It’s true. Of course, it’s not the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, but the Nasa, a tribe in Columbia, South America. They make a soft drink from coca leaves.
This has nothing to do with the space agency, so you can breathe easier now. However, I’ll note that for years NASA (the space agency– confused yet?) always had on their front page a note that said "Want to study black holes? Don’t do drugs," with a link to an anti-drug ad. In my head, I always added the phrase, "… but if you want to understand black holes…"
Tip o’ the pull tab to Boing Boing for the link.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Soft drink from the main ingredient of cocaine.
Wow.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:43 am
The resurging legitimacy of coca use in Colombia is going to make for very interesting diplomacy, given our official position on cocaine. These sorts of stories always remind me how irrational and dogmatic our drug policy is.
April 14th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Well, coca was in the original Coca-Cola (duh, hence the name).
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_033.html
So consider the “new” stuff retro.
April 14th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Yeah, I wonder if it tastes similar to Coke…
April 14th, 2006 at 11:40 am
My mother spent her fiftieth birthday in Peru. She brought me back a T-shirt which says, “La hoja de coca no es droga” (the coca leaf is not a drug). I should note that the guides encouraged all the tourists on their way up to Machu Picchu to dreak coca-leaf tea for, ahem, “altitude sickness”. Sounds like a perfectly legitimate reason to me. . . and something which would matter even more in Earth orbit! (-:
Best quote in the article:
As for the “if you want to understand black holes” bit, well. . . When I finally write that mathematical physics textbook, I’ll have to cite this story by an anonymous man who one day truly understood Fourier analysis and electromagnetism. (Don’t ask how I stumbled across this one — it was late at night, much caffeine was involved, and I don’t remember too well anyhow.)
April 14th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
I wonder if you can consider a drink whose active ingredients include cocaine to be a “soft” drink.
After all, it is likely capable, in sufficient quantities, of producing insensibility, much like a “hard” drink — an alcoholic beverage.
April 14th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Its spelled colombia. Not columbia.
April 14th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
“Want to study black holes? Don’t do drugs,” with a link to an anti-drug ad. In my head, I always added the phrase, “… but if you want to understand black holes…”
hahaha. funny. true and funny. having talked with many people in my life about astronomy related topics (which makes the ladies go all starry eyed sometimes–pun intended) i can relate to that. Have you ever had someone look at you like you were completely out of you mind? it’s a refreshing feeling. : )
April 14th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
A friend for Peru brought a few packs of “coca tea” to give as gifts. It’s not big deal. Imagine a strong black coffee and that’s it. The ammount of cocaine is too small to have any real effect. Coca tea and coca soft drink is to real cocaine as miller light is to real beer.
April 15th, 2006 at 3:50 am
I can actually see how it could be made a mainstream thing, with proper health and safety standards. People consume poppy-seed foods all the time, yet the opiate drugs are derived from poppy concentrate. Of course, people subject to drug tests would have to be warned to avoid coca-based foods, much like they are now against poppy-based foods.
April 15th, 2006 at 5:16 am
“…but if you want to understand black holes…”
PERFECT! Thanks. You made my dreary morning bright.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:45 am
Can one of you bright guys tell me what the math/speculation says about what happpens to a black hole when it gets “full”? It can’t keep compressing material forever can it? Is there the a consensus in thinking on it’s life cycle? Anybody?
April 16th, 2006 at 7:30 am
Rapdentious:
I’m not a scientist, but I am an avid reader of Stephen Hawking and Karl Swartzchild.
The consensus seem to be that there is no theoretical limit on the amount of matter a Black Hole can compress into a singularity. After all, it happened at the birth of the universe (14 Billion Years ago, not 6000 years agoJ)
However, the idea that black holes can keep sucking up matter for infinite time clashes with observations. If that were true, the universe should have produced a lot more super massive black holes in its lifetime. So there must be a practical limit on the amount of matter a black hole can compress. Some cosmologists think that black holes are continually “evaporating†through higher dimensions, and disappear after a couple hundred million years, but no one knows for sure.
I suggest you read Stephen Hawkins’s A Brief History of Time, for a more in depth discussion. Keep up the curiosity!
April 16th, 2006 at 11:09 am
In classical Einsteinian general relativity there is NO theoretical limit to the mass which can be consumed/contained within a black hole. The size of the event horizon grows with the addition of mass within: it’s always big enough. And matter at the singularity isn’t *compressed*. (It doesn’t get squashed, accumulating a resistive potential energy) The space-time manifold converges asymptotically toward the singularity. Everything which falls into the event horizon simply follows the convergence inexorably, much as time itself marches inexorably toward the future.
April 16th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
cardoso — even so, I’ve never heard anyone call Miller Light a Soft Drink. Coca leaves /are/ an intoxicant, even if not as potent of one as the refined product.
April 16th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Thanks, Max and Mark for your responses. I understand there is thought to be a massive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. Are they common to galazies? Do they serve a “function”–i.e. an intergrel part of the structure? Can they be said to be “consuming” the galaxy from the inside? Would they be more discernible in a galaxy seen axel-on? I don’t mean to be a pest but I am fascinated. Cheers
April 16th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Rapdentious,
Glad to help. I love discussing the universe.
In answer to your questions:
1. Probably
2. Yes
3. No
4. I don’t know.
Do other galaxies have central black holes (CBHs)? They probably do. Black holes are incredibly difficult to observe (What with being black.) In fact, the CBH for the Milky Way was only directly observed sometime in the past decade. Since our galaxy is a reasonably average spiral galaxy, its logical to assume that other spiral galaxies (like Andromeda) would have CBHs. But remember that most galaxies aren’t shaped like ours. Several are elliptical, spherical, or even shapeless. They look more like clouds then spirals. If you have a good telescope, have a look at Messier objects 32 and 82 for some examples. These galaxies are less likely to have CBHs. They are either to young, or to small.
And do CBHs serve a function? The answer is yes. Just as the Sun keeps the planets in orbit, the CBH keeps the stars in orbit. Now obviously, most of the “pull†that keeps the galaxy together comes from the gravity between the other 400 billion + stars that make up the Milky Way. But the belief is that the pull of the CBH does contribute something. If we can prove that irregular galaxies do not have CBHs, that would be strong evidence that the CBH is what keeps our galaxy together. It would also tell us if we are on the right track looking for “dark matter.â€
And No, the central black hole is not “consuming†our galaxy. Even though it is probably destroying a few red giants ever million years, its still got 400 billion stars to go. The stars will all be dead before the CBH could eat them all!
Finally, I don’t really know if it would be easier to observe a black hole from an axel-on view of a galaxy, but it certainly would make sense! Polar observations allow you to look through the least amount of matter, but this is one for the professional astronomers, and I’m just a humble armature!
Sorry its such a long winded answer, but the universe is a really long winded place.
Oh, and while your out looking at M-32/82, take a peak at Jupiter and its moons. Here in Colorado, Jupiter rises about 20 degrees south of west at 8:15.
I’m sneaking peaks at it while I write this. Magnificent!
April 17th, 2006 at 12:08 am
Jedibear (great nick, btw)
2 Millers will get you a DUI, two cups of coca tea will get you nothing, specially if you’re a heavy coffee drinker like me. Of course I don’t advise it’s use if your local cops are not aware of traditional peruvian drinks.
April 17th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
But cardoso, you’re the one who made the comparison to Miller Lite. Miller Lite is beer every bit as much as other beer – that is to say, American beers, which have lower alcohol content than, say, German beers. The “Lite” has nothing to do with alcohol content, which is the ingredient of consideration.
A more appropriate comparison might be O’Doule’s , the “non-alcoholic” beer (that actually has about 0.5% alcohol). It’s touted as the alternative to regular beer for non-drinkers who want the “refreshing” taste of a beer. (Gag.) It takes a lot more O’Doule’s to get drunk – even at .08% blood content. But even that will get you drunk if you work at it. (Not aware of anyone getting drunk of O’Doule’s and the like – people who intend to get drunk use something harder, people who drink it aren’t trying, so likely don’t imbibe fast enough.)
April 17th, 2006 at 3:43 pm
Rapdentious,
Regarding your question about whether the central black hole in a galaxy would be more discernible in an “axle-on” view… The technical term I think is “Active Galactic Nuclei”, try a web search as there’s a lot more info than I could come up with here.
For galaxies that qualify, you could say that they are easier to see (not with your eyes I guess…)
Here’s a brief intro from teh NASA site:
,a href=”http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/active_galaxies.html” title=”Active Galactic Nuclei”>Active Galactic Nuclei
April 18th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
regards understanding Black Holes.
During my degree we covered spinning black holes and the spacetime warping that results. That evening I ended up a *little* bit drunk and was sat thinking about the dimensions. Ended up sat upside down on the sofa with my head just off the floor. After about half an hour I suddenly realised what was happening, then passed out and fell on my head. Since then I can just about understand what happens in a spinning black hole, unfortunately the technique doesn’t help with the maths. That’s still down to lots of tiny indicies.
DARE to resist? Drugs Are Really Excelent?
April 18th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
hmm, sorry, unclosed tag on that last bit, back to the old html books for me…
April 20th, 2006 at 12:36 am
Thanks for that Max.
Jupiter and the inner moons have never been more breathtaking to me than one night 35 years ago when I was priviledged to have an evening with the 30″ Leuschner. By coincidence the four moons formed a perfect spiral away from Jupiter and towards us! What are the chances of that. It gave a sense of 3 dimensionality I didn’t think possible through a telescope. The vivid colours made it a truly spectacular sight.
You mentioned earlier it has been speculated that black holes might be “evaporating” matter to another dimension. If there is no apparent limit to the ultimate size of a black hole, is it conceivable that CBHs have swallowed whole galaxies whose mass, while in another dimension, is still somehow having a gravitational effect–as in the “missing mass” of the universe? (You can tell I’m way over my head here).
Cheers
April 22nd, 2006 at 12:04 am
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April 22nd, 2006 at 12:31 am
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