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Last updated: 18-09-2011
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the Black Holes FAQ!
Hi there! Welcome to my home page. I live in the city of Zug, in Switzerland (30 km south of Zurich). Most of the time, I'm an electronics engineer specializing in hardware and software design, data communications and networking, and information security; when some is left, I keep working with computers in various activities, but I also like to:
- read, study and talk about the Bible (I'm a Christian believer with Baptist background), christian life and associated topics in theology. In this site, you will find the complete HTML edition of the excellent book "A New Look at an Old Earth", by Don Stoner, where a rigorous conciliation of the creationist and the evolutionist theories for the origin of the Universe is presented;
- read, study and talk about astronomy (astrophysics, orbital mechanics, space navigation, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence - SETI), physics (quantum mechanics, electromagnetism) and mathematics in general, without leaving science-fiction behind;
- practice target shooting (olympic disciplines in .22LR caliber, rifle and pistol);
- play table tennis, at which I'm not that bad :-)) ;
- write articles for magazines (technical or otherwise; I'm a collaborator with publications in Portugal, Brazil and the USA), and do translations, mainly from English and French, of varied literature.
Just in case you'd be interested to explore the Net in those directions, below you'll find some links I'll try to update as frequently as possible.
- God's Promises, a Web site where you can start a subscription (annual or semi-annual) to receive (or give to someone!) Bible verses daily sent by email with inspiration on various subjects. It is an electronic version of the well-known "Promise Boxes", and a very efficient way of taking the Scripture to whoever needs it. Available in English, Portuguese, Spanish and German.
- LNA, the National Astrophysics Laboratory of the Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology (MCT), with headquarters in Itajubá (MG), which leads the astrophysical research in Brazil with resources installed in the country (telescopes installed at the Pico dos Dias Observatory) and also participates in international programs such as the Gemini Telescopes Gemini (two 8.1m-diameter telescopes, one at Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the other at Cerro Pachón in Chile) and the SOAR Telescope (SOuthern Astrophysical Research, 4.1m-diameter telescope also installed at Cerro Pachón).- INPE, the MCT's National Space Research Institute, with headquarters in S. J. Campos (SP), whose task is to design and operate all kinds of satellites and tracking stations, promote the development of the industrial infrastructure required to support brazilian space activities, and promote the exchanges regarding these activities with national academic and research institutions.
- AEB, the Brazilian Space Agency, with headquarters in Brasília (DF), which coordinates the execution of brazilian activities related to space science and technology according with the National Plan for the Development of Space Activities (PNDAE), in particular Brazil's participation in international space missions, manned or unmanned.
- JPL, NASA's famed Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the control center for all unmanned space missions and deep space probes for the US of A.
- DSN, the Deep Space Network, through which the JPL keeps contact with the deep space probes (multiple telemetry channels in the downlink, command and programs in the uplink), and also keeps track of them (Pioneer, Voyager, Galileo, Mars Explorer, Magellan, Ulysses, Cassini, Mars Exploration Rover and others). Two of the most exciting ongoing missions are the twin missions of the Mars Exploration Rovers, which landed two motorized rovers in Mars to examine the possibility of the existence of water in the Red Planet, and the Cassini-Huygens mission, which put the Cassini probe in orbit around Saturn and launched the Huygens probe to a dive into the atmosphere and surface of the ringed planet.
- The Big Ear Radio Observatory, memorial site of one of the most famous radio telescopes in the world used in a systematic and scientifically conducted search in the attempt to locate extra-terrestrial intelligences. The radio telescope ceased operations in 1997, was dismantled in 1998 and the land where it stood was used for a real estate development. Nevertheless, in their still active server you'll even find a photo of the famed WOW signal, best detection to date of something most probably produced by an extra-terrestrial intelligence.
- ESA, the European Space Agency, control center for all space missions of the European Community.
- LIGO - Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory, an initiative by various astronomy and astrophysics research institutions for the operation of a laser interferometry gravitational-wave observatory. The two initially built sites, separated by more than 4.000 km, are equipped with 4-km long laser interferometers, completely buried to avoid spurious interferences, in the hope of directly measuring the effects of the passage of gravitational waves originated, for example, in a pair of orbiting black holes or binary neutron stars.
- GEO 600, a european collaboration initiative also for the detection of gravitational waves by means of laser interferometry, with the observatory located in Hannover, Germany.
- BOINC, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing, the distributed computing effort composed by millions of computers worldwide for the analysis of data belonging to projects requiring large computational capacity, such as the systematic search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI@home), the analysis of data from gravitational-wave observatories (Einstein@home), the project of the particle accelerator known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC@home), and many more projects.
- The Pioneer Anomaly, a strange phenomenon observed for the first time in the telemetry data of the american deep-space probes Pioneer 10 and 11, which verified a still not explained deceleration of these probes in their trajectories, meaning the possible need for a revision of the laws of physics as we know them, or else the discovery of cosmic forces totally unknown until now.
- Voyager Golden Record, a complete collection of all the records stored in the Voyager 1 and 2 deep space probes, traveling through space already near the limits of the solar system (images, music, varied sounds, spoken samples in many earth languages, texts written in various languages, etc.).
- Ethnologue: Languages of the World, a very complete scientific reference server about all of the 6,912 (!!!) known living languages of the world.
- iLoveLanguages, a very interesting server with references to a great many of the world's languages, and support tools like dictionaries, translation aids and much more. Ever heard about the language of the Klingons, those noble warriors from Star Trek? Check it out there...
- Curious Numbers , a site where you can find a pleasant combination of mathematics with humor. And have fun with this geometrical, truly spectacular proof of the famed Pythagoras' Theorem - take a look here!
If you'd like to exchange your impressions or information on these or other subjects, drop email to epuglia@pcontrols.ch.
Good bye, and till next time!