Very often in Hollywood movies, in order to portray a scientist, they put complicated nonsense from terms into the mouth of a character. According to the scriptwriters, the viewer at this moment should not delve into what was said, but simply understand: oh, this is a scientist! The meaning of what the actor has just said (even if it was complete nonsense) does not reach the spectator who does not own scientific terminology. From time immemorial, screenwriters-hacks and not only have been using this technique
In this article, we will talk in simple terms about 30 scientific terms, understanding of which will help you not only decipher the nonsense that is sometimes spoken from large screens, but also better navigate the modern scientific world, it is easier to understand what is written in scientific articles and news.
1 Kuiper Belt
The solar system does not end at all in the orbit of Pluto. Currently, astronomers distinguish a whole class of so-called trans-Neptunian objects - that is, celestial bodies that are beyond the orbit of Neptune, but are gravitationally associated with our star.
A huge area (from 4.5 to 8.2 billion km from the Sun) is occupied by the Kuiper belt - a whole class of trans-Neptunian objects consisting of matter formed at the dawn of the solar system.
Kuiper belt objects are of great interest to scientists. They consist mainly of volatile substances like ammonia and methane. In addition to asteroids, there are dwarf planets among them - Pluto also belongs to the Kuiper belt, along with the planets Haumea and Makemake. Some scientists hope to find even larger planets in the Kuiper Belt.
2. Singularity
This term is quite versatile. Most often it is used in describing the physics of black holes. According to the conclusions of the General Theory of Relativity (GR), there can be such objects in space (now we call them "black holes"), the curvature of space-time in which reaches infinite values, which makes it impossible to physically interpret the processes occurring inside such an object. In other words, we cannot find out what happens in a black hole with the help of standard physical theories - we can only assume, and since the time of Einstein, not a single fundamental breakthrough has been made in this area.
However, there are studies that, using purely mathematical methods, show that there may be no gravitational singularities in our Universe at all. We will apparently be able to find out for sure only when we manage to conduct direct observations of an object that, according to external signs, will belong to a black hole. We have a more detailed article about singularity .
3. Spacetime
The term, which arose from the brilliant foundation of General Relativity , unified three spatial dimensions and one time dimension into a single dynamical system.
Einstein managed to show that space and time are inextricably linked with each other and represent a single whole, and all interactions with the matter of this space-time are gravity.
According to general relativity, space-time changes its curvature depending on the mass of the object that is in it. The greater the mass of an object, the more the fabric of space-time around it curves, causing other, less massive objects nearby to be attracted to it.
By the way, even light falls into this trap. The refraction of light near massive astronomical objects is called gravitational lensing.
4. Electromagnetic radiation
Quite often in popular fiction, electromagnetic radiation is presented as a mysterious force that kills, transforms heroes into superheroes, or moves them in time. What is it really?
EMP is a stream of photons, elementary particles that make up light. The length and frequency of the photon wave varies greatly, which led scientists to the need to classify photons into separate electromagnetic ranges.
The human eye is so arranged that it is able to see only a very small part of the entire electromagnetic spectrum - the so-called visible radiation or optical range. Most of the EMP is invisible to us. This includes, for example, radio waves (yes, these are also photons), x-rays, infrared radiation.
5. Spectral analysis/spectrometry
Due to the fact that each chemical element absorbs light in its own way, scientists have learned to use the analysis of the spectral characteristics of a substance to determine its composition.
This is one of the fundamental breakthroughs that has allowed mankind to make a huge leap forward in many areas - from forensic science (evidence analysis) to astrophysics (the ability to determine the chemical composition of an object that is hundreds of millions of light years from Earth from the characteristics of absorption of light).
The method of mass spectrometry even allows you to "weigh" the substance under study, interacting with it only with the help of ionization.
6. Light year
In astrophysics, a light year is the distance that light travels in a year of unobstructed travel in a vacuum. Since the absolute speed of light, that is, the speed of propagation of electromagnetic waves in vacuum, is a constant (constant value), it is not difficult to calculate that a light year is approximately 9.46 trillion km.
For clarity: sunlight reaches the Earth's surface in 8 light minutes and 20 light seconds, and the distance to our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is 4.37 light years.
7. Echolocation
The method of determining the distance to an object, in which a sound or radio wave is sent towards the object, and then it is analyzed how long the wave will return, is called echolocation.
We borrowed this technology from bats, which use ultrasonic echolocation to navigate in space. For example, even if a bat is blinded, it will still go around all objects in flight.
Echolocation has a wide range of applications - for example, the study of the topography of the seabed. Radars operate on the same principle.
8. Elementary particle
The bricks that make up matter and the forces that lead to the interaction between matter are called elementary particles. In the most literal sense, elementary particles are the foundation of our physical world. Almost every object in the universe, according to modern concepts, consists of them. At the moment there is a branched classification of elementary particles. There are two main classes: fermions, which make up matter, and bosons, which are carriers of fundamental interactions between fermions.
9. Fundamental interaction
Four main types of interactions, called fundamental, can occur between elementary particles. These are electromagnetic interaction (occurs between particles that have an electric charge), strong and weak interactions (which hold the elements of the atomic nucleus together), and also the most problematic for modern physics - gravitational.
The carrier of each of these interactions is a specific boson. For the electromagnetic interaction, these are photons, for the weak - W and Z bosons, for the strong - gluons, and for the gravitational interaction, the boson has not yet been found (however, there is already a name for it - the graviton).
10. Quantum gravity
For a long time, physicists have been unable to come to a unified theory of gravity. The provisions of general relativity, which quite accurately (judging by observations) describe the dynamics of space-time, simply do not agree with another fundamental theory - quantum mechanics. Until now, the elementary particle responsible for the gravitational interaction has not been found.
For these reasons, theoretical physicists from all over the world have been trying for many years to build a new theory of gravity that would "quantize" the gravitational interaction. This theory being developed is called quantum gravity.
11. Standard model
The dream of theoretical physicists, including the world-famous Stephen Hawking, has for many years been the creation of the so-called Theory of Everything, which would combine all the accumulated knowledge about the world of fundamental interactions into a single consistent system.
So far, the Standard Model, a classical theory that successfully combines three of the four fundamental interactions, is most suitable for the role of Theory.
However, there are serious gaps in the Standard Model. It cannot become a theory of everything until it explains gravity, dark matter and dark energy, in which it has so far been unsuccessful.
12. String theory
The competitor of the Standard Model in the field of formation of the Theory of Everything is String Theory . This is a theory that is very complex in its mathematical apparatus, which, according to scientists, can be correctly understood only by experienced theoretical physicists.
Roughly stated , string theory says that the entire space of our universe does not consist of point particles, but is permeated with incredibly tiny filaments of energy, or strings, which vibrate in an equally tiny ten (and in superstring theory even 26!) dimensions (relatively speaking, " vessels") and represent matter and fundamental interactions.
Despite the fact that modern technologies do not make it possible to prove the existence of strings , the theory is considered very promising, since it is thanks to it that it becomes possible to combine general relativity and quantum mechanics.
13. Antimatter
In addition to ordinary matter, of which we are composed, there is also antimatter. Its existence is due to the existence of symmetric particle-antiparticle pairs. For example, electron-positron, proton-antiproton, etc. When a particle and its antiparticle collide, annihilation occurs - the mutual annihilation of particles with the release of a significant amount of energy.
The theory says that at the moment of the Big Bang, when the Universe was just born, an equal amount of matter and antimatter appeared. Now in the entire observable space we see the absolute superiority of ordinary matter. Why? The answer to this fundamental question has been the subject of theoretical research for a very long time. While scientists can not answer for sure.
14. Dark energy
One day, Einstein introduced an additional constant into his equations so that the results of theoretical research converged on the desired result. Subsequently, he was ashamed of this somewhat desperate step and considered it the biggest mistake of his life.
And then, having received more advanced astrophysical data, scientists introduced into physics the concept of dark energy - an unknown force that makes the Universe expand with acceleration, which, in terms of its properties, is just described by a “dummy” Einstein constant.
There is no consensus yet on what dark energy is. However, more and more scientists tend to think that this is a constant energy density, evenly distributed throughout the universe.
Dark energy has no interaction with ordinary matter except for gravity. It also makes up approximately 68.3% of the entire observable universe - far more than any other form of matter or energy.
15. Dark matter
In addition to dark energy, there is also dark matter, which also affects ordinary matter only through gravity. Dark matter has also never been directly observed, but its existence follows from modern mathematical models of the Universe.
If it were not, then the galaxies would have to move differently. But observations show that they are affected by something other than visible matter. The mass of this “something” was called dark matter. According to calculations, it is 26.8% of the mass of the universe.
There are already hypothetical particles-candidates for the role of dark matter - WIMPs and axions, the existence of which has not yet been proven.
16. Bifurcation point
There is a special concept in thermodynamics that can be adapted to almost any complex dynamical system. From time to time, any such system, be it the state, the economy or the human psyche, enters into a critical state of uncertainty.
At this moment, the orderliness of the system is under threat, and its further development can follow two of the possible scenarios: either decay to a chaotic state, or an exit to a qualitatively new level of orderliness. For example, a period of political instability can be called a bifurcation point for a state, an economic crisis for an economy, and a traumatic event for a person.
17. Quantum entanglement
The quantum world - that is, the world of interaction of elementary particles, the microcosm - is known for phenomena that are impossible or have no effect in the macrocosm that we are accustomed to, consisting of large objects. One of the most interesting of these phenomena is quantum entanglement.
Quantum entanglement manifests itself as follows: two (or more) particles - for example, photons - turn out to be interdependent, even if they are separated by large distances. When an observer measures any quantum characteristic of one particle, the state of the other also changes. This phenomenon can be used to create unbreakable ciphers - quantum cryptography, which is currently being done by many scientists around the world.
18. Uncertainty principle
Considerably simplifying the uncertainty principle, discovered by one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, Werner Heisenberg, can be described as follows: it is impossible to determine how any particle will move, because it depends on a set of equivalent probabilities. In other words, the phenomena of the quantum world - as well as, by the way, of the entire physical Universe - are not predetermined, but represent a set of different possibilities. This principle is the foundation of all quantum mechanics.
Albert Einstein's disputes with Heisenberg and Niels Bohr are well known on this subject. Einstein did not believe in quantum mechanics, once responding to arguments about the uncertainty principle with the phrase "God does not play dice." To which Bohr, in turn, replied, "Einstein, don't tell God what to do."
19. Quantum teleportation
Scientific news is relatively often full of headlines about new records of quantum teleportation. But don't confuse quantum teleportation with "regular" science fiction teleportation. In the first one, information about the quantum state of individual elementary particles is transferred, and in the second, with the help of fantastic devices that have not yet been invented, large objects, including a person, are physically moved as a whole.
The practical feasibility of quantum teleportation and experiments in this area are right now bringing us closer to us the era of useful quantum technologies, like the same quantum cryptography.
20. Collider
The loud debate about whether the Large Hadron Collider will bring the apocalypse ended sometime in the very beginning of the 2010s, but many still do not know what kind of beast this is - a collider. We answer: in fact, this is a pipe, straight or looped, in which elementary particles accelerate towards each other and collide at a certain point. The goal is quite simple: in high-energy collisions, particles break up into smaller particles, at which point scientists accurately detect whatever “falls out” of them. This is how scientists discover new elementary particles and deepen our understanding of the quantum foundation of the Universe.
21. Higgs boson
In 2012, it was confirmed that at the Large Hadron Collider, they were finally able to detect the missing link of the Standard Model - the boson responsible for the presence of mass in elementary particles. The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted in the 1960s, and Peter Higgs himself received the Nobel Prize in 2013 after discovering the particle at the LHC. The discovery of the boson was so important because it is another (and quite serious) argument in favor of the Standard Model.
It is also worth mentioning that by the fall of 2014, reports began to appear in the press more and more often that some scientists openly doubt the discovery of a boson in 2012. At the moment, however, not a single full-fledged refutation of the fact that the particle discovered at the LHC is the same boson has been presented.
22. Hirsch index
In 2005, physicist Jorge Hirsch proposed a new system for assessing a scientist's productivity based on the number of publications and citations of his articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
The method took root and quickly received international approval. Now the Hirsch Index is widely used to assess the scientific "fertility" of not only individual scientists, but also organizations, as well as entire countries.
23. Pluripotency
In simple words, pluripotency is a property of a cell that gives it the ability to turn into any tissue of any organ - even a neuron, even skin. In 2012, this term was on everyone's lips, as the Nobel Prize was then given "For the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed into pluripotent."
In fact, this opens up amazing horizons for medicine. For example, in the cultivation of organs. At the moment, scientists are working on the creation of effective technologies that will put the production of induced pluripotent stem cells (the so-called pluripotent cells artificially obtained from ordinary, already formed cells) on the conveyor, which, very possibly, will change the face of medicine forever.
24. Artificial neural network
If you want to know how close scientists have come to creating artificial intelligence, then the topic of artificial neural networks is what you need. In fact, this is an extremely simplified analog of the brain, placed in a computer. A system of virtual "neurons" and dynamic connections between them - "synapses" that are able to solve certain tasks - in much the same way as biological neurons do.
Artificial neural networks are used where classical computer algorithms are powerless, but where the human brain has a clear advantage. For example, in the recognition of images, faces.
Such networks, of course, are not artificial intelligence in the sense of the word predicted by science fiction writers - they do not think, but obediently solve the tasks assigned to them by the "biological" method. An amazing property of an ANN is its ability to learn: before giving an ANN a task, it is first “taught” how to solve it. Out of this, a whole scientific direction has grown (and an extremely promising one at that), which is called “machine learning”.
25. Transcranial (or transcranial) magnetic stimulation
This method allows non-invasively (that is, without opening) to penetrate under the skull of a person (or animal) and act on its neurons using rapidly changing magnetic fields - in fact, with the help of several electrodes. This allows you to “turn on” and “turn off” certain neurons and groups of neurons, while simultaneously observing what effect this stimulation has on the subject. There is also transcranial electrical stimulation - the general scheme is the same, but the effect is already through electric currents.
Both TMS and TES have great prospects not only in the general scientific, but also in the medical context. Magnetic/electrical stimulation is being used to study and treat diseases (Parkinson's, depression) and, most curiously, to improve people's cognitive abilities. For example, in 2010 it was shown that magnetic stimulation of Broca's area (responsible for speech and language) significantly increases the ability of subjects to learn grammar and syntactic relationships.
Theoretically, such stimulation can also cause certain emotions in a person, but modern technologies do not yet allow TMS / EFT to get so deep into the brain.
26. Graphene
In 2004, Russian and British physicist Konstantin Novoselov, along with his supervisor Andrey Geim, first produced graphene, or the "wonder material" as some have called it, in the lab for the first time.
Graphene is a two-dimensional one-atomic layer of carbon, which has amazing properties: amazing strength, as well as very high thermal and electrical conductivity. All this makes graphene an extremely promising material in the field of electronics of the future: it is often called the main one for nanoelectronics and the most suitable alternative to silicon, which so far reigns alone as a semiconductor basis for modern electronics.
Over the years, graphene has been obtained in many laboratories around the world, where its remarkable properties have been repeatedly proven. In 2010, Novoselov and Geim were given the Nobel Prize in Physics just "for advanced experiments with a two-dimensional material - graphene", and additional useful properties of the "miracle material" continue to be discovered to this day. There are (already technologically rewarding) research into applications of graphene in areas such as medicine and space technology.
27. Radioisotope dating
With the advent of radioisotope dating, it became possible to determine the exact age of almost any object containing a radioactive isotope. It works like this: scientists take a sample - geological, paleontological or archaeological - and look for a radioactive element in it. Since the half-life of all radioactive isotopes found on Earth has been known for a very long time, scientists look at how much of the detected isotope has decayed during the existence of the sample, and use this to calculate the real age of the sample itself.
There are several varieties of radioisotope dating, each of which is applicable to different isotopes and, accordingly, different time epochs: these are radiocarbon, potassium-argon and uranium-lead methods.
It is to radioisotope dating that we owe the fact that we know the exact or absolute age of key historical events.
28. Cambrian Explosion
Around 540 Ma, there was a dramatic increase in biodiversity in the oceans, known as the Cambrian Explosion . In a relatively short period, completely new types of creatures appeared - chordates, molluscs, arthropods, echinoderms. It was also then that the division into predators and prey was strengthened, and many animals were overgrown with a solid external skeleton.
Evolution, which at any other point in its history had been a very slow and gradual process, suddenly sped up considerably. Even Charles Darwin mentioned in his writings that the Cambrian explosion does not fit into his ideas about evolution.
It is now known, however, that many of the animal species previously associated with the Cambrian Explosion date back to Precambrian times. The main question gradually shifted from "where did so many new species come from" to "why did so many animals have a solid mineral skeleton." There are many hypotheses about this, and there is no exact answer yet.
29. Sequencing
Sequencing technologies make it possible to decipher in textual form the sequences of nucleotides or amino acids of sections of genes, entire genes, and even the entire genome of an organism, that is, the entire set of hereditary information contained in a DNA molecule.
To do this, use special devices - sequencers, which over time become more compact, powerful and fast.
Affordable genome decoding opens up great opportunities: you can not only find out which genes you have (and which do not), but also use this information for more effective treatment, for example, of oncological diseases, or simply for prevention.
Now sequencers are already being produced by a number of private companies, however, they are not cheap - on average, about half a million euros. However, there is also a revolutionary "desktop" sequencer PGM (Personal Genome Machine, personal genome machine), not very powerful, but inexpensive - it costs only 50 thousand dollars and has dimensions of about half a meter. Sooner or later, experts say, prices for such devices will drop so much that people will start sequencing their genomes just out of curiosity.
30. Entropy
The confrontation between chaos and order is actually something more than philosophy. In thermodynamics, a branch of physics that studies the dynamics of heat, the concept of entropy describes the degree of “chaoticity”, the disorder of a system. The same concept is widely used in information theory.
Since any system tends to complete equilibrium, its energy, that is, heat, is gradually dissipated. In a closed system - for example, in a sealed room - this will gradually lead to a situation where the heat will be the same at any point in the room.
For this reason, the second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy in a closed system cannot decrease. In fact, this means that it only increases - heat dissipates, any unevenness disappears.
At one time, due to the good provability of the second law of thermodynamics, a rather frightening version of the end of the world was even proposed. Known as the "heat death of the universe," this hypothesis suggests that the temperature of our universe will someday be the same at any point in it. That is, any ordered energy systems, be it a star or a person, will gradually cease to exist, and mechanical work in such a world will simply become impossible - after all, heat will be dispersed throughout space with absolute uniformity. By definition, no events or phenomena can occur in such a Universe.
But life on Earth, like the progress of mankind, challenges chaos in the face of entropy: our entire history testifies to a local decrease in entropy, that is, to the complication of the system, whether it is the evolution of species or scientific and technological progress.
Scientists explain this by the fact that the Earth is an open, not a closed system, and it is constantly exposed to external influences - in the form of meteorites, cosmic radiation, etc.
As for the entire Universe, there is no consensus on whether this system is closed or open: our knowledge about it is too limited - we see only a part of it, the so-called observable Universe.
Only one thing can be said with certainty: at least on our planet, the universal order is still defeating the universal chaos.
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