Goes is Going

We have a new weather satellite going up later this month. Goes N will be launched (hopefully) on 24 June. This is the first of a new series of geostationary weather satellites.

GOES N will eventually become GOES 13 and replace GOES 12 which has done a great job for the last several years.

GOES images are the ones you see on TV every night during my weathercast. (and every one else's for that matter!)
They are one of the most visible symbols of advanced science technology that people come into contact with on a daily basis (I'd be willing to bet I will get an argument on that assertion though!)

This new GOES will have significant improvements over the current one. We will also likely get the images faster and the pointing accuracy is greatly improved.

In case you do not know. GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite. These satellites are placed at an altitude of 35,786 km. If they break, there is no rescue from the space shuttle since it can go no higher than around 500km in altitude.

Why so high?? Because at this altitude, a satellite will circle the earth in 1,436 minutes. It so happens that the earth takes just that many minutes to rotate on its axis. Thus, the satellite hovers over the same spot on earth, above the equator all the time.

If you do the math you will find out that 1,436 minutes is 23 hours and 56 minutes.
You thought the earth turned once every 24 hours exactly, didn't you.

WRONG!

So why does the sunset not change by 4 minutes each day. It should since we are on a 24 hour clock and the earth turns once in 23hr. and 56 mins. I suspect you know. If not...I'll let you look that one up yourself!

Later,
Dan

A Riveting Paper

It was June 1905 and the story goes that world famous physicist Max Planck brought in the mail after a long day at work. In the mail was a scientific article by an author unknown to most of the science community. A guy who worked as patent clerk and wrote in his spare time.

Somehow the article intrigued him and one can just imagine Planck, absent mindedly putting down the rest of the mail while reading the beginning of this paper. Keep in mind that we are talking about one of the greatest scientists in the world in 1905. Max Planck's theories on physics would be the under pinning of scientific discovery for the next 80 years!

I do not know if the story is absolutely true but, it is said that Planck stood riveted as he read this very complicated paper full of mathematics and paradoxes. He then set down in his chair and said
"The world has changed!"

The patent clerk who sent him the paper was a young German named (yup!) Albert Einstein. The paper was on special relativity.

The world had indeed changed. The way the universe worked was not at all what it seemed. The laws of time and space according to Isaac Newton were wrong! Time itself was not what we thought. Crazy Jules Verne like ideas of traveling to a future time might just be possible. It was all pretty heady stuff.

Fortunately for us, Max Planck was smart enough to realize that Einstein was probably right. He took him under his wings and the rest they say is history.

One of my favourite books is by a genius named Brian Greene. He wrote a book called the Elegant Universe. I understood the first 3 chapters. Sitting by a physics professor on an airliner I enquired of the gentleman if he had read it. Telling him how far I had gotten. Don't feel bad he said..I am a physicist and I only understood about half of it!

The book is worth the cost for those 3 chapters. In one of them he explains Einstein's Theory of relativity. Greene tells the reader to re-read this chapter until it clicks. I did and it clicked after 3 tries. I suspect everyone has a similar reaction when relativity becomes somewhat clear.
OH!
Wow!
Good grief!

I had a year of Calculus based Physics at the University of Oklahoma.
Just enough to know that the mathematics of special relativity and Euclidean Geometry are beyond my Okie brain.

That said, it is fairly easy to comprehend what Einstein figured out 100 years ago this month. At the risk, of getting some nasty emails from Physics experts telling me I have the explanation all wrong..I will attempt it.
But not tonight...later this week perhaps!

Dan

So Long Arlene

Well, as I thought, Arlene was just a tropical storm and brought some much needed rain to the area. Tropical storms and hurricanes play a big part on keeping the water tables up in this part of the world. I can remember many droughts that were broken by a tropical system.

Have never owned property on a beach. Not going to buy any either. Where ocean meets land is one of the most geological unstable areas on the planet. The land will change without doubt given time. You can hold it off for awhile..sometimes a long while. (Galveston's sea wall is a good example)

Sea walls protect the homes behind the beach, but they actually destroy the beach itself.I won't go into the hows and whys here, but if you doubt me, pick up a basic Geology text book. This is not something that is in doubt scientifically.

I will blog as usual this week but then I am taking some holiday time. Heading to Toronto. (Tim Horton's here I come) Also going to do a little buisiness and do a weekend weather seminar in Boston.

I shall do a whole blog on Tim horton's sometime....for those of you who have spent anytime in Canada, you already know...

Later,
Dan