Curiosity Day 8 - Big bang..

So have been reading / listening to a lot of stuff around the big bang. It is funny how a lot of scientific literature treats the big bang as being the origin of the universe as a fact, while it is just a theory. Einstein in his general theory of relativity had assumed a static universe that was not expanding or contracting. To make his assumption of a static universe work, he inserted a cosmological constant in his equation to make the math work. But then Hubble came along and showed from observations that the Universe was actually expanding. This put an end to the cosmological constant and was the main underpinning of the Big Bang theory. The one assumption that the Big Bang theory makes is that it assumes that gravity will eventually cause a Big Crunch, which means that while the universe is expanding, it is doing so as a slower rate as gravity slows it down. But new data from the Hubble Space telescope has shown that the universe is actually expanding at a faster rate. So what is causing this acceleration? To make the theory work, dark energy was added to the mix. Kind of like Einstein added the cosmological constant, now we've added dark energy. But there is no evidence of dark energy and what it is etc. It exists and is strong enough to cause the universe to expand faster but cannot be detected. I have a feeling that some discovery is going to come along that is going to change our understanding. There are mathematics based theories like String and M theory that also explain the data that is observed about our universe and provides another explanation for the origin of the universe but these theories are even more difficult to prove, not to mention the extra dimensions, parallel universes etc.

Curiosity Day 7 - WebGL

Came across an interesting demo of WebGL. Basically the ability to view 3D renditions in the browser. Hardware accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without having to install anything. Mozilla / Chrome had some good beta / extensions. Microsoft was conspicuous in its absence. Did a little more digging and found out that there are some security loopholes in WebGL that could be exploited which was the reason Microsoft gave for not supporting it in IE.. That being said you also need Windows 7 or Vista and special stuff in the video card. Will check it out on my wife's Windows 7 laptop soon to see how cool this is. Google has come out with a version of its Maps on WebGL. Interested in seeing what the buzz is all about.

More tennis. I think I am going to stick with my earlier serve. Too many aches and pains in the shoulder, elbow, wrist etc. to go through the grind and practice of learning the serve. So maybe I didn't learn a better serve but I did learn something about my body and am impressed that I did not do what I normally do, which is push the body till it breaks and I get injured..

Curiosity Day 6 - Fat Man, Thin Man/Little Boy

Was reading a book and they talked briefly about the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.It was interesting to note that the names of the bombs came form their shape. The Fat Man bomb used plutonium and was an implosion type bomb. Which means it needed explosive material surrounding the plutonium core. The explosives were targeted inwards so when they exploded there was immense pressure inward on the plutonium which triggered the nuclear reaction. Alternatively the Thin Man / Little Boy bomb used a gun type method where a little amount of Uranium was shot into another small amount of Uranium which then triggered the nuclear reaction. I never knew that it was named based on the shape and that the two bombs used two types of technologies which gave it the shape.

Tennis was interesting. My volleys definitely worked in the game. The 300 I practiced with the ball machine helped a lot. The serve is another story. It was tough out there. Too many different serve thoughts. Will require more work. Overall progress and fun, but takes time. Will see how tomorrow goes.

Curiosity Day 5 - Fruit and Plants, humans and evolution and tennis

Saw an interesting product that was a fruit bowl and a planter. Put the fruit in the bottom compartment and the plant on the top. There was a comment from someone that said this was a bad idea since fruits give off ethylene which is toxic for plants. So I googled it and it is true. You don't want fruit and live plants in a closed area. Someone had a comment that if fruit is toxic to plants, how come trees have fruits. I think the reason is that outdoors, the ethylene gets way diluted so does not affect the plant. But it is interesting that plants have fruit and that fruit can release ethylene which is toxic to plants. As I was pondering this, I came across a concept of June Drop. Supposedly when plants have fruit they start off with more fruit than they can sustain. This is because the plant assumes it will lose some due to the weather. But if the weather is good then the plant now has more fruit that it can sustain. So the plant will drop unripe fruit and the fruit that are dropped are ones that have the fewest seeds. Evolution at work.

Which leads me to the second interesting thing. How come we are the only species to have achieved such a high level of intelligence. Isn't it strange the difference in intelligence between us and the next most intelligent species (dolphins, apes etc.). They haven't even figured out clothes / fire etc. While we've evolved so much that we can destroy the entire planet, we can create new species, tamper with genes, totally dominate the environment we live in. There is no second species that comes close to us. If you took humans out of the picture, all other species would live in a kind of harmony that you see in the wild in Africa. No one species would dominate. But we dominate so completely. Why is this? Haven't been able to find a good explanation. You would think that with a gradual process like evolution, there would be more parity. It's almost like saying that our planet is the only one with life on it in the entire universe. Laws of physics caused various galaxies, solar systems to form but ours was the only one advanced enough to have life..

Tennis and more tennis. Got to practice my forehand. Had a really good hitting session. So I am able to take the shots from the backboard to practice. Will see how they hold up when I play tomorrow..

Curiosity Day 4 - Nihilism, Aerogel and more tennis..

I have a feeling that tennis going to be a part of my daily entry for all 100 days. At least it feels like that. I happen to be at that stage of learning tennis where I am obsessed with it. I want to get better and I am working hard on it. I take a lesson and practice and practice and practice. This was the way I was with golf a few years ago. Then I started playing tennis, got hurt and lost my interest in golf. For about 4 years I was obsessed with golf. Bringing my score down was all I cared about. Year 1, I broke a 100. Year 2 I broke 90. Year 3 I was in the 80s. My handicap was down to a 10 and suddenly I realized if I needed to take my golf game to the next level (the elusive single handicap) it was going to take a lot of effort. That combined with picking up tennis was the end of golf. And once I lost that goal, I lost interest. Wonder how long before I lost interest in tennis and pick up the next thing...

Anyway, was working on volleys today. Took the ball machine out even though it was in the high 40s. Must have hit about 300 volleys. Had taken a lesson and I finally got a feel for what I had been taught. Learnt how to hit angled volleys by turning my shoulders and not taking the arm back. Learnt to keep my hands together. Funny how learning this took hardly any time. The serve on the other hand is a work in progress. Have taken 2 lessons on the serve that have dealt with two different themes. Having the hardest time bringing the two together. But I know there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is easy to give up as it feels like nothing is working, but I have to be patient..

Was Stumbling today and came across 2 interesting things. Aerogel. My only experience with Aerogel was the Dunlop tennis racket. Found out that it is the least dense solid. Almost as light as air. They take a gel and remove the water and replace it with air. Makes it very light and very strong. NASA used it to collect stardust. Also a very good insulator..

Found out about Existential Nihilists..

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing" - Macbeth


There is no real meaning - we are born, we live, we die and once we die that's it, for some people this is a cause of great concern while for others it is freeing. It shouldn't stop one from living a life that one deems as good. As you are aware of the choices you make. 

Curiosity Day 3 - More tennis / science and religion

Practiced my serve some more. Can't overdo it, although i so badly want to spend hours. Have done this before and ended up hurting myself and at my age the injuries take forever to heal (especially if I countinue playing through the injuries). What is it about obsessiveness that trumps common sense. Have also been working on my forehand and remembering to turn my shoulders as i hit the shot. Hitting against a wall it seems to make a big difference. Now have to see how it translates on the tennis court.

While religion gets a bad rap due to all the conflicts that arise, all the violence that is enacted in the name of religion, science in some ways is scarier. While religion can cause a lot of pain and suffering, science can actually wipe out all of humanity and cause mass extinction. Combine the two together and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. The similarity between the two is the same too. There is a lot of good that comes out of it and the potential for a lot of bad.

Curiosity Day 2 - What falls under learning

Have been reading up on Social Media lately. Found an interesting book by Brian Solis called Engage. My purpose for reading it is pretty selfish. I am looking for validation that companies are missing the social media boat. They feel that by creating a facebook fan page, tweeting, posting videos to YouTube they are active on Social Media. My belief is that they are missing the point. All they are doing is using these channels to post stuff that is more of the same. Ads. promotions, salesy stuff. Most are not using this as a way to engage with their customers. This led me to find a new term "Experiential Marketing". It is all about creating an experience f or your customers and thus better engaging with them. My take is that companies should create social microsites (lots of them) that are around a theme / topic / event / location etc. that is targeted and relevant and that can be a place for a community to gather. In doing more research I found out that ning is a site that lets you create these social microsites pretty quickly..

Practiced my serve. Watched videos on YouTube or Andy Roddick, Milos Raonic, Safin, Federer etc. Looking at the videos, I am always amazed at how talented Marat Safin was. If only his head was in the right place..

Worked on some cool science experiments with my kids. Light a match then light a candle. Blow out the candle and take the lit match close to the wick and even though you dont touch the wick the candle lights up. Fun to do with kids. They get to blow out the candle and I show them how I can magically light it up again and they blow it out again..

Which brings me to the topic of this post. As I go along this journey of being curious. I am trying to figure out what learning something new covers. If I learn a new fact is that good enough? Should it be some project that is longer in length? There is a big difference between learning how to serve in tennis and learning that the distance from our galaxy (Milky Way) to the nearest one (Andromeda) is 2.6 Million light years.. that is faaaaaar awaaaaay..