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Gravitational waves

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What are gravitational waves? - Amber L. Stuver

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In September 2015, scientists witnessed something never seen before: two black holes colliding. Both about 30 times as big as our Sun, they had been orbiting each other for millions of years. A fraction of a second before the crash, they sent a vibration across the universe at the speed of light that was picked up by the LIGO detector.

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How small are we in the scale of the universe?

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How small are we in the scale of the universe?

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How small are we in the scale of the universe? - Alex Hofeldt

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In 1995, scientists pointed the Hubble Telescope at an area of the sky near the Big Dipper. The location was apparently empty, and the whole endeavor was risky – what, if anything, was going to show up? But what came back was nothing short of spectacular: an image of over 1,500 g…

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The journey to Pluto, the farthest world ever explored

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The journey to Pluto, the farthest world ever explored

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To learn more about New Horizons and its journey through space, click here.

In this podcast episode of Gravity Assist, Jim Green speaks with the lesson's educator, Alan Stern, who was the New Horizons Principal Investigator.

This editorial in the Washington Post, co-written by David Grinspoon and the educator, explains why Pluto should be a planet.

Want to find out more about the equipment that captured vital information on Pluto? Click here to see a picture of the Ralph instrument and here to see REX.

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The journey to Pluto, the farthest world ever explored - Alan Stern

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As of 1989, mankind had successfully sent craft to every known planet in the solar system except one: Pluto. Located in an mysterious region called the Kuiper Belt, Pluto is a scientific goldmine, and could hold clues to the formation of our solar system.

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Are you a body with a mind or a mind with a body?

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Are you a body with a mind or a mind with a body?

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Are you a body with a mind or a mind with a body? - Maryam Alimardani

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What are gravitational waves? - Amber L. Stuver

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In September 2015, scientists witnessed something never seen before: two black holes colliding. Both about 30 times as big as our Sun, they had been orbiting each other for millions of years. A fraction of a second before the crash, they sent a vibration across the universe at the speed of light that was picked up by the LIGO detector.

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What is the best life we can live? How can we cope with whatever the universe throws at us and keep thriving nonetheless? The ancient Greco-Roman philosophy of Stoicism explains that while we may not always have control over the events affecting us, we can have control over how we approach things. The video briefly describes the philosophy of Stoicism.

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Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game

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Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game

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Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game | Marianna Pascal | TEDxPenangRoad

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Stem cells are a rapidly advancing field of biological research. Since Dr. James Thomson first cultivated human embryonic stem cells at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in the late 1990s, this field of researched has exploded with potential. The links below provide access to a curriculum developed under the supervision of Dr. Thomson as well as the co-directors and staff of the UW Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine Center. The material has been reviewed for accuracy by the scientists actually conducting the research and was compiled and formatted by Craig Kohn, a high school teacher with research experience, for a high school audience.
- Stem cell curriculum including presentation, note sheet, quiz and questions
Additional resources about stem cells can be found at:
- Fostering breakthroughs in stem cell - UW Madison Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center
- Stem cell general information - National Institutes of Health

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Is personalized medicine for individual bodies in our future? Possibly -- with the use of stem cells, undifferentiated cells with the power to become any tissue in our bodies. Craig A. Kohn describes the role of these incredible, transforming cells and how scientists are harnessing their medical potential.

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How close are we to uploading our minds?

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How close are we to uploading our minds?

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A link to a lesson on the brain basis of consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MASBIB7zPo4&t=1s

An article on the possibility of a simulated consciousness and a digital afterlife: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/07/what-a-digital-afterlife-would-be-like/491105/

An article on the mechanistic nature of consciousness:
https://aeon.co/essays/how-consciousness-works-and-why-we-believe-in-ghosts

Here is a book that covers the evolution of consciousness, from the earliest brains complicated enough to contain consciousness all the way to a possible future of artificial consciousness and uploaded minds:
https://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294998807

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How close are we to uploading our minds? - Michael S. A. Graziano

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Imagine a future where nobody dies- instead, our minds are uploaded to a digital world. There they could live on in a realistic, simulated environment with avatar bodies, calling in and contributing to the biological world. Mind-uploading has powerful appeal- but what would it actually take to scan a person's brain and upload their mind?

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String Theory and Quantum Gravity
The video discusses the attempts to reconcile Albert Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum physics. These two large physical theories discuss radically different types of physical systems, and attempts to apply them both often come into conflict.

The theory of relativity describes how gravity works, and is built around the notion of space-time. Quantum physics, on the other hand, works amazingly well on the smallest scales and with the smallest particles, but has curious behavior like quantum entanglement.

Fortunately, because they operate at such widely different scales, the conflicts of these two theories don't cause problems for us in our day-to-day lives. In fact, it doesn't even usually cause problems for physicists!

But sometimes scientists try to look at problems where the rules of both apply, such as trying to discover quantum entanglement in big systems, and that's where the conflict between how the rules operate create huge problems. The attempt to reconcile the two conflicting sets of rules occupied Albert Einstein for the last decades of his life, and motivated much of the work of the famed physicist Stephen Hawking. The goal was a "theory of everything," or a theory of quantum gravity, that would reconcile them.

One promising approach, developed over the last quarter of the twentieth century, is called string theory. It predicts that the universe is composed of vibrating strings of energy which make up all particles. Unfortunately, there's no clear way to test whether string theory is true, but theoretical physicists continue to develop models to see if they can find a way.

Andrew Zimmerman Jones is a science writer with a physics background who co-authored the book String Theory For Dummies, explaining string theory and the search for quantum gravity. You can see Andrew discuss it in this YouTube video, or you can hear about it directly from physicist Clifford Johnson.

The Origin and Fate of the Universe
When we look at the stars or into the distant reaches of space, the light we see takes time to reach us. That means that each time we look into the night sky, we are actually looking into the distant past of our universe. Astronomers and physicists have looked far into the past over the last century, and have used their understanding of the physical properties of the universe to learn much about the history and change of the universe over time. The field of physics that focuses on understanding the history and evolution of the universe on large scales is called cosmology.

CERN physicist Tom Whyntie explores this growing understanding of the history of our universe in this video. Much of our information about the history of the universe comes from research done by NASA, and this article explores the different eras of the universe that cosmologists have discovered.

Since the universe is expanding, though, what is it expanding into? This video from Sajan Saini discusses the possibilities of what could happen to our universe in the distant future.

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Does time exist? - Andrew Zimmerman Jones

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The earliest time measurements were observations of cycles of the natural world, using patterns of changes from day to night and season to season to build calendars. More precise time-keeping eventually came along to put time in more convenient boxes. But what exactly are we measuring?

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The people behind the search for the origin of life
The first person to really explore the origin of life was Francesco Redi. In the 17th h century he experimentally proved that maggots did not spontaneously generate in rotting meat. This experiment was the first to reject the idea of spontaneous generation of life. Today, scientists are applying the concepts, tools and questions, used to understand the origin of life on Earth, in order to find life in the extraterrestrial universe

If "all life emerged from an egg", as Francesco Redi put it, where lies the true origin of life? This question inspires many scientists to this day. In the late 19 th century, the British naturalist Charles Darwin envisioned " some warm little pond " as the place where life originated.

In the early 20 th century, J.B.S. Haldane and Alexander Oparin independently developed the hypothesis that life originated in a primordial soup enveloped by an atmosphere rich in methane and ammonia. This became known as the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis and was empirically tested by Harold Urey and his student Stanley Miller. The Miller-Urey experiment proved that organic compounds could be generated from inorganic substances with the help of electric sparks. However, the problem with this experiment is that the primordial atmosphere was like ours today, just with a lot more carbon dioxide and no oxygen.

The chemical compounds necessary to life needed to be derived from somewhere other than the atmosphere. In addition, it was suggested that volcanic eruptions and UV radiation made it impossible for life to form on the Earth's surface. But it was also clear that the first living organism had to be an autotroph like plants, which are only found in sunlight.

These two seemingly contradicting requirements for the origin of life were resolved when, diving in the DSV Alvin, oceanographer Jack Corliss and his team discovered hydrothermal vents at the Galápagos Rift. These black smokers provided a chemical gradient that was harnessed by microbial autotrophs in a process called chemosynthesis.

Since their discovery in the 80s, many marine scientists have been studying deep sea hydrothermal vents. Notable scientists that pushed for the recognition of hydrothermal vents as the cradle of life include Günter Wächtershäuser, Robert Hazen, William Martin and Gretchen Früh-Green. The latter lead the discovery of Lost City and has since been at the forefront of studying this alkaline vent system.

Diversity at hydrothermal vents and why the deep sea needs protection
Hydrothermal vents are true biodiversity hotspots in the deep sea. Alkaline vents like Lost City were initially thought to be devoid of life, until its diverse microbial community was discovered. Black smokers boast a conspicuous array of fascinating animals. These include giant red tube worms called Riftia pachyptila, which rely entirely on symbiotic chemoautotrophic bacteria
for nourishment, white skates called Bathyraja spinosissima, which lay their eggs near black smokers, giant mussels called Bathymodiolus thermophilus, and white crabs in the family Bythograeidae.

The Lost City hydrothermal vent field was declared open to deep sea mining by the International Seabed Authority last year. Hydrothermal vents are considered to harbor high concentrations of precious minerals. With the globally increasing demand for smartphones, and the plethora of rare minerals contained within them, investors are looking for new ways to acquire these resources in large quantities. Many other devices, considered to be part of modern everyday life, like computers and electric cars, require rare elements as well. This high demand is driving the development of deep sea mining rovers and we can expect mining operations targeted at the Earth's largest ecosystem in the near future.

Mining is not the only human impact on the deep sea. Deep sea fishing is thought to have tremendous impacts because trawling destroys a wide range of benthic habitats. Most notoriously, the orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) is fished on a large scale. Ironically, the fishery exploiting the orange roughy, which is listed on the IUCN endangered species list, was recently certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council.

With a globally increasing need for oil and gas, deepwater drilling is becoming increasingly common, with known consequences. Many nations have been trying to extend their deep sea territory through existing laws and loopholes, in order to claim more resources. The most famous example is the " Arctic resources race". With adequate foresight and by planning conservation strategies it is possible to manage these natural resources in the deep sea.

Unfortunately, the current money-driven race for the exploitation of the deep sea is lacking required planning and conservation policy. However, many marine scientists are striving to discover much that yet lies in the unknown depths of the ocean. Do we want to lose these fascinating and mysterious ecosystems before we can even attempt to fully understand them?

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The mysterious origins of life on Earth - Luka Seamus Wright

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Billions of years ago, simple organic compounds assembled into more complex coalitions that could grow and reproduce. At the time, Earth had widespread volcanic activity and a hostile atmosphere that made it almost devoid of a suitable environment for living things. So where did life begin?

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An excellent summary of historical information about the origin of many common mathematical symbols is the Wikipedia article on the subject. For those who want to dive deeper, the classic study by Florian Cajori is a great source.

More information about the life of Robert Recorde can be found at the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive.

Part of the inspiration for this lesson came from Richard Feynman's fascinating anecdote about inventing his own mathematical notation in high school. It is found in one of his essays, titled "He Fixes Radios by Thinking!" collected in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman.

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Where do math symbols come from? - John David Walters

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Math is full of symbols: lines, dots, arrows, English letters, Greek letters, superscripts, subscripts ... it can look like an illegible jumble. Where did all of these symbols come from? John David Walters shares the origins of mathematical symbols, and illuminates why they're still so important in the field today.

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What responsibility do we have to the dead? Should we forget the past if our future is at stake? And to what extent are we in control of how the world perceives us? Such big existential questions loom over Hamlet? To add to this turmoil, the question of madness hangs Shakespeare's most psychological play. Is Hamlet's mental state part of a performance to confuse his enemies, or are we watching a character on the brink of sanity? All these questions weigh heavily on Hamlet's interactions with every single character, whether friend and foe. The play can be found, in its entirety and annotated, through Folger Digital Texts. You can also listen to deep dives into the world of the play with The Hamlet Podcast.

Shakespeare's use of bad timing and delayed action throughout the play suggests that the path to revenge is never straightforward. Although we are generally encouraged to sympathize with Hamlet, Shakespeare offers us two other characters who have different approaches to revenge: the invading prince of Norway Fortinbras, whose father was killed in battle with Denmark; and the determined Laertes, who arrives to investigate the mysterious circumstances surrounding his own father's death. These focused figures heighten our fear that Hamlet's schemes are spiraling out of control.

The story and characters of Hamlet have created a rich mine for screen adaptation and interpretation - from Laurence Olivier's epic traditional take - see his "to be or not to be here" - to Disney's The Lion King and the acclaimed adaptation by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, translated into English as The Bad Sleep Well. References to Hamlet's language and plot are also threaded through pop culture, as this article explains.

Hamlet, of course, has a rich stage history - an overview of which can be found in this Royal Shakespeare Company piece. You can watch this documentary to learn about the joys and challenges of staging and interpreting Hamlet; then listen to this conversation amongst some of the actors who have recently played the moody prince. There is a long history of women playing Hamlet, too.

But title character is not the only one who provides a fascinating template for actors and a rich personal history for the audience. The character of Ophelia has been cause for particular debate among audiences, readers and critic - visit this page for an examination of what we can learn about fictionalized madness, gender, and changing conceptions of female sexuality, read this visual essay on some iconic depictions of Ophelia in art (find more on this topic here), and this personal essay on the author's love of Ophelia as unlikely icon.

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Why should you read "Hamlet"? - Iseult Gillespie

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What responsibility do we have to the dead? Should we forget the past if our future is at stake? And to what extent are we in control of how the world perceives us? Such big existential questions loom over Hamlet? To add to this turmoil, the question of madness hangs Shakespeare's most psychological play.

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Where did English come from? - Claire Bowern

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When we talk about 'English', we often think of it as a single language. But what do the dialects spoken in dozens of countries around the world have in common with each other, or with the writings of Chaucer?

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Wondering how to be a Stoic? Here is a blog devoted to a continuous exploration of Stoic theory and practice. For a longer source on this topic, read this book: How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life.

Stoicism 101, a one-hour video on the basics of Stoicism is also a terrific place to start. There is a free downloadable version of Epictetus' Manual here Seneca's Moral Letters to his friend Lucilius are also available online with a free downloadable version. Click here to find them. Finally, here is a link to The Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius.

For both modern and ancient sources, click here. Here is an advanced introduction to Stoicism from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Visit Modern Stoicism, where you can sign up for the annual Stoic Week initiative, as well as find out information about the annual Stoicon meeting.

Interested in a whole course on the basics of Stoicism? Click here for free online course.

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The philosophy of Stoicism - Massimo Pigliucci

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What is the best life we can live? How can we cope with whatever the universe throws at us and keep thriving nonetheless? The ancient Greco-Roman philosophy of Stoicism explains that while we may not always have control over the events affecting us, we can have control over how we approach things.

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TED-Ed lessons on all subjects. TED-Ed celebrates the ideas of teachers and students around the world. Discover hundreds of animated lessons, create customized lessons, and share your big ideas.