Contemplating Madness

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About Me

My name is Joshua. I am a physics major aspiring to be a theoretical physicist. I find immense beauty in mathematics and as such post, mostly reblog, a lot of mathematics and physics. However, this still remains a personal blog, rather than being aimed at one particular subject.

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Theme by: Miguel

  1. garfielcl:

    Ok great it’s summer but what the fuck am I supposed to do now: an autobiography

    I was really happy to finish finals until I was home for an hour with no obligations.

    2. 692 Notes
    Reblogged: cunafish
  2. we-are-star-stuff: This galaxy is pretty much all black hole As a rule of thumb, the more massive a black hole is, the bigger its surrounding galaxy will be. That’s why there’s something so fundamentally wrong about NGC 1277, a tiny galaxy home to possibly the biggest black hole yet. Galaxy NGC 1277 is only about a tenth the size of our Milky Way. That isn’t ridiculously tiny for a galaxy - our galactic neighbor the Large Magellanic Cloud is only a hundredth our size, for instance - but it does mean that its black hole should be significantly smaller than Sagittarius-A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. And that emphatically isn’t the case. The black hole at the center of NGC 1277 is thought to be about 17 billion times as massive as our Sun, compared to just about 4.3 million solar masses for Sagittarius-A*. What’s more, the NGC 1277 black hole takes up a volume whose diameter is 4 light-days across, meaning it spans a distance over 338 times that of the diameter of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Even Neptune’s outermost orbit, with a diameter of 8.3 light-hours, is still less than a tenth of the black hole’s diameter.  The average supermassive black hole only makes up about 0.1% of its galaxy’s overall mass - not an unimpressive figure, but a good reminder that there’s still plenty of galaxy out there that isn’t black hole. Not so much the case in NGC 1277, as its black hole makes up a whopping 14 percent of the galaxy’s total mass. The question now is just how this remarkable discovery fits into our overall understanding of black holes and galaxy formation. This is so outside what we’ve encountered before that our current models can’t really account for it, but that may simply mean our models are incomplete.

    we-are-star-stuff:

    This galaxy is pretty much all black hole

    As a rule of thumb, the more massive a black hole is, the bigger its surrounding galaxy will be. That’s why there’s something so fundamentally wrong about NGC 1277, a tiny galaxy home to possibly the biggest black hole yet.

    Galaxy NGC 1277 is only about a tenth the size of our Milky Way. That isn’t ridiculously tiny for a galaxy - our galactic neighbor the Large Magellanic Cloud is only a hundredth our size, for instance - but it does mean that its black hole should be significantly smaller than Sagittarius-A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. And that emphatically isn’t the case. The black hole at the center of NGC 1277 is thought to be about 17 billion times as massive as our Sun, compared to just about 4.3 million solar masses for Sagittarius-A*.

    What’s more, the NGC 1277 black hole takes up a volume whose diameter is 4 light-days across, meaning it spans a distance over 338 times that of the diameter of Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Even Neptune’s outermost orbit, with a diameter of 8.3 light-hours, is still less than a tenth of the black hole’s diameter. 

    The average supermassive black hole only makes up about 0.1% of its galaxy’s overall mass - not an unimpressive figure, but a good reminder that there’s still plenty of galaxy out there that isn’t black hole. Not so much the case in NGC 1277, as its black hole makes up a whopping 14 percent of the galaxy’s total mass.

    The question now is just how this remarkable discovery fits into our overall understanding of black holes and galaxy formation. This is so outside what we’ve encountered before that our current models can’t really account for it, but that may simply mean our models are incomplete.

    3. 795 Notes
    Reblogged: physicsphysics

  3. ianbrooks:

    Visit Planet Earth Campaign by Bri Hand

    Despite the possibility of literally one brajillion sentient lifeforms out there, we’ve so far discovered it’s pretty lonely in the big, cold Universe. And while our attempts at interstellar communication have sought to connect with extraterrestrials through the universal religion of science and mathematics, you’ve really got to wonder why we didnt play up our personal traits here on Serious Planet Earth: for instance, hot dogs. Everything recreated in Minecraft. Conga lines. The fact that David Bowie sometimes lives here. Bri’s ad campaign seeks to invigorate our languishing interstellar tourism industry by luring aliens in with some of Earth’s more amazing amenities (and hopefully the promise that we’re not going to autopsy them and show it on FOX). You can check out more assets of the campaign over at Bri’s website: secrethidingplaceofbrihand

    (via: Lost at E Minor)

    I think calling ourselves ‘friendly’ aliens is a bit of a stretch.

    4. 1924 Notes
    Reblogged: fyeahsciencenerds

  4. (Source: andgolemspukedcandies)

    5. 16 Notes
    Reblogged: imathematicus
  5. matthen: A random sequence of points is chosen, then each point moves towards the next one in a loop. Quickly a rotating string of points forms, often in a figure of eight pattern. The string winds tighter, spins faster, and converges on the centre of gravity of the original formation.  [video] [more] [code] 

    matthen:

    A random sequence of points is chosen, then each point moves towards the next one in a loop. Quickly a rotating string of points forms, often in a figure of eight pattern. The string winds tighter, spins faster, and converges on the centre of gravity of the original formation.  [video] [more] [code] 

    6. 202 Notes
    Reblogged: matthen

  6. There are 10 types of people in the world

    nokknokk:

    • Those who understand binary

    • Those who don’t

    • And those who didn’t expect this joke to be in base 3

    7. 59 Notes
    Reblogged: imathematicus

  7. Why do people hallucinate geometric tunnels?

    ziyadmd:

    image

    Whenever you imagine any kind of altered reality — from dreams, to drug trips, to warp speed — the main image is always a tunnel, ringed by regular geometric patterns. And most of us see those odd, tunneling patterns at some point in our lives. What exactly is it about our brains that creates them?

    Read More

    8. 112 Notes
    Reblogged: fyeahsciencenerds
  8. Scientists Discover A Woman Who Can See 99 Million More Colours Than The Rest Of Us

    shychemist:

    Most people can see a pretty wide range of colours - about a million hues, according to scientists.

    We perceive all those gradations in colour using cells in our eyes called “cones”. Most people have three cones, making us “trichromats”. People with colour blindness have only two cones that function normally, so they’re called “dichromats”.

    Now, a scientist in Newcastle, England has apparently discovered a woman who can see 99 million more colours than the average person. Her ability to perceive all those colours is extremely rare.

    She’s a tetrachromat, with four cone cells in her eyes, and she’s able to see many colours that haven’t even been named, since trichromats can’t perceive them.

    Click title to read more.

    9. 43 Notes
    Reblogged: shychemist

  9. "How inappropriate to call this planet earth when it is quite clearly Ocean."

    - Sir Arthur C. Clarke (via crookedindifference)
    10. 2335 Notes
    Reblogged: quote-book
  10. scienceisbeauty: Vaccine infographic. Credit: Leon Farrant Source: How Vaccines Have Changed Our World In One Graphic, Forbes.

    scienceisbeauty:

    Vaccine infographic.

    Credit: Leon Farrant

    Source: How Vaccines Have Changed Our World In One Graphic, Forbes.

    11. 565 Notes
    Reblogged: scienceisbeauty
  11. [“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it.”

    [“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can make me think I deserved it.”

    (Source: xkcd.com)

    12. 3 Notes

  12. (Source: captainfillion)

    13. 49887 Notes
    Reblogged: spetharrific

  13. "[Obama’s] words will be little consolation for 8-year-old Nabila, who, on Oct. 24, had just returned from school and was playing in a field outside her house with her siblings and cousins while her grandmother picked flowers. At 2:30 p.m., a Hellfire missile came out of the sky and struck right in front of Nabila. Her grandmother was badly burned and succumbed to her injuries; Nabila survived with severe burns and shrapnel wounds in her shoulder. Nabila doesn’t know who Mr. Obama is, or where the Hellfire missile that killed her grandmother came from."

    - The Forgotten Victims of Obama’s Drone War (via theamericanbear)
    14. 1327 Notes
    Reblogged: mohandasgandhi
  14. officialiwrotethisforyou: sarah—-tonin: I Wrote This For You by Iain Thomas

    officialiwrotethisforyou:

    sarah—-tonin:

    I Wrote This For You by Iain Thomas

    15. 72 Notes
    Reblogged: officialiwrotethisforyou
  15. "Fuckin' Concrete Contemporary Abstract Algebra Introduction..." by Nicolas Bourbaki Junior

    ladyphysicist:

    It’s so beautiful.

    (Source: frictionlessemu)

    16. 62 Notes
    Reblogged: neuronsandneutrons

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