Musings from Jay (blog site permanently frozen 11/05/2024 morning)

Finished some blogsite refactoring work lately for better usability. Over 100 of my essays/blogs can be accessed directly or indirectly through these favorite bundles. Many of these essays are connected, interlinked, and flow together to tell a story. Main Hub: [ Essay Bundles - Limited Blogsite Refactoring (v1.1) ] Note: By default, essays are hosted on jaykasi.blogspot.com. Topics like Politics, Economics, Government, Finance, Local, India, History, Travel, Technology, Career, and Personal (except for a few specific ones) are not in these bundles and are not accessible from this menu. FOUNDATIONAL ESSAYS (OBJECTIVE) Primarily derived directly from science and occasionally philosophy. 1. Physics / Astro Physics: [ Physics/Astro Physics Deep Dive (v1.1) ]   2. Earth Sciences (including Climate Change): [ Interesting Earth Sciences Topics (v1.1) ] 3. Evolution: [ The Story of life on Earth (v1.1) ] 4. Biology / BioChemistry: [ Ho...

Welcome to the definitive guide to the cosmos. This series of essays explores the fundamental rules governing our universe, tracking the journey from the cosmic macro-scale down to the strange quantum world. Main Physics/Astro Physics Hub: [ Physics/Astro Physics Deep Dive (v1.1) ]   Cosmic Beginnings & The Fabric of Space These essays examine the birth of the universe, how it expands, and the invisible scaffolding that shapes everything we see. Big Bang and Cosmic Dawn (v1.1) :   Synopsis: How the universe transitioned from a hot, dense singularity into the structured cosmos we observe today. Space-Time Fabric (v1.0) :   Synopsis: Understanding Einstein’s revolutionary idea that gravity is not a pulling force, but the bending of geometry itself. The Expanding Universe:   Synopsis: Cosmic acceleration, dark energy, and the mysterious forces pulling the universe apart. Deep Dives: Dark Matter: [ Dark Matter (v1.1) ]  Dark Energy: [ Dark Energy (v1.1) ] Stel...

Physics can get awfully close to the universe creation event, but it is very unlikely it can say anything about why the Big Bang occurred and what was before it. It is not even clear causality works in such instances. This is as close as we can get to God's creation. At time zero, there was no space, time, or matter. It is assumed there was a gravitational singularity. Here is an account of the progression of the universe from “Physics of the Universe” and other sources. This is basically the standard model of cosmology. Since the Big Bang, 13.787 billion (+ or - 20 million) years ago, the universe has passed through many different phases or epochs. Due to the extreme conditions and the violence of its exceedingly early stages, it arguably saw more activity and change during the first second than in all the billions of years since. The first second of creation is dominated by particle physics and quantum mechanics and may not make much sense to a layman. To better understand it, yo...

  Much of this essay is a summary of classes of Prof Richard Wolfson of Middlebury College among other sources. The Quantum and Relativistic Revolutions Einstein developed the special theory of relativity in 1905, and further expanded it to the general theory in 1915. Special theory is, in its essence, a great equalizer. It says that your frame of reference does not matter - it could be at rest or moving at close to the speed of light. The physics experiments give the same result. You play the same tennis on a steady cruise ship or on land. You eat peanuts the same way on a steady airplane or on land. This simple thing leads to some interesting effects and fundamentally alters classical physics. The general theory of relativity turns out to be a theory of gravity. After that quantum mechanics was developed. The key concept of quantum mechanics can be illustrated by emptying a jug of water repeatedly in half until you cannot do it anymore. You are left with one molecule of water. Fu...