MISS GORDON? ARE YOU ALL RIGHT???

GEE!

It’s named after Ernst Grafenberg, a German gynecologist. The g is for Grafenberg. (not Germany or gynecologist) and the big thing about the g-spot is whether it’s imaginary or not.

Is there really an interior place where “stuff happens”? Or is that a myth?

How come nobody’s ever seen it?

Well guess what? Adam Ostrzenski, M.D., Ph.D., of the Institute of Gynecology in St. Petersburg, FL seems to have found something. After dissecting the heck out of the vaginal walls of a cadaver, he found a “well-delineated sac structure” on the back wall about 15 mm down from the urethral opening. It’s small. About 8 mm in the longest dimension.

Exciting, right?

Yes and no. The discovery is interesting and provocative. But it would be nice to see confirmation that this organ is present in others. And – not to be a scientific fanatic – but it might also be nice to show that the little whatzit  in there serves the presumed stimulatory function and isn’t part of the immune system or isn’t the long sought seat of common sense which is clearly lacking in males of the species.

Now. Why is a semi-respectable blog such as this wasting it’s time on the g-spot? Human sexuality deserves respectful mention in ScienceAintSoBad just like anything else. And deepening our understanding of the female response could – who knows? – make life better for people.

Speaking of which.

ANOTHER REASON TO GET OUT THERE AND EXERCISE

If you get off on rope climbing, spinning (biking), or weight lifting, maybe there’s a reason for that. An article in Sex Therapy and Sexual Health (Debby Herbenick, J. Dennis Fortenberry, MD) describes a study of 370 women who experienced orgasms. When they exercise.

Almost half of them, oops-ed at least 10 times while working out. About 20% said they really couldn’t control it. It just happens when it wants to. The “captains chair” is the worst. It’s a thing with padded arm rests and back support.

DON’T – do NOT – get into this thing if your business associates are around.

The women reported on in this study weren’t fantasizing or having sexy thoughts. This was a purely physical thing. And – yes – it was a little creepy. A lot of the women were at least a little uncomfortable about it. You would be too. Right?

Well now you know. Just physiology. Like a little sneeze. You didn’t do anything wrong.

And you have an extra motivator for upping the exercise plan.

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Image credits: Regular readers will immediately recognize the crude drawing technique as, unmistakably, those of the author. Nobody else to blame.

Some were glad, some were sad and most were busy collecting signatures for Rick Santorum.  I even had a few people all pissed off at me. Where’s a-a-r-d-v-a-r-k??

I hope this helps.

AND THERE WAS LIGHT

From Nothing

Dr. Christopher Wilson (Chalmers Institute Of Technology) created light. 

He did some complicated things that that sucked up photons out of absolutely nothing (what physicists call the  “quantum vacuum”).

Yes. I know God did this a long time ago. But he didn’t have to do it on a budget.

The thing to keep in mind here is that light is a form of energy and energy is a form of mass (Einstein) . So what Dr Wilson did is he created something from nothing.

Can you do that?

It’s slightly more than a cute trick, actually. It suggests that that Big Bang (which started the universe) actually makes some logical sense. After all, if there wasn’t anything before the universe, how could it ever get started? What would it have been made of?

In other words, is it really possible to make something from nothing?

Apparently.

ScienceAintSoBadRating = 10 . A wonderful piece of science.

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Credit for above image to Savillent’s photostream 
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SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Thanks to Eoin O’Mahony for the image.
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ME APOLOGIZING.

I try to keep my writing reasonably lively so as to keep my readers awake. This time, however, you’re kinda on your own to keep your head off the pillow. Sorry. My blog, my (sometimes deadly dull) topics.

A LETTER

Dr. Brian Greene:

The Elegant Universe is my favorite book. It describes string theory. My copy’s old and I don’t “get” it all. But each time I read it, I learn something.

Readers of my blog should be as lucky.

Here’s what bothers me, Brian Greene. You say strings are one dimensional . Most of them are so tiny (.000000000000000000000000000000000001 meters) that they’re as small as anything can get – the “Planck length”. Nothing physical gets to be smaller than the Planck length.  Not everyone’s on board with the idea that space is “granular” (things have a minimum size) but it’s gaining acceptance.

Anyway, I’m kinda stumped. I’m a three dimensional guy in a multidimensional world. Strings don’t have width. Or depth. They have a volume of zero, right?  Nothing to grab on to. More like thought experiments. Vibrate them in the right modes, and they “real up”, each becoming a particle or a force. One of these strings accounts for each particle in the universe.

But how does a one dimensional string trick itself out with additional dimensions? Is  it the “moving around” thing?  And aren’t strings long in one dimension and skinny in the others? Isn’t that the idea behind calling them strings? Except they don’t HAVE other dimensions. And if they DID have such things, they wouldn’t be any smaller than the Planck length, right? So a “string” would be a cube?

My poor head!

Another thing. Strings, you say, are being pulled apart by a tension force of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000  tons. As a former structural engineer,  I worry about them breaking.

So, dividing 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons of force by the non existent cross section of a string, I arrive at something more-or-less like an infinite tensile stress.

This is bad.

In The Elegant Universe, you emphasize the superior nature of string theory over the prevailing “Standard Model” of physics which,  you say, suffers from too many infinities (like when the denominator of a fraction is zero?) I realize that strings, which are saved from being infinitely small by the Planck length, are also saved from “midriff bulge” (thickness across the middle) by their one dimensional nature. Maybe this vaccinates them against having to worry about internal stresses. But there’s still a big-force, small-object thing going on here that’s a little confusing, okay?

Elegant Universe

I do think I’ve answered one of my own questions which is how this tension force manages to maintain itself. After all, why doesn’t the string just  shrink till it doesn’t HAVE to shrink anymore, relieving its own internal tension?  It’s not like it’s tied to anything.  However, the string seems to be “Plancked out”. It can’t get smaller than that stupid Planck limit.

What a world!

Strings are distinguished from one another (I gather) by their modes of vibration and the way they wrap (open or closed). Except that 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons isn’t a small  force. It’s what  a rock  with mass equivalent to  hundreds of billions of stars  would weigh here on earth. Those pictures in your book of strings wrapped around things? Or vibrating, away in different “modes”? How do they stay so curvy with that kind of tension trying to snap them straight?

All I’ve got. And thanks for your patience,

MISTER ScienceAintSoBad

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Credit, once again, to xkcd, it’s fine and funny drawings (top).

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