But a tiny sliver ...

When looking at this pix photographed by yours truly during a train trip to hang out with my brother, one readily sees our take on existence is but a tiny sliver thanks to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, Godel's Incompleteness Theorems and the two laws of thermodynamics as complete knowledge of any given event experienced by us at any point in time is impossible.

In essence, uncertainty defines the ultimate limit on how one views reality.

Formulated by the German physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg in 1927, the uncertainty principle states that we cannot know both the position and speed of a particle, such as a photon or electron, with perfect accuracy; the more we nail down the particle's position, the less we know about its speed and vice versa.

In other words, if we could shrink a tortoise down to the size of an electron, we would only be able to precisely calculate its speed or its location, not both at the same time.

In terms of Godel ...

For any such consistent formal system, there will always be statements about natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that the system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.

i.e. This sentence is false.

Regarding thermodynamics ...

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only transformed. This means that a system always has the same amount of energy, unless it's added from the outside.

Entropy is the general trend of the universe toward death and disorder.

The arrow of time rules.

Passing thru

But a sliver ...

A terrific video describing how our brains connect to existence is both fascinating and frustrating at the same time as we see but a sliver of reality thanks, in part, to the uncertainty principle and the incompleteness theorems articulated by Heisenberg and Godel back in the day. Actual reality will forever remain separate from our interpretation but the act of measurement, driven by existence, gives all life a consistent but incomplete view of reality as described by quantum mechanics, the science of the very tiny. Read Big Think's piece in it's entirety as it's worthwhile to the max. :)

Our perception of reality is not an exact representation of the objective truth but rather a combination of sensory inputs and the brain’s interpretation of these signals. This interpretation is influenced by past experiences and is often predictive, with the brain creating categories of similar instances to anticipate future events.

The brain’s categorization process extends beyond physical characteristics to include abstract, functional features. This ability allows humans to create “social reality,” where we collectively assign functions or meanings to objects or concepts that don’t inherently possess them, such as the value of money or the concept of borders and citizenship.

The brain’s capacity for imagination, drawing from past experiences to create something entirely new, is a double-edged sword. While it allows for creativity and innovation, it can also lead to difficulties in staying present.

Love the last sentence as this explains the essence of enlightenment ...the art of not assuming.

Abstract image of quantum probability. (Image credit: agsandrew via Shutterstock)

Shedding light ... on black holes

Another time killer from NASA, this time, info about black holes. :)

"Black holes" is one of the most highly searched terms about our universe. There's a fascination with the idea of a region of space having a gravitational pull so strong, nothing can escape its deadly grasp, not even a sliver of light. Well, not quite. In fact, much of what we think we know about black holes turn out to be myths.

Myth 3

If you get within a few thousand miles of a black hole, its super gravity will pull you into its center. It turns out you can get surprisingly close to a black hole. If you approached a black hole with mass equal to our Sun's for example, you could get as close as tens of miles. So imagine if we replaced our sun with a black hole of the same mass. All of the planets would continue to revolve around it, at exactly the same speed and distance as they do now.

Read the rest of Physorg's article, the information will surprise you. :)

The Color Red

After reading the University of Rochester's interesting article regarding the color red, it's no wonder why it's the color of choice for all things relating to war, sports and every other endeavor requiring speed, strength and quick reaction times. 

"A new study, published in the latest issue of the journal Emotion, finds that when humans see red, their reactions become both faster and more forceful. And people are unaware of the color's intensifying effect."

But, as often stated in BRT, there's an inevitable cost when getting up close and personal with the color red.

"But threat is a double-edged sword, argue Elliot and coauthor Henk Aarts, professor of psychology at Utrecht University, in the Netherlands. Along with mobilizing extra energy, "threat also evokes worry, task distraction, and self-preoccupation, all of which have been shown to tax mental resources," they write in the paper. In earlier color research, exposure to red has proven counterproductive for skilled motor and mental tasks: athletes competing against an opponent wearing red are more likely to lose and students exposed to red before a test perform worse."

Red is one of my favorite colors but blue's the one by a sliver for yours truly. :)

It's just the beginning :)

Its just the beginning of the Webb and its take on the universe. As stated before in BRT, we are not even a dust mote in a reality we will never fully understand.

And ... Einstein's right, gravity bends light as seen in this first pix taken by the Webb. 

Awesome without question.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

This image is among the telescope’s first-full color images

Factoids about the image.

• President Joe Biden unveiled this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, during a White House event Monday, July 11
• Webb’s image covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground – and reveals thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of vast universe
• Webb’s sharp near-infrared view brought out faint structures in extremely distant galaxies, offering the most detailed view of the early universe to date
• NASA and its partners will release the full series of Webb’s first full-color images and data, known as spectra, Tuesday, July 12, during a live NASA TV broadcast

Less than a dust mote indeed.

Had to add another. :)

NASA’s Webb Captures Dying Star’s Final ‘Performance’ in Fine Detail

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed details of the Southern Ring planetary nebula that were previously hidden from astronomers. Planetary nebulae are the shells of gas and dust ejected from dying stars.
• Webb’s powerful infrared view brings this nebula’s second star into full view, along with exceptional structures created as the stars shape the gas and dust around them.
• New details like these, from the late stages of a star’s life, will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments.
• These images also reveal a cache of distant galaxies in the background. Most of the multi-colored points of light seen here are galaxies – not stars.

Again, its just the beginnning. :)

Yet 2 More ... :)

Saturn's hexagonal polar jet stream is the shining feature of almost every view of the north polar region of Saturn. The region, in shadow for the first part of the Cassini mission, now enjoys full sunlight, which enables Cassini scientists to directly image it in reflected light.

Although the sunlight falling on the north pole of Saturn is enough to allow us to image and study the region, it does not provide much warmth. In addition to being low in the sky (just like summer at Earth's poles), the sun is nearly ten times as distant from Saturn as from Earth. This results in the sunlight being only about 1 percent as intense as at our planet.

Although only a sliver of Saturn's sunlit face is visible in this view, the mighty gas giant planet still dominates the view.

From this vantage point just beneath the ring plane, the dense B ring becomes dark and essentially opaque, letting almost no light pass through. But some light reflected by the planet passes through the less dense A ring, which appears above the B ring in this photo. The C ring, silhouetted just below the B ring, lets almost all of Saturn's reflected light pass right through it, as if it were barely there at all. The F ring appears as a bright arc in this image, which is visible against both the backdrop of Saturn and the dark sky.

Cassini, the little probe that can.