Science

Is gender a social construct?

by

Is gender a social construct?

Do we identify as man, woman, or in between because of social conditions and teachings?

yes or no?
is gender a social construct
Courtesy of Charlie Eaton

Is gender a social construct? 

Agender, Bigender, Butch, Gender outlaw… Where do they all come from? And are all these labels motivated, or are they just a way to express a disaccord with the “normal”, boring binary male and female?

So, before jumping into all the terminology, I set out to try to answer the first question… Is gender a social construct, or is it something we are born with?

This is what World Health Organization has to say about it:

  • Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls, and boys that are socially constructed.  This includes norms, behaviors, and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl, or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time.

And this is what the Oxford English dictionary has to say about it:

  • (Gender is…) The state of being male or female as expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences, rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of one’s sex. 

So, is gender a social construct? Well, it seems that way, but let’s dive in a little further:.

What is biological sex?

Your sex is what is determined by your chromosome setup. If you are born with two X chromosomes in your 23rd, and last, chromosome pair in your DNA, then you’re a woman. If you have one X- and one Y- chromosome, then you’re a man. As simple as that. 

gay man

An effect of the XX or XY chromosome setup is the physical attributes. Penises and vaginas, as well as all the rest… Body structure, breasts, hair growth, voice pitch, etc. These attributes are not always easily detectable, or even always present. There are many variations. And defects in the chromosome structure can occur. 

Man, woman or intersex?

You can be a man, a woman, or neither of those. The male-female binary system has only two outcomes. But someone may not have all the attributes to be determined only as a boy or only a girl right at birth. 

In that case, the child can be determined as intersex. 

What is gender identity?

If you think of it, we don’t really know at all who our colleagues, friends, and relatives are from a sexual point of view. At least I have never seen the penises and vaginas or breasts of my acquaintances. Nor have I ever seen a testosterone test or anything similar on any of my friends. We trust the outside, the clothes, the makeup or absence of makeup, and the general physical characteristics…

Gender identity actually is what determines much of all that. It’s what we feel inside, what we identify as. The biological sex scale is somewhat limited. There’s only man and woman, and a blending of those two. But gender identity, in theory, has no limits. What you feel inside and how you express yourself is for you to decide.

…Or is it?

But, what if there’s a difference between your biological sex and your gender identity?

Someone who is a biological man, and has the gender identity of a man, is called a cis man. A biological woman who has the gender identity of a woman is called a cis woman. “Cis” from the Latin prefix meaning “on this side of”. 

If a biological man identifies as a woman, he’s called a trans woman.  A biological woman who has the gender identity of a man is called a trans man. “Trans” from the Latin prefix meaning “on the other side of”.

People who identify as their biological sex are cisgender, and those who identify as the opposite sex are transgender.

A transsexual person is someone who physically transitions from male to female or vice versa. 

Do sex and gender have anything to do with sexual orientation?

Apart from the biological sex, which is the Chromosome setup, and the gender identity, there is a third part of the equation. And that is sexual orientation. Are you straight, gay, bisexual, or something completely different?

Sexual orientation does not necessarily have anything to do with the previous. Sexual orientation is simply what we are attracted to, and apart from rare examples of very strange sexual fantasies, we are most often attracted to women, men, or both.

is gender a social constructIs it more natural to feel like a man/woman when you, in fact, are a man/woman?

Very often people refer to what’s natural and what’s not. Natural, is a difficult concept, though. Sometimes it just means that I, myself consider it acceptable. And that is often based on my personal view, which is based on my personal background and convictions. 

Natural, as in nature… That is often a totally different story. 

Can an animal identify as something that it does not appear to be? 

Can a dog be transgender?

We simply don’t know how they feel, because we can’t ask them. But we can observe the observable, and we can draw conclusions from that.

We do know, that many animals demonstrate homosexual behavior. And that would indicate that sexuality among animals isn’t as simple as only a treat that aims at reproduction, even though we cannot say for sure how they feel about their assigned sex.

So now, Is gender a social construct or not?

It is true that transgender really exists? I mean that it is something more than just an expression, a way to dress? And not only trans… There are Agender, Bigender, Gender fluid, Genderqueer, Gender expansive, and many more. For this article, we would need to determine if all these genders come from the environment, or if they are within us from the beginning.

is gender a social construct
Judith Butler

Judith Butler 

She introduced the term gender performativism in 1988. In the book Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, she develops the idea that gender is something we perform. It is the stylized repetition of acts through time. According to Butler, it is not a performance that you can choose in any way you like, as an actor plays a role. Instead, performative speech can constitute an identity. It’s not so much the subject expressing her-/himself but the repetition of stylized actions that actually make up your gender identity. 

  –  Performativity is a matter of reiterating and repeating the norms through which one is constituted.

Your gender identity is not an expression of something inside yourself. Instead, IT IS yourself. And so, you can actually never really be wrong about it. You are what you are.

Butler also emphasizes that the repeated stylized actions that make up your gender don’t come from you. They are taught to you. In that way, gender is a social construct.

Julia Serano

Serano introduced yet another idea. The Subconscious sex concept. What she’s talking about is an unconscious and inexplicable self-understanding regarding what sex one belongs to or should be.

Someone would explain why people act against what we would expect their gender expression to be, with genetic anomalies. But Serano notes that these non-coherent people occur far more frequently than can be accounted for by biological factors. 

Transgenders are aware of the painful dissonance between the subconscious sex and the biological sex, while cisgenders are not. 

Serano argues that the subconscious sex is innate in some way, but social conditioning can play a role in how you interpret it. Is gender a social construct? Yes, but only partly so.

Other research

boy with rc bus toy

This study from 2016, and this study from 2017 both conclude that boys play more with typical boys-toys, and girls play more with toys typed to their own gender. The 2017 study included children until 8 years, and the 2016 study started at 9 months. A large spectrum.

There are many more studies like these, and none of them is really conclusive. Yes, we know that boys are boys, and that girls are girls, but it’s very difficult to be able to definitely say if they were born this or that, or if they have become such.

9 months is also reasonably old, in this context. We know that a lot of imprinting happens before that age.

Is gender a social construct?  The many studies of children’s preferences of gender-type toys, don’t really conclude anything.

… And at the end of the day, maybe everything is a social construct.

I remember my uncle, who used to work as a land surveyor far away up in the mountains in my home country. When he visited the farmers up there, they offered him huge quantities of liquor. Only after that, and of course, him being pretty stoned, he could go to work. They wanted to be sure that he was Ok for the job, and being an Ok man in that context, meant being able to drink a lot of alcohol.

afghanistan women oppression

Being this or that depends on geography, time, and type of society. When I dress in jeans and a t-shirt, get on the bus with mixed men and women, and speak my native language in a certain way, I am just being me. But I too am a result of social conditioning. My identity is a social construct if you will.

In tropical parts of Africa and South America, men and women wear almost nothing. Scottish men wear skirts. In the middle east, they wear Thawb, and I wear my T-shirt. In the 90s many women in Europe walked around topless on the beach. In some parts of Afghanistan, the Burqa, covering every single part of the woman’s body, is now mandatory if she wants to stay safe.  And a thousand years ago, dress codes and gender codes were radically different from today.

We live in a world of social constructs, and that includes not only gender but everything in our daily life. People who dare to step outside our well-defined binary gender system, have always been looked upon with everything from distrust to persecution and oppression. As has any other diversion from the accepted codes.

In India, the Hijra community has suffered oppression and violence under the British administration, for hundreds of years. In 2019 The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act was passed by the Indian Parliament. The objective is to provide protection of rights of transgender people, their welfare, and other related matters.

Conclusion. 

Maybe one thing we can learn is to stop being so afraid of things we don’t understand. If someone or something appears strange, why not ask, inform yourself and reflect. Learn about the other…

But even more so, learn about yourself. You, just like me, are just a product of a whole lot of coincidences, of which most, probably are social constructs.

… And you should always respect a person’s preferred way to be addressed. It’s okay to ask, but then always use the name and pronouns they tell you.


Back to the top of the page

Yes, Gender is a social construct… At least mostly so. 

two women embracing

home

sources

What is Chi?

by

What is Chi?

They speak about chi as if it’s essential. They teach it as if it’s fundamental. They use it in a thousand different ways, and it’s supposed to be extremely powerful. 

But does chi really exist?

yes or no?

First of all, the name…

 氣 – That’s how it’s written in traditional Chinese. In English, it’s written Chi, Ki, or Qi, and pronounced [tʃiː]. In Japanese, it’s pronounced [kiː]. 

The meaning of the word is air or vapor, or energy in general, or life force, or vital energy… It is quite difficult to give a precise definition, and that can be a problem as we will see further on. The concept is very old. It originates from many thousands of years ago. Probably from China or at least from Asia. 

In Taoism, Tao is an absolute principle and it conceptualizes the order of everything. The Universe has two opposite forces, Yin and Yang, and these make up all of what we can experience. They are light and darkness, expansion and contraction, male and female, deficiency and excess, etc. And they are the forces that have produced this universe… The energy with which all this is conceived is called chi… Chi Yang and Chi Yin. 

  • 气 means Vapor or Air. But as such it also means energy.
  • 天气 means Sky and Air (Energy) – Sky-energy,  Weather.
  • 米 means Rice. 
  • 米 气 means Rice and Vapor/Air. 
  • 氣 is a combination of the last two, meaning Rice-Vapor, as in the vapor from the boiling rice. Or it could be interpreted as the two forms of energy necessary for our body to work… Rice (food) and air (oxygen). 
  • 氣 is Chi in traditional Chinese.

Interestingly, many languages of Indo-European origin have the words for breath/breathing and life force very similar. (Comp. Expire in English)

what is chi

What is chi in Traditional Chinese Medicine?

In traditional Chinese medicine, Chi is the vital life force or energy that is in all living beings. It is the energy of life and it runs all through our bodies. But not only that: It is also the essence of-, and connection between every living thing as well as between those and the universe. It unites our body, our mind, and our spirit, and it unites us with everything. 

This life force can be imbalanced, and if so, it’s the scope of the doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine to create balance within the organism again. 

  • Yin chi is heavy. It falls, it is stationary, and binding. Yin chi is condensation. 
  • Yang is light. It moves away, upwards, and it’s volatile and etheric. Yin chi is expansion.

The body has to keep its balance between those two forces. Furthermore, we need to keep the flow of chi unrestricted. Because obstacles and blockages can form in our chi for various reasons, and if they do, the channels need to be opened. The doctor does all this with medication, often traditional herbal medicine and/or therapy, like Therapeutic Massage, Acupuncture, etc. Traditional Chinese Medicine is based strongly on the concept of Chi as a life force.

But what is chi… What are we actually talking about here?

esoteric energy

We need to know exactly what we are referring to. And, as said before, that isn’t all that obvious. Because a lot of people see Chi as a concept, much like many other words that we use in a metaphorical way…

  • The chi is in balance – We feel alright and things are good, generally speaking. But it’s not that there is any actual balance. We wouldn’t fall over because we are off Chi.
  • The Chi is flowing – People around me like me, and I feel appreciated. Today my project got approved, and that special person called me… I’m in a flow. Things work out. But it’s not that there is any special energy that is moving inside me, from my toes to my head, from my left hand to the right.
  • I am connected to the universe – I feel as one with every other living thing. That is, I understand that we all have to share space on this earth. We have to stop the pollution, help each other, and stop the wars because otherwise, we will all suffer. But it’s not that I am really connected in any way with anything else. There are no radio waves or cables between us.

Then there’s the other way of looking at it…

what is chi

And this is where we could run into problems. Because some people claim that Chi is also a very physical, real, demonstrable, and powerful force. And it’s a force that can be manipulated to make you feel this or that, to move objects and people, to awaken your cosmic awareness… And lastly, which in my opinion is morally very dubious, make you ill, and consequently cure you.

So, if there actually is some truth in it, that there really is a real, physical force within us and around us that has an impact on our wellbeing, then that is very important information. And if that life force really could create diseases, and then cure us, make us create or overcome problems, connect us to each other and to the far side of the galaxy. Then that could be a real game-changer for all of us. 

What do the practitioners/believers say themselves?

what is chi
  • Chi is constant, it holds matter together. Chi is the energy that floats through humans, through the earth, and through the heavens. It is the energy, the power of the universe. Chi is like a river, it’s constantly happening. Yin and Yang are moving in and out while Chi is constantly generated
  • Chi is bioelectric power. Chi is the electricity that nourishes the living cell. Qigong helps you to draw energy from the outside so that you have more energy on the inside. 
  • Chi is the current of energy that passes through the inside and outside of the body. It also passes through physical objects. When your chi is strong, it flows through you and fills you with life and health. When your chi is weak, it remains still and stagnant.

Do you understand it better from these quotes? Having a true believer explain what Chi is, doesn’t make it easier to grasp. It’s very mystical and philosophical, just like it’s supposed to be, being a 4000 years old concept.

What does science say?

There has been a lot of research to try to find out: What is Chi? Most have studied the technique of Qigong. Qigong and Tai Chi are similar but Qigong has a supposedly more internal focus. The movements are more specific and the aim, is to heal, aid, and restore Chi, more than physical exercise. So, many of the studies focus on the measurable energy when Qigong is used. Either during the session or after, and both from the Qigong master, the healer, and from the subject.

Thai Chi vitalizes the energy

In fact, many of these studies show a verifiable effect. This paper by Xinqi Dong, E-Shien Chang, and Kevin Chen reaches a conclusion: 

  •  … Many other exploratory studies of external Qigong effects have used various physical detectors, including Gamma-ray, microwave, and high-frequency X-ray. Body temperature changes before, during, and after the practice of Qigong have been documented by many empirical studies, in which far-infrared measurement was amongst the most commonly used physical detectors of Qi.

Another study from 2011 by Roger Jahnke, Linda Larkey, Carol Rogers, Jennifer Etnier, and Fang Lin found benefits from both Tai Chi and Qigong:

  • … This review has identified numerous outcomes with varying levels of evidence for the efficacy of Qigong and Tai Chi, including bone health, cardiopulmonary fitness and related biomarkers, physical function, falls prevention and balance, the general quality of life and patient-reported outcomes, immunity, and psychological factors such as anxiety, depression, and self-efficacy.
scary Chinese mask

But it’s hard to see evidence of a force, an energy source, other than the obvious benefit exercise would give. These techniques are also connected to breathing and a meditative focus in a way that most other sports are not.   

The lowering of the pulse, rising of the temperature and other effects could be explained well within the known physical realm. These are nothing more than normal functions of the body.

What is Chi… And what is Yi?

Professor Lin Housheng’s answers to the question, What is Chi in Qigong? And this could be the reason why we aren’t able to find any proof. 

  • Qigong is a method or process in which the cultivation of Chi (vital energy) and Yi (consciousness or intent) achieves the optimal state of both body and mind. Yi, the intent or mental process of the practitioner, is integral to the Qigong process. Although exploratory studies focus on the Chi part only, Chi itself cannot be truly defined without including Yi, or intent. After all, Chi emission is a process of bio-physiological activity coordinated by human intent or consciousness.

As such, maybe it’s impossible to separate the force from the practitioner. And maybe we cannot examine the Chi at all without adding the subjectivity and the intent of the mind… And so we’re stuck. 

Acupuncture

Traditional Chinese Medicine

I didn’t want to derail down the Acupuncture track. But Acupuncture is a consequence of Chi. The theory is that sticking in needles where the Chi flows inside one of the 12 meridians in our body can cause stagnant Qi to be dispersed and deficient Qi to be tonified.

Acupuncture has been thoroughly examined and the result is that some effects, especially as a method of pain relief, can be observed. The general problem is that similar effects can be seen with needles being inserted randomly, or needles not being inserted at all, while the subject is convinced that they, in fact, are.

It would seem that the inserting of needles, or believing that needles have been inserted has an effect, but that the Chi meridians have nothing to do with it.  ,

And now to the other side of the coin… The darker side.

Tai Chi is a traditional Chinese Martial Art. Today it is mainly used as a way of exercise, health benefits, and meditation (Shadowboxing), but there is a strong fighting component as well. The technique is closely connected to Chi, thus the name. 

But some Martial Arts schools take the whole Chi idea a step further. Some training is focused on learning to control the Chi to such an extent that it can be used to send an opponent to the floor without even touching him… The so-called No Touch Knockout: 

Focusing on Chi, trying to relax, exercising to find the right posture, and breathing correctly could be very important tools in a myriad of situations. 

But some experts don’t stop there. They use the Chi-concept as a way to do tricks. While professional illusionists do magic on stage for entertainment and they are absolutely transparent about it. What they do is based on tricks… The self-appointed Chi-guys on the other hand, claim their performances are real. They claim that their Chi is so powerful that they can start fires, and move objects around only by using their God-like powers.

The Qigong movements are specific and the aim here is to heal, aid, and restore Chi, more than physical exercise. If you look at Qigong and Tai Chi from a westerners point of view, they are very similar. And the effectiveness of the two styles is similar too. The exercise, the training, the cardiovascular response, etc are all benefits that are well documented… 

Unfortunately, some healers go a step too far, claiming they can actually heal severe diseases with the Chi-power. 

But why do we always have to be so darn scientific? Especially about old Chinese beliefs?

I don’t think we should limit ourselves to seeing the world exclusively in terms of real or fake, black or white. The concept of Chi is very attractive. The flowing movement, the fact that we are all connected, the focus on internal balance and physical and mental wellbeing. 

And I personally am very drawn to the idea of a sport, or physical activity, that is so non-competitive. 

Having said that, it is our strong belief that fraudulent behavior is wrong. But fraudulent behavior that intends to exploit people’s vulnerability and fear in life-threatening situations, is morally and ethically deceptive. It’s misleading in a particular way and those doing it should be called out and should be held responsible. 

Chi is a very interesting phenomenon, and it is possibly very useful as an ingredient in physical exercise and mental training. Our internal chemical and psychological environment can suffer from stress, and Qigong and Thai Chi is surely a good way to ease that stress.

But Chi is not a mystical, magical force of nature, that only those who are trained in the right way can master. It’s just another way of saying energy or saying connection, or balance.

So, no… Chi cannot knock people down from a distance, it cannot move objects, or start fires… And it most probably can do absolutely nothing to cure cancer. 

For health issues always contact your local health authorities.


Back to the top of the page

Conclusion.

Yes and No. The Chi concept as a subjective connection between all living things, as the energy that all life is made up of, and as the positive effects of physical activity, breathing correctly, relaxation, balance, etc. That part exists.

But the magical, mystical part where Chi is some special energy that can be modified and channeled, that part, I would say, does not exist.

Muscat Oman

home

sources

How much of our brain do we use?

by

How much of our brain do we use?

Do we actually only use about 10% of its capacity, and leave the other 90% dormant, waiting to be awakened by strange training procedures and costly enhancement supplements?

yes or no?

How is our brain constructed?

The human brain is a miracle of efficiency. It controls all the very complex activities in our body, like the Engine Control Module of a modern car. From simple walking to sports at elite levels, from digestion to astrophysics… It’s always there to give us its best and solve every predictable or unpredictable issue. We have a lot to thank the brain for.

Without spinning away on technicalities (… Which I’m not competent to do anyway), the brain is a big blob of neurons and glial cells. It weighs in the span of 1 – 1,6 kilos, ( 2,3 to 3,6 lbs.) with a substantial individual variation. The total number of neurons was for a long time thought to be around 100 billion, and the total number of Glial cells was thought to be ten times as much. More recent research by Suzana Herculano-Houzel points to 86 billion neurons, and the same amount of other, non “thinking” cells. Most of which are Glia.

Although the weight is less than 2% of the total body weight, the brain consumes about 20% of the total energy consumption in our body. It’s very expensive for the organism to think. But more about that later. 

And how does it work?

how much of our brain do we use

The big blob is divided into two parts, known as the right and left hemispheres. It looks a bit like the two parts of a walnut. These are connected via a thick bundle of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. Each hemisphere is divided into 6 lobes, and each lobe has its specific function. 

The two halves also have different tasks. The left side is normally responsible for speech and abstract thinking, while the right side handles visual images and spatial thinking. 

Apart from actual thinking, the brain also controls all bodily functions, conscious and non-conscious. Interestingly, the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and the right side of the brain controls the left.

Even though we don’t know everything there’s to know about the human brain, a few things are worth noting:

  • The brain doesn’t seem to be hardwired so that the various parts do only what they’re supposed to do. New research has found that if a region of the brain is damaged, another region can at least to some extent take over and perform the non-functional part’s tasks. It’s flexible, something that is quite unique among human organs.
  • The brain is always “on”. Even when we’re not conscious it’s still carrying out all the physical necessities. But not only that. It’s also surprisingly active during, for example, sleep. And even completely unresponsive patients in a coma, sometimes show brain activity. And not only doing the basic stuff but responding to commands with cognitive activity. Basically, the brain hears you. 

Why it would be completely senseless for any organism to carry around that much dead weight.

So, back to the 10%. And no, we don’t only use a small part of our brain. That would be a gigantic waste of resources. 

In the wonderful world of evolution, any feature that is beneficial tends to remain, and any feature that is disadvantageous tends to disappear. Now, you might say that we still have a small tail at the end of our spine, and we still have a seemingly useless appendix. 

Yes, we do, but all remnants from previous species still tend to diminish with the ages. 

The human brain does not diminish, instead, it has increased in volume over the millennia.

The brain consumes huge amounts of energy, as much as ten times as much as its respective weight. And even more, if you think hard. It is heavy and fragile, and it’s high up on the top of our strange, disharmonious body structure. There are so many disadvantages, that if it wasn’t useful at its fullest, nature would never have maintained it that big. It would have been diminished and made small. 

So, how much of our brain do we use?

Well… All of it. We use all of the brain. Not all contemporarily, but it’s all there accessible to us.

Almost all lobes are active all of the time. That is not difficult to check. Just connect it to an MRI scanner and you see that even performing very simple tasks most of the brain is working. And as previously mentioned, even when sleeping, much of the brain is still active. 

  –  But, you might say, maybe it’s working but not working at maximum, but only at 10% of its capacity?

Ok, let’s use a technique called Single-unit recording. With it, you can detect the electrical activity of a single neuron. Even if the information we get from this intervention is very limited, we can accurately see if the cell is active or not. And it is. That is, there’s no part of the brain that is dormant or inactive all the time.

famous American psychologist
William James

Look at it as a kitchen. You have all the tools, the stove, mixers, and a microwave. Even though you do not use all of it all the time, you use all of it some of the time. Nothing in there is completely useless.  

The origins of the myth

Actually, nobody knows where it comes from. Many suggestions have been made over the years, but no one knows exactly.

  • The famous Harvard psychologists William James at the end of the 19th century, stated many times more of a possible explanation than a verified fact, that we only use 10% of our brain capacity.
  • Lowell Thomas wrote in the foreword to “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, by Dale Carnegie in 1936: “Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average man develops only ten percent of his latent mental ability”.
  • Albert Einstein supposedly once told a journalist when asked about his high IQ… “And still, I only use 10% of it…”
  • The American psychologist Karl Lashley found that when removing large pieces of the cortex from the brain of rats, they could still learn tasks. This made him conclude that only a small part of the brain was actually functional.

But, as said, we do not know where it all started. 

The popularity of the myth

My own consideration is that it was a very lucrative idea. Many single people as well as companies and organizations have had a lot to gain. If there was a way to unlock the 90 percent and gain access to it, then that way would get a lot of attention… And of course, a lot of money. 

And millions of pills, herbs, medicines, diets, and supplements, as well as techniques for training, relaxation, yoga, and every other possible invention on the subject have been published and sold over the last hundred years. 

chimpance

I would say that economic interests are at least a part of the reason why this myth has been so hard to get rid of. It’s simply good business.

The 2014 motion picture Lucy by Luc Besson was based on the idea that it could be possible to increase the cerebral capacity tenfold.

Do we have the biggest brain in the animal kingdom, and that’s why we are so smart?

We don’t have the biggest brain of all animals. Brain size is somehow connected to the size of the body. A blue whale has a bigger brain than a mouse. But we have very big brains compared to other mammals of our own size. And it is possible that the size of the brain in relation to the total body is crucial for intelligence. 

Let’s say any animal needs a brain with 0,5 percent of the body mass to cope with the basic functions. A human brain with 2% of the body mass has 75% of its capacity free to accomplish other more complicated tasks such as thinking. The bigger the brain in relation to the body, the greater the possibility of developing higher intellectual capacity. 

It could also be that our body mass is the perfect size. A small animal would still have a small brain for mathematical equations, even if it used 75% of its very small brain. And a big body could be too occupied with all the different basic stuff. 

how much of our brain do we use

I imagine the brain activity to just move the tail of a 26 meter (86 feet) long Dreadnoughtus dinosaur. Maybe for him, there just couldn’t be very much capacity to spare when all the bodily functions were taken care of.

… And no, they didn’t have two brains. That too is a myth.

Fun facts about the brain

  • The human brain is incapable of multitasking. It switches back and forth between the tasks.
  • There is more cholesterol in the brain than in any other part of the body. Fortunately, the brain cells can’t absorb cholesterol from the blood. Instead, the brain produces its own, and it’s just beneficial with no negative side effects.
  • The brain has no pain receptors, and consequently, it can’t feel pain. But to get there you have to penetrate the skull and the tissues surrounding it, and that hurts.
  • The brain keeps developing until we’re in our late 40s. That’s the only organ that has such a long growth curve. After that, it starts shrinking.
  • Alcohol doesn’t kill brain cells. But it makes the brain shrink, just like aging does. It is thought that if you stop drinking, the volume, to at least some degree, could be restored.
  • Physical activity increases intellectual capacity. It is actually so beneficial that some studies suggest that it’s better to do aerobic training than to study. 

So, there you have it. Stop studying, get out, ride your bike, go run in the park, play some baseball, football, or tennis… And you can become a genius.


Back to the top of the page

No, we use all of the brain. Not 100% of it all the time, but we use most of it continuously. There are no hidden resources that can be awakened. By using it, you can train it and make it more efficient, though.

home

sources

How high can a human jump?

by

Is the world record in high-jump of 2,45 meters set by Javier Sotomayor in 1993, the highest a human can jump… Ever?

yes or no?

How high can a human jump?

If everything is perfectly optimal, how high a jump is a human body able to perform? When is the world record going to be absolute, and no one will ever break it?

The human limit

The human body is a fantastic thing, an incredibly strong and endurable machine. It goes on and on for almost a hundred years, and it can be modeled and trained to perform the most unbelievable tasks. In sports, we see the most astonishing records every year and we watch in awe when the athletes seem to defy nature itself. 

Track and Fields is where the most interesting records are noted. Who is the fastest runner? Who is the longest/highest jumper? And who is the longest thrower? 

Track and Field

From the origins in ancient Greek, the art of running, jumping, and throwing was more or less forgotten in middle age Europe. For more than a thousand years, just as most other sports, athletics was not widely recognized. However, that changed when the modern Olympic games started in 1896. Suddenly the old war-training techniques became high fashion and from there a constant struggle to perform better and break the current record started. That path continues today with ever more refined measures and computerized analytics.

The records

Any performance depends on a variety of factors. And some of these are independent of the athlete or his capabilities. Let’s make a list of things that have an impact on an execution, and the result of it. 

  • how high can a human jumpThe physical strength and stamina of the athlete.
  • The technique acquired by the athlete, for that particular discipline.
  • The technical aspects of material and equipment.
  • The psychological stability and focus of the athlete.
  • Other circumstances such as meteorological factors, spectators, height over sea level, etc.

As we are going to focus on high-jump, let’s start out with the highest jumper ever in the world, so far.

Javier Sotomayor

This extraordinary athlete holds the record in high-jump. On the sunny Friday in Salamanca, Spain, on July 23, 1993, the Cuban athlete sailed over 2,45 meters (8.054 feet). He already held the world record twice with 2,43 and 2,44. But now he became totally unbeatable. He is the only man who’s jumped over 8 feet. And he holds one of the oldest records in track and field. 

And this is the first clue to understanding how high a human can jump. Running records tend to be newer, suggesting they are easier to break than throwing- and jumping records. But let’s check the list point by point.

The physical strength and stamina of the athlete.

Without being too offensive I think it is common knowledge that the use of doping was much more widespread in the past than it is today. Even if we put the obnoxious GDR state-based systematic doping program aside, doping was much more available, and less illegitimate, all over the world 50 years ago. The World Anti-Doping Agency was formed in 1999 to prevent athletes in any field from being able to increase their performance by the use of drugs. Nowadays, the agency can test any athlete at any meeting, or away from the meeting, during training, or even at the athlete’s home, unannounced. 

how high can a human jump
Rosemarie Ackermann GDR – Gold medal 1976 Montrea.l
Courtesy of Deutsches Bundesarchiv.

We now have some very old records that sometimes are regarded as unbeatable. Many of which were surely achieved with the help of unallowed substances. As it is becoming increasingly difficult to use doping and get away with it, these results will probably remain for a very long time. 

It is not controversial to assume that the physical ability of a top athlete in the near future will not exceed that of the best performers of the 80s and the 90s. Having said this, it’s obvious that the training is getting better with time. We know more about how to maximize strength and stamina, and how training should be carried out. Maybe knowledge can compensate for the lack of performance-enhancing drugs. 

Javier Sotomayor was tested positive for doping twice. In 1999 for Cocaine and in 2001 for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. He was disqualified in his last World Championship in 2001. 

The technique acquired by the athlete, for that particular discipline.

In 1968, at the Olympic Summer Games in Mexico City, a young American by the name of Richard Douglas Fosbury made a whole world choke on their evening sandwich. Not only did he have the most ridiculous high jump technique they had ever seen, but he actually won the whole competition with a personal record of 2,24 meters.

These things happen very rarely, but when they do, they change the sport forever. 

  • It happened in triple-jump in 1995 when Jonathan Edwards, GB, won the World Championship. He broke the world record twice in the same meeting.  
  • It happened when Jan Železný, Czech Republic, in 1992 at the Olympic Summer Games in Barcelona changed the way the javelin was thrown. 

But the Fosbury-Flop changed high jump from one day to another. And from 1978 and onwards, all world records have been set with the Fosbury Flop. The only such revolutionary change in techniques I can come up with is when Jan Boklöv, Sweden, won the World Cup in Ski jumping, using the V-jump in 1989.

The Fosbury Flop

The curved approach, when done correctly, gives a high horizontal velocity. A part of that energy is then used by the jumping leg to create a vertical force. The curve should create a rotation that forces the athlete over the bar without him having to think about that. The horizontal movement through the air should come automatically. The jump-leg converts the horizontal speed to vertical movement. 

Vladimir Yashchenko – The last world record holder jumping with the straddle technique

More so, the curved approach allows the athlete to be in a low position at the end of the run-up which increases the vertical push. It also makes the athlete lean away from the bar at the time that the takeoff foot is planted, which generates angular momentum during the takeoff without having to lean into the bar by the end of the takeoff.

While in flight, the athlete progressively arch shoulders, back, and legs, keeping as much of the body as possible below the bar. This is another unique feature. It is possible for the Center of Mass to pass under the bar while the curved body is over the bar, one piece at a time.  

The Fosbury Flop is a perfect technique for high jump. Even with modern computer-based analytisìcs, it is impossible to calculate a radically different way to perform a high jump that is more effective. What scientists and coaches do and have done for the last centuries, is to make it even more perfect by minimizing the variables. They analyze speed, angle, and approach-curve to get as close as possible to the perfect jump. 

But it is reasonable to imagine that the Fosbury Flop will never be surpassed by some other jump style. How high a human can jump, will not depend on some completely new variant but if the very small margins of errors in the Fosbury Flop can be perfectioned.

The technical aspects of material and equipment.

athletes equipment

A few things to consider:

  • High-jump doesn’t have any additional equipment like a javelin, a discus, or a pole. The improvement can only be applied to personal shoes and clothes, and the track surface. 
  • The importance of a soft landing space has been crucial to the development of new techniques. The straddle technique became possible from the fifties, as more stadiums abandoned the sand pitch for the softer landing mats. A smooth landing was crucial for the development of the Fosbury flop. In a sand pitch, one would likely break one’s neck with the Flop.
  • Personal equipment has a relatively small impact on the jump. Compared to running and long jump, the high-jumper typically uses fewer strides (very much fewer than long-distance running), and the speed is lower. It is true however that a better surface could improve the bounce of the jump-leg.

The conclusion must be that improvements in the material have a smaller effect on high jump than on running and long jump. And compared to pole vault it’s definitely so.   

The psychological stability and focus of the athlete.

Somewhere around 1980, sports psychologists started to show up around the training facilities. The idea that psychological preparation is almost as important as the physical one, opened a whole new world of opportunities. After some time, everybody had their own psychological experts. Hypnosis and small internal happy-rooms became everyday, mainstream knowledge. 

how high can a human jump
Coleman Griffith – The Father of Sports psychology.

Some of the instructions were closely connected to the physical training… Such as techniques to avoid conflicting muscle activity. While other aspects of the coaching included increasing the winner-instinct and leveling the results. To get better you can either increase your best performance or increase your worst. If you have jumped 2,45 once but often only reach 2,20, then raising the lower performance to, let’s say, 2,30 could mean winning much more often. 

All these techniques made a huge difference when they started out. But now, after 40 years, we have a very good idea of how to blend psychological training with the physical. And there isn’t all that much to improve from it anymore, from a record point of view. 

Other circumstances.

  • Wind. In high-jump the wind has a much lesser impact than on, let’s say, long-jump. High-jump consequently doesn’t have any limits for wind assistance.
  • Other weather phenomena. These can only worsen compared to the conditions at world record occasions. 
  • Height over sea level. When Dick Fosbury won in Mexico City, the height was 2200 meters AMSL. Another famous record was Bob Beamon’s fantastic 8,90 meters in the long-jump final. That record lived on for 23 years and still is the Olympic record today, after 52 years. The high altitude was definitely a contributing factor. Sotomayor’s world record of 2,45 was set at 800 meters AMSL

So, how high can a human jump?

Let’s check the development of the winners in the major events:

Olympics Gold Medals Men: 

  • 1948   1,98  
  • 1952   2,04  
  • 1956   2,12   straddle
  • 1960   2,16  straddle
  • 1964   2,18   straddle
  • 1968      2,24  Fosbury flop
  • 1972   2,23   straddle
  • 1976  2,25    Fosbury flop
  • 1980   2,36    Fosbury flop
  • 1984  2,35
  • 1988  2,38
  • 1992  2,34 – five athletes on the same level
  • 1996  2,39
  • 2000   2,35
  • 2004   2,36
  • 2008  2,36
  • 2012   2,33
  • 2016   2,38

World Championship Gold Medals Men:

  • 1983   2,32
  • 1987   2,38
  • 1991   2,38
  • 1993   2,40
  • 1995   2,37
  • 1997   2,37
  • 1999   2,37
  • 2001   2,36
  • 2003   2,35
  • 2005   2,32
  • 2007   2,35
  • 2009   2,32
  • 2011   2,35
  • 2013   2,41
  • 2015   2,34
  • 2017   2,35
  • 2019   2,37

How often is a new World record set?

After WW2 the High-jump world record for men was broken in

  • 1953
  • 1956
  • 1957
  • 1960 (3 times)
  • 1961 (3 times)
  • 1962 (twice)
  • 1963
  • 1971
  • 1973
  • 1976 (twice)
  • 1977
  • 1978 (the last record with straddle technique)
  • 1980 (3 times)
  • 1983 (twice)
  • 1984
  • 1985 (twice)
  • 1987
  • 1988
  • 1989
  • 1993. 

After 1993, the world record hasn’t been broken. That’s 28 years.

how high can a human jump

It is very obvious that the heights more or less stopped develop after the 1980s. In the 80s the world record went from 2.35 to 2.44. But then the progression died, like a punctured balloon. 

I have been focusing on Men’s high-jump simply because they jump higher. The question is: How high can a human jump, and men jump higher in absolute numbers. However, all that’s been said here is applicable to Women’s high-jump as well. Stefka Kostadinova, Bulgaria still holds the world record with 2.09 meters. And that is even older than that of Sotomayor… Dating from 1987. The same plateau as with men can be observed in women’s high-jump. After the 1980s, improvement stopped.

Conclusion

Yes, I know, we can’t look into the future. We cannot be sure about what high-jumping will be like in a hundred years. But so far, I think the tendency is quite obvious. To me, it is very clear that the world record in high-jump will remain as it is for a considerable time. That Friday in Salamanca in 1993 was magical, and maybe just maybe, it will remain magical forever. 

I will list a few arguments. 

  • It is indisputable that improvements in material and equipment have a relatively small impact on high-jump. The only jump- or throw world record set after 2000 is in pole vault. And pole vault depends heavily on the equipment, i.e. the pole.
  • The technique used to jump, the Fosbury Flop, is very close to perfection. It is highly unlikely that some new, yet undiscovered, way to perform the jump could come forth.
  • Physical strength is penalized by rigorous controls by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The glorious days of doping that we experienced in the seventies and the eighties are fortunately over.
  • The winning strike at major competitions confirms a plateau in improved results from the beginning of the 1980s. The men’s world record also abruptly plateaued in 1993. 


Back to the top of the page

It’s difficult to say, but if 2.45 meters isn’t an absolute limit, then it’s darn close. Everything points to stabilized high-jump results. And without performance-enhancing pills, there just isn’t enough margins to beat it… Or even reach it. I think Sotomayor’s 2.45, will live on for a very long time. 

home

sources

… I throw in a few other jumping records here… just for fun.

Standing high jump. Former a part of the Olympic program but was abandoned after the 1912 Olympics.

World record – Rune Almèn (Sweden) 1,90 meters

THE VIDEO IS NOT OF RUNE ALME’N. Sorry, but I don’t have footage of him.

Standing jump (box jump). You have to jump up and place your feet on a horizontal plan, and remain there without falling off. 

Guinness world record – Brett Williams (USA) 5 feet and 5.0 inches (1.651 meters)

THE VIDEO IS OF THE PREVIOUS RECORD BY EVEN UNGAR (Canada). Sorry, but I don’t have footage of Brett Williams either. 

How high do the basket players jump?

Wilt Chamberlain is credited with the highest jump ever of 48 inches. This is how high he should have jumped his whole body, read the head, from a running approach. When slamming the hand up on a board the jump is lower. This record is sometimes contested as it’s old and practically based on anecdotal evidence. Wilt Chamberlain was a supernatural jumper though, no doubt about that.https://youtu.be/ZmBc8NX_oL8

… And last a video from Kenya. Check out these guys and my conclusion about the impossibility to break the 2.45 meters world record, suddenly seems very uncertain. The human body can do amazing things…

Did nylon get its name from the two cities, New York and London?

by

Did nylon get its name from the two cities, New York and London?

yes or no?

The reason for the story of the two cities.

Where does the name, nylon come from? A dear friend of mine once claimed that his boat was involved in how Nylon was named after the two cities, New York and London.

He was at the time the owner of a beautiful 47 feet motor-cruiser built in the 1930s. It was an extraordinary boat, shining copper, thick oak, velvet, and silk. A piece of old-age luxury reminding him of the old days, when the world was richer and simpler… At least for the British. 

Anyway, what he said was that his vessel crossed the Atlantic in the 30s. He had documentation of that. And that the owner at one time was an English scientist involved in the creation of Nylon. After a whisky or two in the deckhouse, overlooking the mouth of the river Hamble, the story got more detailed. 

Nylon name New York London.

Two scientists, one of them possibly Wallace Carothers, the inventor of Nylon, spent a few weeks on the boat going from London to New York. The passage gave them lots of time to discuss the denomination of the new discovery, in which they both were deeply involved. By the time they reached the big Apple, they had agreed upon naming the new fiber NYLON, from the start and finish destinations of their trip… Or more precisely, the finish and start, New York, and London.

Where does the name nylon come from?The story doesn’t really add up, though. 

  • First of all, nobody, going from England to the US with a small motor yacht, parts from London. He would part from, let’s say, Plymouth… Nyply. Maybe not a very good name for promotional purposes.
  • Secondly, there is no record whatsoever of any British scientist having had anything to do with the discovery of Nylon. Although much of the scientific expertise in many fields, still was concentrated in Europe before the war, Nylon was an American product. Developed by Carothers and his colleagues under the DuPont umbrella in the US. Carothers visited Europe twice in the mid-thirties. He was at the time suffering from frequent depressions and psychological illness, and it’s highly unlikely that he would have endeavored in any adventurous expedition over the Atlantic. 

Other possible explanations. 

Another myth claims that the two cities’ names were merged on an airplane when two chemists thought up the word on an intercontinental flight from London to New York. Not even that is plausible. 

Nylon new york london
Wallace Hume Carothers

When the first ever intercontinental passenger airline started in 1939, from New York to Marseilles, Nylon was already established. The big announcement of the new fantastic material occurred on October 27, 1938. The name, Nylon, was then repeated when another promotional push was launched at the New York World’s fair in 1939. 

So it’s highly unlikely that the two cities had anything to do with it. (Sorry buddy, your boat is just a boat…). 

Now You’re Lost, Old Nippon – NYLON, is another suggestion. Any smooth, almost transparent fabric was, traditionally, made from silk, and more than half of all silk worldwide was produced in Japan. That particular phrase could have meant thumbing the nose at the rapidly climbing industrial power of the east. 

So, where does the name nylon come from?

If it had nothing to do with either New York or London, where does the name nylon come from?

Nylon new york london

The scientific name is polyhexamethylene adipamide. But the label, Nylon, indicates not one material but a group of materials. In fact, nylon is used in a wide variety of applications. And it can be mixed with additives to achieve a vast number of different properties.

As the original name wasn’t very sexy, the marketers at DuPont were trying hard to come up with something more interesting. Carothers called his plastics Polyamide 66, or fiber 66. The two numbers have survived to modern times. The particular type of nylon that Carothers and his colleagues developed, is today referred to as Nylon 66, polyhexamethylene adipamide.

Soon after the product launch, representatives of DuPont declared that the name was random, at least more or less random. The -on at the end was just a general material kind-of ending, similar to other fibers, synthetic or non…Rayon, Cotton. The nyl didn’t really mean anything… 

Later explanations.

In a publication by DuPont from 1978, a more thorough explanation is presented. According to the authors, the process of finding a name was quite complicated. A list of some 400 names was put forth, many of which were immediately thrown out. F.ex. Duparooh – DuPont Pulls A Rabbit Out Of a Hat.

Where does the name nylon come from?

In the end the list was shortened to just a few names: 

  • Delawear – Delaware, the state where the production facility was located, and Wear.
  • Dusilk
  • Rayamide
  • Silkex

K. Gladding, the director of the Nylon plant suggested:

  • No-Run, as in no-unravel. Stocking made of this material didn’t unravel.

The last steps.

No run was a little steep to promote. In fact, the company suffered to some degree when claiming that these stockings were Strong as steel and smooth as a spider web. They were certainly strong, much more resistant than silk, but still, they weren’t unbreakable. And many women, trusting the DuPont’s claims, treated their new stockings carelessly, causing them to – right… Unravel.

Where does the name nylon come from?

When DuPont changed the campaign strategy to focus less on technical and scientific innovation, and more on the practical aspect, comfort, and style, the sales skyrocketed. In the first year after WW2, there were riots outside the warehouses, when production couldn’t keep up with the astronomical demand. In one occasion in Pittsburg, 40.000 women queued up for hours. The 13.000 pairs available sold out in minutes, leading to fights breaking out.

In the end, No-Run was just a little too provocative. So they changed the order of the vowels, Nu-Ron… Nuron. But that sounded too much like neuron, the brain cell. An L was put in… Nulon, the U changed to I… Nilon. Lastly the I was substituted by an Y to clarify the pronunciation. 

And there you have it, Nylon. From No Run, as in No Unravel.

Wallace Carothers tragically took his own life on April 28, 1937. 


Back to the top of the page

Conclusion

No, the name Nylon has nothing to do with New York and London. It was simply an imaginative description that was supposed to be selling. A good, catchy, word, easy to promote.

Nylon riots
American Ladies queuing for Nylon/Stockings after the war., Tennessee

home
sources

With all the evidence and observations in recent years, can we finally accept that aliens exist here on earth?

by

With all the evidence and observations in recent years, can we finally accept that aliens exist here on earth?

yes or no?

aliens existDo aliens exist here on earth?

If you look only at all the observations, grainy footage, people testifying that aliens exist and that they’ve seen strange light formations in the sky, or pilots stating that they’re being followed by flying objects that fly in a way that no known airplane can… Then it seems obvious that there has to be someone else out there.  And why shouldn’t there? 

Is it possible that we are the only ones living, dying, loving, and evolving in this amazing Universe?

Let’s take a look at what we know…

There have been many observations… Or maybe not?

In April, this year, 2020, the Pentagon released three videos of UFOs spotted by American military aircraft. The videos weren’t new as they were leaked already in 2007 and 2017. But the Pentagon wanted to clear up all misunderstandings and clarify that the footage was real in all three occasions, so they declassified them. 

One video from 2004 shows two navy fighter pilots following a round object hovering above the water, about 100 miles (160 km) out over the Pacific Ocean. The other two videos are from 2015 and they show a few other very fast unidentified objects, one of which rotating.

The Pentagon Videos

The most interesting fact about these videos is that they are official and very credible, as they come directly from the US military. What they show is probably very real and should be considered trustworthy. 

The problem, of course, is that the images are blurry. As are all the other thousands of photos and videos showing possible alien flying aircraft. Up until today, we don’t have any conclusive evidence of existing aliens or UFOs. There’s no extraterrestrial aircraft on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C and there has been no documented “encounter of the third kind” ever. 

From the various UFO observations, we don’t have any substantial evidence that aliens exist. It’s still a question of believing, much like believing in a Deity.

The Universe is big.

The Universe is big… Let me rephrase that. The Universe is so big that a normal human brain can’t even begin to comprehend it. 

When talking about aliens and if they exist or not, you, first of all, have to acknowledge this fact. The distances are astronomical (…right). The known universe, that is the observable universe is 93 billion light-years in diameter. The Big Bang happened 13,8 billion years ago, but the radius of the Universe is still 46 billion light-years, 

aliens existThe reason for this seemingly paradoxical fact, I will write about in another post.

But these vast distances make it very difficult to observe other stars, planets, and galaxies, to see if the aliens exist there. Not only because it’s far away and you need very good binoculars. But more so because what we see is the past. 

If Alfie, the alien, waves his hand on a planet that orbits our closest neighboring star, 4 light-years away, that image and the light from his salute will take 4 years to reach the earth. When we look at that star, we see what happened four years ago.

If we look at something on the other side of the Universe, we see what happened there, billions of years ago. And a lot can happen in a few billion years.

If Aliens exist on earth and we wanted to see them, they would have to be from our neighborhood, very close by.

The speed of light in a vacuum is fixed, it doesn’t change… Ever. 

It is 299 792 458 meters per second, exactly. The first scientist ever who determined the light speed was the Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Rømer, also known as Olaus Roemer. The year was 1676. Before him, light was supposed to not have any speed at all. It just appeared and vanished instantaneously. 

But from Roemer and onward, people knew about the speed of light. And they knew how immensely fast it is. 

Light also doesn’t accelerate or decelerate, and it doesn’t matter from what angle, or if you yourself are moving towards, or away from the light source. It’s always 299 792 458 m/s. 

aliens existAlbert Einstein

Many hundreds of years after Roemer, the German scientist Albert Einstein determined a relationship between mass, speed, and time in his special theory of relativity. 

His conclusion was that if the speed of light is constant, then mass and time must be variable. Modern research has confirmed these theories. Experiments at the Cern Particle Accelerator complex in Bern, Switzerland show that when you close in on the speed of light, and you reach speeds that are hundreds of thousands of meters per second, the mass increases. It increases so much, in fact, that if you should reach light speed the mass would be infinite. And if the mass is infinite, it would take infinite energy to accelerate it further. 

And this makes Faster than Light travel impossible. 

But if aliens exist they could be very smart.

Of course, it’s impossible for us to say for sure that Alfie, the alien, doesn’t have some super technology that is far beyond our understanding. But the problem with this is that Einstein’s theories are not technologies. They are physical and scientific facts. And the only way the aliens could have faster than light aircraft is if we simply are wrong about how the physics in the universe work. And that couldn’t happen… Or could it? 

… Or they could have developed teleportation… Or they could use the quantum entanglement… Or they could exploit the curves in time-space or the expansion of the Universe. They could have technical knowledge that we couldn’t even imagine.

Our space shuttles and our science would probably be very rudimentary in the eyes of the aliens. We would be like a medieval peasant looking at a moving car.

So, if we can’t see them, maybe we could hear them?

aliens exist

Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for all kinds of searches for extraterrestrial life. This is mostly through “listening” to radio signals and sometimes looking for visible light signals. Quite a few projects have started and concluded ever since we first developed communication through radio signals. Huge telescopes are used to collect radio waves. These are then analyzed for patterns and groups of signals that could indicate an intelligent source. 

  • In 1995 the Phoenix project started listening to 800 solar systems similar to ours in a 200-light-year radius. In 2004 the project leader Peter Backus concluded that “we live in a quiet neighborhood”.
  • In fact, none of all these projects have ever found any proof of signals that could have been sent by an intelligent source. 
  • Between September 16, 2018, and October 30, 2019, researchers with the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment detected a pattern in radio signal bursts occurring every 16.35 days. The pattern consists of one or two bursts every hour for four days. Then silence for 12 days. Possible sources could be the orbital motion of a star or a double star system, the scientists are puzzled. This is the first time such a periodical signal has been detected. The source is 500 light-years away

Aliens exist, but maybe we shouldn’t let them know we’re here… 

  • In 1974, the Arecibo Message, the most powerful broadcast ever deliberately beamed into space was made from Puerto Rico. It contains 73 lines of 23 characters. Our solar system, DNA, and a simple human being are displayed. It’s beamed towards the globular star cluster M13 which is 21.000 light-years away. We will have to wait quite some time for the answer.
  • aliens existIn 2015 a competition was announced to create a similar message, the Breakthrough Message, with a prize pot of $1.000.000 to whoever writes the best letter to our alien friends.
  • Many scientists, among them Stephen Hawking, argue that it’s not a good idea to make our existence known to whoever is out there. Not until we have an idea who we are talking to. Thus it would be smarter to just listen.
  • In January 2016 the Breakthrough Listen was launched. It is the biggest, most well-funded SETI-project in history, with $100 million in funding and thousands of hours of dedicated telescope time on state-of-the-art facilities. The announcement was flanked by some of the greatest scientists of our time, including Stephen Hawking, and Frank Drake.

And for those of you, who do not know who Frank Drake is…

The Drake equation.

In 1961 Frank Drake, the American astronomer and astrophysicist hosted a SETI-meeting at the Green Bank facility in West Virginia. Ten of the most famous scientists in the field should meet and discuss the possibility of alien life. Drake was occupied with all the practical aspects of everything, and a few days before they were all to arrive, he realized that he didn’t know what they were going to talk about… He didn’t have an agenda.  

So he put together a formula to determine the probability for the existence of alien life forms. And it goes like this:

N = N∗ x FQ x FHZ x FO x FL x FS

  • N = the number of planets with detectable signs of life
  • N∗ = the number of stars observed
  • FQ = the fraction of stars that are quiet
  • FHZ = the fraction of stars with rocky planets in the habitable zone
  • FO = the fraction of those planets that can be observed
  • FL = the fraction of planets that have life
  • FS = the fraction on which life is detectable… Intelligent life that transmits radio signals.
aliens exist
Frank Drake 2017 Courtesy of Amalex5

The Drake Equation is getting better with time.

It is easy to see that almost all of these parameters are extremely uncertain. And the result of the Drake equation can be within a very wide range. But now in 2020, we know more than Frank Drake did in 1961, and a few of the numbers can be estimated rather well.

  • The number of stars in the Milky Way is 250 billion give or take some hundred billion.
  • The number of planets is estimated to be at least one around each star. 
  • The number of planets within the habitable zone, the distance from the star that would have temperatures that could permit life to evolve, could be as much as 40 billion.

But how many of these develop life?  

Even if it’s just 1 in a thousand, it would mean 40 million planets with life on them. And even if, of all the aliens living there, only 1 in a thousand arrived at an intelligent form… Someone who could transmit radio signals, that would still mean 40.000 planets with intelligent life, just within the Milky Way. 

timeline earth's historyThe last part of the equation is the time aspect. 

  • The Earth was formed 4,6 billion years ago. 
  • After only half a billion years the first cellular organisms came to life. 
  • After the first bacteria, we had to wait 2,5 billion years before anything similar to a multicellular animal was developed. 
  • Another billion years before the first land-living vertebrates came up. 
  • 60 million years ago the Dinosaurs died out and the era of mammals started.
  • The first homo sapiens walked the earth 300.000 years ago. 
  • In all this, we’ve had radio transmission in merely 100 years. 100 out of 4.6 billion is 0,00000217% of the total time the world has existed. 

If every one of the 40.000 worlds in our galaxy that hosts intelligent life, would have the radio technology for only 100 years. Then the probability that they are there right now, at this very moment, is very small. It’s still just a fraction of a percent. 

Aliens could exist on more worlds out there, though…

But, on the other hand, if life isn’t all that rare among the planets… And intelligent life isn’t all that rare on the planets hosting life. 

And, on the other hand, if their intelligent life-form would exist for more than a hundred years… Maybe thousands or millions of years.

Then, the number of intelligent life could be enormous… Only counting our little galaxy. 

And the number of intelligent aliens in the whole of the universe could be more than we could ever imagine. 

Because the number of galaxies in the whole visible universe is estimated to be around 2.000.000.000.000… Yes, 2 trillion. And now we’re talking a very high probability that intelligent aliens actually exist. 

The Fermi paradox.

So, where are they? If there are millions and billions of aliens existing in the universe here and there, why don’t we encounter any?

Why isn’t there an alien spaceship at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C?

And why don’t we hear or see anything no matter how much we look for them?

The architect of the nuclear bomb
Enrico Fermi

This is called the Fermi Paradox, the obvious contradiction between the estimated probability for alien life, and the complete lack of evidence for it. 

The Nobel prize winner and leading member of the Manhattan Project (the development of an American nuclear bomb during ww2), Italian physicist Enrico Fermi uttered something along those lines at a lunch with his colleagues in 1950. 

He was neither the first nor the last to object to the often too positive estimates with the simple… If aliens exist, where are they?

So, if aliens exist, why can’t we see them?

Finally, we arrive at the most interesting piece of the argument… The reason for their complete absence. 

The answer to that question can be divided into various categories of possible reasons:

  • They don’t exist. We’re alone.
  • They exist, but they are too far away or for some other reason they are difficult to detect.
  • They’re here, but they’re hiding.

The first possibility is not all that bad. It’s sad and very lonely, but at least we can feel reasonably secure. Apart from meteorites and comets, we can sleep safely.

The third possibility is less encouraging. Why would they hide? The answer could be that they are afraid or that they have hostile intentions. But maybe we should have noticed any hostility by now. The time span of possible alien interactions is vast and if they just wanted to eat us, maybe they would have done so already.

Another reason could be the Zoo hypothesis. We are so inferior and fragile, that the alien race prefers to keep us in a zoo. Like pets they let us live out our lives and develop our civilization until we’re ready for the galactic community. Or their life-form is so strange that, for our own good, they don’t reveal themselves. 

Aliens exist but they’re not here and we can’t see them. 

The second category, however, is maybe the scariest. At least I think so. 

There are quite a few hypotheses as to why aliens exist, will exist, or have existed, but we can’t get in contact with them.

  • It could be that life is very rare, and that’s that. Our neighbors are simply too far away.  
  • Or that of all the life out there, intelligent life is very rare. (After the last months of the global pandemic, this is a highly sustainable hypothesis.). 
  • It could be that natural disasters are much more common elsewhere and that civilizations die out regularly because of heating or cooling suns, meteorites, or other cosmic dangers. These events could be much more common in other parts of the galaxy, f.ex. close to the center where there are much more objects flying around. Maybe the majority never reach intelligence at all. They die already in the bacteria phase.

Aliens existed but they all auto-destruct after some time.

Intelligence is closely connected to the will to destroy itself and others.    

The theory is this.

To arrive at intelligent life, you need two things… Aggressiveness and Laziness. 

Looking at the earth, aggression is common also among non-intelligent classes, but with intelligence, the bullying becomes much more effective. On our planet we humans have already destroyed most of nature, we have killed and extinct around 500 higher species in the last hundred years… And we continue to kill each other through warfare, and economic unbalance. 

In 1979 a computer error at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) was minutes away from causing a full retaliation against the Soviet Union for an attack on the US with 2.200 nuclear missiles. The retaliation had to be confirmed by President Carter, but he waited a few seconds, and the defense satellites could determine that it was a false alarm. 

In 1983 there were two more incidents, and there have been many others, before and after. 

We are destroying natural resources in a way that jeopardizes our own future. 

Sebastian Rudolf Karl von Hoerner, a German astrophysicist, was a supporter of the theory that all civilizations must destroy themselves after some time. Either by killing and destroying or by degeneration through laziness.

In this case, it’s dead-end… We will all die and there’s nothing we can do about it.

alien invation
War of the Worlds

The last option.  The scariest of them all. 

But the aggression could also be focused on other alien races. Let’s say that the aggression isn’t directed at the own race but at the other groups, species, and worlds. Just like the ants attack ants of another species if they come close, the aliens would make sure nobody can compete with them. 

Once they have a technological advantage they start to take out anyone that could propose a threat to them. By doing so they keep the star cluster, the galaxy, and possibly eventually the universe free from competition. 

In this case, we will not only die, but we will have a brutal, cruel, immediate, and definite death. War of the Worlds. And in this case, just like Steven Hawking pointed out, it would be very, very stupid to send out random signals in the universe. 

————

But going back to Enrico Fermi… If it’s so, and they’re coming for us, to destroy us and kill us, and if they have mind-blowingly advanced technology after thousands, and maybe millions of years of evolving…. 

Where are they? 


Back to the top of the page

Conclusion

No, we can’t say for sure that aliens exist. And we can not say that they don’t. 

Like my grandpa used to say after the mandatory political discussion at the family dinner. We actually don’t know shit!

the galaxy

home

sources:

If you put your batteries in the fridge, will they last longer?

by

If you put your batteries in the fridge, will they last longer?

yes or no?

The old myth about batteries’ supposedly longer life if you put them in the refrigerator.

I still remember when I was very small and my Aunt told me to go get the milk from the fridge. I was around 4 or 5 and it was a great responsibility to go get stuff and bring it back. So I tumbled away, into the kitchen, and open the refrigerator door. Totally flabbergasted, I watched the long lines of batteries inside the fridge door, between the milk, the fruit juice, and bottles of various nature. All kinds of batteries, big ones, small ones, round, and squared, all side by side standing and lying like frozen soldiers in a landscape model. It was awesome, at least for a 5-year-old.   

My Aunt as well as many of her generation was convinced that putting the batteries in the fridge, was a way to extend their life. Even the freezer was a safe bet for many of the older generation. The cold environment slows down the self-discharge and keeps the batteries in better health until the day you take them out and fry them… or use them in some electric tool or a radio or something. 

This myth was generated a long time ago and many still are absolutely convinced that keeping the batteries in the fridge, makes them last longer. 

But is it true?

The science behind the batteries’ life span.

batteries life

Batteries release energy through a chemical reaction between two or more compounds stored inside the closed shell. Electrons flow out of the one terminal, through whatever device they’re powering, and back into the other terminal. When a battery is plugged in, this flow depends on the workload. The more energy the lamp or the RC-car uses, the faster the batteries run out of energy. But when batteries are not plugged in they still leak a little from one terminal to the other. So, after a long time, they will discharge even if they are never used. This is called the self-discharge, and it’s actually higher at higher temperatures and lower at lower temperatures. 

So: Yes, batteries keep longer if they’re in a cold environment.

But, that’s not the whole truth.

Before the modern Alkaline batteries entered our homes, we used zinc-carbon batteries for our everyday needs. Until a few decades ago, alkaline batteries were regarded as rather exclusive. A famous manufacturer, with a drummer-bunny as their trademark had almost monopolistic control of the market. And their batteries were looked upon as much more effective than all the others. Normal batteries were Zinc–carbon batteries, and these had a much shorter life. The benefit of putting them in the fridge was noticeable, just like my Aunt and everybody in here generation new.

batteries life

While the old batteries had a significantly longer life span when stored in the fridge or even the freezer, modern batteries gain very little. Science is moving forward. Today we also have many different types of batteries, from huge starter batteries for trucks, to tiny lithium cells for computers and cell phones. And to complicate the argument. they all have different self-discharge rates.

Here’s a list of how fast batteries generally self-discharge:

  • Alkaline: Modern alkaline batteries are very stable. They lose a few percent of their charge per year.
  • Zinc-carbon: As said before, these batteries have a much shorter life. They, lose about 20% a year in self-discharge. 
  • Lithium-ion (rechargeable): These are found in laptops, mobile phones, and high-end portable power tools. They discharge a little faster around 5% per month.
  • Nickel-Cadmium (NiCa)(rechargeable): These were the ancestors of Lithium-ion batteries. These lose around 10% per month.
  • Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) (rechargeable): These replaced much of the Nickel-Cadmium batteries as they have a better capacity. The early generation of these had a terrible self-discharge rate… Around 30% per month at room temperature. Later versions, Low self-discharge (LSD) NiMH batteries, have a much longer life, on par with the disposable alkaline batteries.  

But it’s not fair to compare a rechargeable computer battery to a disposable flashlight battery. Rechargeable batteries don’t rely so much on long life and low self-discharge, since they can be recharged at any time.

They can be dangerous too.

Batteries can explode. Yes, they can and it’s a hazard risk that should be reckoned with. A normal lead-acid starter battery for your car produces hydrogen gas when charged… And hydrogen is highly explosive. 

The Lithium-ion battery in your cell phone can also explode for various reasons. If the charger is malfunctioning, if it’s too strong for the device, if there are poor ventilation and high temperature in the room, or if not charging at all but for some other reason gets too hot.  

  • Don’t talk or use the phone in any other way when it’s charging.
  • Don’t charge it on your bedroom table when you sleep.
  • Don’t leave it in your car, or in any other very hot place. 

The complicated reality of the batteries’ life.

Putting batteries in the fridge is still only possible with a small number of types of batteries, namely the small AA, AAA D, and Cs. Nobody puts a lead-acid car battery in the fridge, and nobody dismantles the Li-ion battery of the cell phone just to put it in the refrigerator overnight. 

As said before, batteries inside computers and other electrical devices don’t have to be very long-life. They get charged every day anyway, or every second or third. For those batteries, it’s much more important to have a long life regarding the total recharging cycles it can take without losing capacity. 

And some batteries can also be damaged if the temperature is too low, especially if they are not fully charged. 

Some batteries, like the Li-ion, have a much higher self-drainage when they are fully charged. Those should be stored at about half-charge… And, they last longer in the fridge.

And batteries can be damaged by humidity. In some refrigerators, the humidity is high, especially in summer…  

But now it’s getting too complicated.

Voltaic Pile
Courtesy of Bcrowell. The first battery in the world – The Voltaic Pile.

And that’s why we can’t say that the batteries’ life increases if you keep them cold. Generally speaking, it is true, but there are so many different factors to take into consideration, that the cold completely loses its importance. The battery manufacturers suggest dry and cool normal room temperature for storing batteries. Here are some more tips:

  • Alkaline and non-rechargeable lithium batteries can be stored for 10 years with moderate loss capacity.
  • Remove the battery from the equipment and store it in a dry and cool place.
  • Avoid freezing. Batteries suffer damage more easily if they are kept in freezing temperatures while discharged.
  • Nickel-based batteries can be stored completely discharged. 
  • Lithium-ion must be stored in a charged state. If it’s left completely discharged for more than a week it has to be disposed of.


Back to the top of the page

Yes, batteries lose less power when stored at a low temperature. But it’s very little, and it’s so complicated to give general advice that you probably do best to follow the guidelines of the manufacturer… Detach from the electronic device, and store in a cool and dry place. 

home

sources

Batteries in the fridge  Batteries in the fridge  Batteries in the fridge  Batteries in the fridge

Have scientists and make-up artists have finally discovered why the face of Donald Trump is orange?

by

Have scientists and make-up artists finally discovered why the face of Donald Trump is orange?

yes or no?
trump orange
Brad Thomas and Donald Trump. Courtesy of Gene Ho Photography

Why is Donald Trump orange?

Donald Trump, the former president of the USA has an extraordinary skin color. It is yellowish almost orange and it has caused a lot of speculation among journalists, fellow politicians, and ordinary people as to why that is… Why is his facial skin tone so… strange? 

He is blondish and has a blond complexion. So, it’s no wonder that he has delicate skin, a skin that maybe shouldn’t be exposed to much to the sun. And he should use good protection and not sunbathe during the hot hours. 

But, with all that said, in later years he is becoming increasingly orange. An artificial, synthetic color that does very little to improve his physical appearance. 

Nobody, apart from his closest family, knows exactly the reason for the strange skin tone. 

trump is orange

The various theories.

There have been speculations. Most of them regard self-tanning with tanning beds or spray-tanning, or the use of colored lotions. 

Self-tanning would justify the whiter areas around the eyes, but it can’t explain the whiter areas around the face, at the hairline, and on the hands. Many people from within the White House have stated that there are no tanning beds inside the premises, and there is no spray-tanning boot.   

Colored lotions are a possible explanation. Especially as the complexion of the face seems to be very different from what we can see of the rest of the body. A very orange foundation without any other levels of makeup could possibly produce the kind of color we see in the President’s face. 

The White House’s explanation.

The White House has declared many times that the orange look on Donald Trump’s face is due to Good Genes. It is not specified how good genes make someone’s face turn orange. 

In September 2019 the President said that the strange color was caused by all the low-energy bulbs.

 – The light bulb. People said what’s with the light bulb? Trump stated speaking before Republican legislators in Baltimore

 – …And I looked at it, the bulb that we’re being forced to use.., the light’s no good. I always look orange. And so do you. The light is the worst.

trump orangeThe untold truth! Why is Trump orange?

In December 2019 Washington Post published a story about how Trump supposedly should have used employed undocumented immigrants at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. Interviews with the household workers uncovered a new possible reason for Trump’s orange face: Artificial face color.

trump is orange

According to one of the housekeepers, the shade of the makeup that she had to put in Donald Trump’s room every day was “una naranja espantosa”, a scary orange. After more investigation, only one possible product came up… The Bronx boosting hydrating concealer orange.

Now, the Bronx Boosting Hydrating Concealer in Orange isn’t a high-end makeup line. The company making it is a Swiss firm, Bronx colors. Their products are medium- to low-end, and even they don’t consider this particular product very interesting.

To be perfectly correct, it’s a concealer, not a foundation. It should be used to correct imperfections in skin tone. It’s not meant to be applied evenly on the face as a foundation is. But I’m not an expert. 

Isabelle von Känel, the Chief Operating Officer of Bronx Colors, can’t confirm that Trump uses their product. 

 – We are not sending him any products, but just like anyone else, he could buy from any retailer or from any other source. 

The product is not available in retail in the USA, and maybe it’s for the best. Some unofficial reviews and bloggers have slammed it pretty good. And Isabelle von Känel confirms that they haven’t been marketing it for the US market. Discussions are being made but so far there is no distribution in America. 

the president of the USA

Conclusion

We cannot say for sure why Trump is orange. But I think, without proof, that we can exclude the Bronx Colors Urban Cosmetics as responsible for his skin tone. The probability that the man who was the President of the United States as well as the 766th richest person on earth, would go through lengthy measures to buy a cheap brand from Switzerland, a brand that doesn’t even sell in the US, just to have the exclusive privilege to have his face turn orange… Well, that probability is close to zero, as I see it. 


Back to the top of the page

No, Scientists and Make-up artists are still searching for the truth to the riddle… Why is Donald Trump’s face orange?

home

sources

Is E=mc2 wrong?

by

Is the world’s most famous equation, Albert Einstein’s E=mc², completely wrong?

YES OR NO?

meaning of E=mc2

E=mc2 is wrong, or is it?

The E=mc² equation is the most famous ever, by the most famous of all physicists in the history of man. The combination is a bulls-eye of universal dimensions. It doesn’t get any better than that. If you know one, single equation or mathematical formula, it’s probably this one.

The E stands for energy (in Joules). the m and the c, are mass in (Kilograms) and the speed of light in a vacuum (in Meter/second). The idea of mass and energy as equal actually wasn’t Einstein’s, but what he did was to propose it as a general principle. And a principle that could be summed in a formula of extreme simplicity and promotional value.  That’s awesome, and Einstein truly was a genius… But is it true? Is the equation that explains the fundamental rules of the universe, really that simple?

One very obvious application can be shown by just looking at the formula. If we put only 1 kg (2,2 lbs) into the equation, we would get an energy equivalent of 89.875.517.873.681.800 Joules. That is more than 1000 times the energy of the Atomic bomb that the US dropped over Hiroshima at the end of WW2.

Albert Einstein

meaning of E=mc2

This simple formula, the meaning of E=mc2, was a game-changer in physics when it hit the science community in 1905. And it changed how science perceived the universe and ourselves in it forever. It also made Einstein a scientific superstar. He received the Nobel prize, but not until 1921, and not for his theories of relativity. More about that later.

The destructive applications of E=mc2

The example above demonstrates the destructive ability of his theories. The discovery of something that powerful that could be used as a weapon attracted the attention of many, especially politicians and militaries. Fortunately for us, the Nazis didn’t understand what they had within reach. In 1933 Einstein emigrated from Germany to the USA. Although he had many offers to come and lecture offers of scholarships, and employment from many European universities, he decided to stay in the US. He became an American citizen in 1940.

The German scientist didn’t participate in the making of the Bomb. But together with Leo Szilárd, a fellow scientist of Hungarian origin, he wrote a letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 warning him about the Germans trying to develop nuclear weapons. This letter is supposed to have had a decisive impact on the Americans beginning the development of an Atomic bomb., the so-called Manhattan Project.

First, he didn’t get the Nobel prize

meaning of E=mc2

Einstein was nominated 60 times for the Nobel Prize from 1910 to 1922. His discoveries were at the time the most discussed and the most cataclysmic in the science world. Einstein was very well known among his colleagues but it wasn’t until 1919 that he became famous worldwide also among normal people.

In May 1919 there was a total solar eclipse, and measures made in Africa and South America showed the accuracy of Einstein’s theories. Already in 1905, Einstein’s annus mirabilis (amazing year), he had produced four groundbreaking articles, on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy. Still, he hadn’t been awarded the Nobel prize.

The reasons for this were many…

  • In 1905, Einstein was very young, 26 years, and the gentlemen in the Academy were mostly old. They were of the old school, conservative, and reactionary. Einstein’s ideas of a bending time-space could have been just a bit too revolutionary for their approval.
  • The Testament of Alfred Nobel says that the prize should go to those who confer the greatest benefit on mankind. And the discoveries should be tested and verified. Einstein’s discoveries were all theories, with very little practical use. As the years passed, that argument would fail demonstrably.
  • There was documented antisemitism from many of the members of the Science Academy. In 1905 the Hungarian scientist Philipp Lenard received the prize. Leonard joined the Academy that same year, and he sympathized with the racial ideologies of the time. He was a skeptic of the relativity theory and an enemy of Einstein. He later became a strong supporter of Hitler and the nazi-party.

…Then he got it. But not for E=mc2.

When Einstein finally got the prize he got it for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Not for the special theory of relativity and not for E=mc2.

meaning of E=mc2

The NobelPrize Diploma of Einstein includes the following statement: 

…independent of the value which, after eventual confirmation, may be attributed to the theory of gravity and relativity…

We do not know who put it there because it wasn’t the official standpoint of the Academy that the theories of relativity couldn’t be fully trusted. But it shows to what degree his findings were controversial. Even 17 years after he published them.

So, if E=mc2 is wrong, how do you explain nuclear power?

E=mc2 is wrong as a conclusive formula. But, it works perfectly well under certain conditions, in certain contexts. The bomb and the powerplants all work, no doubt about that. But if you want a more overall equation that covers more eventualities and is applicable in general circumstances, that would be this: E²=pc²+(mc²)²

Here the E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light. The only new letter is p and that is momentum or the motion of the particle.

Now if the momentum is 0, the particle is NOT moving. Then we get this:

E²=0c²+(mc²)²

E²=0+(mc²)²

E²=(mc²)²

E=mc², and there is the same old formula, the most famous in the world.

Now let’s see what happens if the mass is 0… Wait, wait… Can something be without weight? (And this is probably one of the reasons why Einstein had to wait 17 years to get the Nobel prize. Stuff without mass was unimaginable for the old fossils of the Academy.) But yes, the photons, the particles that light is made up of, are regarded as mass-less. They have no weight.

E²=pc²+(0c²)²

E²=pc²+0

E²=pc²

E=pc

And this is the relationship between energy and the momentum of a photon, between energy and light.

Conclusion

The meaning of E=mc2 as the relationship between mass and energy is valid only if the particle has mass (… It’s not valid for light), and if the particle is not moving. In that case E=mc² is perfectly meaningful. In any other case it’s not.

But I am not a physicist. If you want to dive into the Mass Energy equivalent there are miles and miles of literature to cover. One start would be the excellent Wikipedia page. It’s complex but interesting. Or check out this Nasa-website about Einstein. Good luck!

Back to the top of the page

So, E=mc2, even though it’s not completely wrong, it’s limited.

It’s wrong as a general formula… It is a special case. This makes it applicable only if speed is 0 and mass is not 0. It’s like saying “I can run faster than a train”. This is true, but only if the train is a very slow train… Slower than me. It’s a special case.

home

sources

Youtube / minutephysics

The Guardian / Why Einstein never received a Nobel prize for relativity

Scientific American / Was Einstein the First to Invent E = mc2?

Einstein I Sverige

Nobel Prize / Albert Einstein

Wikipedia / Albert Einstein

Is water a good electricity conductor?

by

Is water a good electricity conductor?

yes or no?


does water conduct electricity

It’s dangerous to use power equipment in wet environments. 

Does water conduct electricity? We’ve seen it on films, we’ve read it in books, we’ve even read the hazard-risk alert in the instructions of our radio, or our hairdryer… Do not use it close to water. And the reason is that water is an excellent electricity conductor. You could get an electric shock.

But honestly, does water conduct electricity?

No, it doesn’t. Not the water by itself. At least not very much. To be a good conductor we need something with low electrical resistance. Resistance is exactly what it says, resistance to conduct electric current. The opposite is electrical conductance, the ease with which an electric current travels through a body. 

Pure water or water that consists of nothing else than water H2O, no impurity, no salts or minerals, has a maximum electrical resistance of 182.000 Ω m²/m (Ohms per square meter/meter). The conductivity, which measures the ease with which electricity can run through the material, the opposite of resistance, is 0,0000055 S/m (Siemens/meter). 

For seawater, those figures are 0,2 Ω m²/m and  5 S/m

For tap water, it’s 2-200 Ω m²/m and 0,005-0,05 S/m

The theory

does water conduct electricity
Courtesy of Jon Rowlinson

As you can see, there’s a huge difference in conductivity between the various types of water, And it all depends on what is solved within the liquid apart from the pure water. The water doesn’t conduct, but the minerals solved in it do.

For a material to have high conductance we need two things.

  • There must be charged particles within the substance (either ions or electrons).
  • These particles must be free to move. It is true that in water (H2O) the discrete molecules are free to move, however, they carry no charge.

Minerals and other impurities, all have these characteristics, so if these are present in the water, it conducts electricity. Actually, more or less anything that is solved in the water conducts electricity. Salt is an excellent conductor, solved in water  The salt molecules split into two pieces, a sodium ion, and a chlorine ion. The sodium ion is missing an electron, and the chlorine ion has an extra electron. That way, the salt has both a positive and a negative charge.

The current through the water will have two terminals: a negative, and a positive.  Opposite charges attract, so the sodium ions are attracted to the negative terminal and the chlorine to the positive. A bridge is formed. The sodium ions absorb electrons from the negative terminal, pass them to the chlorine ions, and then to the positive terminal. 

It takes very little impurities in the water to completely change its qualities for it to become conductive. 

Let’s check Water Electricity Conductivity

This is resistance in demineralized water, tap water, and, saltwater. It’s not very scientifically correct. The multimeter cost 50 bucks and the demineralized water is not pure water. It was bought in a plastic bottle at the nearest supermarket.

  This is the resistance in demineralized water. Around 900 Ω. 

 This is tap water. No more than 90 Ω.

This is saltwater. Not seawater, but tap water with salt in it. The resistance is 40 Ω.

Here we start with demineralized water and pour salt into it. Interestingly, at the start, it is now less than 700 Ω. The short time and very little handling, the particles losing from the electrodes, have made the water more conductive. 

As stated above, I don’t get the values I should, cause I’m not using laboratory equipment. Sorry about that, But you get a general idea of what’s happening.

Then how come it’s so dangerous when close to electric things?

Now that we understand that even if pure water isn’t a good conductor, normal water does conduct electricity. The water we have around us is all contaminated, and it’s dangerous, close to electricity.

If you are wet, you act as a connector to everything around you. You are electrically connected to everything. And if you touch an electrically charged object or the plug, you could transmit that energy through your body to the ground. Like a lightning rod. 110-220 volts is bad enough if you just touch the cables. But if you have become the bridge yourself because you’re wet, it could be very hard to break the circuit. You can’t just drop the cords, you’re standing on the terminal and your whole body is a wet part of the shortcut. The damage would be lethal.

The hazard risk

This is what you should keep in mind:

  • Keep hands dry when handling electrical wires and plugs. 
  • Unplug electrical appliances when not in use in wet areas. Unplug the hairdryer inside your bathroom or an induction cooker beside the kitchen sink.
  • Keep electrical devices and extension cords away from water sources or running water.
  • Hire a professional electrical contractor to install electrical connections in swimming pools or bathrooms.
  • Prefer battery-operated devices instead of electricity-driven appliances in bathrooms and pool areas. 
does water conduct electricity
Courtesy of vincent desjardins


Back to the top of the page

Conclusion

No, actually pure water is a very poor electricity conductor. But pure, distilled water is rare. All other water, tap water, rainwater, seawater, is full of minerals and other impurities, and they make good conductivity. So, take great care when combining water and electricity.

home

sources