QUR’AN BURNING: DEHUMANIZING MUSLIMS

The Afghans’ protests over the burning of the Qur’an by US-NATO soldiers, now descended into violence, not only have not abated but have also spread to the Muslim world.

Protest in Pakistan

Daily Mail report of protest in Libya.

Typically, as shown in the Daily Mail report cited under the photo above, it is the Muslims, rather than the US-NATO soldiers, who are unreservedly portrayed as the villains. That report condemned the Muslims for desecrating British-Allied servicemen’s graves, ignoring the fact that it was their soldiers who have in the first place desecrated Islam’s Holy Book.

Such portrayal is generally evident in mainstream western media. Only a handful of articles in the alternative western media presents the Muslim – and a more balanced - side of the story. One such article is reproduced below – and it’s a worthy read.

Koran Burning: Dehumanizing Muslims
By Stephen Lendman, Veterans Today, 26 February 2012.

Despite constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom, America consistently violates fundamental rights, including respecting all faiths equally.

More than other ethnic/religious groups, Western discourse portrays Muslim/Arabs stereotypically as culturally inferior, dirty, lecherous, untrustworthy, religiously fanatical, and violent.

In his book, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People,” Jack Shaheen explained how they’ve been defamed and vilified throughout decades of cinematic history. From silent films to recent ones, they encourage prejudicial attitudes, and reinforce notions of Western values, high-mindedness, and moral superiority.

Worse still are slanderous post-9/11 media commentaries about dangerous gun-toting terrorists, the need to closely monitor them, and rid society of those considered dangerous.

Never mind rule of law principles, right or wrong, or whether accused targets are guilty. Saying so’s all that matters to justify America’s war on terror. It needs enemies. When not around, they’re invented.

As a result, Muslim Arabs and others suffer hugely, including at home. Koran burning incidents provide more proof. It symbolizes America’s contempt for Islam.

Importance of the Koran

According to observing Muslims, the Koran’s an exact record of words revealed by God through the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad. He taught them to others. Scribes passed them on. Throughout centuries of Islamic history, its 114 chapters remained unchanged.

The Koran’s the primary source of Muslim faith and practice. It covers all human concerns, including wisdom, beliefs, worship and law. It also focuses on God’s relationship with humanity, and provides guidelines for a just society, proper relationships, and just divisions of power.

It teaches love, not hate; peace, not violence; charity, not selfishness; and tolerance, not terrorism. Its five pillars include profession of faith, prayer five times daily, fasting during Ramadan, charity, and performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime for those able to afford it.

Clashes Over Latest Afghanistan Koran Burning Incident

It’s happened before and each time incites rage. The latest incident involves US Bagram Air Base forces dumping Koran copies and other Islamic holy materials in debris piles for burning.

Military officials lied saying they contained “extremist inscriptions” and were used to “facilitate extremist communications.” The latest incident followed previous ones and release of a January video showing Marines urinating on Afghan corpses.

Protests erupted each time. Hollow apologies heightened anger, especially after a decade of brutal war, occupation, daily killings, and extreme deprivation in ravaged Afghanistan.

America’s History of Dehumanizing Enemies

“You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” is one of many memorable Rogers and Hammerstein “South Pacific” songs. Its lyrics went as follows:

“You’ve got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You’ve got to be taught

From year to year,

It’s got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,

You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You’ve got to be carefully taught!”

Early or later, it works the same way by drumming it repeatedly into impressionable minds, including US military recruits in training.

It begins by creating Groupthink. Individuality and free thought are expunged. Recruits are intimidated to go along.

Groupthink

For example, Marines begin days chanting:

“This barrack contains 45 highly motivated, truly dedicated romping stomping blood thirsty kill crazy United States Marine Corps recruits, sir.”

Unlike football crowds chanting “defense,” Marines shout “kill.” Their combat mandate demands it. By combining weapons training with brainwashing, robotized human killing machines are created.

Major media and Hollywood scoundrels help. They’re enlisted to demonize enemies. Racial epithets vilified Japanese soldiers. They were dehumanized as brutal animals. So were North Koreans, Vietnamese, and other non-whites. Asians and Arabs are called sneaky, deviant, and other degrading terms. Training manipulates impressionable minds to believe it.

American soldiers urinating over Afghan corpses

In fall 2006, former Marine Sgt. Martin Smith’s article headlined, “Learning to be a Killer: Remembering Marine Corps boot camp,” saying:

Indoctrination involves “dehumanizing the enemy in order to train (recruits) how to overcome any fear or prejudice against killing.”

“The process of dehumanization is central to military training. During the Vietnam War, the enemy in Vietnam was simply a ‘gook,’ ‘dink,’ or ‘slope. Today, ‘raghead’ and ‘sand nigger’ are the current racist epithets lodged against Arabs and Muslims.”

“After every command, we would scream, ‘Kill!’ But our call for blood took on particular importance during our physical training, when we learned how to fight with pugil sticks-wooden sticks with padded ends-how to run an obstacle course with fixed bayonets, or how to box and engage in hand-to-hand combat.”

“We were told to imagine the ‘enemy’ in all of our combat training, and it was always implied that the enemy was of Middle Eastern descent. When some raghead comes lurking up from behind, you’re gonna give ‘em ONE,’ barked the training DI. We all howled in unison, “Kill!”

“We were being indoctrinated with schemes for war in the Middle East. Our hatred of the ‘Arab other’ was crafted from the very beginning of our training through fear and hate. In these ‘dirty wars,’ troops cannot tell friend from foe, leading to war crimes against a civilian population.”

US Marine Corps boot camp

Other US service branches also manipulate young minds to kill. They reinforce training mandates in war zones. They violate lawful rules of engagement (ROE). In Iraq, some commanders ordered killing all military-aged Iraqi men on sight.

Yet US Army Field Manual 27-10 incorporates Nuremberg Principles, Judgment and the Charter and Law of Land Warfare (1956). They prohibit crimes of war and against humanity and require disobeying lawless orders.

But US service members risk Court Martial and prison terms by putting rule of law principles above chain of command orders. Either go along or be penalized if charged.

Manipulating Public Opinion

Vilifying enemies isn’t new. Nor do boot camps alone create Groupthink. Political, academic, religious and other leaders euphemize killing and dehumanizing to justify lawless acts.

For example, calling Soviet Russia the “evil empire” or communism a “cancer” manipulates public opinion to accept aggressive state policy as justified.

In Nazi Germany, Jews were called “parasites,” “Jewish bacilli,” and other dehumanizing terms to facilitate Hitler’s “final solution.” Raul Hilberg’s “The Destruction of the European Jews” is its definite history.

He called their annihilation no accident, saying:

“When in the early days of 1933, the first civil servant wrote the first definition of ‘non-Aryan’ into a civil service ordinance, the fate of European Jewry was sealed.”

He also said “moral obstacles must be removed” and internal conflicts resolved to facilitate the horrors of war and planned atrocities.

Throughout America’s history, racist/hateful dehumanization targeted Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, other marginalized groups, and now Muslims. For example, Native people were called plundering, murdering savages, and much more. Doing so facilitated ritual slaughter.

Dehumanizing Muslims: The infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

America’s holocaust inspired Hitler’s. How could Washington complain when it committed its own. Each time, mass slaughter’s justified, sanitized, and/or suppressed. Pain, suffering, and death aren’t images policy makers want publicized.

Rhetoric softens horrific acts. Civilian deaths become “collateral damage.” In Vietnam, “pacification” meant forced displacement. “Incursion” was code language for invasion. Creating a “sanitized belt” meant removing everyone, bulldozing areas, and erecting “defensive positions” with heavy weapons.

“Sincere regrets” conceal deliberate killing. Free fire zones become “humanitarian bombing.” Propaganda softens and conceals crimes of war and against humanity. Language hides ugly truths.

Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor, Robert McFarlane, euphemized war horrors. He said America must remain prepared for “low-intensity conflict. The use of force can never be our preference or our only choice. It cannot yet be discarded, however, as an instrument of policy.”

In fact, it’s often preferred policy. It’s disguised as humanitarian, democratic liberation, when, in fact, it’s imperial aggression for unchallenged dominance.

Orwellian language facilitates war making. When used effectively, mass slaughter and destruction become normal, though for the most part ugly facts are suppressed.

Entire war zones become destroyed villages to save them. Brainwashed troops make it possible with ease.

Groupthink removes ravaged countries, mass slaughter, and human suffering from their mind sets.

Training indoctrination makes them effective killing machines in combat. Burning Korans alone show they’re well taught.

[Source: Veterans Today and Steve Lendman Blog. Some images added.]

10 BUILDING MATERIALS FROM THE FUTURE

Credit: Christopher Sessums via Flickr

10 Building Materials from the Future
By Andrea Leontiou, Innovation News Daily.

Materials chemistry and structural engineering may not sound as exciting as quantum physics or dinosaur palaeontology, but they impact your daily life more profoundly than almost any other scientific fields. From the plastic in your desk to the insulation in your house, these disciplines have quite literally built the world around you. And they′re just getting started. Read on to find out about the super light, flexible and reactive miracle materials that will build the houses, offices and furnishings of the future.

10. Translucent Concrete

Credit: Litracon

Concrete buildings are known more for their stability than their great lighting. That was until translucent concrete started to make its way on to the market.

Translucent concrete is mixed with glass fibre optical strands, which create a solid but sheer block. LitraCon, as the concrete is known, can be used in flooring and pavement.

According to the concretes manufacturers, the optical fibres make up only 4 percent of the mixture. Meaning that blocks made from this material still have the ability to support load-bearing walls.

Read more. Video.

9. SensiTile

Credit: SensiTile

As you walk across your kitchen floor to get something from the refrigerator, the floor twinkles with lighted path that guides your way through the dark room. At least it would, if you had SensiTiles.

The concrete of the tiles is embedded with acrylic fibre-optic channels that transfer light from one point to another. As shadows move across Terrazzo's surface, the light channels flicker with a randomized, twinkling effect.

Their tiles are available for use as flooring, in bathrooms and even ceilings, so you can have twinkling lights follow you all over the house.

Read more. Video.

8. Electrified Wood

Credit: Transalpin

You may never have to deal with the tangle of wires again thanks to ″Wood.E.″ This European-designed material incorporates a source of electricity directly into tables and chairs.

Two metal layers are pressed between the wood of the furniture, making it possible to pass an electrical current through the whole thing. The 12-volt power is fed to the metal layers via one connector, and lamps, and other devices can be connected via the other.

No mention of whether or not this furniture will work with all electrical outlets, but we’re for any piece of furniture that means we don’t have to find a way to tie all our wires together.

Read more.

7. Flexicomb

Credit: Padlab

The Flexicomb’s name describes it quite well. Designed by PadLab's Dan Gottleib while he was still an undergraduate at the Yale School of Architecture, the Flexicomb is a flexible honeycomb matrix, which can be used to build lighting fixtures, furniture and sculptural installations.

The material is made from thousands of closely packed polypropylene tube that will bend in the convex direction while remaining rigid in the concave one. Flexicomb is so versatile; it can be used for almost any imaginable purpose. Not to mention, who wouldn’t want a lamp or chandelier made from the stuff when it looks as amazing as it does.

Read more.

6. Kinetic Glass (Living Glass)

Credit: The Living New York

The fact that your home was looking out for your health would be a pretty comforting thought. Living glass does just that by monitoring CO2 levels in the air around you.

Living Glass, which was developed by architects Soo-in Yang and David Benjamin, is a smart material is a transparent surface that automatically opens and closes gill-like slits in response to human presence to control the air quality in the room.

The surface is embedded with wires that contract due to electrical stimulus. This allows the ‘gills’ to regulate air quality by ‘breathing the air’.

Read more here and here.

5. Richlite

Credit: Doug Ogle

A counter-top made of paper might not sound too sturdy, but a Richlite counter is almost indistinguishable from one made of wood.

70 percent of the material is made with recycled paper. The countertops are made by treating paper with a resin, and then baking it to create solid sheets. Richlite was first used in the aerospace, boating, and sports industries as reinforcement for surfaces like fiberglass, but now is available for architectural purposes as well.

Read more here and here.

4. Self-Repairing Cement

Credit: Designm.ag

It may seem that most of these materials have been designed to replace concrete, but cement is itself still evolving. A new self-healing cement is currently being developed which has the ability to repair its own cracks.

This cement is mixed with microcapsules that release a glue-like epoxy resin that will automatically repair any cracks that form in the sidewalk or roadway. In addition this cement will have the ability to regulate heat. Phase-change materials that can absorb or release large amounts of heat have also been included in the ingredients.

With this material we would be able to save energy by developing buildings that can control their own temperature, and save money on repairs as well.

Read more.

3. Carbon Fibre

Credit: Concrete Canvas

Carbon fibre is an extremely strong, lightweight material. It's five times as strong as steel, two times as stiff, yet weighs about two-thirds less.

Carbon fibre is made up of carbon strands that are thinner than human hair. The strands can be woven together, like cloth, and then that can be molded to any shape you might want. In addition to being strong, carbon fibre is also flexible, so it’s the perfect material for construction projects in areas with that are exposed to hurricanes and tornados.

Read more.

2. Liquid Granite

Credit: Dean Jarvey via Flickr

According to its creators, liquid granite has the ability to completely replace cement in concrete. The material is a lightweight and has the same load bearing capacity of cement, but is made of recycled materials.

Liquid granite has none of the environmental impacts that cement and concrete do. It is made up of between 30 and 70 percent recycled material, and uses less than one third of the cement used in precast concrete. Which means that it has a greatly reduced carbon footprint.

Finally, liquid granite is astoundingly fire resistant. It can withstand temperatures of up to 1,100 degrees Celsius while still maintaining its structural properties. Unlike concrete it does not explode in high temperatures.

Read more.

1. Bendable Concrete

Credit: University of Michigan

Traditional concrete is a very brittle material; any buckling or bending will cause it to crack. A new type of fibre-reinforced bendable concrete might just be putting an end to that issue.

This new concrete is around 500 times more resistant to cracking than regular concrete thanks to the tiny fibres, which account for two percent of its make up. The fibres slide within the concrete when bending occurs, providing it with enough give to prevent breakage.

It isn’t just the fibres though; the materials in the concrete itself are designed for maximum flexibility as well. And thanks to these precautions, this concrete has a much longer life expectancy, which means it will cost a less in the long run too.

Read more. Video.

[Source: Innovation News Daily. Edited. Links added.]

STRANGE AND PUZZLING THINGS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE – PART II

STRANGE AND PUZZLING THINGS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE – PART I

10 Strange Things About The Universe
By Jeff Johnson, Listverse.

The universe can be a very strange place. While ground-breaking ideas such as quantum theory, relativity and even the Earth going around the Sun might be commonly accepted now, science still continues to show that the universe contains things you might find it difficult to believe, and even more difficult to get your head around.

10. Negative Energy

Theoretically, the lowest temperature that can be achieved is absolute zero, exactly −273.15°C, where the motion of all particles stops completely. However, you can never actually cool something to this temperature because, in quantum mechanics, every particle has a minimum energy, called “zero-point energy,” which you cannot get below. Remarkably, this minimum energy doesn’t just apply to particles, but to any vacuum, whose energy is called “vacuum energy.” To show that this energy exists involves a rather simple experiment – take two metal plates in a vacuum, put them close together, and they will be attracted to each other. This is caused by the energy between the plates only being able to resonate at certain frequencies, while outside the plates the vacuum energy can resonate at pretty much any frequency. Because the energy outside the plates is greater than the energy between the plates, the plates are pushed towards each other. As the plates get closer together, the force increases, and at around a 10 nm separation this effect (called the Casimir effect) creates one atmosphere of pressure between them. Because the plates reduce the vacuum energy between them to below the normal zero-point energy, the space is said to have negative energy, which has some unusual properties.

One of the properties of a negative-energy vacuum is that light actually travels faster in it than it does in a normal vacuum, something that may one day allow people to travel faster than the speed of light in a kind of negative-energy vacuum bubble. Negative energy could also be used to hold open a transversible wormhole, which although theoretically possible, would collapse as soon as it was created without a means to keep it open. Negative energy also causes black holes to evaporate. Vacuum energy is often modelled as virtual particles popping into existence and annihilating. This doesn’t violate any energy conservation laws as long as the particles are annihilated shortly afterwards. However, if two particles are produced at the event horizon of a black hole, one can be moving away from the black hole, while the other is falling into it. This means they won’t be able to annihilate, so the particles both end up with negative energy. When the negative energy particle falls into the black hole, it lowers the mass of the black hole instead of adding to it, and over time particles like these will cause the black hole to evaporate completely. Because this theory was first suggested by Stephen Hawking, the particles given off by this effect (the ones that don’t fall into the black hole) are called Hawking radiation. It was the first accepted theory to unite quantum theory with general relativity, making it Hawking’s greatest scientific achievement to date.

9. Frame Dragging

One prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that when a large object moves, it drags the space-time around it, causing nearby objects to be pulled along as well. It can occur when a large object is moving in a straight line or is rotating, and, although the effect is very small, it has been experimentally verified. The Gravity Probe B experiment, launched in 2004, was designed to measure the space-time distortion near Earth. Although sources of interference were larger than expected, the frame-dragging effect has been measured to an uncertainty of 15%, with further analysis hoping to reduce this further.

The expected effects were very close to predictions: due to the rotation of the Earth, the probe was pulled from its orbit by around 2 meters per year, an effect purely caused by the mass of the Earth distorting the space-time surrounding it. The probe itself would not feel this extra acceleration because it is not caused by an acceleration on the probe, but rather on the space-time the probe is traveling through–analogous to a rug being pulled under a table, rather than moving the table itself.

8. Relativity of Simultaneity

The relativity of simultaneity is the idea that whether two events occur simultaneously or not is relative and depends on the observer. It is a strange consequence of the special theory of relativity, and applies to any events that happen that are separated by some distance. For example, if a firework is let off on Mars and another on Venus, one observer traveling through space one way might say they happen at the same time (compensating for the time light takes to reach them), while another observer traveling another way might say the one on Mars went off first, and yet another might say the one on Venus went off first. It is caused by the way different viewpoints become distorted compared to each other in special relativity. And because they are all relative, no observer can be said to have the correct viewpoint.

This can lead to very unusual scenarios, such as an observer witnessing effect before cause (for example, seeing a bomb go off, then later seeing someone light the fuse). However, once the observer sees the effect, they cannot interact with the cause without traveling faster than the speed of light, which was one of the first reasons faster-than-light travel was believed to be forbidden, because it is akin to time travel, and a universe where you can interact with the cause after the effect makes no sense.

7. Black Strings

One of the longest outstanding mysteries in physics is how gravity is related to the other fundamental forces, such as electromagnetism. One theory, first proposed in 1919, showed that if an extra dimension is added to the universe, gravity still exists in the first four dimensions (three space dimensions and time), but the way this four dimensional space curves over the extra fifth dimension, naturally produces the other fundamental forces. However, we cannot see or detect this fifth dimension, so it was proposed that the extra dimension was curled up, and hence became invisible to us. This theory was what ultimately led to string theory, and is still included at the heart of most string theory analysis.

Since this extra dimension is so small, only tiny objects, such as particles, can move along it. In these cases, they ultimately just end up where they started, since the extra dimension is curled up on itself. However, one object that becomes much more complex in five dimensions is a black hole. When extended to five dimensions, it becomes a “black string,” and unlike a normal 4D black hole, it is unstable (this ignores the fact that 4D black holes eventually evaporate). This black string will destabilize into a whole string of black holes, connected by further black strings, until the black strings are pinched off entirely and leave the set of black holes. These multiple 4D black holes then combine into one larger black hole. The most interesting thing about this is that, using current models, the final black hole is a “naked” singularity. That is, it has no event horizon surrounding it. This violates the Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis, which says that all singularities must be surrounded by an event horizon, in order to avoid the time-travel effects that are believed to happen near a singularity from changing the history of the entire universe, as they can never escape from behind an event horizon.

6. Geon

As is best shown in the equation E=MC², energy and matter are fundamentally connected. One effect of this is that energy, as well as mass, creates a gravitational field. A geon, first investigated by John Wheeler, in 1955, is an electromagnetic or gravitational wave whose energy creates a gravitational field, which in turn holds the wave itself together in a confined space. Wheeler speculated that there may be a link between microscopic geons and elementary particles, and that they might even be the same thing. A more extreme example is a “kugelblitz” (German for “ball lightning”), which is where such intense light is concentrated at a particular point that the gravity caused by the light energy becomes strong enough to collapse into a black hole, trapping the light inside. Although nothing is thought to prevent the formation of a kugelblitz, geons are now only believed to be able to form temporarily, as they will inevitably leak energy and collapse. This unfortunately indicates that Wheeler’s initial conjecture was incorrect, but this has not been definitively proven.

5. Kerr Black Hole

The type of black hole most people are familiar with, which has an event horizon on the outside acting as the “point of no return” and a point singularity of infinite density on the inside, actually has a more specific name: a Schwarzschild black hole. It is named after Karl Schwarzschild, who found the mathematical solution of Einstein’s field equations for a spherical, non-rotating mass in 1915, only a month after Einstein actually published his general theory of relativity. However, it wasn’t until 1963 that mathematician Roy Kerr found the solution for a rotating spherical mass. Hence, a rotating black hole is called a Kerr black hole, and it has some unusual properties.

At the centre of a Kerr black hole, there is no point singularity, but rather a ring singularity — a spinning one-dimensional ring held open by its own momentum. There are also two event horizons, an inner and outer one, and an ellipsoid called the ergosphere, inside which space-time itself rotates with the black hole (because of frame dragging) faster than the speed of light. When entering the black hole, by passing through the outer event horizon, space-like paths become time-like, meaning that it is impossible to avoid the singularity at the centre, just like in a Schwarzschild black hole. However, when you pass through the inner event horizon, your path becomes space-like again. The difference is this: space-time itself is reversed. This means gravity near the ring singularity becomes repulsive, actually pushing you away from the centre. In fact, unless you enter the black hole exactly on the equator, it is impossible to hit the ring singularity itself. Additionally, ring singularities can be linked through space-time, so they can act as wormholes, although exiting the black hole on the other side would be impossible (unless it was a naked singularity, possibly created when the ring singularity spins fast enough). Traveling through a ring singularity might take you to another point in space-time, such as another universe, where you could see light falling in from outside the black hole, but not leave the black hole itself. It might even take you to a “white hole” in a negative universe, the exact meaning of which is unknown.

4. Quantum Tunnelling

Quantum tunnelling is an effect where a particle can pass through a barrier it would not normally have the energy to overcome. It can allow a particle to pass through a physical barrier that should be impenetrable, or can allow an electron to escape from the pull of the nucleus without having the kinetic energy to do so. According to quantum mechanics, there is a finite probability that any particle can be found anywhere in the universe, although that probability is astronomically small for any real distance from the particles expected path.

However, when the particle is faced with a small-enough barrier (around 1-3 nm wide), one which conventional calculations would indicate is impenetrable by the particle, the probability that the particle will simply pass through that barrier becomes fairly noticeable. This can be explained by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which limits how much information can be known about a particle. A particle can “borrow” energy from the system it is acting in, use it to pass through the barrier, and then lose it again.

Quantum tunnelling is involved in many physical processes, such as radioactive decay and the nuclear fusion that takes place in the Sun. It is also used in certain electrical components, and it has even been shown to occur in enzymes in biological systems. For example, the enzyme glucose oxidase, which catalyses the reaction of glucose into hydrogen peroxide, involves the quantum tunnelling of an entire oxygen atom. Quantum tunnelling is also a key feature of the scanning tunnelling microscope, the first machine to enable the imaging and manipulation of individual atoms. It works by measuring the voltage in a very fine tip, which changes when it gets close to a surface due to the effect of electrons tunnelling through the vacuum (known as the “forbidden zone”) between them. This gives the device the sensitivity necessary to make extremely high resolution images. It also enables the device to move atoms by deliberately putting a current through the conducting tip.

3. Cosmic Strings

Shorty after the Big Bang, the universe was in a highly disordered and chaotic state. This means that small changes and defects didn’t change the overall structure of the universe. However, as the universe expanded, cooled, and went from a disorderly state to an orderly one, it reached a point where very small fluctuations created very large changes.

This is similar to arranging tiles evenly on a floor. When one tile is placed unevenly, this means that the subsequent tiles placed will follow its pattern. Therefore, you have a whole line of tiles out of place. This is similar to the objects called cosmic strings, which are extremely thin and extremely long defects in the shape of space-time. These cosmic strings are predicted by most models of the universe, such as the string theory wherein two kinds of “strings” are unrelated. If they exist, each string would be as thin as a proton, but incredibly dense. Thus, a cosmic string a mile long can weigh as much as the Earth. However, it would not actually have any gravity and the only effect it will have on matter surrounding it would be the way it changes the form and shape of space-time. Therefore, a cosmic string is, in essence, just a “wrinkle” in the shape of space-time.

Cosmic strings are thought to be incredibly long, up to the order of the sizes of thousands of galaxies. In fact, recent observations and simulations have suggested that a network of cosmic strings stretches across the entire universe. This was once thought to be what caused galaxies to form in supercluster complexes, although this idea has since been abandoned. Supercluster complexes consist of connected “filaments” of galaxies up to a billion light-years in length. Because of the unique effects of cosmic strings on space-time as you bring two strings close together, it has been shown that they could possibly be used for time travel, like with most of the things on this list. Cosmic strings would also create incredible gravitational waves, stronger than any other known source. These waves are what those current and planned gravitational wave detectors are designed to look for.

2. Antimatter Retrocausality

Antimatter is the opposite of matter. It has the same mass but with an opposing electrical charge. One theory about why antimatter exists was developed by John Wheeler and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman based on the idea that physical systems should be time-reversible. For example, the orbits of our solar system, if played backwards, should still obey all the same rules as when they are played forwards. This led to the idea that antimatter is just ordinary matter going backwards in time, which would explain why antiparticles have an opposite charge, since if an electron is repelled while going forwards in time, then backwards in time this becomes attraction. This also explains why matter and antimatter annihilate. This isn’t a circumstance of two particles crashing into and destroying each other; it is the same particle suddenly stopping and going back in time. In a vacuum, where a pair of virtual particles are produced and then annihilated, this is actually just one particle going in an endless loop, forwards in time, then backwards, then forwards, and so on.

While the accuracy of this theory is still up for debate, treating antimatter as matter going backwards in time mathematically comes up with identical solutions to other, more conventional theories. When it was first theorized, John Wheeler said that perhaps it answered the question of why all electrons in the universe have identical properties, a question so obvious that it is generally ignored. He suggested that it was just one electron, constantly darting all over the universe, from the Big Bang to the end of time and back again, continuing an uncountable number of times. Even though this idea involves backwards time travel, it can’t be used to send any information back in time, since the mathematics of the model simply doesn’t allow it. You cannot move a piece of antimatter to affect the past, since in moving it you only affect the past of the antimatter itself, that is, your future.

1. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems

It is not strictly science, but rather a very interesting set of mathematical theorems about logic and the philosophy that is definitely relevant to science as a whole. Proven in 1931 by Kurt Gödel, these theories say that with any given set of logical rules, except for the most simple, there will always be statements that are undecidable, meaning that they cannot be proven or disproven due to the inevitable self-referential nature of any logical systems that is even remotely complicated. This is thought to indicate that there is no grand mathematical system capable of proving or disproving all statements. An undecidable statement can be thought of as a mathematical form of a statement like “I always lie.” Because the statement makes reference to the language being used to describe it, it cannot be known whether the statement is true or not. However, an undecidable statement does not need to be explicitly self-referential to be undecidable. The main conclusion of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems is that all logical systems will have statements that cannot be proven or disproven; therefore, all logical systems must be “incomplete.”

The philosophical implications of these theorems are widespread. The set suggests that in physics, a “theory of everything” may be impossible, as no set of rules can explain every possible event or outcome. It also indicates that logically, “proof” is a weaker concept than “true”; such a concept is unsettling for scientists because it means there will always be things that, despite being true, cannot be proven to be true. Since this set of theorems also applies to computers, it also means that our own minds are incomplete and that there are some ideas we can never know, including whether our own minds are consistent (i.e. our reasoning contains no incorrect contradictions). This is because the second of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems states that no consistent system can prove its own consistency, meaning that no sane mind can prove its own sanity. Also, since that same law states that any system able to prove its consistency to itself must be inconsistent, any mind that believes it can prove its own sanity is, therefore, insane.

[Source: Listverse. Edited. Top image added.]

STRANGE AND PUZZLING THINGS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE – PART I

Top 10 Strangest Things in the Universe
by Dave Mosher, Discovery Science.

The more we look among the stars and galaxies, the weirder things seem to get.

Even space itself is puzzling, for example. Recent studies suggest that the fabric of the universe stretches more than 150 billion light-years across - in spite of the fact that the cosmos is 13.7 billion years old.

From super-fast stars to the nature of matter, here we cover other strange and mysterious elements of the universe.

10. Hypervelocity Stars

Artist's rendition of a hypervelocity star leaving a galaxy. Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

If you've ever gazed at the night sky, you've probably wished upon a shooting star (which are really meteors).

But shooting stars do exist, and they're as rare as one in 100 million.

In 2005, astronomers discovered the first "hypervelocity" star careening out of a galaxy at nearly 530 miles per second (10 times faster than ordinary star movement).

We have ideas about what flings these rare stars into deep space, but aren't certain; anything from off-kilter supernova explosions to supermassive black holes might be responsible.

9. Black Holes

Conception of a black hole pulling gas off of a nearby star. Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA.

Speaking of black holes, what could be stranger?

Beyond a black hole's gravitational border - or event horizon - neither matter nor light can escape. Astrophysicists think dying stars about three to 20 times the mass of the sun can form these strange objects. At the centre of galaxies, black holes about 10,000 to 18 billion times heavier than the sun are thought to exist, enlarged by gobbling up gas, dust, stars and small black holes.

What about mid-sized types? Perhaps surprisingly, evidence is both scarce and questionable for their existence.

8. Magnetars

Artist's rendition of a magnetar with magnetic fields shown. Credit: NASA.

The sun spins about once every 25 days, gradually deforming its magnetic field.

Well, imagine a dying star heavier than the sun collapsing into a wad of matter just a dozen miles in diameter.

Like a spinning ballerina pulling his or her arms inward, this change in size spins the neutron star - and its magnetic field - out of control.

Calculations show these objects possess temporary magnetic fields about one million billion times stronger than the Earth's. That's powerful enough to destroy your credit card from hundreds of thousands of miles away, and deform atoms into ultra-thin cylinders.

7. Neutrinos

Construction of the NuMI neutrino source underway. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

Pull out a dime from your pocket and hold it up for a second... guess what? About 150 billion tiny, nearly massless particles called neutrinos just passed through it as though it didn't even exist.

Scientists have found that they originate in stars (living or exploding), nuclear material and from the Big Bang. The elementary particles come in three "flavours" and, stranger still, seem to disappear on a whim.

Because neutrinos occasionally do interact with "normal" matter such as water and mineral oil, scientists hope they can use them as a revolutionary telescope to see beyond parts of the universe obscured by dust and gas.

6. Dark Matter

False-colour depiction of dark matter around a star cluster. Credit: J.-P. Kneib/ESA/NASA.

If you put all of the energy and matter of the cosmos into a pie and divvy it up, the result is shocking.

All of the galaxies, stars, planets, comets, asteroids, dust, gas and particles account for just 4 percent of the known universe. Most of what we call "matter" - about 23 percent of the universe - is invisible to human eyes and instruments.

For now.

Scientists can see dark matter's gravitational tug on stars and galaxies, but are searching feverishly for ways to detect it first-hand. They think particles similar to neutrinos yet far more massive could be the mysterious, unseen stuff.

5. Dark Energy

Computer simulation of dark matter filaments. Credit: Science Magazine.

What really has everyone on the planet confused - including scientists - is dark energy.

To continue with the pie analogy, dark energy is a Garfield-sized portion at 73 percent of the known universe. It seems to pervade all of space and push galaxies farther and farther away from one another at increasingly faster speeds.

Some cosmologists think this expansion will leave the Milky Way galaxy as an "island universe" in a few trillion years with no other galaxies visible.

Others think the rate of expansion will become so great that it will result in a "Big Rip." In this scenario, the force of dark energy overcomes gravity to disassemble stars and planets, the forces keeping particles sticking together, the molecules in those particles, and eventually the atoms and subatomic particles. Thankfully, humankind probably won't be around to witness to cataclysm.

4. Planets

Illustration of terrestrial, extra-solar planets. Credit: R. Hurt/NASA/JPL-Caltech.

It might sound strange because we live on one, but planets are some of the more mysterious members of the universe.

So far, no theory can fully explain how disks of gas and dust around stars form planets - particularly rocky ones.

Not making matters easier is the fact that most of a planet is concealed beneath its surface. Advanced gadgetry can offer clues of what lies beneath, but we have heavily explored only a few planets in the solar system.

Only in 1999 was the first planet outside of our celestial neighbourhood detected, and in November 2008 the first bona fide exoplanet images taken.

3. Gravity

Artist depiction of gravity waves around merging black holes. Credit: NASA.

The force that helps stars ignite, planets stay together and objects orbit is one of the most pervasive yet weakest in the cosmos.

Scientists have fine-tuned just about every equation and model to describe and predict gravity, yet its source within matter remains a complete and utter mystery.

Some think infinitesimal particles called gravitons exude the force in all matter, but whether or not they could ever be detected is questionable.

Still, a massive hunt is on for major shake-ups in the universe called gravitational waves. If detected (perhaps from a merger of black holes), Albert Einstein's concept that the universe has a "fabric" of space-time would be on solid ground.

2. Life

E. coli bacteria. Credit: National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Matter and energy abound in the universe, but only in a few places is the roll of the cosmic dice perfect enough to result in life.

The basic ingredients and conditions necessary for this strange phenomenon are better understood than ever before, thanks to abundant access to life here on Earth.

But the exact recipe - or recipes - to go from the basic elements of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur to an organism is a prevailing mystery.

Scientists seek out new areas in the solar system where life could have thrived (or still may, such as below the surface of watery moons), in hopes of arriving at a compelling theory for life's origins.

[Comment: The recipe(s) to produce an organism refers to the "primordial soup" - in short Darwin's Theory of Evolution or Darwinism. This theory has long been discredited. One of the best websites that detail out evidences to disprove the theory is Harun Yahya, specifically Collapse of the Theory of Evolution page.]

1. The Universe

Illustration showing the creation and expansion of the universe. Credit: NASA.

The source of energy, matter and the universe itself is the ultimate mystery of, well, the universe.

Based on a widespread afterglow called the cosmic microwave background (and other evidence), scientists think that the cosmos formed from a "Big Bang" - an incomprehensible expansion of energy from an ultra-hot, ultra-dense state.

Describing time before the event, however, may be impossible.

Still, atom smasher searches for particles that formed shortly after the Big Bang could shed new light on the universe's mysterious existence - and make it a bit less strange than it is today.

[Source: Discovery Science. Edited. Top image added.]