#stephen hawking

The first picture of a black hole opens a new era of astrophysics

This is what a black hole looks like.

A world-spanning network of telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope zoomed in on the supermassive monster in the galaxy M87 to create this first-ever picture of a black hole.

“We have seen what we thought was unseeable. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole,” Sheperd Doeleman, EHT Director and astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., said April 10 in Washington, D.C., at one of seven concurrent news conferences. The results were also published in six papers in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“We’ve been studying black holes so long, sometimes it’s easy to forget that none of us have actually seen one,” France Cordova, director of the National Science Foundation, said in the Washington, D.C., news conference. Seeing one “is a Herculean task,” she said.

That’s because black holes are notoriously hard to see. Their gravity is so extreme that nothing, not even light, can escape across the boundary at a black hole’s edge, known as the event horizon. But some black holes, especially supermassive ones dwelling in galaxies’ centers, stand out by voraciously accreting bright disks of gas and other material. The EHT image reveals the shadow of M87’s black hole on its accretion disk. Appearing as a fuzzy, asymmetrical ring, it unveils for the first time a dark abyss of one of the universe’s most mysterious objects.

“It’s been such a buildup,” Doeleman said. “It was just astonishment and wonder… to know that you’ve uncovered a part of the universe that was off limits to us.”

Source

40yroldgoth would invite Hunter S. Thompson, Carl Sagan and Charles Bukowski.

candieaftersunsetwould choose Pochaontas, Jim Morrison & George RR Martin for a weed party in the hills of Tuscany.

redheadedfemme would want “the most devout of the Popes, Stephen Hawking, and Socrates at a party talking theology and philosophy.”

phallusifer9says,

I would invite Varg, Euronymous and Dead just to listen to them bicker. 

I hope I can magickally understand them tho, because my Swedish isn’t -that great, and my Norwegian is near to nonexistent. 

I’d probably serve sushi at this dinner just to see if they can figure it out. I’m sure at some point Varg’s chopsticks will need to be taken from him, lest he try to stick them in Euro’s eyesockets and lobotomise him like that guy did in Session 9.

Dead would eat the sushi, not because he necessarily liked it, but because he’d hope eating something raw would gross the other two out.

pink-absinthesays,

I’d invite Sarah Kane (playwright), Rachel McKibbens (performance poet) and Jonna Lee (swedish musician) to a whiskey and Pictionary party because, odd and interesting as they are, they’d have the strangest ways of drawing things I’m sure. Also, when drunk later we could get into heated discussions about anything and everything, Kane brings the intellectual viscosity, McKibbens the emotional sucker-punch and Lee the creative originality. One would leave inspired for life.

Let me know if I missed anyone’s responses. Sometimes reblogs fail to show up in the notes, or messages are not received.

Photo: A garden party given by Governor Rawson for the Officers of the American Fleet at Cranbrook, Sydney, 1908.

“We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”

-Stephen Hawking

Muchos creen que tener talento es cuestión de suerte, nadie piensa que tener suerte es cuestión de talento.

Leonardo da Vinci.

Mientras le preparaban la cicuta, Sócrates leía una melodía para flauta (una aria)

— ¿De qué te va a servir? — Le preguntaron.

— “Para saberla antes de morir".

Corría el año 1922, Einstein acaba de ganar el premio Nobel de Física. Un niño le dice a su madre que quiere ser investigador, pero le preocupa que, al paso que va la ciencia, cuando sea mayor ya no quede nada por descubrir. Años después el niño se ha licenciado en física, pero interrumpe su doctorado cuando una bomba nazi destruye su laboratorio. Se incorpora entonces al servicio secreto británico y diseña una mina especial para hundir los dragaminas alemanes. Inconforme aún con su vida, incursiona en otro campo, y decide descubrir el secreto de la vida. Con un hatajo de visionarios inaugura la era del genoma y gana el Premio Nobel de Medicina por este trabajo. A los 60 años decide que el último territorio que queda por explorar para comprender la vida es la consciencia. A la edad en que la mayoría de la gente está pensando en la jubilación, él empieza una nueva carrera como neurocientífico. Durante casi treinta años genera ideas y ejerce una poderosa influencia, como pocos otros científicos de su tiempo. Pocas horas antes de morir, en el 2004, Francis Crick termina de corregir un manuscrito para los investigadores futuros que quieran entender mejor qué es la consciencia.

La suerte sólo favorece a la mente preparada.

Louis Pasteur.

Si incluso los cerebros más privilegiados y las personas con una capacidad de trabajo extraordinaria se mueren sin saberlo todo, ¿qué esperanza nos queda a los que tenemos capacidades más ordinarias?

No nos queda otro remedio que admitirlo: no podemos saberlo todo. Lo máximo a lo que podemos aspirar es a saber algunas cosas, pero a saberlas bien. 

Hoy sabemos mucho más de astronomía que Ptolomeo o Kepler, de física que Newton e incluso Einstein, de medicina que Hipócrates, de química que Lavoisier. Si vemos más lejos es porque estamos subidos en hombros de gigantes. Nuestra medida del universo es más exacta que la de Copérnico. A pesar de lo que no sabemos y de lo que no nos imaginamos que no sabemos, podemos decir que el cúmulo de conocimiento que tenemos es mayor, objetivamente mayor, que el que se tenía en la antigua Grecia, o incluso hace dos siglos. Es la historia del esfuerzo intelectual del hombre por comprender el mundo en el que le tocó vivir.

Hace apenas unos cuantos siglos, no teníamos la menor idea del lugar que ocupábamos en el universo, dónde estábamos, cuándo estábamos, nos encontrábamos perdidos en una especie de prisión.

Éramos cazadores y recolectores, la frontera estaba por todos lados, sólo nos limitaba la tierra, el océano y el cielo. Pero rompimos las cadenas de esa prisión. Fue el trabajo de generaciones de incansables buscadores, ellos cuestionaron la autoridad,  empezaron a pensar por si mismos, a cuestionarse así mismos. Trabajaron y probaron sus ideas por medio de la evidencia obtenida a través de la observación y la experimentación y nunca se olvidaron de recordar que podrían estar equivocados.

Toda nuestra ciencia comparada con la realidad es primitiva e infantil, y sin embargo es lo más preciado que tenemos.

Voltaire dijo de los hombres de su tiempo que su grandeza consistió en que necesitaban milagros y simplemente los hicieron.

El hombre ha llegado a atisbar en la enormidad del universo y en su insólita complejidad, y ha tenido que admitir con valentía y cierta decepción, que su lugar en el escenario total es insignificante. Pero aún así no se amedrentó y continuó su búsqueda.

Nuestra aventura actual es más asombrosa que cualquier novela, ahora podemos ver a voluntad cosas que antes sólo eran posibles en los sueños.

Si miramos al pasado, muchos de los grandes inventores, no fueron los primeros en concebir la idea, pero si fueron los primeros en hacerla posible, ellos son los que figuran en los libros de historia. Imaginar es de sabios, hacer es de genios. En perspectiva, todo depende del precio que estemos dispuestos a pagar.

Imaginen toda la vastedad del universo, una inmensidad de espacio y tiempo, una  vastedad mayormente inexplorada. Imaginen cuántos secretos esconde, cuántos misterios aguardan por nosotros. La ciencia nos puede llevar por toda esa grandeza y nos puede revelar esos misteriosa, pero sin imaginación no vamos a ningún lado. Todo cuanto podamos llegar a imaginar está impulsado por dos motores: escepticismo y asombro, y se guía por el conjunto de normas sencillas que rigen la ciencia y la hacen tan poderosa. Probar ideas con experimentos y observación,  edificar en esas ideas que pasen la prueba y desechar las que no la pasen. Seguir la evidencia hasta donde nos lleve y cuestionarlo todo. El hombre ha tomado esas reglas en serio y ha puesto el cosmos a sus pies.

El hombre sabe al fin que está solo en la inmensidad indiferente del universo, de donde ha surgido por azar. Su deber, como su destino, no está escrito en ninguna parte, le corresponde a él elegir entre el reino trascendente de las ideas y del conocimiento, o el de las tinieblas.

¿Qué tan lejos habrá deambulando nuestra especie de nómadas a finales del próximo siglo y a finales del próximo milenio?

Con todos nuestros defectos, a pesar de nuestras limitaciones y falibilidades, nosotros los humanos somos capaces de la grandeza.

Muchos se maravillan ante la enormidad de una montaña, ante el poder de los mares tempestuosos, o ante la grandeza del firmamento en una noche clara. Pero pasan de largo sin maravillarse, sin sorprenderse de sí mismos y de sus compañeros de especie.

Estamos hechos del mismo material del que están hechas las estrellas, pero hay hombres tan grandes como esas estrellas de dimensiones ciclópeas, destinados a arder para que la tierra pueda ser iluminada.

El camino abierto sigue llamándonos suavemente como una canción casi olvidada de la infancia.

La ignorancia no es decir: no lo sé, ignorancia es no querer saberlo.

Mi admiración y agradecimiento para @buckhead1111 por su trabajo hermoso e impecable y por compartirlo con todos nosotros.

La primera imagen de esta publicación hace parte de su exquisito trabajo.

夏への扉–キミのいる未来へ−

The Conservation of Energy

March 14, 2019

The first law of thermodynamics, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another.

When I woke up a year ago today, I thought it was going to be like any other day. Other than I’d be spouting off math jokes about π as it is pi day. When I was woken for the day, the news my father told me was not what I had ever dreamt would be told to me. That was the day I mourned the passing of someone I had never met, yet still considered family. I aspire to be as great of a being as he was, and that one day we’ll be able to travel back in time so I can tell #StephenHawking how much he really means to me. For now, looking up at the stars and knowing he is where he belongs will suffice.

A Brief History of Life

January 8, 2018

“My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit, as well as physically.”

I have been so out of it that I didn’t realize it was my idol #StephenHawking ‘s birthday today… Luckily I met up with someone else who admires him and his work who inadvertently reminded me. Happy Birthday Stephen, this is the first year your birthday is celebrated without your wit and physical presence… I will never forget you, you will never be forgotten,

SMA Awareness Month

August 1, 2018

Hello, my lovely followers! It is the first of the month and I have a bit of an update for you all.

Today is the first day of August and today marks the first day of SMA Awareness Month. To mark this special day, I am currently watching/listening to The Theory of Everything while writing this update. Honestly can’t express enough how much I worship Stephen…

Anyway, the month of August has a very special day in it. The second Saturday of August, the eleventh, is the SMA Candle lighting that occurs every year, and last year was the first year I made a severe impact on the social media world.

Thanks to Andy Biersack, more than 1,100 people saw and interacted with my tweet about lighting a candle for those who lost to SMA and to those still living with SMA. It was absolutely amazing and extremely humbling to have the boundless tweets coming in with people sending gifs of candles or finding candles from around the house and taking photos of them to send to me.

It would be absolutely amazing if any of you lit a candle to raise awareness, once again, for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. There is no pressure if for some reason you can’t participate, but if you do, it would be greatly appreciated if you sent me a photo of your candle or of you with your candle. I’ll send out a few reminders in case anyone forgets.

My next bit of news is that I found an article in a magazine while at the doctors about a family who has a little boy with SMA and how he got Spinraza while it was still in the clinical trial phases. This story was in a regular magazine, an Easter magazine from this year. And. SMA. Was. In. It. The article is here if you want to read it.

JOIE DE VIVRE PHOTOGRAPHY

Now, for my last bit of news. I had to write a poem for my English class, so I decided to write it about the past few months. I discovered that it’s been nine months since my grandmother insisted on contacting someone to get the ball rolling on getting me Spinraza. How different the world was just a year ago. I didn’t even think I would be where I am today.

So I wrote a poem, and this poem means more to me than anyone will ever know.

Initium Novum

By:D.S.S.

It all started with a dream.

The future was unclear,

Bursting at the seams,

After living in fear

Of the unknown.

Time to get going.

Time to act.

Get in the car,

Down that winding road.

Wheels are turning.

The cage door opening,

Wings unfurling,

Emotions swirling.

She will not surrender.

Although clipped wings hinder,

She will fly, oh will she fly,

Into that starlit sapphire sky.

The road becomes narrow,

Obstacles arise,

A constellation

Of consternations

That challenge the view

Of the world in the eyes

Of the little sparrow.

Despite these drawbacks,

She’s chosen the right track,

On this bumpy ride ahead;

For this little sparrow,

With internal candle burning,

Looks ahead to freedom

Yearning.

A new dawn breaks,

Mountains fading from sight,

A clear road ahead,

Flying into the light.

It all started with a dream.

Firstly, I hate science. I came to watch this because of the romance I’m spoiled a long time ago with no proper clearance of their backstory. I am devastated. This made me think of what I’m doing today that I will probably regret later or tomorrow. Imagine of those possibilities if she didn’t interfere to his life, would he still be as great as his legacy today? Or would he still pursue his dreams but not with her? There are millions or even billions of scenario that could come up with a different result but with much and overflowing understanding they still came to a conclusion where they chose different paths because they got tired and lost. They remained friends but I’m still in awe of how things turned out, on how fate beautifully pushed and pulled them apart.

The Theory of Everything (2014)