The Universal Mass Function and its Applicability to Non-Cosmic Objects
Abstract
The universe is full of mysteries. One of these mysteries is that all objects in the cosmos—from the smallest meteors to the largest galaxy clusters—are all connected with a single mass function. This mass function is a power law with a constant slope, f(m) = k m -2 where is m mass and k is a normalization constant (Binggeli & Hascher 2007, "Is there a Universal Mass Function?" Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 119, 592). This means that objects with low masses are much more common than massive objects, and that the fraction of low-to-high mass objects is enigmatically universal on all cosmic scales. This is quite puzzling, as no current theories exist in physics explaining the phenomenon of mass assembly in a unified manner that ranges vast magnitudes, from very small to extremely massive objects. A mass function was created from the pieces of Razor the Shark—NSU’s mascot in LEGO representation. A power-law mass function was applied to the LEGO-bricks measurements and compared to the findings of Binggeli & Hascher. The result shows that even the distribution of bricks in LEGO sets follow the universal mass function closely and confirms cosmic properties of mass on smaller scales.
Faculty Sponsors
Dr. Stefan Kautsch
Project Type
Event
Location
Alvin Shermany Library
Start Date
4-5-2019 1:00 PM
End Date
4-5-2019 5:00 PM
The Universal Mass Function and its Applicability to Non-Cosmic Objects
Alvin Shermany Library
The universe is full of mysteries. One of these mysteries is that all objects in the cosmos—from the smallest meteors to the largest galaxy clusters—are all connected with a single mass function. This mass function is a power law with a constant slope, f(m) = k m -2 where is m mass and k is a normalization constant (Binggeli & Hascher 2007, "Is there a Universal Mass Function?" Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 119, 592). This means that objects with low masses are much more common than massive objects, and that the fraction of low-to-high mass objects is enigmatically universal on all cosmic scales. This is quite puzzling, as no current theories exist in physics explaining the phenomenon of mass assembly in a unified manner that ranges vast magnitudes, from very small to extremely massive objects. A mass function was created from the pieces of Razor the Shark—NSU’s mascot in LEGO representation. A power-law mass function was applied to the LEGO-bricks measurements and compared to the findings of Binggeli & Hascher. The result shows that even the distribution of bricks in LEGO sets follow the universal mass function closely and confirms cosmic properties of mass on smaller scales.
