My Unfounded Theories 3: Distant Aliens Think We Move Slowly Due To Special Relativity

Hear me out. It all depends on your frame of reference. Light is the fastest thing in every reference frame, but in certain reference frames we will be moving near the speed of light. So, the Earth is moving around the sun at 30,000 meters per second, and around the Milky Way at around 250,000 meters per second an around the Local Group of galaxies at 300,000 meters per second. These speeds are a couple of orders of magnitude lower than the speed of light (300,000,000 meters per second), but as you take your reference frame as being deeper and deeper into space, the faster we a relatively moving.

So what kind of implications does this have? Well, in inertial reference frames, time dilation is an observed effect that causes time in a fast moving object to slow down. So, if there was another planet very far away and it was moving very fast, it would appear to us that clock on that planet would tick very slowly. If there was life on that planet, it would appear that life would grow very slowly. The same would be true of us from their perspective. This is pretty cool, because if aliens tried to sneak up on us, they might think we were sloths, but when they get here they would see that we move quickly. Unless they know about relativity and took it into account. Here's to hoping Einstein was the smartest person/thing ever.

Watch a pulse of light at a trillion frames per second

So, at MIT they made a high speed camera that can capture a trillion frames per second and that's fast enough to watch a pulse of light in slow motion. Crazy. How did they do this, you ask? They use a bunch of light sensors that are slow on their own, but are timed to take a picture one trillionth of a second apart. To reduce the number of sensors that they needed to use they took photos that were only about a pixel high and as wide as their scene. Then scanned the whole scene from top to bottom with the camera. Since the light pulse was a highly repeatable event, they could do a bunch of trials and then mesh all of the line videos together. I JUST SAW LIGHT! Yeah, whatever, I see light 16 hours a day.

My Unfounded Theories 2: Where does the time go?

So, how's the space-time continuum been treating you lately? This is my standard greeting when I'm feeling a little bit pompous. Well, time is pretty crazy when you think about it. It's the fourth dimension, it's the first non-spatial one (the second one is possibilities? Ah, who knows), but mathematically it can pretty much just be lumped with the spatial ones. People have pondered about what time is for all of humanity, so don't expect a definitive conclusion from this post. The problem seems to be that we really have no way of probing time. For probing space, we have things like the LHC and telescopes, but nothing of the like for time. We know it slows down as you move faster thanks to that Einstein, but not much else. Are we just moving along one time-path in a sea of infinite, or even finite, possible time paths? Do our decisions dictate our path, or is it predetermined? And this is the problem. Thinking about time gets speculative very quickly, and it is tough to reel back in.

Emulsions

Emulsions are pretty much everywhere. Some example are milk, mayonnaise, vinaigrettes, creams and lotions. So what exactly is an emulsion? Well, it is a mixture of two immiscible liquids. What are immiscible liquids? They are liquids that do not mix in all proportions. Huh, aren't those conflicting statements? Kind of, but no. Immiscible liquids don't mix on the molecular level, but they become dispersed in each other.Oil and water are the most common set of immiscible liquids, but there are many others. In fact, you can make multiphasic emulsions that are comprised of a set of more than two mutually immiscible liquids. For example, liquid silicone is immiscible with both oil and water. Neat stuff.

A good example of an emulsion is a vinaigrette. If you shake it up you see the little balls of vinegar in the oil. This is what happens in milk too, but the balls of fat are so small that you can't see them with your naked eye. But milk doesn't separate, so how can milk and vinaigrettes both be emulsions? A vinaigrette is an example of an unstable emulsion because it separates over time and milk is an example of a stable emulsion. Milk is not naturally stable, but it has been stabilized through the use of proteins that lie on the fat-water interface. Emulsions can also be stabilized with particles, in which case they are called Pickering emulsions (as are emulsions stabilized with proteins), or they can be stabilized with surfactants (e.g. soap).

Globules of dark matter in space

And now it's time for the crazy talk that will be forgotten to the sands of time, but I actually hope someone says, wow, that's not half bad. So, similar to my musing in my foam post, you could do the whole poppin' possibilities thing with emulsion coalescence (when to oil bubbles merge and form a larger bubble). But reeling it in a bit, but only a little bit, if you think of matter and  dark matter as a set of immiscible liquids...we live in an emulsion! Maybe even a multiphasic one with matter, antimatter and empty space all being immiscible? Above is a picture of a slice of the dark matter in the universe. Just something to think about.  

World's Lightest Material

The worlds lightest (ahem, least dense) material is about 100 times less dense than Styrofoam. That's just a little bit absurd. It consists of a microlattice of metallic tubes that are only about 100nm thick and the rest is just air. It is pretty tough, too. It can deform by 50% and still spring back to its original shape, unlike aerogels, which just shatter if you squeeze them too hard. I'm sure there will be many applications for this stuff, but super light electromagnetic shielding for is the first one that comes to mind.

Cobra Starship- You Make Me Feel

La la la la la. Stuck in my head. Will probably get stuck in your head too.

New Travel Pillow- The Arm Pillo

Edit -  The armpillo is no more. A competitor (the Nursie) has stuck with it over the last decade, while I have moved on to other projects. My current project is a micro-real estate marketplace, that is essentially a Zillow or Redfin-like website for electric vehicle chargers, vending machines, shipping container farms and other small pieces of hardware/machinery. 

So, I would consider myself a sleeping expert. I get a lot of practice, probably far more than I should. Therefore, I would like to introduce my foray in to the fray that is the travel pillow marketplace. No doubt you've seen the neck pillows that look like a toilet seat. Do you want a toilet seat around your neck? Do you want a toddler mistaking it for a potty in the airport? That's what I thought. Then there's the total pillow which bends and twists and lasts for about five minutes. Another neck pillow, shaped like a dog bone, a few seat belt pillows, yaddah, yaddah, nothing interesting.
Heretofore and forevermore, I humbly present to you the Arm Pillo. Developed and perfected over a time period of twenty-three years, it allows you to sleep anywhere. It also prevents your arm from falling asleep when you lie with your arm over your head (see picture 4). Sleep at a desk (napping has been shown to improve productivity), in a car, on a plane, cuddle with you significant other (your arm/arm pillow under their head), wear it to parties for when you inevitably pass out, etc, etc. Take a gander at its glory below or get one of your own at the amazon.com product page or from www.armpillo.com

Sleep at a table like this or...

like this.

Napping in the car

After a long day (prevents your arm from falling asleep)