Image from picsart.
Monday, 4 May 2020
Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Corrigiendo redacciones
"Estoy casada con mi marido".
"El Quijote lo escribió Miguel de Unamuno".
[Haz un informe sobre un país que conozcas bien]:
"Linares, mi país".
"Hace 5 años estuve en Wakanda".
Imagen de hit.com.au
"El Quijote lo escribió Miguel de Unamuno".
[Haz un informe sobre un país que conozcas bien]:
"Linares, mi país".
"Hace 5 años estuve en Wakanda".
Imagen de hit.com.au
Thursday, 18 April 2019
Can anything ever really be considered ‘true’ or is everything subjective?
Image from medium.com.
The heart of the matter is:
if the source of every truth is our senses, our perception, then all
truths are subjective. Is this correct? Well, this is not always the
case, as long as the scientific method is concerned. Researchers
cannot always trust their senses, because there are many things we
cannot experience through them. For example, we cannot see atoms or
air particles. What scientists do then is to build models and to
conduct experiments that can be extrapolated to those contexts, and
ultimately they test them to find out if they are valid. Indeed
philosophers affirm that there are truths which are invariably solid
notwithstanding experience, such as mathematical truth.
According
to András Bozsik, from the University of Debrecen, truth is
objective, but its perception is subjective.
Therefore
if we were presented with the truth in scientific terms, it would
look objective, but when someone narrates it with any kind of
creative format, it becomes subjective, as we would add certain
nuances originating from our personal view, our emotional filter,
cultural bias, drives, delusions and even intentional distortions, to
name a few.
Thus
the media show us the news, while in bars citizens recount them like
undeniable facts, even if they have gone through all this screening.
However, as soon as one thinks out of the box, our opinion does not
seem to be so clear-cut. For example, the world is moved now because
Notre-Dame de Paris has been considerably damaged by a fire. 700
million donations have already been gathered to rebuild the temple.
But have we stopped to think about the 74 Mosques that have been
destroyed in Palestine during the war, or about the thousands of
children who die every day in the world? Or, in an act of assuming
full responsibility, should we devote our own lives to ensure social
justice?
Tuesday, 16 April 2019
Monday, 15 April 2019
En la clínica
Imagen de The Fix.
"¡Driiim!" Llamaban al timbre de la puerta transparente de la clínica de fisioterapia. Una joven latinoamericana que estaba sentada dentro no esperó para levantarse, y abrió cortésmente la puerta a una señora de mediana edad.
La señora entró a paso lento. Tenía el pelo corto y rubio, ojos muy claros, casi vítreos, y parecía que se había empolvado la cara para blanquearla como en la época de Maria Antonieta. Vestía una chaqueta clásica de color rosa palo y falda de tubo negra, como sus medias y zapatos.
Me gustaba la combinación de colores que mostraba, y al mismo tiempo me intrigaba mucho la palidez polvorienta de su rostro. No era lo que se estilaba en esa ciudad mediterránea.
La recepcionista, prácticamente oculta tras el impoluto mostrador, tecleaba frenéticamente. De repente, se detuvo y pareció acordarse de algo. "¿Hoy no viene su marido?"
Por lo que comentaron, y que no reflejaré aquí porque a menudo las menudencias cotidianas me llenan de hastío, su marido era alguien muy mayor, con bastón. Yo lo visualicé con imagen más descuidada, tendiendo a rural: calvo (con escaso pelo blanco formando una aureola incompleta), de cara blanca y muy arrugada, en pliegues caídos, jersey tupido, pantalones de pana y espalda encorvada.
La señora empolvada contestó: "No, el médico le ha mandado reposo después de lo que pasó. Hoy he venido yo porque llevo dos meses con lumbalgia. Me han mandado Enantyum, pero sigo con dolores".
A primera vista, alguien diría que los tonos pastel de la señora rubia respiraban un aire de inocencia, pero, una vez la escuché hablar, noté que algunas palabras clave sonaban con un tono enrarecido.
Mis pensamientos fueron interrumpidos cuando entró en escena una joven por el lateral. Se dirigió a la también joven recepcionista: "¿Puedes buscarme el historial de Damián Alonso?" La recepcionista la acompañó, desapareciendo por la esquina.
Giré la cabeza y vi, para mi sorpresa, que la señora me miraba fijamente desde hace unos segundos, pero de una manera demasiado intensa, tan pesada que me oprimía el pecho. Habló como si algo le poseyera:
"Sé que a través de tus ojos, como dos ventanas, puedo cruzar océanos, y entrar a las moradas de hombres y mujeres, que me recibirán como a alguien de su clan. Que a eso que llamáis 'imaginario colectivo' yo le llamo 'mis costumbres y mi religión'. Que no hay roca que no pueda mover, ni corazón que se resista a mi abrazo, ni a la cadencia de mi discurso. La ciencia te susurrará que soy una perturbada, una aberración de la naturaleza, para negarte lógicas paralelas igual de válidas. Quieren que olvides tu intuición, tus emociones, lo que te hace humana. Pero, dime, niña, ¿qué ves en realidad?"
No sé cómo en su mano se hallaba de pronto un medallón. Yo no había alcanzado a verla sacarlo de su bolsillo, aunque mi mente no era consciente de si ya todo era un delirio.
Con un ágil toque de su dedo, de uñas puntiagudas, el medallón reveló su interior. En él había una foto de su anciano marido, ¡justo como yo lo había imaginado! Se asemejaba casi a una ilustración en tinta china. Las sombras eran como líneas entrecruzadas, ¿o no? Algo había en su mirada. Tenía ojeras más marcadas, un halo cada vez más oscuro, un tumor acuoso rebosaba del párpado inferior. Ya las facciones se marcaban a la altura de los huesos, los músculos se marchitaban, pero los ojos y la boca se abrían más y más. De ellos salieron disparadas miles de agujas, largas como hilos. Atravesaron mi cara. La estiraron, como el espacio parece elongarse en los viajes a la velocidad de la luz. Mi cuerpo entero se virtió poco a poco en el medallón, entre estiramientos de inmenso dolor.
Ahora yo seguía viendo el mostrador, pero desde un ángulo distinto. Mi imagen muda ocupaba el otro hueco en forma de corazón del medallón oxidado, junto a la foto del señor mayor. Ahora su expresión estaba vacía. Comprendí, en un último aleteo de consciencia, que se trataba de una foto de época victoriana, del tipo que se toman a familiares ya difuntos. Y que la mano detrás de su muerte ahora jugueteaba con nuestro último recuerdo, seguramente para atrapar más adelante otras almas inadvertidas.
Se buscan
Imagen de Natillas de Ventresca.
SE BUSCAN.
- Un tugurio sórdido con parroquianos moteros barbudos.
- Unas motos Harley Davidson.
- Un trabajo temporal en una clínica de psicología (intrusismo incluido).
- Servicios de falsificación de documentos.
- Un equipo especializado en alta tecnología, detección de patrones, suplantación de identidad, caracterización y otras técnicas para el robo exitoso de sucursales bancarias.
- Un colgante a modo de amuleto con una pata de conejo despeluchada y sucia, varias cuentas de madera y pequeñas plumas.
- Una moneda de dólar de plata antigua. Tiene gran valor sentimental, y escaso material (por su larga hendidura en la cara).
- Un diario con observaciones sobre muchos miembros de una familia, que se remonta hasta los años 30. Se describen su personalidad, emociones, rasgos intelectuales, incidencias vitales y respuesta a éstas, posibles rarezas, e hipótesis de potenciales enfermedades mentales.
Friday, 12 April 2019
The very first picture of a black hole
Photo from New Scientist.
Scientists have taken the first photo of a black hole! :D To do so, they have used a global network of telescopes. The picture shows a dark central circle, also known as "shadow", surrounded by a ring of light that is more luminous on one side.
The black hole is in the centre of a galaxy called M87. The black hole measures 40 billion km across, which means that it is bigger than our Solar System, and its mass is 6.5 billion times as big as that of our sun! How could they calculate the mass of the black hole? Well, it was thanks to the creation of the shadow, due to the gravitational bending and capture of light.
M87 is near the Virgo galaxy, which is million light-years from Earth. That means that the image of the black hole is in fact a depiction of the past, since we have to consider the immense distance that the light has to cover until it reaches the Earth.
More than 200 astronomers have been involved in this project for longer than a decade. There is so much work behind this image! The name of the telescope array, "Event Horizon Telescope", comes from that assigned to the limits of black holes, a point of no return where light cannot escape.
In order to take the picture, the power of eight radio telescopes have been combined. These telescopes are located in different places in the world, including one in the Spanish Sierra Nevada. The result has been the creation of a virtual telescope approximately as big as planet Earth.
To guarantee that the telescopes were operating simultaneously, researchers have used extremely precise atomic clocks for each of them. The telescopes have been scanning the core of the galaxy for 10 days, and have gathered 5,000 trillion bytes of information, that have been processed by supercomputers to generate the image of the black hole. Katie Bouman is the MIT student who developed an algorithm to decipher the data from the Event Horizon Telescope. I am very happy that a girl's work has been an essential contribution to this project ^_^
Moreover, we cannot overlook that Prof Falcke had the original idea for the project in 1993, when he was a Doctorate student. At the time nobody thought it was possible, but Falcke estimated there were radio emissions which could be generated close to black holes, and which would be strong enough to be captured by our telescopes.
Despite the name, black holes are not empty. They are enormous quantities of matter condensed into a much smaller area, which creates an intense gravitational field that attracts everything, even light. They also heat the surrounding dust and gas at extremely high temperatures, and distort spacetime. The material heated at billions of degrees almost reaches the speed of light. What looks like a supernatural phenomenon to me is the fact that light bends around the gravity of the black hole, creating that photon ring that we can see in the picture, or the intriguing elongated appearance that we can perceive in computer models.
One of the greatest minds in history, Albert Einstein, already predicted the visual aspect of black holes imaged two days ago.
After capturing the image of the shadow, it was compared to the computer models related to the physics of distorted space, superheated material and powerful magnetic fields. The researchers are quite satisfied because their observations match their theoretical postulations.
M87's black hole has a huge mass, and investigators think it could be the largest observable black hole from the Earth. As compared to other objects in space, black holes are relatively small, and for this reason they have not been observed before. Even though by definition they are invisible, since no light escapes from them, how black holes interact with the matter surrounding them is what reveals their appearance. The light of the halo is brighter than that of all the billion of stars in M87 combined and, according to a paper from 1973, due to their enormous gravity, black holes seem 2.5 times bigger than they actually are. These two factors have made it possible to see this black hole from our planet. Nevertheless, what we see in the photo is not the real colours of the heated gas. It is actually a colour map selected by the researchers to represent the brightness of the emissions. The most intense emission would probably look white (instead of yellow), maybe with some blue or red hues.
This is definitely a landmark to better understand the nature of these enigmatic objects. However, scientists still have to comprehend how the bright halo is generated and what happens when something falls into black holes. Although they look like simple phenomena, they raise complex questions about space and time and, ultimately, about our own existence.
Now the scientific team working in the project is imaging the black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Surprisingly, it is harder to detect than M87's black hole, which is 55 million ligh-years away. This is because the light halo around the black hole of the Milky Way is smaller and not so clear.
Sources
The black hole is in the centre of a galaxy called M87. The black hole measures 40 billion km across, which means that it is bigger than our Solar System, and its mass is 6.5 billion times as big as that of our sun! How could they calculate the mass of the black hole? Well, it was thanks to the creation of the shadow, due to the gravitational bending and capture of light.
M87 is near the Virgo galaxy, which is million light-years from Earth. That means that the image of the black hole is in fact a depiction of the past, since we have to consider the immense distance that the light has to cover until it reaches the Earth.
More than 200 astronomers have been involved in this project for longer than a decade. There is so much work behind this image! The name of the telescope array, "Event Horizon Telescope", comes from that assigned to the limits of black holes, a point of no return where light cannot escape.
In order to take the picture, the power of eight radio telescopes have been combined. These telescopes are located in different places in the world, including one in the Spanish Sierra Nevada. The result has been the creation of a virtual telescope approximately as big as planet Earth.
To guarantee that the telescopes were operating simultaneously, researchers have used extremely precise atomic clocks for each of them. The telescopes have been scanning the core of the galaxy for 10 days, and have gathered 5,000 trillion bytes of information, that have been processed by supercomputers to generate the image of the black hole. Katie Bouman is the MIT student who developed an algorithm to decipher the data from the Event Horizon Telescope. I am very happy that a girl's work has been an essential contribution to this project ^_^
Moreover, we cannot overlook that Prof Falcke had the original idea for the project in 1993, when he was a Doctorate student. At the time nobody thought it was possible, but Falcke estimated there were radio emissions which could be generated close to black holes, and which would be strong enough to be captured by our telescopes.
Despite the name, black holes are not empty. They are enormous quantities of matter condensed into a much smaller area, which creates an intense gravitational field that attracts everything, even light. They also heat the surrounding dust and gas at extremely high temperatures, and distort spacetime. The material heated at billions of degrees almost reaches the speed of light. What looks like a supernatural phenomenon to me is the fact that light bends around the gravity of the black hole, creating that photon ring that we can see in the picture, or the intriguing elongated appearance that we can perceive in computer models.
One of the greatest minds in history, Albert Einstein, already predicted the visual aspect of black holes imaged two days ago.
After capturing the image of the shadow, it was compared to the computer models related to the physics of distorted space, superheated material and powerful magnetic fields. The researchers are quite satisfied because their observations match their theoretical postulations.
M87's black hole has a huge mass, and investigators think it could be the largest observable black hole from the Earth. As compared to other objects in space, black holes are relatively small, and for this reason they have not been observed before. Even though by definition they are invisible, since no light escapes from them, how black holes interact with the matter surrounding them is what reveals their appearance. The light of the halo is brighter than that of all the billion of stars in M87 combined and, according to a paper from 1973, due to their enormous gravity, black holes seem 2.5 times bigger than they actually are. These two factors have made it possible to see this black hole from our planet. Nevertheless, what we see in the photo is not the real colours of the heated gas. It is actually a colour map selected by the researchers to represent the brightness of the emissions. The most intense emission would probably look white (instead of yellow), maybe with some blue or red hues.
This is definitely a landmark to better understand the nature of these enigmatic objects. However, scientists still have to comprehend how the bright halo is generated and what happens when something falls into black holes. Although they look like simple phenomena, they raise complex questions about space and time and, ultimately, about our own existence.
Now the scientific team working in the project is imaging the black hole at the centre of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Surprisingly, it is harder to detect than M87's black hole, which is 55 million ligh-years away. This is because the light halo around the black hole of the Milky Way is smaller and not so clear.
Sources
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