Black Holes in the Algarve: November 2009
The end of the third week in November, and the temperature has at last
started to drop. Up until now we have been able to use the swimming
pool, but even if the water is still warm enough to swim, the outside
temperatures are a bit chilly now.
The pool still has some fascination though. I dropped a tablet into the
skimmers and watched fascinated by what happened. It was the last
tablet in the bucket, and was split, and there was quite a bit of dust
at the bottom of the bucket.
As the tablet hit the water it sucked down some air with it, which
surfaced as bubbles. The motion set up by the disturbance had the
grains whizzing round the bubbles, and smaller bubbles were attracted
to the larger ones, and merged with them until we had two huge bubbles,
which eventually burst.
Meanwhile the dust circled the bubbles, and gradually got sucked closer
in and stuck to the edges of the bubbles. It all looked like a speeded
up micro-version of the universe, with planets circling suns, and
getting sucked in to form a black hole. The bubbles burst and scattered
the dust particles.
I dont suppose Stephen Hawking has been staring down at the skimmers of
his swimming pool recently, hamstrung as he is by his electric
wheelchair, but I could of course send him a movie of the action. I now
know what happens to a black hole. When it reaches a certain density it
explodes, and everything is thrown back out again.
You see, you dont need billions of euros, and miles of tunnels lined
with super magnets. You can see into the secrets of the universe simply
by looking into a bucket of water.
I suppose mathematicians will carp, and say my conclusions are obvious
and the real problem is determining what density the black hole has to
reach before it turns into a Big Bang.
Turning to simpler matters.... I bagged a few interesting bottles of
wine the other day. Portimao has just seen another supermarket opening.
This new one is right next door to another, and has to be the
fifteenth, or thereabouts, to open in this town. Despite this, the
mayor is angling for a new shopping complex to be built. He must be mad.
I found a Portuguese equivalent of Beaujolais Nouveau. I wasn't bad at
all, especially coming in at €1.80 a bottle.
This evening we go out to dinner to celebrate the new vintage.
john clare. October
2009.
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