Posted on

Thunderbolts – Turning Sound Into Light

by Jimmy Mikecz

What if sound didn’t only flow through matter but could produce unexpected phenomena like light? Research in sound has revealed the capacity of sound to influence matter in a way that produces light. The phenomenon of sonoluminescence (SL) is one example of this relationship.

The Equipment.

“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.”
― Nikola Tesla

Sonoluminescence occurs when high-frequency sound vibrates tiny gas bubbles to reach star-like temperatures and emit flashes of light. The mechanism of sonoluminescence is not fully understood but its occurrence is well documented. As SL researchers probe deeper into the phenomenon, they have found that current fluid dynamic equations cannot explain why it happens. SL is a natural phenomenon as well, and marine biologists observe some species of shrimp using it as an attack against other creatures. It is the bridge between sound and light and can offer a deeper understanding of nature’s laws.

Sonoluminescence

In a study at UCLA called Sonoluminescence: How Bubbles Turn Sound into Light, scientists S.J. Putterman and K.R. Weninger explore the mathematics and phenomenology of sonoluminescence. It is known that this phenomenon is caused by the rapid expansion and contraction of a bubble. This is known because the broad-band UV light emitted appears at a frequency, though not continuously. Think of a strobe light as an analogy where flashes of light last only pico-seconds (trillionths of a second.) According to Prof. Putterman, the phenomenon of sonoluminescence can heat bubbles up to tens of thousands of degrees. The surface of these bubbles burns at about 20,000 K (~35,000 °F) and look like “little stars.”

Continue reading “Thunderbolts – Turning Sound Into Light”

Posted on

The IllustrisTNG Project – Large Scale Cosmological Simulation

TNG

Somehow these guys are still thinking “Big Bang” and “Dark Matter”.

From their website:

The IllustrisTNG project is a suite of state-of-the-art cosmological galaxy formation simulations. Each simulation in IllustrisTNG evolves a large swath of a mock Universe from soon after the Big-Bang until the present day while taking into account a wide range of physical processes that drive galaxy formation. The simulations can be used to study a broad range of topics surrounding how the Universe — and the galaxies within it — evolved over time.

Scientific Goals

The goals of constructing such a large and ambitious simulation suite are to shed light on the physical processes that drive galaxy formation, to understand when, why, and how galaxies are evolving into the structures that are observed in the night sky, and to make predictions for current and future observational programs to broaden and deepen our understanding of galaxy formation. These goals are achieved not in a single step, but rather through a series of extended analyses of the simulations, each targeting specific science questions. Some of the first questions that have been specifically addressed using the TNG suite are characterizing the stellar masses, colors, and sizes of galaxies, understanding the physical origin of the heavy element (metallcity) distribution in galaxies and galaxy clusters, drawing connections between the presence of dynamically important magnetic fields and the observed radio emission from galaxies, and the clustering signal of galaxies and matter on large scales. Subsequent studies are expected to canvass an even broader range of topics.

Continue reading “The IllustrisTNG Project – Large Scale Cosmological Simulation”

Posted on

Dynamic Symmetry – Phylotaxis – Oleh Bodnar

The term dynamic symmetry was for the first time applied by the American architecture researcher J. Hambidge to a certain principle of proportioning in architecture . Later this term independently appeared in physics where it was introduced to describe physical processes that are characterized by invariants. Finally, in the given research the term dynamic symmetry is applied to regularity of natural form-shaping that in terms of origin also appears not to be connected with Hambidge’s idea, and, moreover, appearance of this term in physics. However, all the three variants are deeply interconnected in terms of their meaning which we are going to show.

At first, we point out strategic similarity of Hambidge’s and our researches. This is a well-known historical direction which in the field of architecture and art is motivated by the search for harmony regularities and, thus, is aimed at studying the objects of nature. Usually architects take interest in the structural regularities of natural form-shaping and, particularly, in the golden section and Fibonacci numbers which are regularities standing out by their intriguing role in architectural form-shaping. It is not accidentally that architects who do researches so frequently pay attention to botanical phenomenon phyllotaxis which is characterized by these regularities.

DYNAMIC SYMMETRY IN NATURE AND ARCHITECTURE

Continue reading “Dynamic Symmetry – Phylotaxis – Oleh Bodnar”

Posted on

Thunderbolts – Who Still Denies Electric Currents in Space?




 

Posted on

In Silico – A Short History of “Liesegang Rings”

In Silico

Periodic precipitation or the “Liesegang phenomenon” is a special type of chemical pattern formations. It was discovered by a German chemist and photographer, Raphael Eduard Liesegang in 1896 but did not have any general explanation more than a century ago.

Patterns in Nature

In the last decades of the 20th century different kinds of chemical, physical and biological pattern formations have excited an ever increasing interest in the scientific community. In chemical patterning one of the most intensively investigated area was the so-called Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, but there were many publications about viscous fingering, diffusion limited aggregation, morphogenesis of fungal colonies and some other simple living bodies, and last but not least patterning during electrochemical deposition too.

Although at first sight the above mentioned systems are quite different there are many similarities in the way they form the corresponding patterns, and the methods by that they can be handled. All of them contain at least one or several diffusion-limited steps, while the formation of the spatial or spatiotemporal order is always a result of a complicated interplay of these and the underlying chemical, physical or biological processes.

Mathematics and the modeling of reaction-diffusion processes

Mathematical description of such systems consists of so-called reaction-diffusion differential equations. Unfortunately these are usually systems of coupled nonlinear partial differential equations, that cannot be treated by standard analytical methods. The only viable way is the application of different numerical methods. Numerical solution of such systems of equations is computationally very demanding, moreover it is sometimes computationally prohibitive even nowadays.

The story of the so-called Liesegang phenomenon is good example for this problem.

Liesegang Patterns

Liesegang patterning is a special type of chemical pattern formation in which the spatial order is formed by density fluctuations of a weakly soluble salt. From analytical chemistry we know many different reactants that form a precipitate (sparingly soluble salt) when they react with each other. A good example for this behavior is the reaction of silver-nitrate (AgNO3) and potassium-dichromate (K2Cr2O7).




If one of these components is evenly distributed in a swollen gel (e.g. in gelatine), and the solution of the other diffuses into it, the spatial distribution of the slowly forming precipitate will not be continuous. A series of precipitate zones (bands or rings depending on the geometry of the experimental setup) will form according to some simple scaling laws.

Continue reading “In Silico – A Short History of “Liesegang Rings””