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books-of-the-great-leviathan · 1 year

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Chapter 2- Zuzana

***

"Answer me this, Dima," Zuzana said, snapping shut her spyglass. "How do you make a ship disappear?"

She looked over her shoulder at Dima, her first mate- a fresh-faced young man, brown hair salt-rumpled and eyes yet unpossessed of the squint lines hers had, the ones he'd inevitably bear after serving some three decades at sea.

The bitter wind had chapped his cheekbones red. He grinned. "Sounds like a good riddle, Captain. How do you make a ship disappear? Well, madam, first you find yourself the world's biggest corkscrew-"

"Someday someone'll get sick of you turning everything you hear into a joke and parroting it out like some courtly lady's trained bird."

"-And then if you know where to stick it-"

"You heard that one in a brothel, didn't you? I'll have you know my ship's no place for such iniquity."

Dima feigned a hurt expression. "Hey, I'm just trying to lighten the mood, keep your mind off doom and gloom and foul portents. Give me a little credit."

"I give you a little credit, next thing I know my ship's taking on water and I'm drowning in fish guts." Zuzana began along the gunwale, staring out to sea, her eyes set narrow. The wind off the waves stirred her gray-streaked dark hair and ruffled the thick bear fur mantle arrayed around her neck, dusting it, like everything else, in a fine, glimmering layer of ice crystals.

The whole of her ship, the Vansi, looked like a ghost vessel from some cradle song her mother might have sung to her as a child, its rigging and gunwales remade in glittering ice, the long teeth of icicles hanging from the high crow's nest. The blue and white Vodyani flag hung sluggish from its moorings, weighted down by frost. Even the sky seemed frozen, summer stars turned hard and cold in their settings. Up this far north, east of Vodyenai and deep in the treacherous dark waters of the Ork Roads, summer only meant less cold, not freedom from it.

Tonight, though, something was different.

Something was wrong.

Zuzana was Captain Zuzana Dobrevna of the Vodyani naval ship Vansi. They were a week out from Vodyenai's frozen shores and smoky harbors, the air ever black with the fumes of ore smoke. Vodyenai was one of Buyan's colony islands, prized for its deep mines and forests of petrified wood, trees standing like pale soldiers through the twilit gloom.

It was also the last significant landmass before the Inner Sea became the Outer, and thus a valuable port city for Buyan's naval exploits. The Vansi's mission was simple: a herring trawler hadn't come back to port with its payload, and it was her job to find it, and if the crew was still alive and squandering their haul on wine, women, and merriment, enact justice for the good of the Buyani crown.

It was filthy work most days, hunting desperate men made cowards by poverty, feeble revolutionaries thinking they could stick it in the collective Buyani eye, all of them captured or put down by Zuzana and her crew, and the many other ships like her. Still, she always told herself, on her second or fifth cup of korok, it was a better living than most.

The swells beyond the reach of the running lights were huge as hills, touched with deep, frigid green where the lanternlight struck them. Otherwise the water was dark as pig iron. The Vansi pitched from side to side on the swells, but Zuzana's stride was steady as she walked her ship's length, scanning the waves.

This was the last known location of the herring trawlers they'd been tracking the past few days; Zuzana had sighted them on the horizon, their smoke, the ork-oil streaks they left behind on the waves, and tasted the bitter tang of surety on her tongue. They should be here. They should be right here.

But they weren't.

"Maybe they saw us, too," Dima supplied behind her. "Scuttled their ship and made off with all the fish they could carry."

"A couple lifeboats' worth of herring isn't worth the trouble of scuttling a trawler," Zuzana muttered. She took up her spyglass again and snapped it open, then shook her head. "I don't like it, Dima."

"What?"

"The wind. When you've tasted as much of it as I have, you get to know it. Its moods. Its intricacies. This is a strange one, and no mistake."

"Maybe Sagarozk took the ship," Dima said, an uncharacteristic note of unease in his voice. He reached under his mantle and shirt collar to unhook a long, knotted strand of red twine from round his neck. On its end hung a charm carved from orktooth, clustered amidst chunks of raw pyrite and the needle fangs of some deep-sea fish. It was in the form of a curled beast, teeth bared, flanks crudely striped. "Maybe he opened his mouth and gulped it straight down."

"Your tiger god didn't eat the trawler," Zuzana said flatly.

He shrugged. "You don't know that."

Zuzana didn't hold much stock with gods- she'd heard enough men pray to them without response to form her own opinions on the matter. Dima had a point, though. If a god was about, it wouldn't be the sort to pass out mercy like party favors. It would be a thing like the waves, like the snow, like the stars overhead, cold and hungry and no friend to humanity.

"Captain Dobrevna!"

The call came from on high, up in the crow's nest. Zuzana looked up to where a red storm lantern swung from the upper rigging, the night watchman's shape cut out against the stars. "Past the swell! It's coming!"

"The trawler?" Zuzana called back, turning her attention back to the waves with an unsettling sting of relief. It came too soon. It wasn't the trawler.

The night was a dark one, moons hidden behind the low-hanging clouds, but the starlight provided plenty illumination now. The waves fell, and across the swells, across the whole of the dark sea, spread a river of glistening shapes. Small ones, mostly, bobbing on the water, but larger ones, too, platefish and sailfish, ooshka and rays and the tentacles of squid and cuttlefish tangled like seaweed, the silver streaks of entire herring runs floating belly-up to the stars. It spread endless, countless, on and on and on, a pathway to the horizon. An entire ocean of dead fish.

The smell hit her on the next slap of ice wind. Her eyes watered, throat pulling tight. She pressed her sleeve to her numb face, squinting against the carnal reek.

"What in all Hells is this?" she muttered.

Dima's face was pale. "I...I don't know, Captain..."

"Well? Get me some light."

He turned to shout the order. The running lights brightened, beaming out across the mass, even as the Vansi's bow struck its edge. Shapes thudded and split against the hull as the ship cleaved into the mass. Soon the spray churned oily and red, thick with gore, like the aftermath of an ork-butchery.

"Stop the ship," Zuzana called. "Heave to!"

Her crew obeyed. The sails groaned, filling with wind, and the Vansi swung round, carnage knocking at its hull as it slowed to a standstill on the waves.

Shouts rippled across the deck, but Zuzana was silent. She paced to the bow and looked again through her spyglass, all the way to the horizon, from where the current would have swept this river of dead things. The clouds seemed thicker there, denser and darker.

Pale radiance illuminated them from the inside: a single spear of lightning.

"Captain," Dima said.

Zuzana looked round again in time to see two of her crew hauling a net over the gunwale. Wet shapes slithered across the deck: dead fish. Zuzana crossed to them and knelt over the glistening heap. She drew her knife from her boot and stabbed one of the fish through the gills, then lifted it into the lamplight.

Veins glittered across its scales, prismatic as oil on water, one dead eye turned into a sphere of crystal big as her thumbnail. It was swollen, tumorous, splitting into the surrounding flesh.

A chill coursed through Zuzana's nerves.

The rest were the same, infected with crystal. "Looks like whaleglass," whispered another crewman, an old Buyani with miner's tattoos and fading red hair. He took off his fur cap and twisted it between his hands. "The crystallized blood of the Great Leviathan itself-"

"It's not whaleglass." Zuzana flicked the fish off her knife. "I don't know what this is. Some sickness in the water. We're well close enough to the Great Blue for all manner of horrors to creep in on the currents."

"We shouldn't be here," Dima said. He turned his tiger charm in his fingers, over and over, worrying at it like prayer beads. "Whatever happened to the trawler-"

"Are you suggesting we go back empty-handed? Scared off by a run of diseased fish?" Zuzana straightened, staring him down. "I'd rather have my feet up by a fire with a jar of sugared cherries, too, but that's no bloody excuse."

She knew what her first mate meant, though, and couldn't help but agree with him. First the trawler's disappearance, traceless, sudden, and now this: this desert of carnage, this dying on such a scale, like the sea had poisoned itself. A chill traced her spine as wind swept the deck, tugging the frozen flag high overhead.

Far out, where she'd seen the lightning before:

Clouds, massing. Black and churning.

Lightning came again, and struck the sea, splintering shards of silver across the river of dead fish. Zuzana strode to the bow, her crew at her back, and stared out toward the storm. Her heart pounded in her throat.

"You think it's coming our way, Captain?" Dima asked.

As if in answer, wind came: a blast of it, and with it, scents. Lightning sear, the heat of the vaporized ocean, salt and metal and the raw, hot tang of blood. A high, shrieking, winnowing wind, slicing past Zuzana's face like blades.

"That's no storm," said the old Buyani. "That's old magic. That's whale-stuff, that is. That's the Great Leviathan itself, the bringer of life and death, the destroyer, come to end us all!"

He lapsed into his mother tongue, a babbling stream of prayers. Zuzana rounded on him. Her heart pulsed behind her breastbone, but she fought to keep her face a hard mask.

"What are you?" she demanded. "A child? Stop your mewling before I send you to wait out the storm in the bilge."

He didn't obey, his prayers uninterrupted. Zuzana grit her teeth and gave the old man a hard crack across the jaw; he dropped with a yelp, but mercifully shut up.

Zuzana strode forward, fist stinging, facing down her crew. "This is no time for panic," she called. She looked from face to face. "For any of you, hear me? Get to your posts. Ready the sails for haste. We can outrun a paltry storm-"

The sea groaned, heaving upward toward stars burning like fires in the black. Zuzana grabbed onto the railing as the Vansi was lifted, tilting, bow flung upward on a single, massive swell. The water glassed. Waves dashed bloody froth across the deck; a curtain of sleet struck, a drenching torrent that soaked Zuzana to the bone in an instant. Shouts rang across the ship: crewmen rushing to lines, orders flying like gulls.

Zuzana was frozen. Every nerve screamed at her to run, but she didn't move. All she could do was stare.

The storm was coming toward them. Not slowly, blown on its course, but fast, too fast, and before its swirling, lightning-cracked winds, the sea rose, too. Swells. Waves. Whitecaps, spume, the entire ocean cleaved apart by-

By-

"Is that an island?" Dima cried through the sleet. It looked like one, like the crest of a mountain range arching from the deep, as if pulled from the seabed by some god in one of Dima's cradle songs. Zuzana stared, and the realization snapped in, and the panic roared over her, sudden as a breaking wave.

It was no island. It was a back: the long, curving ridge of a spine arrayed with spikes, huge as a ship, huge as a landmass, parting the waves, coming for them.

The lightning crackled from spike to spike, vast juts of dark bone. Beneath the water, illuminated from within by an unearthly blue radiance, was a form. A creature. It swam, pushing itself along with great, clawed forelimbs, its body long and serpentine. Its head lifted through the storm. Zuzana couldn't focus on its shape. It seemed to shift moment by moment, as if it was constantly in some weird state of warp. All she could see was darkness and lightning, flashes of talons and jagged bone and glistening, scarred black hide.

Muscles rippled beneath vast, gaping blowholes, and jaws parted, opening, impossible, impossible, it could swallow them whole, it could pluck the moons from the sky and crush them in those rows upon rows of teeth.

It roared. The howl of the storm, the shriek of the ocean turned to steam, the boom of thunder, huge as the world. White fractured Zuzana's vision. She felt blood burst from her nose, raw and rich on her tongue.

"Go!" she cried, rushing for the ship's wheel and seizing it in both hands. The currents were strong, but she set all her strength to it and felt it move. "Get us the hell away from that thing!"

The Vansi lunged, sails straining, great arcs of white against the sky. The stars were too bright, too close; they seemed to fall and touch the stormy ocean, filling it with blue light. Sleet pounded the deck, warm as summer rain. The displaced sea swelled again, waves rising taller than the Vansi, so it seemed to crest and swoop along valleys of phosphorescent blue glass.

Lightning split the sky, and Zuzana again glimpsed the monster, filling the sea, filling the sky, coils and claws and ancient wounds.

Surrounding them.

"No," she breathed, terror and wonder, her vision splintering with tears.

This couldn't be the Great Leviathan.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Nothing was supposed to be this way.

The monster unfurled, heaving its body from the ocean. Seawater sluiced from it in sheets, raining across the deck. Almost lazily, it batted out with one foreclaw, a solid wall of flesh and starlit water. Impact jarred the entire ship, like a bolt cannon had gone off belowdecks. Zuzana heard sail tear, heard wood split; waves hammered them, glimmering blue, turning the tarred wood and sailcloth to starlight. The rigging began to sway and collapse, bearing down on the deck. Sodden ropes thudded heavy as weights, barely missing her. She looked to Dima, and he stared back, clutching a line, blood streaming from the cut on his forehead.

"Captain!" he cried. "Out of the way!"

Too late.

Something struck her, hard: part of the Vansi's mast, snapped like a twig. She slammed sideways against the gunwale. Ribs crunched. She cried out, but her voice was lost in the scream of the winds, the howl and bellow of the monster as it tore them apart.

Through the pain, through the sound of her ship breaking and her crew dying around her, Zuzana lifted her head.

She saw it, blurred by the churning winds, a vast, roiling shape, its eyes blazing blue and gold through the storm.

She knew, now. Knew there were no charms, no prayers, no holy words to hold in the night. There was only one truth, bright as staring into the sun.

She was wrong. This was a god.

At least we know what happened to the trawler, Zuzana thought as the monster's jaws descended to shear the ship in half.

#tales of the great leviathan #grave of the great leviathan #original fiction #fantasy fiction #serial novel #chapter 2

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desn512-2023ch · 1 year

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Typeface research

What am I looking for? I am looking for a typeface to display in a 16 - 24 page typeface booklet. I will be showing the typeface off using typographic designs and showing where and why to use this typeface in different scenarios.

Typeface option 1: Karmina Sans

Karmina Sans is a typeface created and designed by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione, who together established the Typetogether typography foundry in 2006. This friendly Sans Serif typeface featured 12 weights, ranging from light all the way down to heavy italic. Because of the friendly nature of the typeface you can expect to see it appear in magazines, websites, newspapers and much more. Something I found interesting right away was the difference between the regular and italic fonts. The italic fonts feel very swift with pleasant curves and good looking strokes.. (typeface example below)

Typeface option 2: Puffin Display

Puffin Display is a Sans Serif typeface designed by Pieter van Rosmalen with his foundry Blue Monday. The typeface features 14 weights including italics, a second series called Puffin Arcade and has an extended family consisting of Puffin, Puffin Display and Puffin Display soft. Puffin Display runs with specifically curved letterforms and boasts a taller X height with slightly slimmer spacing between letters. Puffin Display is the sort of typeface that puts the cherry on top of posters, video games and user interface designs. I quite like the look of the regular fonts because they aren't boring, they're rather unique with how they show their apertures in the "g" and the strokes of the "V" (typeface example below)

Typeface option 3: Gimlet Display

Gimlet Display is a Serif typeface created by David Jonathan Ross with inspiration from the typeface "Schadow" which was designed by Georg Trump back in 1938. Gimlet Display plays with the funk of the hairline serif and holds its head high with a whopping 40 weights to choose from. You'll find type like Gimlet Display on the front cover of cooking books, guides and dinner invitations. I like the way Gimlet Display shows its distinction from other Serif fonts while maintaining full functionality of use. (typeface example below)

Typeface option 4: Matrix II

Matrix II is a step up from its former self. The complete rework of Matrix II was designed again by the original designer Zuzana Licko in 2007. The nice new Matrix II features wedge serifs on its regular weights and razer sharp wedges on its Italics. Coming in with 23 weights to choose from, Matrix II has a tool for every job. I was immediately interested with the way the italic weights sit. Lots of the consonant letters on the italic weights are bejeweled with interesting terminals that add a slick look to the italic weights. Matrix II is easy on the eyes so it can be seen in books as bulk text, Titles for books and also magazines. (typeface example below)

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rivaltimes · 2 years

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The President of Slovakia signs the ratification protocol for the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO

Archive – The President of Slovakia, Zuzana Caputova – Alberto Ortega – Europa Press – Archive The president of Slovakia, Zuzana Caputova, has signed this Wednesday the ratification protocol for the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO after the Slovak Parliament has given the ‘green light’ to the entry of the two Nordic countries to the Alliance. “Both Scandinavian countries will further…

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grad502-aureliadebae · 2 years

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Week 3.1 SDL Campaign Audit

We were asked to complete two tasks for our SDL this week, one was 3-4 mood boards to gain more visual resources and the other was to audit two similar campaigns to our topic, ones we haven't studied before. As I began to look for campaigns, I found it rather challenging as there are not many campaigns around self - Love/appearance/appreciation, especially in New Zealand.

The first one that I found internationally that fit well into my topic was Dear Self. This campaign was created by three design students for one of their projects (I believe) looking at the issues around the self-care movement and how it is impacting mental health. They wanted to shed light on companies who are capitalizing on these trends and to provide realistic solutions to this issue. They wanted to change the way that our generation are "treating" ourselves.

They decided that it was important to both provide information about the consumeristic nature of the current self-care movement while also calling out our audience to change their habits and routines in order to effectively improve their mental health.

These images below are some of the process/development of their campaign.

Typography

Matrix II is a complete reworking of the original Matrix-type family which was designed by Zuzana Licko in 1986. The redesign, which started in January 2007, was initiated by the need to create an OpenType version of Matrix. Seven new fonts were also added to the family: a Semi Narrow, Semi Wide, Semi Tall, Inline Italic, and 3 weights of Italic—a less flamboyant version of Matrix Script. To clearly set this version apart from the original Matrix, and to avoid conflict with previous versions, its name was changed to Matrix II.

Dual 300 is a full-width sans-serif typeface with an experimental side. Inspired by fonts such as Gotham, Proxima Nova and Neue Haas, Its straight lines and 90-degree angles give it a very geometric feel without hindering its legibility.

Colour

The colours that the girls used within their campaign are; Lip Red Classic, Millennial insecurity, Glitter Tears, Mud Mask and Rose. The names and the use of the colours fit into the campaign accordingly as they reflect the aspects of self-care and how they can be perceived. For example, glitter tears are a good representation as it highlights the feeling of trying to keep up with beauty standards and the expectations that are put on women to wear make-up and always look 'beautiful'. Glitter tears make me feel the time and tears that are shed when you are expected to execute flawless eyeshadow or any other make-up application.

Icons/ Motifs

The main icon that they used for their campaign are faces that display different emotions. I thought that this was a good expression of how youth feel about meeting beauty and self-care standards that are promoted to us currently. It can also represent the current mood/emotions that we may feel daily, which would be good to incorporate if they were to create a mood journal. It saves people from having to write and explain how they feel, they can instead just colour in or circle which overall mood they felt throughout the course of the day. I also liked how they included these icons within their data. It connects back to the ease of being able to relate to the mood, rather than having to verbal explain the emotions we may feel, especially relating to stress (the data they focused on in their campaign above).

Logo

While looking at their typographic logo, I was able to make the connection between it to their campaign idea. They have left the dear hollow with a simple outline. This makes me believe that it is related to the outside, what is exterior and addressing it to all. Whereas, the self is filled with colour, which leads me to interpret it as reflecting inwards to oneself. Making it feel personal and individual. With these two combined together, it engages a general audience and creates the idea to reflect inward on how to care for ourselves. I thought that this was a strong logo, as well as the name, to choose to showcase the main focus of their campaign.

#grad502 #campaign #audit #self confidence

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ultrajaphunter · 2 years

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Analysis: Comparison between Russian and Ukrainian Artillery powers on the battlefield Ukraine - Russia conflict war 2022 POSTED ON THURSDAY, 28 JULY 2022 16:00 What can Ukraine do facing Russia’s might in the field of artillery?

What towed guns and self-propelled howitzers does each army operate?

A tweet posted on July 17 by Shashank Joshi provides a very interesting chart comparing both arsenals.

To make it short,

Ukraine is believed to have about 1,000 howitzers and 200 MLRS, both shooting a total of about 4,000-5,000 rounds a day,

while

Russia is believed to have about 3,000 howitzers and 1,300 MLRS, both shooting between 20,000 and 50,000 rounds a day.

Needless to say that the following figures are impossible to check or update, as it is generally the case with OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence). Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link Comparison between Ukrainian ad Russian artilleries facing each other in Ukraine (Chart source: Twitter account of Shashank Joshi) When Russian President Putin said in early July that ‘’Serious things have not yet started’’, he meant that only a minority of the whole Russian army is involved in his so-called special military operation in Ukraine.

Let us go deeper in detail in the comparison made between both sides’ artillery in the attached chart. Light towed howitzers (100-122mm) Ukraine has about

200 howitzers in the 100- to 122mm caliber range:

about 100 MT-14 100mm (3.4 km range),

and about

100 D-30 122mm (15.3 km range). Russia has about 750 howitzers in the 100- to 122mm caliber range:

about

500 MT-14 100mm howitzers (3.4 km range) + about 500 in reserve,

about

150 D-30 122mm (15.3 km range)

+ 4,400 in reserve,

and about

100 2B16 Nona-K (7-13 km range)

+ 6,600 in reserve.

The balance of power is 3.75 in favor of Russia.

Light self-propelled howitzers (100-122mm) Ukraine has about 230 2S1 Gvodzika 122mm (15.2 km range). Russia has about

500 2S1 Gvodzika 122mm + 1,800 in reserve,

and

50 2S34 Hosta (14 km range), The balance of power is 2.5 in favor of Russia.

Heavy towed howitzers (152-155mm) Ukraine has about 400 heavy towed howitzers:

50 2A65 Msta-B (25-29 km range),

100 D-20 (17.4-24 km range),

100 2A36 Giatsint-B (26.5-33.5 km range), an unknown number of British-supplied

FH70 155mm howitzers (24-30 km range),

and

136 M777/M777A2 howitzers (25-40 km range).

Russia has about 150 2A65 Msta-B (25-29 km range)

+ 600 in reserve,

and

120 D-20 (17.4-24 km range)

+ 1,000 in reserve. The balance of power is 1.6 in favor of Ukraine.

Heavy self-propelled howitzers (152-203mm) Ukraine has about 280 heavy self-propelled howitzers: 150 2S3 Akatsiya (20-23 km range) with a limited stock of 152mm rounds,

about

20 2S7 Pion 203mm (37.5-42.5 km range),

42 US-supplied M109A6 Paladin (25-40 km range),

18 Czech-supplied AHS Krab (30km range),

18 French-supplied CAESAR (42-50km range),

20+ XXXX-supplied Zuzana/Dana (40 km range),

and

12 German- and Netherlands-supplied PzH2000 (36-47 km range).

Notice that, on July 27, the German government cleared the sale of 100 PzH2000 by KMW to Ukraine for EUR 1.7 billion,

in the same move as

57 Krabs have been ordered from the Polish company PGZ. Russia has about 1,300 heavy self-propelled howitzers:

about

500 2S3 Akatsiya (20-23 km range)

+ 1,000 in reserve,

about

50 2S7 Pion and 2S7M Malka 203mm (37.5-42.5 km range)

+ 260 in reserve,

about

400 2S19 Msta-S (24-30 km range)

+ 300 in reserve,

and less than

500 2S5 Giatsint-S (15-29km range). The balance of power is 4.5 in favor of Russia.

Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) Ukraine has about

200 MLRS:

at least

20 RM-70 (20-35 km range),

about

100 BM-21 Grad (20-42 km range),

about

50 BM-27 Uragan with a limited stock of rockets (35 km range),

14 M270 MLRS

and

M142 HIMARS (30-70 km range),

and about

50 BM-30 Smerch with a limited stock of rockets (70-90 km range). Russia has about

1,300 MLRS:

1,000 BM-21 Grad (20-42 km range)

+ 2,000 in reserve,

about

200 BM-27 Uragan (35 km range),

and about

100 BM-30 Smerch (70-90 km range). The balance of power is 6.5 in favor of Russia.

Complete comparison between Ukrainian ad Russian artilleries facing each other in Ukraine (Chart source: Twitter account of Shashank Joshi)

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eyes-of-sunflower-soul · 6 years

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Sometimes I wonder when you sleep Are you ever dreaming of me? Sometimes when I look into your eyes I pretend you're mine, all the damn time 'Cause I like you. • • • • #lainitaylor #nightofcakeandpuppets #zuzana #karou #lights #cabeswater #theravenboys #bluesargent #candles

#bluesargent #theravenboys #nightofcakeandpuppets #lights #karou #zuzana #lainitaylor #cabeswater #candles

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 3 years

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Study reveals new details on what happened in the first microsecond of Big Bang About 14 billion years ago, our universe changed from being a lot hotter and denser to expanding radically - a process that scientists have named 'The Big Bang'. And even though we know that this fast expansion created particles, atoms, stars, galaxies and life as we know it today, the details of how it all happened are still unknown. Now a new study performed by researchers from University of Copenhagen reveals insights on how it all began. "We have studied a substance called Quark-Gluon Plasma that was the only matter, which existed during the first microsecond of Big Bang. Our results tell us a unique story of how the plasma evolved in the early stage of the universe," explains You Zhou, Associate Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. "First the plasma that consisted of quarks and gluons was separated by the hot expansion of the universe. Then the pieces of quark reformed into so-called hadrons. A hadron with three quarks makes a proton, which is part of atomic cores. These cores are the building blocks that constitutes earth, ourselves and the universe that surrounds us," he adds. From fluent and smooth to the strong building blocks of life The Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) was present in the first 0.000001 second of Big Bang and thereafter it disappeared because of the expansion. But by using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, researchers were able to recreate this first matter in history and trace back what happened to it. "The collider smashes together ions from the plasma with great velocity - almost like the speed of light. This makes us able to see how the QGP evolved from being its own matter to the cores in atoms and the building blocks of life," says You Zhou. "In addition to using the Large Hadron Collider, the researches also developed an algorithm that is able to analyze the collective expansion of more produced particles at once, than ever possible before. Their results show that the QGP used to be a fluent liquid form and that it distinguishes itself from other matters by constantly changing its shape over time. "For a long time researchers thought that the plasma was a form of gas, but our analysis confirm the latest milestone measurement, where the Hadron Collider showed that QGP was fluent and had a smooth soft texture like water. The new details we provide is that the plasma has changed its shape over time, which is quite surprising and different from any other matter we know and what we would have expected," says You Zhou. One step closer to the truth about Big Bang Even though this might seem like a small detail, it brings us one step closer to solving the puzzle of the Big Bang and how the universe developed in the first microsecond, he elaborates. "Every discovery is a brick that improves our chances of finding out the truth about Big Bang. It has taken us about 20 years to find out that the Quark-Gluon Plasma was fluent before it changed into hadrons and the building blocks of life. Therefore our new knowledge on the ever changing behavior of the plasma, is a major breakthrough for us," You Zhou concludes. The study has just been published in the journal Physics Letters B and is performed by You Zhou together with Zuzana Moravcova, who is a PhD at the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen. IMAGE.....The illustration shows the expansion of The Universe – Big Bang - that consisted of a soup of Quark-Gluon plasma in the first microsecond (see left side). After that, protons and neutrons were formed and later atoms, stars and galaxies (see the right side). Illustration: NASA/CXC/ M. WEISS

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #cosmology

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