Mental Influx

6 Scientific Discoveries That Laugh in the Face of Physics

2015-02-15T16:46:00.003-08:00

As we've pointed out before, there are some startlingly simple questions that science can't answer. And then there are the special occasions where the universe up and does a freaking magic trick that seems to be designed by an unjust, all-powerful entity dedicated to making scientists slowly pull off their glasses while saying, "What in the hell?" For instance ...

#6. The Sun Can Make Stuff Hotter Than Itself

We intuitively understand the direction that energy travels -- from the thing with energy to the thing with less energy. That's why the second law of thermodynamics is among the first things you learn in science class that makes you say, "Well, shit, I could have told you that." If you're too hot, you move away from the campfire, not toward it. You don't need science to tell you that heat energy travels from the hot thing to the less-hot thing. Well, everywhere in the universe except the sun.

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That asshole always has to be the center of attention.

There's a discrepancy between what science says should happen and what the sun actually does, and it's known as the sun's coronal heating problem. Essentially, when heat leaves the sun, the laws of thermodynamics just totally break down for a few hundred miles, and nobody can quite figure out why.

The facts are pretty straightforward; the sun's surface sits comfortably at a blazing temperature of roughly 5,500 degrees Celsius. No problem there. However, as the heat travels from the sun's surface to the layer a few hundred miles away from its surface (known as the sun's corona), it rises to a temperature of 1,000,000 degrees Celsius. Which is 995,000 degrees Celsius, or 1,791,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or 1 billion gigawatts per 1/4 gigabyte jiggawatt hour (metric) hotter than it has any right to be.

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He's a loose cannon!

The heat source (the giant ball of nuclear explosions and plasma) should be the hottest thing, not the empty vacuum of space around it. This is the only instance in the known universe where the thing doing the heating is actually cooler than the thing it's heating.

And it's been plaguing solar physicists worldwide since they discovered the little disagreement reality has with our universe in 1939. How is it possible that the area around the sun is about 200 times hotter than its surface? It's not, according to the second law of thermodynamics and everything else we're supposed to know about how the universe works.

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Would anything this awesome-looking follow rules dreamed up by some nerds?

#5. When You Look Closely, Gravity Stops Making Sense

There's a certain order to the world. Mice get eaten by wolves, motorcyclists get demolished by 18-wheelers and gravity presides over the whole crazy parade, keeping it stuck to the ground like a boss. Understanding where forces rank compared with one another allows us to predict and explain all the different ways in which they will interact. The problem is that gravity, the one force that's involved in just about every interaction that happens here on Earth, is kind of all over the map.

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It's the functional alcoholic of forces.

When you look at it up close, gravity is decidedly on the mouse side of the hierarchy. Rub a balloon on your wool sweater (nice sweater, nerd) and pass it over a piece of paper. The tiny electromagnetic charge your sweater transferred to the balloon will lift the paper off the table, overcoming the Earth's gravitational pull. That's the same gravitational pull that tethers the moon in orbit around Earth. Up close, gravity gets its ass handed to it by a bond that's about as strong as worn-out Velcro. But over a distance of 234,000 miles, it acts like the chain on a mace being swung around the head of a planet-sized Viking.

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Gravity: It'll smash your head in and violate your women.

This is what's known as the Higgs mass hierarchy problem. Gravity has a tendency to wreak havoc on scientific hierarchies because the closer you look at it, the more likely it is to disappear. It's predictable when you take a step back and watch it yank things out of midair, but on closer inspection, it completely vanishes. In fact, at the realm of particle physics,gravity is 10 ^ 32 times weaker than the second weakest force.

The Earth's mass is 5.97 x 10 ^ 24 kilograms, which allows it to generate the supremely powerful and inescapable force that has held you on the surface of the Earth since you popped out of your mom. The fact that the stray electricity hanging out on your sweater could counteract it makes as much sense as a starving African child being able to bench-press a skyscraper.

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The second she puts a hat on, the tides will be fucked.

#4. Satellites Speed Up for No Reason

Imagine you're pushing a baby on a swing set. At a certain point his squeals of delight start to turn anxious, so you stop pushing him, muttering something about it being true what they say about babies being little cowards. Once you stop pushing the baby, instead of slowing to a stop, he starts swinging higher and higher. The baby is just sitting there, not moving, and yet he appears to be gaining momentum. Your only option is to pull out your phone and curse the Ghostbusters theme for not including a phone number, because the universe is suddenly behaving like it's been run backward through a film projector.

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The universe was slow to go digital.

This might be because you remember the law of conservation of energy, which says that energy can't be created or destroyed, just transferred. So you'll never get more energy out of something than what you started with unless you add it. Unfortunately, one of the simplest laws of physics has to have an asterisk next to it. Go down to the bottom of the page and you'll find something along the lines of "This is usually the case, but occasionally the universe gets a hankering to let an object passing by the Earth just up and gain speed for no real reason. We assume this is because someone somewhere is fucking with us."

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Reality makes so much sense if you just assume God likes to get fucked up as often as the rest of us.

It's called the flyby anomaly because there are multiple instances where NASA's Galileo, NEAR, Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 spacecraft have experienced an unexplainable increase in speed over massive distances. It's always when they're passing Earth at enough of a distance to not be affected by its gravitational pull, yet they somehow pick up speed, like some universal force is inside stepping on the accelerator.

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"Is this where we speed up for no particular reason?" "Nope, the blue one." -- Whoever's screwing with us.

The anomaly was only first noticed in 1980, and science has spent the ensuing decades trying to figure out what the hell is going on. They've accounted for every type of energy that's ever been discovered. So far, they don't even have a real theory. So we could suggest that the spacecraft are just showing off for the home crowd, and that would be as good as anything science has come up with so far.

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"Wizards. We're chalking it up to wizards."

#3. The Law of Conservation of Energy? More of a Suggestion, Really

Let's say you have a toy truck, and you angrily smash it into bits with a hammer (because you're a troubled child). You would still have the same amount of truck that you started with, just in a different form than the original. But as you lift your hammer from the pile of toy parts following your last whack, you find that they've completely disappeared from existence.

You know this can't happen because matter cannot be created or destroyed. So at the end of Terminator 2, when the T-1000 fell into the pit of molten ore, that glowing pool of lava had the T-1000's mass and atomic components swimming around in there. The same thing happens when an asteroid gets sucked into a black hole. Even though we can't see inside the black hole, we can tell matter isn't being destroyed because the mass of the black hole increases by one asteroid. This is all making good sense, and then the universe makes like the Terminator timeline and just goes nuts. This happens when the black hole just up and evaporates, leaving scientists wondering where everything that got sucked in there went.

Wikipedia Commons
Detroit?

Black holes evaporate over time, and by "evaporate" we mean "disappear from existence," along with everything it sucked in. The science behind this gets pretty complicated, but to put it as simply as possible, when black holes evaporate, they should emit a record of everything that was sucked in there written in the radiation. But according to Stephen Hawking, the black hole only gives off random heat energy.

In layman's terms: If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of getting sucked into a black hole, you disappear completely from existence, as does any evidence that you ever existed.

"And this is possible thanks to a little principal called no goddamn clue. Sorry, guys."

If they'd only thrown the T-1000 into a black hole, and the Terminators had to go back in time before that happened, he wouldn't be in that timeline. Even with time travel, the universe wouldn't know how to put him back together since the black hole that ate him disintegrated into nothing.

#2. The Particle That Knows We're Watching

If you're a sports fan, you've probably experienced the irrational belief that your team's success relies on whether or not you're watching the TV. If you're a nerd, you're probably familiar with the weeping angels from Doctor Who who never moved when being observed. Old wives have been documenting the dramatic effect observation has on whatever you're watching when they noted that "a watched pot never boils."

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Tireless research by our interns and the people who hold our interns at gunpoint has found that watched pots do, indeed, boil.

This is, of course, just the human mind finding patterns where they don't exist. To believe their eyes are controlling the outcome of the game, sports fans have to ignore the fact that they are one of thousands who probably believe the timing of their piss break is crucially important to the outcome of the game. The old wives' tale is really just a testament to how boring life used to be for married women over the age of 30. AndDoctor Who is about an ugly guy who time travels via phone booth, so it's not the height of scientific rigor. Except that the alien race of angels -- statues when you looked at them, capable of moving at incredible speeds when you weren't -- were actually based on a real, observable scientific paradox known as the Quantum Zeno effect.

Nerds 1- House wives and their football watching husbands 0.

Over the course of a day spent observing some unstable uranium, scientists in Texas noticed something strange. Uranium is unstable and decays over time in a process called radioactive decay. And when they left it alone, unwatched in the petri dish, the uranium did as it was told. But whenever they tried to watch it, the uranium just sat there not really doing anything, like a pot of water mocking an old spinster from a burning stovetop.

The second day came and the same thing happened; the uranium that should have been breaking apart like a sandcastle getting pounded by the waves of each passing second just sat there mocking them. The lab reported their findings to other labs, presumably after putting each other through rigorous psychiatric testing. And somehow, against all reason and logic, it turned out the initial experiment wasn't just everything in Texas being crazy like usual. Everyone else saw the same thing. Certain particles will never decay if you're observing them, which means that you can essentially stop time by paying attention to certain particles.

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"I'm God as long as I don't blink."

The paradox defies the law of entropy, as well as common sense, logic and we're pretty sure the Harry Potter universe. This is the equivalent of taking photos of your child so much that she doesn't age, or staring at last night's turkey dinner so that it won't go bad.

We know that certain unstable elements decay. We have evidence of it everywhere in nature. But put them under a microscope and they seize up like a dog who refuses to do the trick you taught him when the neighbor's watching. Except radioactive isotopes aren't supposed to be able to notice stuff like the giant eyeball staring at them behind that plate glass window.

So in case you ever feel like we've got the universe figured out, keep in mind that in certain conditions, the universe appears to be actively keeping secrets from us.

Stefan-Xp
Nobody move. They're watching.

#1. Einstein's Theory: Relatively Full of Crap (Also? Time Travel!)

If the universe had speed limit signs, they would all read 299,792,458 meters per second. That's the speed of light, and according to Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, this is the maximum speed that energy and matter can travel. For those of us raised on warp speed and hyperdrives, it's easy to miss just how important and concrete this law is. It's the central assumption of Einstein's theory, and pretty much everything that's been written about science for the past half-dozen decades rests on Einstein's theory being true. Back in the 1940s, the scientific community decided to take him at his word because he was on the cutting edge of modern hairstyles and usually knew what he was talking about when it came to science, and they never really looked back.

"Look at the man's mustache. Of course he's an expert."

Enter the experiment known as OPERA (Oscillation Project with three sciencey words that aren't Earned Run Average). In September of 2011, scientists at CERN (Europe's particle-physics lab near Geneva in Switzerland) shot a beam of particles 730 kilometers away to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Gran Sasso, Italy. The problem was that they showed up 60 nanoseconds early, which doesn't sound like a big margin until you understand that in order for this to happen they would have to have traveled faster than the speed of light.

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Those particles were in an awful hurry to get to a pretty boring mountain.

Come on, Italy! Didn't we just go over this -- remember Einstein? We're pretty sure Moses even included something about this in the 10 Commandments. So obviously the entire world was a little skeptical of the discovery and wanted the tests redone. So they did, and scientists worldwide shit their collective pants with each retesting of the findings: Every single rerun produced the same results.

This recent flipping of the modern physics model on its head means that faster-than-light travel is now possible. Not for you (yet), but certain particles can now travel distances that should take thousands of years to cross in seconds. The corners of the farthest galaxies are now fair game, but the most important implication of all is that because the neutrinos travel faster than light, they aren't affected by time the way everything in the visible universe is affected by time. This recent discovery has scientists at CERN toying with the notion of sending neutrino messages to their past selves. Though it's likely a long way off in the future, you did hear that correctly; time travel is now a very real and attainable possibility.

Pictured: The wild-haired man who advanced our understanding of the time space continuum, and some guy with a mustache.

Artificial Intelligence Created Using Human DNA

2011-07-28T14:32:00.000-07:00

A team at Caltech has developed an artificial neural network from human DNA molecules. Yup, we used a bit of ourselves to create artificial intelligence. I think I know how this story ends.

More seriously, the Caltech researchers used DNA molecules to build their artificial neural network (which is the beginnings of a brain) because they can act like circuits, computing data, transmitting information and processing it. Discovery explains:

Without getting too complicated, Qian and her team created four highly simplified artificial neurons in test tubes comprised of 112 strands of DNA, each strand programmed with a specific sequence of bases to interact with other strands. The interactions resulted in outputs (or not), basically mimicking the actions of neurons firing. In order to see the DNA neurons firing, the scientists attached a fluorescent molecular marker that lit up when activated.

They tested the artificial brain by quizzing it with DNA strands that hinted at an answer. Using clues from the strands, the artificial neural network answered correctly every time. Read more of this fascinating experiment at Discovery.

Facebook, Why Did You Screw Your Chat System?

2011-07-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

By now you're probably one of the 500 million people who have noticed the new Facebook chat. Which means that one or more of these three words may be in your mind: Sucks. Stupid. Facebookassclowns. Here's the lightning review:

Nothing.

No Like

Before, Facebook's chat showed only the people you wanted on the chat window. In fact, of those people, only the ones who were online showed up. Maybe it was that way because it made bloody sense. You know, so they can actually reply to you. You see someone you want to chat with. You write. They reply. We chat. In real time.

That was all good.

But the new design completely ignores the real time nature of chatting in favor of this moronic idea that chatting is actually like emailing, but shorter. Or viceversa. Whatever the hell. Which is why they merged their chat and messages into a single inbox and why they have done this to their chat system.

To Facebook this may make sense. To the users, it's just incredibly useless, counterintuitive, and it results in a total waste of space, a clusterzuck of names that doesn't serve any purpose but confuse them.

Instead of presenting you with the online people who you want to chat with, Facebook now shows a long list of people that doesn't make much sense—a list made up with whoever the bollocking hell Facebook guesses you may be interested in chatting with. And all of them show up, no matter if they are online or not. So clever!

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Let's admit that the concept of Facebook guessing who you may want to chat with could be a valid one (in practice, most of my Facebook's guesses were dumbtastically useless). Why oh why do we have to see everyone regardless of their status? They mark those who are online with a green dot, but otherwise most of the people in the list are almost never there.

But the stupidity doesn't stop there: While Facebook says that they will not show you as "available" to the people who are not in your active chat lists, they will show to you those people anyway. Why the hell do I want to see someone who is specifically excluded from seeing me online? It just doesn't make any sense.

Hopefully, they will fix this moronic user experience soon. Just add "Show only online friends" and "Show only people in xxxx list" options and everything will be fine.

Image via Reddit

Boeing Develops Anti-Gravity Propulsion

2011-07-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, has admitted it is working on experimental anti-gravity projects that could overturn a century of conventional aerospace propulsion technology if the science underpinning them can be engineered into hardware.

As part of the effort, which is being run out of Boeing’s Phantom Works advanced research and development facility in Seattle, the company is trying to solicit the services of a Russian scientist who claims he has developed anti-gravity devices in Russia and Finland. The approach, however, has been thwarted by Russian officialdom.

The Boeing drive to develop a collaborative relationship with the scientist in question, Dr Evgeny Podkletnov, has its own internal project name: ‘GRASP’ — Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion.

A GRASP briefing document obtained by JDW sets out what Boeing believes to be at stake. “If gravity modification is real,” it says, “it will alter the entire aerospace business.”

GRASP’s objective is to explore propellentless propulsion (the aerospace world’s more formal term for anti-gravity), determine the validity of Podkletnov’s work and “examine possible uses for such a technology”. Applications, the company says, could include space launch systems, artificial gravity on spacecraft, aircraft propulsion and ‘fuelless’ electricity generation — so-called ‘free energy’.

But it is also apparent that Podkletnov’s work could be engineered into a radical new weapon. The GRASP paper focuses on Podkletnov’s claims that his high-power experiments, using a device called an ‘impulse gravity generator’, are capable of producing a beam of ‘gravity-like’ energy that can exert an instantaneous force of 1,000g on any object — enough, in principle, to vaporise it, especially if the object is moving at high speed.

Podkletnov maintains that a laboratory installation in Russia has already demonstrated the 4in (10cm) wide beam’s ability to repel objects a kilometre away and that it exhibits negligible power loss at distances of up to 200km. Such a device, observers say, could be adapted for use as an anti-satellite weapon or a ballistic missile shield. Podkletnov declared that any object placed above his rapidly spinning superconducting apparatus lost up to 2% of its weight.

Although he was vilified by traditionalists who claimed that gravity-shielding was impossible under the known laws of physics, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) attempted to replicate his work in the mid-1990s. Because NASA lacked Podkletnov’s unique formula for the work, the attempt failed. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama will shortly conduct a second set of experiments using apparatus built to Podkletnov’s specifications.

Boeing recently approached Podkletnov directly, but promptly fell foul of Russian technology transfer controls (Moscow wants to stem the exodus of Russian high technology to the West).

The GRASP briefing document reveals that BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin have also contacted Podkletnov “and have some activity in this area”.

It is also possible, Boeing admits, that “classified activities in gravity modification may exist”. The paper points out that Podkletnov is strongly anti-military and will only provide assistance if the research is carried out in the ‘white world’ of open development.

What Is a Derecho? (Hint: It’s a Highly Destructive Force of Nature)

2011-07-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

You're in the middle of a midwestern field right now. You feel a warm breeze gathering. Then wall of clouds starts heading in your direction. The wind gets stronger. Then a thunderstorm comes out of nowhere.

Amazingly, the wind gets even stronger. So strong that it damages a barn in a neighboring field. These aren't the soft and fluffy clouds of fairy tales. Ladies and gentleman, it's derecho season.

A Derecho is a storm...

Derechos get their name from the Spanish word for "straight" because of the beeline path the combination wind/thunderstorm takes. They most frequently arrive in the U.S. beginning in late June and occur all the way through July. And a derecho will strike night or day—they don't discriminate.

...that occurs primarily in the central United States...

Derechos in the U.S. generally occur through out the southern Plains, the Mississippi Valley, and the Ohio Valley. Derechos have also been known to occur in Brazil, Argentina, Canada, and even Germany.

...has the power to crumple buildings...

Derechos can reach speeds up to 130mph and are at least 240 miles long. They can also travel hundreds of miles in a given direction. Most recently, a derecho struck in Marshalltown, IA, where it battered down the top of a grain silo (see above). That same derecho also moved through Indiana, Illinois and Ohio, with winds reaching speeds up to 80mph. Barns and mobile homes are frequent structural victims of derecho storms.

...was first documented 134 years ago...

The derecho was first documented in Iowa City by chemist and physical scientist Gustavus Hinrichs on July 31, 1877, though he did not formally use the term until 1883.

...and plays nice with other threatening weather systems.

In case you're wondering, derechos and tornadoes can happen at the same time for double the disaster. There are even "super derechos" which can cause damage independent from the main wall of clouds.

How Much Would It Cost To Build A Real Iron Man Suit?

2011-06-10T18:10:00.000-07:00

Iron Man's suit isn't as science fictional as you might think. Most of its components exist right now in research and development labs. What would it cost Tony Stark today to put them together and become superhuman?

Helmet-mounted display
Tony controls his Iron Man suit via a sophisticated helmet-mounted display that is voice-activated. It could easily be compared to helmet-mounted displays currently under development for fighter jets like the F-35. Fighter pilots use these displays to guide their aircraft the way Tony guides his suit. Last year, the companies developing F-35 HMDs announced they would be creating these helmets with a development budget of $54.1 million.

Development cost for a typical HMD for a fighter jet: $54.1 million

Exoskeleton
Tony's suit is essentially an exoskeleton that gives Iron Man his super strength and maneuverability. Several companies and labs, including those at Raytheon and UC Berkeley, are developing exoskeletons like Tony's that give the wearer additional strength. They are usually designed for soldiers carrying heavy packs, or for disabled people as a replacement for wheelchairs and canes. Possibly the closest to Tony's suit is Raytheon's XOS exoskeleton, which allows the person wearing it to lift 200 lbs. as if they were nothing.

Cost to develop one XOS exoskeleton: $10 million

Portable nuclear power source
Tony's nuke heart can be compared to the energy source in the new Martian rover Curiosity, a nuclear generator called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), which will power its large robotic body and lab for years with a small nuclear power source. While the MMRTG with its 10 pounds of plutonium dioxide is bigger than Tony's fist-sized heart, its components are similar enough that we'll make the comparison.

Cost of one MMRTG (according to NASA estimates [PDF]): $36 million

Jet packs
Constructed inside Tony's boots are jets that allow him to fly and hover. While jet packs don't work particularly well, we've seen a few recent successes. Yves Rossy, pictured above, has actually piloted his own jet pack across the English Channel. And there are a few companies selling strap-on jet packs similar to equipment Tony has in his suit. In fact, Jet Pack International will sell you a strap-on jet pack that could potentially be modified to fit inside Tony's boots.

Cost of two jet packs from JetPack (one for each boot): $400,000

Wearable computers
Tony's suit is operated by wearable computers that are wired into each body part and controlled from the HMD. Lucky for Tony, wearable computers are pretty cheap. Basically you just take an awesome computer and fit its components into cases that fit into your exoskeleton. Let's assume he wants a few computers, some awesome antennae so he can store shit in the cloud, a few ARM processors, really good hard drives. And let's have him run QNX because that's how Tony rolls. But other than that we're just talking about a really kickass set of secure computers with specialized cases. Sort of like the kinds of wearables that MIT students (like the one above) have been developing for years.

Estimated cost for wearable computers: $20,000

So, what's the final price tag? $100,420,000

To put that in perspective, the cost of the F-35 fighter plane is estimated at $95 to $113 million. So this suit might easily fit in today's military budgets.

Is Apple Phasing Out The iPod Brand?

2011-06-10T12:35:00.001-07:00

It's been more than a decade since the iPod was first launched. The device was drove huge growth at the company, and was pretty much what made the iPhone and iPad possible.

The irony here is that these smarter mobile phones has made listening to music a minor a function of your phone, meaning a separate device like the iPod has become pretty much obsolete.

A look through Apple's new upcoming iOS 5 software for iPhones appears to have one notable subtraction: The music app is no longer called "iPod" — it's just called "Music." There's also a separate app for "Video," as on the iPad and iPod touch.

One theory is that Apple is trying to unify the experience across all of its iOS devices, making it simpler and less confusing. But it's also an indication that Apple is starting the inevitable wind-down of the iPod brand.

This fact might seem bittersweet to some, but Apple Inc. has always thrived on developing new things, so phasing out the iPod is just another way for the company to move forward.

How to Upgrade to iOS 5 Today, Without Any Developer Account

2011-06-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone can do it following these extremely simple instructions:

The method exploits a security flaw in the activation screen, apparently related to the Voice Over system. Here's how to do it.

Warning: While this operation should be simple and inconsequential, we are not responsible for what you do to your iPhone. Proceed at your own risk.

Download and install iOS 5

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1. Download the iOS 5 IPSW file from the web (it's easy and readily available. Just Google it and torrent it down).
2. Update your iPhone using iTunes. To do this, connect your iPhone to your computer, click on the Check for Update button with theOption (Mac) or Shift (PC) key pressed. Select the iOS 5 IPSW file from the place you downloaded it to.
3. Wait until it upgrades. A new activation screen will appear.

Activate iOS 5

1. Triple click the home button. This will activate the Voice Over.
2. Triple click the home button and Emergency Call will appear.
3. Click on Emergency Call and, while it's switching, swipe with your three fingers down.
4. The Notification Center will appear!
5. Click on the Weather widget. The Weather app will load.
6. Click on the home button to exit to the iPhone's springboard.

That's it. Your iPhone is activated and fully operative. Enjoy and thank Mert Erdir for this clever link. He has this words to say:

My will is not to do something harmful to anyone, I just wanted to get the attention of Apple, the company I'm in love with; and maybe one day have a chance to talk to/meet Steve Jobs himself. You can reach me on Twitter for further questions.
I found this because I don't have much cash to get an IOS Developer account, so donations for a young developer will be appreciated. They can be made on my blog(not in english). You'll see the PayPal donate button on the right. Thanks!

So send the kid some dollars so he can become a pro developer. With his patience and creativity finding this iOS 5 backdoor, I'm sure he will do a great job.

EDIT

STEP 1: Install iTunes 10.5 beta from direct link here. [Mac - Windows 32 bit - Windows 64 bit]

Download iOS 5 .IPSW beta 1:

iPad 1G
iPad 2 (Wi-Fi, GSM, CDMA)
iPhone 3GS
iPhone 4 (GSM, CDMA) *GSM is for AT&T and CDMA is for Verizon*
iPod 3G
iPod 4G

STEP 3: Now open iTunes that you downloaded above and restore using your firmware.