Asteroid/Meteor non-Physical Effect

February 15, 2013 was an exciting day for astronomers and people around the world. The closest flyby of an asteroid (that doesn't hit us) we might ever see and an unexpected drop in of a meteor in Russia. A lot has already been said on both of these events but what was most interesting to me, besides the actual footage of the meteor over Russia, were people's reactions and the idea that maybe these events will raise some scientific awareness. One reaction I heard, which was quite comical yet understandable, was that some Russians thought the meteor was an attack by us Americans. Imagining this happening over one of our cities and experiencing that blast wave would surely cause massive confusion and damage, I don't even know what my mind would think at that instant. Knowing Americans, we would surely find someone to complain to or try to sue the solar system (or think it was the Russians). But this is why we have scientists, to eliminate the confusion and move on to bigger and better things like drinking coffee in space (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk7LcugO3zg). There were also questions on the relation of the asteroid to the meteor, which there none found, but the important question here is what will we do about these events? Will we forget about them like the fads that perturb our culture/society like droplets of water in a pool? Or will this create waves and move people into a mindset that gives more importance to the problems of the future that we can begin to solve today? Probably not, but before I jump out of the pool, lets talk about the asteroid problem.
Tracking asteroids that intersect Earth's orbit is something we already do but we are limited on the size of those objects by our telescopes. We are working on dropping that limit as much as possible but meanwhile, what happens if we detect a large asteroid headed our way? Scientists have already come up with many ideas that theoretically could work but we still need to be able to test them to make sure. Of course this will cost money, but it could cost us a lot more than money if we don't. In the video below, Neil DeGrasse Tyson talks a little about the politics of deflecting asteroids.

 The problem is greater than a specific meteor hit, although that has the capacity to be our biggest. The main problem is that most of the world lives for today and not tomorrow or the day after. I think generally, as humans, we are slowly moving in that direction but hopefully it will be soon enough to avoid a giant disaster when Nature happens.

Hearing and Seeing

Ever since I started learning about waves in physics, for sound first then light, I have wondered about their similarities and differences and how they affect our senses. I have always loved music, especially playing with it. At times I would think, "since sound is a wave and light is a wave, could there be a visual representation of a simple song incorporating simple notes and their harmonics?" Of course, there is much more to music than simple notes and harmonics, but this is mainly what I'm interested in discussing. We can transmit a sound signal through a laser and have it returned to sound, but that's not really what I mean. I'm talking more about how music or even simple notes can affect us based on how we perceive it. What "Music" is to people.
 One problem is the range of our hearing is very different from the range of our seeing. Humans have a range of about 20 to 20,000 Hz for sound and a musical note, say middle "C" on a piano would correspond to a frequency of 261.63 Hz, it's octave (the next "C" over) has a frequency of 523.26 Hz. All other notes fall in between these frequencies and their corresponding octaves are 2x greater for higher pitch sounds and 1/2x smaller for lower pitch sounds. So then the next octave for "C" would be 1046.52 Hz and so on. As we can see, we get a good amount of octaves for each musical note in this range of 20 to 20,000 Hz, but can we do this with light?

The picture above shows the electromagnetic spectrum and that tiny portion titled "The Visible Spectrum" is all that we can sense with our eyes. It is shown in wavelength but this corresponds to about 405-790 THz. These frequencies are much higher than those of sound, which I'm pretty sure has more to do with their specific properties that differentiate them (like their speed and traveling mediums). So can we think about light like sound in terms of frequencies and octaves? If we take a color like red, which has a frequency range of about 405-480 THz, and try to find its octave or next harmonic, we would double this frequency. This gives us a range of 810-960 THz which is out of our "Visible Spectrum". We would not be able to see the next octave for the color red and neither would we for any higher frequency colors since red is the lowest of all the colors we can see. You could say we are a bit deprived in the abilities of our eyes, but we owe that to our sun which peaks at these frequencies and we simply evolved to make the best use of the light coming down to us.
So what does this mean? Well, I guess it means we can't see light the way we hear music, at least not with our own eyes. Luckily for us, we are very smart and have created technologies to detect the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is very useful in space since there is light of different frequencies going around for us to detect. With the help of Chandra for x-rays, Hubble for ultraviolet and visible, Spitzer for some infrared and Herschel for infrared and microwaves (along with other technologies) we can look into space and detect a much larger portion of the electromagnetic spectrum than with our eyes. These telescopes can take what they detect in higher and lower frequency ranges and turn it into something we can actually see. This means we can, in a way, see light the way we hear music. I think this is something really amazing. Humans have always found a way to expand on their abilities, this is just one example of that. Now I wonder if it would be of any interest to science or people in general try to make devices that expand our hearing range (dog whistle?).

Beautiful "Music" to my eyes

Musical notes and their frequencies

Electromagnetic spectrum image

Range of human hearing

Orion Nebula-googled

What you can do for your science, your science can do for you.

I'm very glad I came across this video. It says a lot of what we already know but it also brings to mind the importance and power of the greater population's interest in science. In our day and age this population can contribute its immense manpower to help make new discoveries. What will we think of next?

http://www.planethunters.org/

https://www.zooniverse.org/