Remembering the Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster

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Why does centripetal force act in the solar system?

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At any given time each planet is traveling in a straight line. It would continue in a straight line and we would fly out of our solar system if there weren’t any other forces acting on us. Here is an example of the direction the Earth is traveling in at an arbitrary moment. To figure out what the Earth is going to do, you need to add up all the forces acting upon the Earth. There are lots of other forces acting upon Earth (from the moon, other planets and the sun) and the biggest one just so happens to be the force we feel from the sun. This force is so large that we can effectively ignore all the other planets and our moon in our approximation. The force that the Earth feels from the sun is an attractive force and always points directly from the Earth to the sun. Therefore we can now ask the question. If an object is moving in the direction shown and feels an acceleration towards the sun, where will it move next? It turns out the answer is, it will start moving in a c...
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Does Time Exist in Reality or Is It Just an Illusion?

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central issue in the understanding of nature itself. The Perimeter Institute  in Ontario, Canada, is a research center dedicated to studying the underlying concepts of Physics. A prominent personality of the Foundation,  Lee Smolin , one of the main ambassadors of  loop quantum gravity , which is an alternative to string theory point of view on the unification of the fundamental forces in Nature, recently gave a speech on  the nature of time,  a central issue in the understanding of nature itself. Smolin’s vision is different from the prevailing view that  time is a human construct or an illusion in the image we have of the universe.   Thus, he identifies himself as a  naturalist  or a person who believes that  the Universe consists only of real objects that are governed by natural laws.  However, he  divides naturalists into two categories  which are directly dependent on the nature of time. The first category, which is r...
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The 10 Greatest Physicists in History

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Anaximander Lived c. 610 BC – c. 546 BC. Anaximander  is responsible for the idea that the earth needs nothing below it to support it. He said that the earth floats in the center of infinity, held in position because it is an equal distance from all the other parts of the universe. In doing so, he transformed the way we think of our planet and simultaneously introduced the idea of a force of attraction between the earth and the planets and stars in the heavens. “In my opinion this idea of Anaximander’s is one of the boldest, most revolutionary, and most portentous ideas in the whole history of human thought.” KARL POPPER, 1902 – 1994 Philosopher of Science   Archimedes Lived c. 287 BC – 212 BC. The greatest scientist of ancient times,  Archimedes  pushed mathematics, physics, and engineering to new heights. He created the physical sciences of mechanics and hydrostatics, discovered the laws of levers and pulleys, and discovered one of the mos...
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