Sunday, October 25, 2009

NAME THAT PHOBIA!


Fear of Women/Fear of Men- Gynophobia/Androphobia
Fear of Islam- Islamaphobia
Fear of homosexuality- you guessed it homophobia.

Some phobias seem like a mechanism to exploit a minority or an excuse to get yourself off the hook. Ya know... some weird guy asks you out on a date just tell him you have Androphobia, or if your a terrorist plead mentally ill and tell the judge you were only holding those Muslims hostage because you have Islamaphobia.

The truth is, true phobias are considered an anxiety disorder and are psychological. The sufferer is a victim to the fear. The reason they can be treated is becasue the fear is a strong but irrational fear of something of something that poses little or no danger. Fear is a normal response to danger, but with a phobia it is excessive.

If you become anxious and extremely self-conscious in everyday social situations, you could have a social phobia. Other common phobias involve tunnels, highway driving, water, flying, animals and blood.

People with phobias try to avoid what they are afraid of. Otherwise a person can experience anything from panic and fear to trembling or a strong desire to get away. Medicines, therapy or both are treatments that help most people with phobias.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy is a method that says, by confronting rather than fleeing the object of fear, the person becomes accustomed to it and can lose the terror and dread he or she once felt. Medications can control the anxiety and panic.

The amygdala, an area of the brain located behind the pituitary gland is responsible for the secretion of hormones that control fear or agression. When a response is initiated the amygdala releases hormones so your body goes into an alert stage generally referred to as the flight-or-fight response.

Phobias arise from a combination of external events and internal predispositions.Many specific phobias can be traced back to a triggering event like a traumatic experience at an early age. Social phobias and agoraphobia have more complex causes that are not entirely known. It is believed that heredity, genetics, and brain chemistry combined with life-experiences play a major role in the development of anxiety disorders, phobias and panic attacks.

Try these out...Answers proceed descriptions

1) fear or dislike of strangers or the unknown, sometimes used to describ
e nationalistic political beliefs and movements. It is also used in fictional work to describe the fear or dislike of space aliens
2)
Fear of ventriloquist's dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues - anything that falsly represents a sentient being.
3)
Fear of having committed an unpardonable sin or of criticism.
4)Fear of seeing, thinking about or having an erect penis.
5)Fear or hatred of poetry.
6)Fear of the figure 8

7)Fear of phobias or the fear of fear
8)
fear that originated from the Biblical verse Revelation
13:18 which indicates that the number 666 is the Number of the Beast, linked to Satan or the Anti-Christ.

Answers:
1)Xenophobia
2)
Automatonophobia
3)
Enissophobia
4)
Ithyphallophobia

5)Metrophobia
6)Octophobia
7)Phobophobia
8)Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia ( WOW)




Sunday, October 11, 2009

Q. How does a plane takeoff and fly?










A.
BY USING THE FOUR FORCES OF LIFT...THRUST...WEIGHT AND DRAG OF COURSE!!!

Check left and right fuselage, remove gust lock, secure antennae, check left and right wing tires/breaks, landing light on, breaks set, traffic check, full open throttle, ROLL AND LIFTOFF!

"You look like a nervous wreck," these were the first words my piloting teacher spoke to me. There I am face to face with a handsome pilot who will guide me through my first lesson and all I can do is quiver at the possibilities I am faced with. I sit down and we go through a question and answer period, then its out to the Vintage 1967 Cessna Skylane, red and white, 2-man cockpit and guess who's in the driver's seat? ME!?!?!?!

I guess if flying were as easy for pilots as it is for birds then more people would do it; permitted their eyesight is in tip-top condition. Besides the drive that lures dreamers to the craft of flying the mechanical concepts behind it are just as important to know. Birds are flying their own bodies and rely on flying as a means of survival. For them it isn't second nature, its just plain nature. To become the intuitive mind behind the machine, a pilot can learn how to develop the skills to fly faster, stronger and further than any cookoo-bird in the skies.
Strap on your bomber cap people, your in for a lesson in the physics of flight.

In 1665 Sir Isaac Newton proposed his three famous laws of motion. These four forces explain the reason why these laws were created.

Lift is upward and perpendicular to the wind
Drag is down and backward, parallel to the wind
Weight is downward and works with mass and gravity
Thrust is forward and produced by the engine

So, add these four together, start the engine and imagine the rest. You see, all you really need to fly is air. It is essential to flight. Air pressure is created by moving molecules which gives air its weight which also gives it the power to push and pull. So, it is not that these forces are created by an object. Instead it is the effect of an object in motion within a state of gravity.

Airplane wings are an extremely important part in understanding how a body of these dimensions gets the proper aerodynamic form to propel it off the ground. The wings are curved at the top which helps air move faster on top and slower underneath. The slow air pushes up from the bottom while the fast air pushes down as it flows over the curve, toward the ground. This literally FORCES the wing off the ground. With the correct weight ratios a plane has the ability to fly using these dynamics.

Over the years we have developed precise and technical blueprints and models for air flight. But there is obviously something to say for vintage dreams. The Wright brothers are my idols, my fascination in piloting is an easy one. It's one I don't have to build because curious and intelligent people before me have prepared the world with great inventions. Although a pilot does not need to directly be aware of key forces during a flight it is still a up to the masterminds to understand these concepts. If there weren't smart physicist on the job, we wouldn't have the ability to fly in the first place!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Q. What is the Scientific Revolution??

A. After advances that were pushed from the middle ages the scientific revolution was a break from Christian dogma. That's a big weight. The 17th century laid the road for modern science and because ]superstition and fear was lifted, there was a renaissance of reason and knowledge by many scholars. People like Newton, Galileo and Bacon became interested in the world around them beginning to formulate theories about it. The field of abstracted human knowledge was subdivided into separate fields of thought and science was one of them. Large changes in the way people experienced, perceived and viewed the world began to shift.

The revolution didn't just pick up and begin at a certain date, it is said that people like da Vinci and Copernicus prepared people for a new direction by guiding the field with major scientific works and inventions. The fact that these people, da Vinci for example, lived under extreme law and were faced with things like treason or conspiracy make it even more remarkable to view their works. There was no single "Great Idea", instead the scientific revolution is said to be marked by the following:

-The replacement of the Earth by the Sun as the center of the solar system
-The replacement of the Aristotelian theory that matter was continuous and made up of the elements Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether by rival ideas that matter was atomistic or corpuscular or that its chemical composition was even more complex
-The replacement of the Aristotelian idea that heavy bodies, by their nature, moved straight down toward their natural places; that light bodies, by their nature, moved straight up toward their natural place; and that ethereal bodies, by their nature, moved in unchanging circular motions with the idea that all bodies are heavy and move according to the same physical laws
-The replacement of the Aristotelian concept
that all motions require the continued action of a cause by the inertial concept that motion is a state that, once started, continues indefinitely without further cause
-The replacement of Galen's treatment of the venous and arterial systems as two separate systems with William Harvey's concept that blood circulated from the arteries to the veins "impelled in a circle, and is in a state of ceaseless motion"
See Wikipedia.

This period of time offers a lot of insight and research possibilities into the scientific world, it is also encouraging when giant leaps are taken in the history of mankind and should be observed carefully.

Stephen Hawking's Lifetime in Astronomy

THIS IS NOT A 2012 CONSPIRACY!

Obviously some things are far fetched (like those conspirators who huddle together in bomb shelters stocking and frantically preparing for the big nothing), while other facets of our knowledgeable pursuits are simply put--heroically genius and nobly renowned.

Let alone the way Stephen Hawking can eloquently address topics that are beyond construction to most populations, take a look at his deliverance. Thoughts about the universe begin to take shape in my mind only to fall in bits and pieces, collapsing like a pair of rickety stilts. I'll tell ya what, I consider Astronomy a leisurely hobby of mine just for the sheer fact that its awesome and just reading it makes my mind feel stronger. Plus I get to formulate answers to ideas that we are all curious about without doing all the work. To have people like Hawking around really make things accessible and understandable. I know this is not a book review, but A Brief History of Time was not only fascinating it was easy to read!

I enjoyed the lede on this article because it gave a greater image on the aura and reputation that Stephen Hawking has. I can imagine the cheering audience from here! HOORAH! As whispers form words amongst the curious crowd, waiting for Hawking to deliver his first words. I liked the line, "Retiring is no more of an option for Hawking than ceasing to think would be". Well, this man isn't giving up any time soon despite the recent paradigm shift that has scientists wondering and conjuring on the nature of black holes.

To be honest, I don't really appreciate articles that tend to speculate. Towards the end the article did that. Basically it is telling us what's in the works. I would rather let Hawking do his thing and think and research without the rest of the world budding in. But that's a dead idea ain't it!? In any case, Hawking is to me the Einstein of our generation and I will follow and respect his work with growing interest as time infinitely grows at large. For subject matter and follow through, Ill give this paper an A.

I think often about how scientists and scholars really make our world a better place. While they are busy thinking up the next big theories, following trends and corresponding with foreign countries, I sit in a dorm room reading articles to write articles about articles and then write articles on the people in those articles and probably never get published. But atleast I get to bury my head in some interesting resources from those so high above me.