Showing posts with label Neil deGrasse Tyson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neil deGrasse Tyson. Show all posts

Sunday, June 29, 2014

How to Mathematically Predict Potential YouTube Views


Recently, I was looking at my YouTube analytics and I noticed a pattern in my statistics. I figured that I can accurately predict potential views in the future by finding a function that closely correlates to my statistics.

1. I suggest that you go to your analytics and look at your accumulative views (as shown in the videos). Grab a pen and some paper and write down the values. Your x values will be the number of days, and your y values will be the number of views you have acquired on that day. Copy down these values onto the paper.

2. Grab your graphing calculator. I'm using a TI-83 Plus. Press STAT. Press Edit... Plug in your x values in the L1 table, and plug views in the L2 table.

3. To make sure your data shows up on your calculator, press "y=" and make sure that Plot1 is highlighted. To high Plot1, hover the cursor above Plot1 and press enter. Then press GRAPH and dots should appear. You may need to adjust your window.

4. Now to find an appropriate function for your data, press STAT. Move over to CALC. Now there should be a list of functions--quadratic, exponential, sinusoidal, etc.--and choose one that would most likely fit with your data points. If you don't know how these functions look like, then you might have to go through each one and see what function works. Once you found a function press the function. I used ExpReg for my data. Press enter again, and it should give you values for that specific funtion.

5. Now take that data and plug it into the "y=". Press GRAPH. The graph should correlate closely to your data.

6. To look at your projections, press 2nd and GRAPH. An x and y graph should appear. Now you can look at all your projections in the future. The units are in days. For my channel, the function predicts that in 30 days I should have close to 7,000 views!

*****PLEASE READ*****

Although these stats look promising, it DOES NOT guarantee that you will obtain the predicted views. However, if you continue what you have been doing on YouTube, it is more likely that these predictions can become true. THESE ARE NOT CERTAIN PREDICTIONS!!!

Monday, June 23, 2014

The Mysterious Matter: Dark Matter


According to the renowned astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, there appears to be an unknown substance in the universe that affects gravity--dark matter. Tyson claims that physicists have known about the mysterious matter since the 1930s, and they cannot decipher what this thing is. The word itself--dark matter--can be a misnomer because the thing might not even be matter. Tyson says that it should be named "Fred or some other word that has no meaning" (I paraphrase loosely and I'm sorry if your name is Fred) because scientists truly do not what that mysterious thing that alters gravity is. 

I don't know the specific equations that astrophysicists use; however, they do calculations--probably calculating galaxies and planets' movements in space--and they need an added substance to correctly map the universe's gravity. 

Clearly, scientists do not know what dark matter is, but that's the beauty of science; scientists can hypothesize what this substance is or where it comes from. The most intriguing theory--I think-- is the one that relates to String Theory. In String Theory, there is a possibility that there is something bigger than the universe which is known as the multiverse. The multiverse is pretty self-explanatory; it's a place where multiple universes exist and possibly collide. Tyson also argues that this is a valid possibility due to human history. In history, humans have made the false assumption that earth is the largest existing body; however, humans have begun realizing that there are other planets that are sporadically placed in the sky. Humans expanded the universe from earth to its counterparts, planets. It doesn't end there; humans discovered they lived in a galaxy--for sure that's the largest thing in universe, right?. Nope. They, then, discovered there are accompanying galaxies which humans now know this is the known universe. Therefore, there is a possibility that the universe is the limited view that humans see and that there is a larger place than the universe--the mulitverse. Now imagine all these multiple universes as individual bubbles. If these bubbles collide, they create an odd shape such as mickey mouse's head. This leads astrophysicists to hypothesize that the universe is colliding with another universe which causes there to be extra gravity. In String Theory, there is a chance that gravity--or gravitons--leaves from one universe and enters the other. This explains the dark matter issue, but that is not the most interesting part of the theory. If this theory is true, that means there exists another universe and makes humans ponder on how big is this place that humans live in. It truly will make any individual feel small--literally. 

Another question can be answered from this theory is "why is the universe accelerating?" According to Tyson, the universe is accelerating due to dark matter (the universe should be slowing down, but I'll talk about that in another blog post). The scary thing is that the neighboring, unknown universe can affect our universe, and we have no control over it.

The problem with this post is that there is no way that I can make you imagine how big our universe is or even how big our solar system is. It's truly unimaginable. My similes or imagery cannot possibly explain the idea of the multiverse's size. I wouldn't even know what I would be saying if I were able to apply a simile to effectively explain the size of this place. So next time when you look up at the moonlit sky, keep in mind you're seeing an infinitesimally small fraction of the universe, and even a smaller fraction of the multiverse--if it exists--however big those things are because I don't know.