Latest news with #Principia
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Wiz Khalifa shares bizarre theory on why he thinks planet Earth is a 'flat plane'
Wiz Khalifa has been talking about his theory on the shape of the Earth, as he reckons we're living on a 'flat plane' despite all evidence to the contrary. About 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras put down his triangles for a bit and said he thought the Earth was round, and a couple of hundred years after that, Aristotle realised that the circular shadow cast by our planet during an eclipse must mean the planet was round. For avoidance of doubt, our planet is very much a sphere, not a perfect sphere, but a sphere nonetheless. However, Wiz Khalifa reckons he knows better than all that as he was recently asked if he thought the Earth was round and he said 'no.' The rapper was speaking on The Joe Budden Podcast when he outlined his theory, saying: "I just believe that we live on a flat plane, like a huge flat plane." As for how he knows this, Khalifa said that he's 'travelled so much' and in that time he found it was 'not possible to go up and down.' "I think that there's more masses than just what we see because it was one thing before and it spread out," the rapper said. "Because when I travel, the routes that we take and how we do it, it's not possible to go up and down. You're just going straight. That's the only reason I think that. "I don't believe in space exploration at all, I don't believe that they explore space as much as they say that they do." Flat Earthers ideas don't tend to survive contact with reality, as one of the notorious conspiracy theorists decided to travel to the North Pole to prove the world was flat. Instead he ended up providing the world was round, and actually admitted that he'd got it wrong. Flat Earthers don't have much respect in the scientific community either. Should Wiz Khalifa ever run into Professor Brian Cox, he can expect to be biffed on the head by the beloved scientist with a copy of Sir Isaac Newton's 1687 book Principia. NASA scientist Dr James Garvin was once asked how we know the Earth isn't flat, and he pointed out that explorers circumnavigating the globe would have fallen off the edge of the planet if it was flat. Instead they were able to sail around the world, and every day planes and ships make that same journey, which must mean they're either all in on this grand conspiracy or the theory is bogus. Astronauts in space have even tried to disprove the Flat Earth theory by showing us what our planet looks like from above.
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Hubble Telescope discovers a new '3-body problem' puzzle among Kuiper Belt asteroids (video)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered that a system of asteroids in the distant Kuiper Belt may be triplets, not twins as previously suspected. If so, the stable trio of icy space rocks would be just the second example of three gravitationally bound space rocks found in the Kuiper Belt, the doughnut-shaped region of icy bodies that lurks out beyond the orbit of Neptune. The discovery could also challenge our understanding of how Kuiper Belt objects (KBOs) form. If it is confirmed as a triplet, the system — designated 148780 Altjira — could offer scientists a chance to improve their models of how three gravitationally bound bodies move through space together. This puzzle, known as the "three-body problem," has been a challenge since Isaac Newton published his work "Principia" in 1687. "The universe is filled with a range of three-body systems, including the closest stars to Earth, the Alpha Centauri star system, and we're finding that the Kuiper Belt may be no exception," team leader Maia Nelsen, a physics and astronomy graduate of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, said in a statement. Related: What is the Kuiper Belt? Astronomers Dave Jewitt and Jane Luu discovered the first icy body in the Kuiper Belt, known as 1992 QB1, in 1992. Since then, a further 3,000 KBOs have been cataloged. Astronomers estimate that several hundred thousand more KBOs measuring over 10 miles (16 kilometers) in diameter could lurk in this icy donut, which begins around 2.8 billion miles (4.5 billion km) from the sun. The Kuiper Belt is thought to stretch as far as 4.6 billion miles (7.4 billion km) from the sun, which is around 50 times the distance between Earth and our star. The Altjira system sits in the middle of the Kuiper Belt, at around 3.7 billion miles (6.0 billion km) from the sun, or about 40 times the distance between Earth and the sun. The Hubble Space Telescope images initially seemed to show that the Altjira system was composed of two KBOs located about 4,700 miles (7,600 km) apart. When the team conducted repeated observations of the Altjira system object's unique co-orbital motion, however, they found the inner object is actually two bodies. These KBOs are so close together that they can't be distinguished individually from such a great distance away. "With objects this small and far away, the separation between the two inner members of the system is a fraction of a pixel on Hubble's camera, so you have to use non-imaging methods to discover that it's a triple," Nelsen said. It took 17 years of data from Hubble and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to observe orbital changes in the Altjira system and make this determination. The data was added to various modeling scenarios, with the most likely explanation being a triple-body system. "Other possibilities are that the inner object is a contact binary, where two separate bodies become so close they touch each other, or something that actually is oddly flat, like a pancake," Nelsen added. Of 40 multiple-body systems identified in the Kuiper Belt, this is just the second identified composed of more than two objects. The researchers think these aren't outliers and there are more multi-asteroid systems out there in the outer reaches of the solar system, waiting to be discovered, The Hubble observations of the Altjira system, which suggest it has a third occupant, support a theory of KBO creation that involves the direct gravitational collapse of matter in the disk of material surrounding the infant sun around 4.5 billion years ago. This direct collapse pathway is similar to the formation process of stars, albeit it on a vastly smaller scale. Star formation from dense patches of gas and dust can also result in two and three-body systems. The alternative KBO creation theory, which sees these icy space rocks created from collisions between larger bodies, would not create a three-body arrangement as the Altjira system appears to be. Related Stories: — NASA images Uranus with epic team up of Hubble Telescope and New Horizons Pluto probe — Hubble Space Telescope: Pictures, facts & history — Far beyond Pluto: What's next for NASA's New Horizons probe? The Altjira system joins the dwarf planet Pluto and the "space snowman" Arrokoth, a contact binary composed of two touching space rocks, as the most heavily studied bodies in the Kuiper Belt. NASA's New Horizons probe flew by Pluto in 2015 and Arrokoth in 2019. There's no visit to Altjira in the works, but the researchers behind the new study hope that detailed remote observations of the system will be possible in the future. Particularly exciting will be forthcoming observations of Altjira conducted by the James Webb Space Telescope during its third year of operations. "Altjira has entered an eclipsing season, where the outer body passes in front of the central body," Nelsen said. "This will last for the next 10 years, giving scientists a great opportunity to learn more about it." \ The new study was published on Tuesday (March 4) in The Planetary Science Journal.
The Guardian
01-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Isaac Newton's beer mug to go on show in Royal Society exhibition in London
Issac Newton has long been a familiar figure in museums around the world. Now, one of the famed scientist's most prized possessions is due to go on display for the first time in 160 years: his beer mug. The wooden mug will be on public display at the Royal Society, in central London, from 4 March, alongside items including Newton's greatest work, the Principia, and the scientist's death mask, which was prepared shortly after his death to serve as a likeness for sculptures. The exhibition is the culmination of 20 years of work by the scientist Carmichael Wallace and the historian Stephen Snobelen, who pieced together the mug's history through letters, genealogical records, family wills, magazines, newspapers and even a poem. Their research suggests that Newton only drank beer sparingly and instead, the mug points to his use of the beverage in his work. The duo's workings suggest that his best-known work, the Principia, may have been written in his homemade ink in which beer was a key ingredient. Newton gave the wooden flagon – a type commonly used for beer-drinking – to his roommate of 20 years, John Wickins, who also acted as his occasional laboratory assistant. The mug was found with other belongings at his home at Trinity College, Cambridge. Their research also highlights Newton's beer-related experiments, which included the study of fermentation, as well as his use of beer in the writing ink, which is still readable today in his notebooks and correspondence. Newton wrote two ink recipes, both likely penned in his beer-based ink. Less is known about Newton's drinking habits. According to his lab assistant, Humphrey Newton, Isaac drank beer and ale with meals and only sparingly. However, there are many references to beer, ale, cider and wine in Newton's surviving papers, including household inventories, as well as discussions on the best variety of apples to produce good cider in his correspondence with Henry Oldenburg. Newton recommended redstreaks. Snobelen said: 'The mug was venerated by the Wickins family because it was owned by Newton. It was a kind of holy relic. 'Although chemical analysis of the ink in Newton's voluminous manuscript corpus has yet to be carried out, many 17-century authors used beer as a solvent in their homemade writing ink. Newton's two surviving ink recipes confirm that he followed in this craft, at least while he was at Cambridge.' Keith Moore, the head of library and archives at the Royal Society, said: 'We like to reflect upon past science, but a beery vision of Sir Isaac Newton is a new one for the Royal Society. According to his friends, the great man could be quite convivial, but I can't see him drinking too much from his flagon while fermenting his head-spinning ideas – as a scientist, Newton was no mug.' The wooden 'pint flagon' – as James Wickins, John's grandson, called it in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1802 – was publicly exhibited on at least three occasions, last in 1865. Newton was elected to the Royal Society in 1672, 12 years after its founding, and was its president from 1703 until his death in 1727.
