Science

It has long been suspected that there are forces besides gravity and the forces such as the weak and strong forces that have been discovered. The strong force is what is said to hold together the particles that make matter. The weak force is the only force that affects neutrinos, except for gravity, or so it is thought. Neutrinos are particles that are said to have no mass. Every day hundreds of thousands of these things and maybe millions, pass through our bodies along with cosmic rays and other types of radiation. Think of it this way, if these things can pass through walls, how are our puny bodies going to stop them? We think that a biological clock controls aging of our bodies, but it would be nice to see a test where no rays of any kind were able to penetrate us and see if this increased the human life span. This article is not about the human life span. however, but about things that we don't fully understand, like waves from radiation.

Abstract View Of An Energy Wave
Graphic Source: Stock.xching

A reader posted a story about the walking rocks of Death Valley on the About Facts Net Discussion board and it got me to thinking. The problem is that no one can figure out why these rocks move. They say that they are sure that they are rocks. At least we know this much, but how can an inanimate object travel across the ground. There have been suggestions that since they are on sand, perhaps the sand liquefies in some way allowing them to slide. Other suggestions are that many tiny tremors that we can't feel shift the sands enough for the rocks to travel. Could it be that these rock are effected by some sort of radiation that excites atoms in the rocks causing them to somehow travel short distances? I would love to see one of these rocks put through a complete battery of tests and I would also like to see a rock brought there from somewhere else to see if it also moves.

When I talk about neutrinos, I am talking about something that passes not only through us, but right through the earth. So far we have not figured out how to catch one, but we have figured out how to detect them. Large tanks full of cleaning fluid are buried deep into the earth and when neutrinos pass through them, they leave a trail for all to see. Now here is the question, how can we be sure that this trail if from neutrinos and not some unknown form of particle? If neutrinos have no mass that means that it is possible for something to have no mass and if this is possible, why couldn't there be other particles without mass? There might even be an entire dimension that we know nothing about that contains objects that have no mass. I think that the fact that something can exist without mass leads to a whole bunch of other possibilities.

Radio Telescopes Receiving Radio Waves From Space
Photo Source: Stock.xching

We have spoken about the effect of dark matter many times before and how no one has ever seen it. If dark matter exists, then why couldn't it have proprieties that we know nothing about yet? Scientists assume that dark matter exists because they wouldn't be able to account for the expansion of the universe without it, but could they be wrong? Science is full of examples of scientists creating theoretical proprieties to make their theories more palatable. You see you need dark matter, because you also need dark energy. We assume that dark energy was created at the time of the Big Bang, a theory accepted by most scientists, but again, what if they are wrong? What if there was no explosion and the background radiation that is detected is not from that? What if our universe is surrounded by some super attractive force and it is pulling us apart at ever increasing speeds? Science is not always right no matter how many scientists agree.

It does seem that the more dangerous part of the spectrum occurs above visible light. I am talking about the area that contains X-rays, Gamma rays and such. All of these rays have one thing in common, believe it or not, they are all electromagnetic radiation. So what exactly is electromagnetic radiation? NASA describes it as a “stream of photons, which are mass less particles each traveling in a wave-like pattern and moving at the speed of light.” Notice that word mass less again. It is the energy level of the radiation that makes the difference to us. As we climb the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation the energy levels increase to a point far beyond what is needed to kill a human. We are used to being bombarded by some particles, since the earth is constantly being hit by them, but could there be life on other worlds where there is no bombardment and if beings from there were to walk on the earth it would be fatal to them without protection?

Magnetic Waves Around The Earth
Graphic Source: NASA

While we can not yet figure out how to communicate without using some form of electromagnetic radiation, this problem may have been solved by another more advanced race that needed faster communication, that could span light years in seconds, of course this is just all supposition, but it is an interesting thought. Wouldn't it be funny if I had this all wrong and without this radiation passing through us every day we would die?

What I also find interesting is the length of some radio waves. Think of this, a wave longer than a football field traveling at light speed and hitting a human. At first this seems like a scary thought doesn't it? Not all radio waves are this long, let me assure you, some are only the size of about 8 inches, but that still is pretty big. Luckily these waves do not pass through our bodies. As a radio wave comes into contact with a human, the wave disappears as it tries to penetrate human tissue. From what I have been told, the tissue heats slightly as the wave is absorbed. When we are told that too much cell phone use can cause cancer, it was rebuffed by some scientists, but now early work seems to indicate that cell phone use can cause brain tumors because of the electromagnetic waves that are picked up by the phone which is being held close to the head. A report on this can be viewed at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=5439074

So here we are, being constantly bombarded by particles and yet, we don't even realize it as it happens. Life is strange indeed and as we find out more about it, it seems even stranger.