Blog Posts by Robert of the Radish

supernovaWe would not exist if it were not for supernovae -- massive explosions that happen at the end of a star's life.

A star is born when its core becomes dense and hot enough to start fusing hydrogen, and when two hydrogen molecules are fused together, they form a helium molecule. This process gives out energy in the form of light and heat. This is fusion. The process continues, with each switch to a new fuel creating heavier and heavier elements. The final straw is when iron starts to be created at a very large star's core. At this point it will become unstable and explode. During the explosion even heavier elements are created, like gold, silver and platinum. All the elemental matter that was created during this process is flung out into the universe where it settles and forms into other stars, planets and moons.

So, elements that make life possible here on planet Earth came from an exploding star -- a supernova.

With this frame of reference, it's no surprise that supernovae have been a

Light_speedThe speed of light equals 186,282 miles per second, or 299,792,458 meters per second. That's pretty fast. A light year is the distance it takes light to travel in a full year, or 5.879 trillion miles. That's a pretty large distance by human standards, but insignificant by the standards of the universe.

There has been a lot of news lately about to the speed of light. The work of Albert Einstein says that nothing can travel faster than light, it's our cosmic speed limit so to speak. But a recent experiment, originated in Geneva, clocked neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. This has physicists scrambling to confirm, or debunk the experiment. If true, it would throw much of what we know about the universe in the trash. Some say it may even open up the possibility of time travel one day.

If we could build a spaceship that can travel faster than the speed of light, what would we use for headlights?

This playlist includes 13 "faster than the speed of light" songs, what would you add?

Albert-EinsteinSo far, during our space-themed playlist extravaganza, we've published song lists about Black Holes, The Big Bang, and Asteroids. For this latest entry, I thought I would focus on one of the most important minds in the history of physics -- Albert Einstein. Our understanding of the universe would be nowhere near where it is today without the work of Einstein, who developed the theories of the photoelectric effect, general relativity and special relativity.

While most people cannot understand the depths of Einstein's work, they do understand E=mc², and that the word "Einstein" is synonymous with "genius".  German by birth, Einstein immigrated to America after the Nazis came to power. As you know, the Nazis had a hatred for Jews and intellectuals, so Einstein had no choice but to leave, considering he was both Jewish and an intellectual. His work would offer more proof of just how wrong Nazism was.

For this playlist I've selected 10 songs that mention Einstein by name in the song title.

Let me know what I've missed.

BlackHoleThis, the third in our space-themed playlist series, is a collection of black hole songs. Black holes are one of those mysteries of science that can make your brain hurt. Black holes are points in universe that become so dense that they deform time and space itself. The gravity is so great in a black hole that not even light can escape once it passes the point of no return, also known as the "event horizon".

As black holes grow larger by sucking in millions, of even billions of stars and planets, they can become what are known as "super massive black holes" At the center of our own galaxy, The Milky Way, is a super massive black hole and many scientists believe that one exists in the center of most, if not all galaxies. So, moons revolve around planets, planets revolve around stars, and stars revolve black holes.

Black holes may be the center of our existence. But one has to wonder if our universe is unique, or could it just be one of many that revolve around something yet unknown. There are still many questions to be answered, but as of now, black holes are a really interesting mystery to research.

What "black hole" songs did I miss?

Illustrated-Big-BangThis, the second in our space-themed playlist series, is a collection of songs about the big bang. The big bang was the huge explosion that happened about 13.7 billion years ago, and created everything in our universe. We know the universe came from a single point because we have been able to track the movement of space objects, and they are all expanding away outward at incredible speed. If we could rewind the objects in space that we can see, they would eventually all converge at a single point in space.

What existed before the big bang is a mystery. Theories include a super-dense ball of pure energy, the hand of God, or nothing at all. If the big bang was the beginning, what will be the end? Most astrophysicists believe that there will indeed be an end. Some think  the universe will just continue to expand, and that all stars will eventually burn out, leaving the universe cold and dark. Others believe that our universe will start to contract again (the big crunch) -- eventually returning to another super-dense, single point of energy, which will then explode again with another big bang.

What do you think, was the big bang a single event, or is it cyclical, and what "big bang" songs did I miss?

Gaspra_largeI've been watching a lot of space-related programming lately. I loved a few episodes of "Through The Worm Hole" with Morgan Freeman that I was able to catch on the Science channel, and so I looked for it on Netflix this past week.  Unfortunately, it was not available, so I soaked in "How The Universe Works" with Mike Rowe and "Into The Universe" with Stephen Hawking instead. Both of them were also excellent.

There are more charts that rate, rank and classify music today than anytime in history thanks to the continued development of digital music and metadata. Traditionally, charts were driven by sales, airplay, or in some cases,  critical acclaim. Today, music can be measured in hundreds of different ways. For example, the All Music Guide chart ranks artists based on how much their name is being searched for in the All Music database. It's my view that this is a good measure of the current level of buzz a band is getting. Radio play will only tell you who the big money is behind, as will sales numbers. But which artists are currently creating the type of talk that makes people want to learn more? The All Music charts are a good place to start.  As I look at the current list of the All Music Guide's top 10 Artists, it seems that people are searching because of a long awaited new album, a mention in a tell-all book, or a tabloid-driven news item.

Or could it be because these are some kick-ass bands?

What do you think is making people search the All Music Guide for these bands this week?

I have one final Halloween theme tonight after publishing playlists about black cats, witches, monsters, spiders, pumpkins, zombies
and skeletons.  And I have saved the most repulsive monster for last -- the lowly troll. The troll is an unintelligent brute with no hygiene to speak of, and it comes to us from Norse mythology. However, during the age of the Internet, "troll" has come to describe someone who "trolls" for an emotional response by leaving insulting, or off-topic comments. Yahoo Music has a few of them, and they're not hard to spot when you read the comments. One in particular seems to spend hours each day just posting nonsensical drivel, which is continuously ignored. Trolls are just one of the unfortunate things that just come along with the Internet, like spam and viruses.

This troll-themed playlist is dedicated to all the grotesques trolls, who really deserve our pity more than our hate.