Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz

He discovered during a dream, that benzene, C6H6, was a ring molecule. It takes little imagination to understand that rings could be limked together.  

But on the other hand Obama got the peace prize. That was even more stupid.

http://boomeria.org/chemlectures/organic/organic2.html

Why?

 Why does anything exist?

This is the ultimate question of physics. To every particle there is an antiparticle. These particles seem to annihilate each other. For example, an electron is killed by a positron. According to the first commandment, energy can not be destroyed. So the annihilation radiation is a kind of energy.
Maybe this is a matter of belief rather than science. I believe something has always existed. The shape of the universe differs from time to time, but there is always a certain amount of energy present. Whether this is as a particle-antiparticle couple or as pure radiant energy, is the same. One clue may be the fatigue of em-radiation from the 'big bang'. When quanta get old, they become tired. If we believe in conservation of energy, we must explain this fatigue.
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ed. Religious people ask God the same question: "Why are we here?".  Is this 'the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything'? Science deals with observation. So let's observe what happens when a neutrino meets an anti-neutrino! Then we can start the discussion.

Mathemattic

From the basement of physics to the attic of mathematics I climbed one day.

REM

Rare earth metals were discovered i Sweden. Ytterby and Riddarhyttan delivered the rare minerals. These metals are vital to modern technology. And yet they are scarce. How do we solve this problem? By using less of REM, and perhaps replacing them by other materials. Remenber that copper has been replaced by glass, which is composed of the two most abundant elements: oxygen and silicon.
rel. abundance

Water

Water is probably one of the most abundant molecules in the universe. Its shape is 'V', and not 'I'

 like carbon dioxide. This gives water some of its peculiar properties.

Fish discovers water

Some years ago the discovery of fullerenes

was awarded the Nobel prize.
2010 the prize goes to the discoverers of graphene.

What is new? Has not carbon been present all the time?

Diamonds are still left to discover. I think I will do that. This might render me a prize of some kind. I could use some extra money for christmas.
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http://blog.joerg.heber.name/2010/10/05/great-the-physics-nobel-prize-for-graphene-now-dont-overhype-it/

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http://improbable.com/ an alternative to Stockholm
"PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes." Gå på i ullstrumporna!

We are no better

 

We are no better than the religious chaps. We are not investigating the reality. We are just doing research in the field of physics, which is defined by ourselves. We try to be consequent. We try to avoid paradoxes. But I can not say that we are better than fanatic "thinkers". We may have measured wrong. Our system is open. We have freedom of expression. We admit not knowing everything.

Dogma

• Everything falls down (except for the few things that go up)

• The thing that exist, is what you can sense (or what your instruments can register). This is the physical definition of existence. Of course, like all dogma, it does not hold. 
 

• 
  
  It is impossible to calibrate any of your instruments

• The universe is big, but not infinite. The black hole is infinte.

Physics

The point is actually a small space. The uncertainty is due to lack of exact measurement or a fundamental principle of nature (Copenhagen interpretation). Knowing this, I have to admit, classical mechanics is not physics.

Creators

God did not create the Universe. His mother did..

And now?

The great guru, professor Hawking, is about to explain what is happening in the universe. I really hope he is right. I was formerly a fan of Hoyle. It seems he was wrong. Although his idea of 'interstellar matter' is not very far from the speculations of Hawking. Myself is very conservative:

• what we can't measure doesn't belong to physics.

Alas the LHC might bring forward clear evidence. Einstein had very little experimental support. His ideas proved to be right later. What they now try to accomplish is the dawn of time. The creation of everything. I just hope they will wait until after christmas due to religious reasons.

Atom

Matter

The laughing Democritus by Hendrick Terbrugghen.

Matter presumably consist of least particles, called 'atoms'. The opposite assumption is, that there are no least particles. Democritus' choice was the first. Achievements in science leave us with some kind of synthesis: It is both.

Bose-Einstein Condensate exists at temperatures close to zero. The atoms are indistinguishable. Such extreme conditions are present nowhere, except in the laboratory. Anyhow, psycisists discuss the dawn of time: The Big Bang. In the begining there were no atoms. There was just a homogenous primordial soup. Here and now atoms exist. There are least particles in matter. Democritus was right, I believe - at least to some extent.

Too difficult

Physics turned out to be rather difficult. Submission is much easier. Still I want to finish the scientific track. Here I am stuck. To walk this path, I need to study philosophy. If I learn the formulas without understanding them, it is like submission. So give me some time! Maybe I will find a way forth.

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Carl Sagan on Gods. What fascinated me was the idea that cosmos is a dream of Gods, which turned into: God is a dream of ours. If so, who are we?

Mechanics II

The pendulum is my physical standpoint. The most accurate time keeper until 20th century. Due to an almost reversible process, the swinging forth and back will continue forever. Energy is not consumed nor given away. Is it possible to make a clock that demands no energy? No, the pendulum is an open system, that interacts with its surroundings. You know time by counting strokes. To do this, you have to watch the pendulum. Watching demands light or some other kind of signal. Light contains energy. So not even in this case we find an eternally working machine. It is philosophically interesting. Observation does not make the pendulum slowing down, but it is still a transformation of energy. Our mind is a part of the physical universe. Its contribution is not great, but it is not zero. If there is a "spiritual" aspect of mind, I can't tell.

Maybe there are other phenomena in the physical universe than pendulums. Next school term I will continue studying physics. I look forward to quantum mechanics and other weird stuff.

Mechanics