicks a soccerball in the opposite direction of Timothy’s path. In the 3rd scene, Candy kicks a soccerball in the same direction of Timothy’s path.  In the 4th & final scene, Patience clicks on a flashlight; this scene is unique compared to the other 3! Can you explain why?

Her’s the link to the animation: http://home.comcast.net/~derekkevin123/Relativity.swf P.S.: You’ll need Macromedia Flash Version 6.0 or later to see it.

For physical objects & people, you add the speed of the moving vehicle to the speed of the object or person if he/she/it is moving in the same direction as the vehicle; you subtract the speed of the object or person from the speed of the moving vehicle if he/she/it is moving in the opposite direction as the vehicle. However, if it’s a light beam, no math is necessary since the speed of light is the same for all observers! It doesn’t matter if an object emitted light while it was on a moving vehicle!

The speed of light is considered the cosmic speed limit since no physical object can exceed it. Light travels 300,000 km/s (or about 186,000 mph) and the fastest speed a spaceship can possibly move would be about 99.999% of the speed of light; it can move close to the speed of light but not exactly at the speed of light. 300,000 km/s times .99999 equals 299,997 km/s; 299,997 is less than 300,000 since it’s just a percentage of 300,000.

 

Alien Calendars

As you already know, a year has 12 months; each month has 28-31 days which is a little more than 4 weeks; a week has 7 days; there are at least 52 weeks a year and 365 days.(366 on leap years) The year is based on the planet’s revolution around the Sun, and a day is a full 360-degree rotation of the planet; it rotates 15 degrees each hour. The month is based on the Moon’s revolution around Earth.  We use our planet’s movement to measure time; clocks & calendars are based on its current position in its orbit. The calendar we currently use today is called the Gregorian Calendar.

We have a name for each of the 12 months in this calendar: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. However, if there are alien races as intelligent as we are, they must have calendars of their own! These alien calendars could be based on the movements of their planets, or something else perhaps! Their calendars could have more or less than 12 months, or their weeks could have more or less than 7 days, or their days could have more or less than 24 hours, or their months could have more or less than 29.5 days on the average, or their hours could have more or less than 60 minutes, et cetera.

Imagine if there were 36 hours in a day, instead of just 24. How would that affect a whole week? How would that affect a whole month? How would that affect a whole year? There are 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute, making a total of 3,600 seconds in an hour, so there are 86,400 seconds in a day since a day is 24 hours; however, if a day was 36 hours long, then it would be a total of 129,600 seconds! The day would also have 2,160 minutes! With just 24 hours, there are 1,440 minutes in a day.

The aliens could have special names for their months, too, that are different from ours. If we had a 13th month on our Gregorian calendar, it would probably be called Undecember. Here’s why: the prefixes of the last 4 months of the year are related to numbers; Sept- in September means “seven”, Oct- in October means “eight”, Nov- in November means “nine”, and Dec- in December means “ten”. The prefix Undec- means “eleven” or “one plus ten”. Furthermore, there are many other number prefixes like Dodec- which means “twelve” or “two plus ten”; so a 14th month would probably be called Dodecember! If you know the prefix for “thirteen”, then I bet you can guess the name for a 15th month!

In conclusion, there could also be some alien races that use the same calendar as ours. Planets closer to their corresponding stars have shorter years. Whether their home planets are exactly 93 million miles away from their stars or not, the closer a planet is to a star, the faster it revolves. If we ever meet friendly, intelligent alien races, we could learn about their calendars and teach them about ours. In fact, we could learn how to convert time between their calendars and ours; it would be something similar to converting Farenheit to Celsius and vice versa in terms of temperature! 

A reused panel from the Blueworld Adventures cartoon entitled "Roach Bots". This is the part when the heroes return to their clubhouse realizing that they accidentally travelled into their world's future by staying in space for a while. Dr. Foolish points his open hand at the calendar which is 3 months behind. Obviously, these alien characters use the same calendar as ours: the Gregorian Calendar!

What If Our Planet Had 2 Moons?

If our planet had 2 moons, we could see 2 moon phases at the same time! These phases would be opposite to each other most likely. For example, if 1 moon is in the waxing gibbous phase, the other would be in the decrescent(or waning crescent) phase, especially if these moons are in the same orbit around Earth, on opposite sides, and equidistant from Earth. We could switch between the moons by looking at opposite directions in the nighttime sky.

However, the Moon’s gravity pulls on Earth’s seas, causing tidal waves. The gravity of 2 moons would create twice as much tidal waves as 1, and the waves would be twice as large! Floods would be more likely to happen! So maybe just 1 moon is enough. Then again, if the moons were different sizes, one moon would have stronger gravity than the other, so the bigger one would make higher tides.

If 1 of these moons was in a lunar eclipse, the other moon would be in a solar eclipse! That’s because with the 2 moons on opposite sides of their orbit, they both can’t be in Earth’s shadow at the same time. Plus, the other moon would be in front of the Sun.

The Universe Changes Its Size

How big is the universe anyway? Well, according to a book: “Beyond Earth” by David Devorkin, the universe expands; space itself is expanding. As it expands, it carries galaxies along with it. The Big Bang was an explosion of space. This means that galaxies gradually move away from each other; this of course includes the Milky Way, our home galaxy. Edwin Hubble was the one who found out this fact about galaxies.

People have wondered if this means that we’re aren’t at the center of the universe after all, but actually it means that there’s no preferred center. The universe is centerless.  The Big Bang has no preferred direction because we’re inside it! Everything in the universe is part of the big bang.

But why are the galaxies moving away from us? The Hubble law for the universe’s expansion says that galaxies move away from us at speeds proportional to their distances. If a galaxy is a certain distance “D” away from us, and it’s moving away at a velocity “V”, then a galaxy twice the distance away “2D” will be moving away twice as fast “2V”. This is true for whichever direction we look for galaxies.

Now imagine if aliens were to observe our galaxy from theirs. To them, we would appear to be moving away from them in the opposite direction. When they look at the galaxy that is twice away from them as us, they see that galaxy moving away twice as fast as we are, in the same direction! To any observers, it appears that they are at the center.

Since the universe expands, it also means that the universe is bigger today than it was yesterday! In a way, the universe itself tells us what time it is. 

Derek C. Jr. the Blue Monkey-Man & Brain make a point about counting the number of things in the universe, let alone measuring its size.