A critical turning point (a watershed moment) in history is when
something changes and things will never be the same again. This list
looks through history at the most significant events that truly did
change the world. Whether those changes are for the better or worse is
obvious in most cases, but not always – especially as one can never
compare the future if the watershed moment didn’t occur. Enjoy the list
and add your own significant historical events to the comments.
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15. The Monorail
There is such a plethora of images of this type out there that I had
to set a restriction; the restriction is that the images must include a
planet – either a surface or from space. So, here they are – the top 15
stunning images from Science Fiction
14. Spike City
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Antimatter is the opposite of matter. It has the same mass but with
an opposing electrical charge. One theory about why antimatter exists
was developed by John Wheeler and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman based
on the idea that physical systems should be time-reversible. For
example, the orbits of our solar system, if played backwards, should
still obey all the same rules as when they are played forwards. This led
to the idea that antimatter is just ordinary matter going backwards in
time, which would explain why antiparticles have an opposite charge,
since if an electron is repelled while going forwards in time, then
backwards in time this becomes attraction. This also
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Shorty after the Big Bang, the universe was in a highly disordered
and chaotic state. This means that small changes and defects didn’t
change the overall structure of the universe. However, as the universe
expanded, cooled, and went from a disorderly state to an orderly one, it
reached a point where very small fluctuations created very large
changes.
This is similar to arranging tiles evenly on a floor. When one tile
is placed unevenly, this means that the subsequent tiles placed will
follow its pattern. Therefore, you have a whole line of tiles out of
place. This is similar to the objects called cosmic strings, which are
extremely thin a
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As is best shown in the equation E=MC2, energy and matter
are fundamentally connected. One effect of this is that energy, as well
as mass, creates a gravitational field. A geon, first investigated by
John Wheeler, in 1955, is an electromagnetic or gravitational wave whose
energy creates a gravitational field, which in turn holds the wave
itself together in a confined space. Wheeler speculated that there may
be a link between microscopic geons and elementary particles, and that
they might even be the same thing. A more extreme example is a
"kugelblitz” (German for "ball lightning”), which is where such intense
light is concentrated at a particular point that the gravity caused by
the light energy
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One of the longest outstanding mysteries in physics is how gravity is
related to the other fundamental forces, such as electromagnetism. One
theory, first proposed in 1919, showed that if an extra dimension is
added to the universe, gravity still exists in the first four dimensions
(three space dimensions and time), but the way this four dimensional
space curves over the extra fifth dimension, naturally produces the
other fundamental forces. However, we cannot see or detect this fifth
dimension, so it was proposed that the extra dimension was curled up,
and hence became invisible to us. This theory was what ultimately led to
string theory, and is still included at the heart of most string theory
analys
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The relativity of simultaneity is the idea that whether two events
occur simultaneously or not is relative and depends on the observer. It
is a strange consequence of the special theory of relativity, and
applies to any events that happen that are separated by some distance.
For example, if a firework is let off on Mars and another on Venus, one
observer traveling through space one way might say they happen at the
same time (compensating for the time light takes to reach them), while
another observer traveling another way might say the one on Mars went
off first, and yet another might say the one on Venus went off first. It
is caus
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One prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that
when a large object moves, it drags the space-time around it, causing
nearby objects to be pulled along as well. It can occur when a large
object is moving in a straight line or is rotating, and, although the
effect is very small, it has been experimentally verified. The Gravity
Probe B experiment, launched in 2004, was designed to measure the
space-time distortion near Earth. Although sources of interference were
larger than expected, the frame-dragging effect has been measured to an
uncertainty of 15%, with further analysis hoping to reduce this further.
The expected effects were very c
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Theoretically, the lowest temperature that can be achieved is
absolute zero, exactly −273.15°C, where the motion of all particles
stops completely. However, you can never actually cool something to this
temperature because, in quantum mechanics, every particle has a minimum
energy, called "zero-point energy,” which you cannot get below.
Remarkably, this minimum energy doesn’t just apply to particles, but to
any vacuum, whose energy is called "vacuum energy.” To show that this
energy exists involves a rather simple experiment– take two metal plates
in a vacuum, put them close together, and they will be attracted to
each other. This is caused by the energy between the plates only being
able to reso
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