More Tidbits

More tidbits on the universe we live in from the “Instant Egghead Guide…The Universe.”

Fusion in stars is the source of all elements heavier than lithium, number three on the periodic table, they say.

The large, super-cooled magnets in an MRI machine make hydrogen atoms in the body wobble, and consequently emit radio waves which the machine can detect.

A light year is the distance light can travel in one year…5.9 trillion miles. Our national debt is about three light-years-worth of miles.

An attosecond is a billionth of a billionth of a second.

Due to the quantum uncertainty principle, alpha particles are able to tunnel out of the nucleus of an atom due to radioactive decay even though they shouldn’t have the energy to break out.

According to quantum physics, a particle behaving in a certain way on one side of the universe determines the behavior of an “entangled” particle on the other side of the universe, with no communication link between them.

In a 2008 experiment, researchers found that if the entanglement principle doesn’t work instantaneously on the two entangled particles, it operates at at least 10,000 times the speed of light.

The human body can withstand inertia of about 16 g forces for about a minute.

Light has momentum. Solar sails are not science fiction.

If you could travel to the earth’s core, you would find zero gravity at the very center of the earth.