Monthly Archives: January 2010

Q: What happens when you fall into a blackhole?

Physicist: Terrible, terrible things. The first thing you’ll be likely to notice as you approach the hole is the tidal forces.  Tidal forces are nothing more than the difference in gravitational force between the near and far side of an … Continue reading

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Astronomy, Physics | 89 Comments

Q: Is the total complexity of the universe growing, shrinking or staying the same?

The complete question was: If you were to look at the universe as an organism, was the early universe a simpler organism than the present-day organism?  Is the total complexity of the universe growing, shrinking or staying the same?  And … Continue reading

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Biology, Entropy/Information | 9 Comments

Q: If two trains move towards each other at certain velocities, and a fly flies between them at a certain constant speed, how much distance will the fly cover before they crash?

The brain teaser comes in a many variations. For example: Trains A and B, 700 miles apart, are heading toward each other on a straight piece of track. Train A is going 85 mph while train B is going 55 … Continue reading

Posted in -- By the Mathematician, Brain Teaser, Math | 13 Comments

Q: Why does oxygen necessarily indicate the presence of life?

Physicist: Short answer: Life is the only thing that makes lots of oxygen. This question comes in the context of a conversation about the Kepler mission.  So far (as of January 11, 2010) 424 “exoplanets” have been discovered and confirmed … Continue reading

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Astronomy, Biology, Physics | 3 Comments

Q: What’s the relationship between entropy in the information-theory sense and the thermodynamics sense?

Physicist: The term “Entropy” shows up both in thermodynamics and information theory, so (since thermodynamics called dibs), I’ll call thermodynamic entropy “entropy”, and information theoretic entropy “information”. I can’t think of a good way to demonstrate intuitively that entropy and … Continue reading

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Entropy/Information, Equations, Math, Philosophical, Physics | 11 Comments

Q: Would it be possible to kill ALL of Earth’s life with nuclear bombs?

Physicist: Probably not.  We could kill all of the large (insects and up) life no problem.  Hell, we’re doing all right by mistake so far.  There are about 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, so in what follows I’ll … Continue reading

Posted in -- By the Physicist, Biology, Physics | 20 Comments