# Recent Events Beyond Earth



## Wysiwyg (9 May 2007)

This thread is for any pictures or articles on universal events. I have an article on a supernova to start it. With a link to the site. 

http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/57291.html

"The death of a star in a galaxy some 240 million light years away produced the brightest supernova ever viewed. The star is thought to have been massive -- more than 100 times the weight of our own sun. The first generation of stars were similarly massive, astronomers believe, so this new supernova may provide a rare glimpse at how the first stars died".

I was thinking that as the earths sun reduces in mass then we would be drawn closer. The forces keeping all the stars moons suns etc. the same distance apart are massive hey.


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## tech/a (10 May 2007)

The vastness of space and the concept of time (As we have invented) is well demonstrated in this enormous event.

What science veiwed was an event 240 million years old.

Infact possibly much more.
As the universe is expanding at a rate nearing the speed of light,it is possible that the event could have happened in a galaxy actually moving away from our galaxy. If so this event could have occured Billions of years ago.

Kinda makes you feel in significant really.


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## disarray (10 May 2007)

astronomers seem to think this kind of supermassive supernova is the type responsible for seeding the universe with all the heavier elements. all the carbon, iron and what have you in your body was originally created in a star and seeded to the universe in explosions like this one. i'll just reiterate this bit - the heavy matter that makes up your body was created in a star billions of years ago.

usually supernovas only blow the top layer of material off a star, while the dense core compacts into a neutron star or collapses into a black hole. however this one is rare in that it not only blew off the top layers, it blew the entire core apart spraying gobs of superheated matter into the galaxy surrounding it. these gobs of matter, over time, then go on to form other stellar bodies.

when our sun turns into a red giant in a few billion years we will actually drift further away from the sun, because as the sun loses mass by burning its fuel, the gravity holding the earth to its orbit becomes weaker, so we drift further and further out. gravity is a by product of mass, the suns mass is made up of hydrogen, and as the sun burns hydrogen it loses mass. therefore its gravity becomes weaker over time. however as the sun becomes a red giant it expands and will swallow the orbits of mercury and venus, and possibly earth so its the same outcome as drifting closer, just  a different mechanism 

if you want to see something that will really bake your noodle, watch this animation on the 10 dimensions.

http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php


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## spooly74 (11 May 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> The death of a star in a galaxy some 240 million light years away produced the brightest supernova ever viewed.
> The star is thought to have been massive -- more than 100 times the weight of our own sun.




Must have been one of these big fellas


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## Boyou (11 May 2007)

What an amazing way to show the scale of our Universe! Not even Tech's charts are that convincing!

I am utterly gobsmackered..........

Cheers Y'all


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## Wysiwyg (19 May 2007)

disarray said:


> when our sun turns into a red giant in a few billion years we will actually drift further away from the sun, because as the sun loses mass by burning its fuel, the gravity holding the earth to its orbit becomes weaker, so we drift further and further out. gravity is a by product of mass, the suns mass is made up of hydrogen, and as the sun burns hydrogen it loses mass. therefore its gravity becomes weaker over time. however as the sun becomes a red giant it expands and will swallow the orbits of mercury and venus, and possibly earth so its the same outcome as drifting closer, just  a different mechanism
> http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php




Hi dissaray...You may very well be correct on the distance between earth and sun becoming closer.My reasoning is : with the suns mass becoming less there would be less resistance between the two masses.I don`t know if mass attraction/resistance works like magnetism, north and south poles.

Anyway your theory could be right.Except that if you look at the information below it shows that a greater mass does not mean a closer planet to the sun.For instance pluto (which is officially no longer a planet and now there are 8 planets in the solar system) has less mass than mars but is much further away.So I don`t what determines the distance from the sun of the planets.I think that all the other `celestial bodies` influence each other so that would probably account for the differences there.

Anyway as I was saying my thought were along the lines of less resistance (like magnetism) between the Sun and Earth would bring the two closer but I might be misinterpreting *what gravity is*.Maybe the distance will stay the same but the gravitational force on the Earth will change.The event has never happened so I suppose we won`t know until it does (certainly not a change in a life time).

Name........Orbits........Distance....Radius....Mass
...............................(000 km)......(km).....(kg)

Sun.........................................697000...1.99e30
Jupiter........Sun...........778000......71492...1.90e27
Saturn........Sun.........1429000......60268...5.69e26
Uranus........Sun.........2870990......25559...8.69e25 *
Neptune......Sun.........4504300......24764...1.02e26 *
Earth..........Sun...........149600.......6378...5.98e24
Venus.........Sun...........108200.......6052...4.87e24
Mars...........Sun...........227940.......3398...6.42e23


O.K. back on thread...Here is a deep field picture of other galaxies from the hubble telescope (coupla years old I think).This picture they say is like looking through a eight foot long straw.So a pinhole picture. Is there life out there hmmmmmmmmmmmm  ...

ABOUT THIS IMAGE:
Galaxies, galaxies everywhere - as far as NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can see. This view of nearly 10,000 galaxies is the deepest visible-light image of the cosmos. Called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years. 

The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colors. The smallest, reddest galaxies, about 100, may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 billion years ago, when the cosmos was 13 billion years old. 

In vibrant contrast to the rich harvest of classic spiral and elliptical galaxies, there is a zoo of oddball galaxies littering the field. Some look like toothpicks; others like links on a bracelet. A few appear to be interacting. These oddball galaxies chronicle a period when the universe was younger and more chaotic. Order and structure were just beginning to emerge. 

The Ultra Deep Field observations, taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, represent a narrow, deep view of the cosmos. Peering into the Ultra Deep Field is like looking through an eight-foot-long soda straw.


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## Wysiwyg (19 May 2007)

Sorry , I left out ...

Name..........Orbits......Distance...Radius.......Mass

Mercury.......Sun.........57910.......2439...3.30e23 
Pluto...........Sun......5913520.......1160...1.32e22



P.s....I can just imagine how different life would have (or is   ) evolving elsewhere in the universe.:silly:


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## 2020hindsight (19 May 2007)

Anyone know how they know it's 240 million light years away 
(clever dudes)
I guess just becos it doesn't fit into the scheme of things any closer than that  
PS speed of light unchanged - red shift determines speed etc


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## greggy (19 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Anyone know how they know it's 240 million light years away
> (clever dudes)
> I guess just becos it doesn't fit into the scheme of things any closer than that
> PS speed of light unchanged - red shift determines speed etc




Hi 2020hindsight,

I often wonder about the universe as to how many planerts there are out there waiting to be discovered.  I imagine that within the next century or so there may well be another 20 planets or so discovered.


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## 2020hindsight (19 May 2007)

greggy said:


> Hi 2020hindsight,
> 
> I often wonder about the universe as to how many planerts there are out there waiting to be discovered.  I imagine that within the next century or so there may well be another 20 planets or so discovered.




Greggy,
I reckon that if you bet only 20 planets (of distant stars) that's a real safe bet 
Think I've found how they measure distance - good enough it seems to just use red shift.  , i.e. the big bang expansion is so well quantified  that they measure distance by the speed at which the object is moving away from us ( making things appear a fraction redder) etc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift


> For galaxies more distant than the Local Group and the nearby Virgo Cluster, but within a thousand megaparsecs or so, *the redshift is approximately proportional to the galaxy's distance*. This correlation was first observed by Edwin Hubble and has come to be *known as Hubble's law*. Vesto Slipher was the first to discover galactic redshifts, in about the year 1912, while Hubble correlated Slipher's measurements with distances he measured by other means to formulate his Law. In the widely accepted cosmological model based on general relativity, redshift is mainly a result of the expansion of space: this means that the farther away a galaxy is from us, the more the space has expanded in the time since the light left that galaxy, so the more the light has been stretched, the more redshifted the light is, and so the faster it appears to be moving away from us. Hubble's law follows in part from the Copernican principle.[49] *Because it is usually not known how luminous objects are, measuring the redshift is easier than more direct distance measurements, so redshift is sometimes in practice converted to a crude distance measurement using Hubble's law*



. 
But please prove this assumption wrong if you know better 



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder With few exceptions, fundamental distances are available only out to about a thousand parsecs, which is a modest portion of our own Galaxy. For distances beyond that, measures depend upon physical assumptions, that is, the assertion that one recognizes the object in question, and the class of objects is homogeneous enough that its members can be used for meaningful estimation of distance.
> 
> Almost all of these physical distance indicators are standard candles. These rely upon recognizing an object as belonging to some class, which has some known absolute magnitude, measuring its apparent magnitude, and using the inverse square law to infer the distance needed to make the "candle" appear at its observed brightness. Some means of accounting for interstellar extinction, which also makes objects appear fainter, is also needed. The difference between absolute and apparent magnitudes is called the distance modulus, and astronomical distances, especially intergalactic ones, are sometimes tabulated in this way.
> 
> ...



then there are calibrations like "red clump" (apparently) - gee I love wikipedia lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_clump


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## greggy (19 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Greggy,
> I reckon that if you bet only 20 planets (of distant stars) that's a real safe bet
> Think I've found how they measure distance - good enough it seems to just use red shift.  , i.e. the big bang expansion is well quantified  that they measure distance by the speed at which the object is moving awat fromus ( making things appear a fraction redder) etc
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift
> ...



It was basically a rough guess (20 planets).  I don't have a scientific background )I only studied economics, politics and history at uni), but have always wondered what else is out there.


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## Wysiwyg (19 May 2007)

> Anyone know how they know it's 240 million light years away
> (clever dudes)
> I guess just becos it doesn't fit into the scheme of things any closer than that
> PS speed of light unchanged - red shift determines speed etc.




Don`t know for sure but probably a reflective thing , going on the speed of light.. 

Wik says that light travels at  1,079,252,848.8 km/h , which if multiplied by 8760 (the number of hours in a standard year) would mean that light would travel 9,454,254,955,488 kilometres in an earth year. 

So knowing this we can calculate that 240 million light years is about (give or take a few metres) 2,269,021,189,317,120,000,000 km. away.This is not difficult to understand.A drive to your local shopping centre will help you understand these things.Good luck. 

In reality I`m sure these years are approximations , the images are historical so what is happening now we won`t know for a long time , the further away they are.


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## Happy (19 May 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> Don`t know for sure but probably a reflective thing , going on the speed of light..
> 
> Wik says that light travels at  1,079,252,848.8 km/h , which if multiplied by 8760 (the number of hours in a standard year) would mean that light would travel 9,454,254,955,488 kilometres in an earth year.
> 
> ...






All real, yet trivial and impractical, until we manage to travel with speed of million times the speed of light.


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## 2020hindsight (19 May 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> Don`t know for sure but probably a reflective thing , going on the speed of light..
> ...In reality I`m sure these years are approximations , the images are historical so what is happening now we won`t know for a long time , the further away they are.



Yep - here's an old post from "homework" thread. 300,000 km/sec (as measured way back when 1670 or some such - incredible in itself).  PS the moon is a bit over a light second away. 


> during the 1670's, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer was making extremely careful observations of Jupiter's moon Io. Roemer was able to calculate a value for the speed of light. The number he came up with was about 186,000 miles per second, or 300,000 kilometers per second.



and given that light travels at same speed towards us as away from us, (as I understand it) - give or take our respective velocities since - (let's assume we are each moving apart at similar speeds)- they would be simultaneously seeing us (approx) I guess for the first time - in whatever state we were in 240 million years ago. - in fact if they had a telescope they'd see some early Triassic dinasaurs, and first mammals and crocodiles - and modern coral - insects etc    (fun to imagine these things isn't it 

Trouble is they were pretty well fried up 240 mill years ago, so only if they'd been wearing asbestos suits then and since etc. 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=141008&highlight=300,000#post141008 speed of light notes on "internet resources for kids" thread

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_timescale


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## 2020hindsight (19 May 2007)

PS As for images being historical, whenever I look at the missus I pretend that the light reaching me left her 30 years ago -  gee she looks good


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## 2020hindsight (20 May 2007)

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=436
interesting website on astrological matters  - ripper in fact
think of a question - they'll have the answer (pretty much)  

links to NASA as well (where these maps come from) - amazing, but they defy understanding lol, but it's also amazing that anyone understands them 
"clues to the first thillionth of a second of the universe of big bamg  etc"  
(yep I lie awake all night thinking of that one ...)
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm.html


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## 2020hindsight (20 May 2007)

Wysiwyg 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_2006gy also discusses your SN 2006gy supernova explosion.
Note the reference to much closer one (and similar size) which will potentially be visible even ny daylight on Earth - may cause radiation probs etc

" if Eta Carinæ exploded in a similar fashion, it would be bright enough that one could read by its light here on Earth nights, and would even be visible during the day time."


> Although the SN 2006gy supernova is intrinsically about ten times as luminous than SN 1987A, which was bright enough to be seen by the naked eye, SN 2006gy was more than 1,400 times as far away as SN 1987A, and too far away to be seen without a telescope.[7]
> 
> Light curve of SN 2006gy (uppermost intermittent squares) compared with other types of supernovae.
> 
> Similarity to Eta Carinæ.  Eta Carinæ (η Carinæ or η Car) is a highly luminous hypergiant star located approximately 7,500 light years from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy. Since Eta Carinæ is 32,000 times closer than SN2006gy, the light from it will be almost a billion-fold brighter. It is estimated to be similar in size to the star which became SN2006gy. Dave Pooley, one of the discoverers of SN2006gy, says that* if Eta Carinæ exploded in a similar fashion, it would be bright enough that one could read by its light here on Earth nights, and would even be visible during the day time.* SN2006gy's Apparent magnitude (m) is 15,[1] so a similar event at Eta Carinæ will have an m of about -7.5. According to astrophysicist Mario Livio, *this could happen at any time, but the risk to life on Earth would be low*.[8]



Likewise NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/chandra_bright_supernova.html
This largely mimics what you said in post #1 :-   


> Astronomers think many of the first generation of stars were this massive, and this new supernova may thus provide a rare glimpse of how the first stars died. It is unprecedented, however, to find such a massive star and witness its death. The discovery of the supernova, known as SN 2006gy, provides evidence that the death of such massive stars is fundamentally different from theoretical predictions.
> 
> "*Of all exploding stars ever observed, this was the king,*" said Alex Filippenko, leader of the ground-based observations at the Lick Observatory at Mt. Hamilton, Calif., and the Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii. "We were *astonished to see how bright it got, and how long it lasted*."




PS the photo in post #1 is strictly artists impression (apparently)- if we could have got up close - but this website has others:-
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/sn2006gy/


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## 2020hindsight (20 May 2007)

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/sn2006gy/animations.html#sn2006gy_anim
first and second photos from artists impression animation 
third and fourth from what was actually observed


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## kel (20 May 2007)

Hope this works some old pictures of some gas clouds
Recently read "the elegant universe" I don't know how those quantum physicists sleep at night its all a little weird for me.How can time not be a constant? The book had an example of how if you sat just outside of the event horizon of a black hole that time is warped so much that a year there would take the same time as 100 years here


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## chops_a_must (20 May 2007)

kel said:


> *How can time not be a constant?* The book had an example of how if you sat just outside of the event horizon of a black hole that time is warped so much that a year there would take the same time as 100 years here



Quite easily.

Heidegger explained time as a 4 dimensional (from memory) thing, that is in reality of a spiral in nature, but perceived as linear.

Time cannot be a constant because it is observed differently by the subjects themselves. This can be seen in coma survivors, people's perceptions whilst on drugs and even the effects adrenalin has on various people (paricularly slow motion like effects).

It is entirely possible this accounts for people's "near death experiences" or even differences in people's intelligence.


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## 2020hindsight (20 May 2007)

chops_a_must said:


> Quite easily.
> 
> Heidegger explained time as a 4 dimensional (from memory) thing, that is in reality of a spiral in nature, but perceived as linear.



mmm quite easily you say chops...
I think i missed something - maybe I picked the wrong week to give up amphetamines  (or was it barbituates)

Incidentally, you read that when two twins are born, and one goes on a trip at speed of light , and returns , then ( the myth goes) when he lands, he is young and his brother old.
However, I think the truth is that, were he to fly past at speed of light , he might be younger (by a few seconds, whatever ) , but in the process of slowing the rocket down and landing, he would arrive at exactly the say age as his twin .  

then again there's that quote by Einstein concerning relativity of (perceived) time  
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours - that's relativity." 

Black holes are hard to imagine for me.  I mean teaspoonfuls weigh in the tons .  that's crazy!

And I just posted a graph back there where a 74% of the universe is 74% "dark energy" , lol - sounds like Darth Vader won after all - maybe it happens in Star Wars  XXVIII -  the one that only those who can negotiate time warps get to see.  - May the "energy" be with you mate.


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## 2020hindsight (20 May 2007)

PS that graph about 74% "dark energy" and 22% "dark matter" - 
the dark energy incidentally has the effect of anti gravity   - was from a NASA web site , - and presumably they know what they're talking about ?
well you'd like to think so ?
wouldn't you?
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_mm.html


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## ghotib (20 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=436
> interesting website on astrological matters  - ripper in fact
> think of a question - they'll have the answer (pretty much)




Great site hind sight, thank you. And thank you for deliberately mis-labelling it as astrological when you really mean astronomical. Hate you to think nobody noticed <gdr>

Ghoti


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## 2020hindsight (21 May 2007)

ghotib said:


> Great site hind sight, thank you. And thank you for deliberately mis-labelling it as astrological when you really mean astronomical. Hate you to think nobody noticed <gdr>Ghoti



thanks Ghoti, 
I cannot tell a lie, it was a Freudian slip -  it's the difference between astronomical and astro-illogical, I guess 

But interesting yes?, I had always read that things cannot travel at speed of light - and they agree (under some circumstances) but then go on to discuss it's possibility ( under other circumstances)

Only things with no mass can do speed of light ( as I thought) because they would otherwise have mass increasing as they approached c, with infinite mass at c. 

Of course one easy thing to consider is that each party - observer and observed, is doing c/2 so that the relative speed was c, hence you could claim that the universe is expanding at (relative) speeds greater than c,

but they go on to discuss things actually exceeding c themselves   - at which point no light is given off forwards? backwards? - I 'll research it at liesure


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## disarray (21 May 2007)

the speed of light has been broken several times in the laboratory, both in the conventional sense (with the peak energy travelling ftl while the entire pulse trails at c) and in the quantum sense (a recent experiment where they fired a photon into a cloud of cesium gas and it arrived at the sensor before it left)

this ties in with quantum "spin" theories and all sorts of goodness. as far as practical applications go we won't ever be travelling faster than light literally, however bending space and time is certainly feasible and is the current focus of physicists who are working in this field.

when CERN's large hadron reactor comes online we'll be seeing some spectacular insights into the nature of the universe. they intend to create black holes, measure singularities and get right inside the guts of the quantum universe. john titor's future may yet come true : 

there are fears about potential doomsday scenarios triggered by these experiments, and were also voiced at the creation of the atomic bomb (enrico fermi took bets at the trinity site whether the first a-bomb would ignite the atmosphere and annihilate new mexico). some of these fears include triggering a lower vacuum state, a black hole eating the planet or the formation of "strangelets" which convert ordinary matter to strange matter. it's an exciting time to be alive.


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## 2020hindsight (21 May 2007)

disarray said:


> the speed of light has been broken several times in the laboratory, both in the conventional sense (with the peak energy travelling ftl while the entire pulse trails at c) .........



Disarray, thanks
I'd appreciate any references on the web , or any suggested further reading 

btw (by the way), what does "ftl " mean?   

Like suppose a train went past your left ear at 1.1c, then the light would reach you first when it was close, then later when it was further away , etc - i.e. it would appear to go backwards.

I mean if you said "ftw", then I'd guess you meant "wtf" just blipped past travelling at 1.1c 
But I can't guess what "ftl" means.  

PS you'll agree that photons have no mass. 
I was also trying to understand that website suggesting that matter with mass could get to those speeds.(?)  

PS are you saying that parts of the pulse travel at just greater than c whilst others travel at less, so that the mean travels at c ? (or some such). 
And presumably they are achieving something closer to 1.01c than 1.05c for instance - i.e. only just greater than c (?).


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## Wysiwyg (21 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Disarray, thanks
> I'd appreciate any references on the web , or any suggested further reading
> 
> btw (by the way), what does "ftl " mean?(?).




I`m not in disarray though I (with full sarcastic intent) think that "ftl" means *F*ollow *T*he *L*eader.lollywolly.


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## spooly74 (21 May 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> I`m not in disarray though I (with full sarcastic intent) think that "ftl" means *F*ollow *T*he *L*eader.lollywolly.




LOL but I`m pretty sure it`s Faster than light!

Here is something else you might enjoy 2020 et all.

A little look into the strange world of Quantum Physics ...but don`t let it know you are watching


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## Broadside (21 May 2007)

disarray said:


> astronomers seem to think this kind of supermassive supernova is the type responsible for seeding the universe with all the heavier elements. all the carbon, iron and what have you in your body was originally created in a star and seeded to the universe in explosions like this one. i'll just reiterate this bit - the heavy matter that makes up your body was created in a star billions of years ago.
> 
> usually supernovas only blow the top layer of material off a star, while the dense core compacts into a neutron star or collapses into a black hole. however this one is rare in that it not only blew off the top layers, it blew the entire core apart spraying gobs of superheated matter into the galaxy surrounding it. these gobs of matter, over time, then go on to form other stellar bodies.
> 
> ...




Anyone want to join me in a WA start up, let's mine this mother of all supernovas, all those heavy metals have to be worth a packet at current spot prices??


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## 2020hindsight (21 May 2007)

Broadside said:


> ...let's mine this mother of all supernovas, all those heavy metals have to be worth a packet at current spot prices??



Or you could take up "mining" like of the Macquarie Bank directors .... 

"this is mine, that's mine, and pretty soon all that will be mine as well"


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## 2020hindsight (21 May 2007)

spooly74 said:


> LOL but I`m pretty sure it`s Faster than light!
> Here is something else you might enjoy 2020 et all.



doh  
btw , when it comes to diffraction patterns - ever noticed those bumper stickers that can have a number of (absolutely brilliant) colour patterns 
To hell with waiting for raindrops - we can now make our own rainbows.


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## Wysiwyg (21 May 2007)

spooly74 said:


> LOL but I`m pretty sure it`s Faster than light!
> 
> Here is something else you might enjoy 2020 et all.
> 
> A little look into the strange world of Quantum Physics ...but don`t let it know you are watching





Very good...thanks spooly47...O.K.  but from my simplistic views.
The end result will ALWAYS be the same, under the test situation.How can the OBSERVATION change this.Only with the understanding and interpretation  of the event.Like beauty , measurement is in the eye of the beholder.
Your input is valuable ...thanks.


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## disarray (21 May 2007)

heh sorry, as spooly said its Faster Than Light. i've been watching too much BattleStar Galactica 

watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbRGyowv28o&mode=related&search=  for an excellent 3 minute space battle.

for the large hadron collider -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider 

for ways it can destroy the earth and / or universe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider#Safety_concerns

for faster than light observations and experiments -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#.22Faster-than-light.22_observations_and_experiments

wikipedia and google ftw! (for the win!)


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## aaronphetamine (22 May 2007)

I want you people to think about this scenario :

If you are driving a car at 60km per hour and you turn on the head lights does that mean that the light being emitted from those headlights is going the speed of light (c) plus 60km per hour ?

and this one ; 

If you are in a train that is going 80km per hour and you walk from the back of the carriage to the front at a speed of 3km per hour, does that mean you are travelling at a speed of 83km per hour ?

If so ;

Then if i am in a craft travelling the speed of light and i walk from the back to the front and i going a few km per hour faster than the speed of light ?


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## spooly74 (22 May 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> Very good...thanks spooly47...O.K.  but from my simplistic views.
> The end result will ALWAYS be the same, under the test situation.How can the OBSERVATION change this.Only with the understanding and interpretation  of the event.Like beauty , measurement is in the eye of the beholder.
> Your input is valuable ...thanks.





There are a few things in that clip I`m not that happy about and one is certainly that the 'observation collapsed the wavelength', but it`s a nice animation to get the noodle working.

I would completly ignore the following 


> the electron decided to act differently as if it was aware it was being watched




For me (and I guess you too) it`s not the observation that affects the outcome, it's the measurement. 
If you want to see it, you have to bounce a particle of light off of it, which which causes it to stop behaving like a wave, and act like a particle......it's not like the electron actually knows anything.
However, there are a lot of other views/thoughts on this experiment throughout the years......

Here is one which Einstein was fond of


> Schroedinger's Cat
> 
> A cat is placed in a box, together with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter and some acid.
> If the atom decays, and the geiger-counter detects an alpha particle, then a relay releases a hammer and hits a flask of acid, killing the cat.
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (22 May 2007)

aaronphetamine said:


> 1.If you are driving a car at 60km per hour and you turn on the head lights does that mean that the light being emitted from those headlights is going the speed of light (c) plus 60km per hour ?
> 2.If you are in a train that is going 80km per hour and you walk from the back of the carriage to the front at a speed of 3km per hour, does that mean you are travelling at a speed of 83km per hour ?
> 3.Then if i am in a craft travelling the speed of light and i walk from the back to the front and i going a few km per hour faster than the speed of light ?



1. nope
2. yep
3. nope 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M97WgCkK6k4&NR=1 Kent Hovind vs. Carl Sagan and the speed of light

Incidentally, I posted this elsewhere :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=157024&highlight=hovind#post157024

aaronph..  (here's my simplistic view - I'm ignoring the Doctor Who fans and Battle Star Gallactica high compression orgasmatrons etc ) 
speed of light is constant (fastest in vacuum).  When approaching, the waves get compressed, (blue shift) and when leaving you get red shift.

Maybe think of sound first - when train is approaching (doppler effect) it's sound is higher, when leaving, lower.  That gets affected by wind. but irrelevant for light (as I understand it - again simplistic).

Now with light , maybe think of a block of jelly that you moulded in say a swimming pool, with a wave pattern on top surface (being the light emitted).   While travelling the length of the pool, there might be 1000 waves say which represents 0.001 secs say. (I'm not being accuracte with these numbers btw - who cares how long this pool is ).  Then the light that passes the far end of the pool will be that chain of waves, 1000 in 0.001 secs.

Now let the source of light ( one end of the pool) move forward in that time by a distance of say 2 of those wavelengths, now you have 1000 compressed waves  
in 0.001 x 998/1000 secs, (oops), - the chain of waves will take less time to pass 
which represents an increase in frequency. (decrease in wavelength).  Hence blue shift.

Likewise ( as in the universe) travelling away gives red shift .


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## 2020hindsight (22 May 2007)

PS - as the speed increases so too the wavelength on the surface of the jelly decreases...
and when you get to speed of light, c,  all sorts of sh*t happens!  maybe the jelly turns to water cos it's vibrating so fast? - maybe it gets so blue it turns into an X ray, then a Y ray , then a Z ray , then falls off the end of the alphabet ?)  - don't ask me what lol - mass becomes infinite, and all sorts of other difficult-to-comprehend things happen  etc : 1onecent

PS If you ever try this experiment in your own swimming pool at home, make sure you use red jelly, because that will give you more room to work with.   ........................ ..................:. ........... .... 

PS you could also try throwing a handful of jelly into Lake Burleigh Griffin for instance.   
PS before you do that , maybe other people can explain it better.  -or maybe google it  :  )
This one has some good stuff (as posted previously)
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=436

This one has the full spectrum of electomagnetic wavelengths/frequencies  (radio through to gamma waves etc)
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/light/spectrum.html


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## 2020hindsight (22 May 2007)

electromagnetic sprectrum (deadly simple, sorry, but fancy theories are just a collection of simple theorems and stuff) :-


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## spooly74 (22 May 2007)

The Most Important Image Ever Taken

This clip get hijacked at the 5.10 min mark for about 20 seconds


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## BIG BWACULL (2 June 2007)

Jupiters moon pic from THE AUSTRALIAN


> An image of Jupiter's moon  as seen by the New Horizons spacecraft. A plume can be seen at the top of the planet. Small moons are acting as shepherds using their gravity to herd dust and boulders in Jupiter's faint rings


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## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

BIG BWACULL said:


> Jupiters moon pic from THE AUSTRALIAN



Bwacull, as i understand it, that view of Jupiters moons is pretty much how Roemer measured the speed of light, way back in the 17th century. 

I take my hat off to him   - how the hell do you use that image to measure the speed of light    :- 



> Quite by accident an astronomical method presented itself not too many years after Galileo's futile attempt, and, ironically, one of Galileo's earlydiscoveries in astronomy made the oportunity possible.
> 
> Galileo had bult a telescope, one of the first made , with which in 1610 he discovered the first 4 of Jupiers moons.  (now up to about 28 known satellites and 12 more being checked out etc) .  Like our own moon, each of them travels in an orbit around the planet, each to its own uniform amount of time called a period.
> 
> ...



( see enclosed jpeg - and read it , basically the diameter of the earths orbit is 1000 light seconds across- hence the difference between the first moon when observed at B was 1000 secs later than it should be). 


> The only logical conclusion Roemer could draw was that this additional time represented the time to took for light from Jupiters moon to travel the extra distance across the diameter of earth's orbit .  At that time the diameter of earths orbit was beleived to be about 172 million miles, instead of the correct 186 million miles, so that Roemer's data produced too low a value for the velocity.  However Roemer's method is remembered as the first successful determination of the velocity of light.



Then I found this on the many moons etc :- (I'm strictly an amateur at this stuff )
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/jupiter.htm


> Jupiter possesses 28 known satellites, four of which - Callisto, Europa, Ganymede and Io - were observed by Galileo as long ago as 1610. Another 12 satellites have been recently discovered and given provisional designators until they are officially confirmed and named. There is a ring system, but it is very faint and is totally invisible from the Earth. (The rings were discovered in 1979 by Voyager 1.) The atmosphere is very deep, perhaps comprising the whole planet, and is somewhat like the Sun. It is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, with small amounts of methane, ammonia, water vapor and other compounds. At great depths within Jupiter, the pressure is so great that the hydrogen atoms are broken up and the electrons are freed so that the resulting atoms consist of bare protons. This produces a state in which the hydrogen becomes metallic.
> Colorful latitudinal bands, atmospheric clouds and storms illustrate Jupiter's dynamic weather systems.
> 
> etcetc
> If Jupiter was hollow 1000 earths could fit inside etc





> *Then felt I like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken*. - John Keats




*Ps the light reaching us from the sun is obviously about half that 1000 seconds old = 500 secs , call it 8 mins old.  
i.e. when you see the sun rise, it actually rose 6 minutes ago *likewise the moon - but that's only one light-second away, hence only 1 second ahead of its image.  : 2twocents


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## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

Bwacull, 
since :-
a) jupiter's atmosphere is mainly hydrogen and helium 
b) their day is only about 11 hours
c) they have up to 40 moons
d) their year is about 11.8 of our years
e) the get a ready made weather map when they send up a satellite

then 
1. if anyone lives there, they probably talk with chipmonk voices
2. if you go visit em, don't bother taking them any balloons because they probably won't work too well
3. no need for computers to calculate their weather maps  ... " and here is tonight's weather map  - yes cyclone tracy is still going strong 30 years later, and over here...."
4. "moons will rise tonight at 8.00 pm, also at 8.30, 11.00, 12.30, etc etc"
5. "tonight we acknowledge the passing away of our old revered leader, aged 8 years".   etcetc 

At least with a temperature of -121degC, we could go there and industrialise the place -  without having to worry about global warming for 50 years or so 


spooly74 said:


> The Most Important Image Ever Taken




spooly that is phenomenal, isn't it !?, 
you seriously run out of zeros on your calculator 
even our closet star is Alpha Centauri :-


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri
> Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to our own solar system at 4.37 light-years distant (about 41.5 trillion km, 25.8 trillion miles or 277,600 AU). Proxima Centauri, usually regarded as part of the system, is the closest star at 4.22 light-years distant.[2] Alpha Centauri's relative proximity makes it a logical choice as "first port of call" in speculative fiction about interstellar travel, which predicts eventual human exploration, and even the discovery and colonization of hypothetical planetary systems. These themes are common to countless works of science fiction and video games...
> 
> ...Computer models of planetary formation suggest that terrestrial planets would be able to form close to both Alpha Centauri A and B, but that gas giant planets similar to our Jupiter and Saturn would not be able to form because of the binary stars' gravitational effects.[3] Given the similarities in star type, age and stability of the orbits it has been suggested that this stellar system may hold one of the best possibilities for extraterrestrial life.[4] However, some astronomers have speculated that any terrestrial planets in the Alpha Centauri system may be dry because it is believed that Jupiter and Saturn were crucial at directing comets into the inner solar system and providing the inner planets with a source of water. This would not be a problem, however, if Alpha Centauri B happened to play a similar role for Alpha Centauri A that the gas giants do for the Sun, and vice versa. Both stars are of the right spectral type to harbor life on a potential planet.


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## 2020hindsight (3 June 2007)

Re that previous youtube... (brilliant btw - thanks) 
This site seems to be responsible for the "greatest image ever etc"
http://www.deepastronomy.com/hubble-deep-field.html 


> "Each of these dots , smudges and smears
> represents an entire galaxy,
> each with millions of stars ,
> each with the possibility of planets
> ...



The person who apparently made the video goes on to say (on that website) 

Spooly and Bwacull, here are some more images "for discussion as necessary " 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OehP8jX8Xs&mode=related&search=


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## 2020hindsight (3 June 2007)

> An astute viewer (such as yourself) may have asked, "How can the universe be 78 billion light years across when the age of the universe is only about 13 billion years?"
> 
> Good question, how can something be larger than then distance travelled at the speed of light? Since light from the beginning of the universe has only had 13 billion years to travel (not 78 billion), then shouldn't the universe be only 13 billion light years across? That's a pretty intuitive thought.
> 
> ...



for discussion


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## spooly74 (3 June 2007)

A little bit closer to home ... Ultimate Earth


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## 2020hindsight (3 June 2007)

a few quick comments / ditties I just read about relativity. 



> Length decreases as speed increases (Contraction of Length)
> at 90% speed of light your dimension in the speedwise direction (whether approaching orleaving the observer) would be halved , L' = L sqrt (1-(V/c)^2)
> 
> There was a young fellow named Fisk
> ...





> Mass increases with velocity
> m' = m / sqrt(1-(V/c)^2)
> 
> It is ironic that when people attempt to decrease their mass with vigorous exercise such as running, - relativity says that the faster they run the greater they weigh - (to another observer) -  by running at 15mph , a 300 lb man will increase in mass by 0.000 000 000 001 oz.





> Addition of velocities
> northbound train approaches station at 100kph
> and southbound train approaches station at 100kph
> their relative speed is 200kph
> ...





> Max possible velocity (of something with mass relative to an observer) is c.
> (in fact less that c, because c inmplies infinite mass etc).
> At c, you disappear, and faster than c you would go backwards.
> 
> ...





> Time (and Clocks) are different for different observers
> If we on Earth were to see Betelgeuse explode, and so also observers on Aldebaran,  then
> if the explosion happened 17 March, 2000 at Betelgeuse
> then it would be seen at 17 March, 2250 on Aldabaran, and
> 17 March 2300 on Earth.





> Time, can be thought of as a fourth dimension -
> "the reader is cautioned against concluding that time is an additional physical dimension in the sensse that it can be seen and felt like a material object.  ... etc as per attachment



 etc etc


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## 2020hindsight (3 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> for discussion



In post #44 I quoted that website , "greatest image ever",  http://www.deepastronomy.com/hubble-deep-field.html  as follows:-


> An astute viewer (such as yourself) may have asked, "How can the universe be 78 billion light years across when the age of the universe is only about 13 billion years?"
> 
> Good question, how can something be larger than then distance travelled at the speed of light? Since light from the beginning of the universe has only had 13 billion years to travel (not 78 billion), then shouldn't the universe be only 13 billion light years across? That's a pretty intuitive thought.
> 
> ...



Now personally I don't have a clue what he's talking about , scaling factors etc (at least scaling factors large enough for 13 and 78 to "work", one being six times the other,  etc  ?? 
Maybe someone else out there does ?


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## 2020hindsight (3 June 2007)

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=151
Further to previous post, I think I prefer this blokes explanation..   "15 billion years of "observable" Universe" 

Now to work out how the hell space "doubles back on itself" lol - maybe I'll try that one when I'm sober  some day. 


> After 15 million years of expansion, is the universe 15 or 30 million years "wide"??? My son asserts that because the expansion is one of space rather than matter, its total dimension = its time of expansion. This logic escapes me. If is is "expanding," surely it is doing so in all directions at once, thus yielding, to my (admittedly fallible) logic the necessity of its "furthest limits" moving diametrically away from each other. I.e., being two years separated in one year's expansion. Am I confusing time and distance here?






> Note that in the above paragraphs I have been careful to use the term "observable Universe" rather than Universe. The Universe itself, or the maximum amount of space that we will eventually be able to see given an infinite amount of time, may well be infinite. In quoting a size of the Universe we infer how far we can see in one direction (15 billion light years), and how far we can see in the other direction (15 billion light years) and add the two to get a size (30 billion light years). *An age of 15 billion light years in each direction therefore leads us to infer that we are at the centre of a sphere with radius 15 billion light-years, and hence that the Universe is 30 billion light-years "across". * The trick, however, is that because the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic, every observer must measure a size of the Universe that is 30 billion light years... even ones that are at the "edge" of our observable Universe! *This means that either the Universe is sufficiently curved that space doubles back on itself (like on the surface of a sphere), or that the actual Universe is much larger than the observable one. We currently think that the latter possibility is the case*.




Getting back to something a bit easier, that Hubble photo implies.....
123 quintillion stars !!
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=720


> How big is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image?
> I think the Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo is amazing ... the implied numbers of galaxies and stars are mind-boggling, and hence my question.
> 
> The field of the HUDF is said to be about 1/10 the diameter of a full moon. To put the possibilities in perspective of a number that might be a little more comprehensible, how many photos that size (1/10 the Moon's diameter) would it take to cover the entire sphere of the sky?






> According to the Space Telescope Science Institute, the *Hubble Ultra Deep Field has an angular size of 11.5 square arcminutes.* That means that it would take 12,913,983 Deep Field images to cover the entire sphere of the sky!
> 
> *Just for fun, let's calculate roughly how many stars that implies in the observable universe: The ultra deep field image has about 10,000 galaxies in it. If we assume that each galaxy has 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) stars, then the approximate number of stars in the visible universe is absolutely staggering:* 123,000,000,000,000,000,000
> 
> ...


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## Wysiwyg (3 June 2007)

> Max possible velocity (of something with mass relative to an observer) is c.
> (in fact less that c, because c inmplies infinite mass etc).
> At c, you disappear, and faster than c you would go backwards.
> 
> ...




Very good.


"Observers with relative motion will disagree which occurs first of any two events that are separated by a space-like interval. In other words, any travel that is faster-than-light in any inertial frame of reference will be traveling backwards in time in any other, equally valid, frames of reference". 

So we are limited to our five senses.Sight by light being the most sensitive sense in relation to time.What if a device is made that can record/sense better than sight by light.Is there such an instrument?(New telescope)What can be sensed beyond what is sensible?

Surely for the human mind to continue to evolve will bring the inevitable `discovery` of FTL stuff.Things that have happened tomorrow.No I don`t THINK so.The natural laws that we know are just that , laws , with an absolute everytime.This doesn`t mean that NEW LAWS won`t be proven up.Even existing laws are only interpretation of mind.

What greater intelligence is there than human mind?(No gods for mine)Can`t see it so it aint there.Not necessarily so!

Looking beyond our Earth boundary is great relaxation.Helps put things in perspectives of insignificance.Words can`t explain this.For what can there be outside the universe?


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## lakemac (4 June 2007)

There is another deep space image that I came across and sometimes use as a background for my laptop. The original image is 2.3 MB so I won't post the original. If you search for Tadpole UCG120214 you should find it.






I wonder if any of those other galaxies contain stock markets that are easier to trade than ours...


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## spooly74 (4 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Now personally I don't have a clue what he's talking about , scaling factors etc (at least scaling factors large enough for 13 and 78 to "work", one being six times the other,  etc  ??
> Maybe someone else out there does ?




It`s all to do with metric expansion ... Don`t think of it as objects moving away from us but rather the distance between them growing 

Here is one layman's analogy



> Model analogy
> 
> *Ant on a balloon model*
> The ant on a balloon model is a two-dimensional analog for three-dimensional metric expansion. An ant is imagined to be constrained to move on the surface of a huge balloon which to the ant's understanding is the total extent of space.
> ...


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## lakemac (4 June 2007)

This explains the theory of my belt perfectly...


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## 2020hindsight (4 June 2007)

lakemac said:


> This explains the theory of my belt perfectly...



lakemac - When you're young you pass thriough the light years, 
then as you get older, you move into the heavy years 

spooly - I'll have to read that post a few times, (plus a bit more research) - but if I can be flippant for a minute ,,,
at this stage I can relate only to this sentence :-


> There is some possibility for confusion in this analogy



and maybe also:-


> the ant that is confined to the surface of the balloon has no way of determining whether a third dimension exists or not.



one thing's for sure, when the balloon goes bang, that ole ant is gonna look like he's discovered the fourth and maybe the fifth dimension as well - "Ant",  by Pablo Picasso.   

PS I just have problems with scaling factors (without extra explanation).  
I have a heap more homework to do -  - but thanks for trying to explain it


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## lakemac (4 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> lakemac - When you're young you pass thriough the light years,
> then as you get older, you move into the heavy years
> 
> and maybe also:-
> ...



Ain't that the truth... LOL. Good post 2020hindsight


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## BIG BWACULL (4 June 2007)

Another blonde joke? heh heh appropriate on this thread i hope


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## yogi-in-oz (4 June 2007)

Hi folks,

..... it is so good to see traders looking at the bigger picture,
particularly when considering our solar system and how/where
it fits in our universe .....

Pythagorean schools called it the "Music of the Spheres" and 
were able to prove the harmonic relationships, between the 
planetary periods and the common musical scales ... and
that was some 400 years BC ... !~!

So, given that the sacred mathematics and geometry has 
been around for a couple of millenium and the planets are
still orbiting at EXACTLY the same rate, then we can make
better use of the cosmic clock ... for trading purposes.

Even now, we are only just scratching the surface of this
stuff, but we should be really thankful to those pioneers 
in sacred geometry, that made the concept of astrotrading,
possible ..... pioneers like Pythagoras, Sepharial, Dow-Balliett,
Johndro and Gann, too ..... 

happy days

 paul


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## 2020hindsight (4 June 2007)

bwacull
gee, those bra-cups are an eyefull !!


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## 2020hindsight (4 June 2007)

yogi-in-oz said:


> So, given that the sacred mathematics and geometry has  been around for a couple of millenium and the planets are
> still orbiting at EXACTLY the same rate, then we can make
> better use of the cosmic clock ... for trading purposes.
> 
> ...



mate , I read that Pythagoras lost a BUNDLE on futures trading - 
of course the ASX (Athens Stock Exchange) was only in its infancy. 

PS thank the stars I'm not superstitious 
(sorry m8 - I lean toward s astronomy rather than the astrology bit. )


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## lakemac (4 June 2007)

yogi-in-oz said:


> So, given that the sacred mathematics and geometry has
> been around for a couple of millenium and the planets are
> still orbiting at EXACTLY the same rate, then we can make
> better use of the cosmic clock ... for trading purposes.



Sorry to burst your balloon (to keep in with the underlying metaphor in this thread) yogi-in-oz but the orbit of planets decay in time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_decay
http://jurisdynamics.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-findings-on-rapid-orbital-decay.html
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJ/v614n2/17372/17372.html
and so on...


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## spooly74 (4 June 2007)

20/20 ...try this out for size  I`m in the same boat though, very hard to grasp.


> The cosmos is 13.7bn years old but the stretching of space with its expansion after the Big Bang means that simple distance measurements do not apply.
> 
> This means that radiation reaching us from the earliest Universe has been travelling for more than 13 billion years.
> 
> ...




We are all in the dark


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## yogi-in-oz (4 June 2007)

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... 

..... in Pythagoras' day astronomy and astrology were synonomous,
as they still should be today ... !~!

If we DISCARD the man-made interpretations of today's astrology,
then only the mathematics and geometry remain and THEY DO NOT
change, ever ... because that's the God-given stuff ..... 

... as for the decay in planetary orbits ... it takes place over many
thousands and millions of years ... so for the practicalities of trading,
we can say that, in our puny lifetimes of 100 years (being generous),
the orbits remain essentially the same ... yes???

happy days

   paul



=====


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## spooly74 (4 June 2007)

yogi-in-oz said:


> Yeah, yeah, yeah ...
> 
> ..... in Pythagoras' day astronomy and astrology were synonomous,
> as they still should be today ... !~!
> ...




Hi yogi,

In Pythagoras' day the Earth was also flat and the Gods of the time can now be found in museums.
His theorem remains intact though....that's why mathematics has been a terrible subject for Chinese whispers 

Geometry _is_ mathematics, and it exists without the need for Astrology.....you can`t discard it because it was never involved in the first place... 

cheers


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## 2020hindsight (4 June 2007)

Hey yogi
- you're not a gypsy are you? lol


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## 2020hindsight (4 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Getting back to something a bit easier, that Hubble photo implies..... 123 quintillion stars !!
> = 123 billion billion = 123 million million million  = 123,000,000,000,000,000,000
> http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=720



There was once a man named Columbus
who was magic with bludy big numbers,
he counted the stars 
in a small patch near Mars
(but it took him mmm 6 thousand slumbers)

He said to the Pope “your divinity
I reckon its in the vicinity
of mmm somewhere out there
twixt a googolplex squared
and a handful short of inifinity"

"Lets put it this way mister Pope
if you take the hair strands from a rope
and you place em uncurled
side by side round the world
you’d pass 1 billion Capes of Good Hope. 



> think Im right there
> if 1 hairs breath = 0.1mm
> then there are 10,000,000 hairs in a km
> diameter of earth = 12,750kM at equator
> ...




Trouble is by the time you count em, ther'll be that many again  

PS When I told my wife it's a googolplex squared , she said "I've told you a billion times not to exaggerate!! " 



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex
> Googolplex is the number 1010100.
> It can also be written as 10googol,
> or as a one followed by a googol (10100) zeroes.
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (5 June 2007)

The Equation of Time 

columbus had many dilemnas
the new world was riddled with tremors
he watched sun going past - 
and he lined up the mast - 
and invented the word "a-nalemma's"

PS Spellcheck cant decide between "anal emma" or "ana lemma" 

http://www.analemma.com/Pages/framesPage.html


> Have you ever seen this figure-8 on a globe and wondered what it is? It is simply this: if you could record the position of the sun in the sky at the same time every day, let’s say sometime around noon and subtracting one hour if you are observing daylight saving time, you would notice that the sun takes a rather strange path. You might notice that at certain times throughout the year the sun's position not only varies higher and lower (North and South) as you would expect with the change of the seasons, but also slightly east and west. This figure-8 path that the sun makes in the sky is called the analemma. On some days you might notice that the sun is not in the sky where, according to the time on your watch, you would expect it to be.
> 
> The difference in time between what your watch reads and the position of the sun (clock time vs. sun time) is called the Equation-of-Time. If you are in the northern hemisphere and the sun’s position is to the east of where your watch indicates it would be, the Equation-of-Time is negative. If the sun is to the west, the Equation-of-Time is positive.


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## spooly74 (5 June 2007)

NASA CSI - Comet scene investigation


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## Wysiwyg (5 June 2007)

The disappointing thing about these wonderous sights out there is the distance to get to them.Even FTL would take more than a lifetime and we would probably turn to jelly with no gravity and on a diet of sui min.




> The distances between stars are huge. The distance from the Sun to Proxima Centauri is 4.22 light years which is equal to forty trillion kilometres. To walk this distance would take you about one billion years. Even our fastest space probes would take sixty thousand years to travel this distance. There are currently four space probes leaving the solar system - Pioneer 10 and 11, and Voyager 1 and 2 but we will probably lose contact with all of them within twenty years.





With such large numbers of galaxies beyond the Milky Way galaxy I can`t believe that at least one planet is not life supportive.It is just too freaky for one planet to hold life.I also think that if life has evolved on other planet (s) the evolution would be completely different , unless you believe in the hundredth monkey effect.

I look forward to the Jame Webb telescope in 6 or 7 years time to reveal even more startliing observations in our lifetime.



> The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013. JWST will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. JWST will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. JWST's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.
> 
> JWST will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won't fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open only once JWST is in outer space. JWST will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.






> The Nearest Groups of Galaxies


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## 2020hindsight (6 June 2007)

just going back to that number 123 million million million, being the number of stars in the observable universe.... and how big is that number??..

Firstly the concept of a hairs breadth being a tenth of a millimetre....

THEN
if we laid down hairs side by side ( 10 to the millimetre, 100 to the centrimetre) you have enough to sail round the world, - via Cape of Good Hope, and the Horn, and NZ - one billion times.

ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT IT...
the concept of a "square hair's breadth", 10x10 to the square millimetre.

Suppose you spilled some hair restorer, and it somehow covered the entire surface of Earth, including the oceans, and hair grew just everywhere, 100 to the square millimetre 
i.e. about 100 to the HEAD OF A PIN!!  (seriously tighly packed dreadlocks here folks)

or 100x1000x1000 = 100 million to the m^2

and this density covered the entire earth !!!
as well as ALL the other planets !!!

and the area of the earth is (pi. D^2 = 3.142 x 12735^2 = ) 510 million m^2

then there are 51,000 million million hairs on the entire surface of the earth,

and adding in all the other planets there is 250 times this area (see table)
12.3 million million million hairs on ALL the planets totalled.

NOW the number of STARS is 123 million million million

i.e. the number of stars is about TEN times more than the number of hairs that would cover the entire Earth, and all the other planets put together !!!

(That is one hairy concept )
PS (E & OE)


----------



## Wysiwyg (7 June 2007)

The positioning of the Earth is too perfect!A freak of nature or a well executed plan from you know who?



> 1 Chronicles 16:30: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.”
> 
> Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...”
> 
> ...



O.K. now we know it was all fixed.


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## 2020hindsight (7 June 2007)

> Exodus 26:16...Each *frame* is to be ten cubits long and a cubit and a half wide,
> 
> Exodus 26:17.. with two projections set parallel to each other. Make all the f*rames* of the tabernacle in this way.
> 
> Exodus 26:19..and make forty silver bases to go under them—two bases for each *frame*, one under each projection.



Ok so now we know JC was framed 



> Exodus 26:36 .... "For the entrance to the tent make a curtain of blue, purple and scarlet yarn and finely *twisted* linen—the work of an embroiderer.
> 
> Exodus 28:15   "Fashion a breastpiece for making decisions—the work of a skilled craftsman. Make it like the ephod: of gold, and of blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and of finely *twisted* linen.
> 
> ...



And everything has been twisted by man ever since.


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## 2020hindsight (22 June 2007)

Earth coming up to middle age ( by my reckoning )
i.e. the earth and moon system is 4.5 billion years old
and the sun will apparently start to become "difficult" in about 5 billion more years - so we are coming up to middle age here. 

this bloke seems to think he knows what will happen - be interesting to see how right he was 



> http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/42680
> As I wrote above (http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/42178 ), the Sun will not explode. It will throw off a significant portion of its mass to form a planetary nebula, but this is not an explosion. The material thus thrown out will probably eventually cool and mix with other interstellar gasses and dust and even be incoporated into a new bunch of star systems.






> No, the Sun will not explode. To explode indicates that the internal forces will eventually overcome gravity and violently tear the Sun apart. This is not the fate in store for the Sun. As Clark described, the Sun will eventually start to burn helium to produce Carbon. However, that is as far as it will go. The Sun does not have enough mass to generate the heat required to burn carbon to produce heavier elements. As helium builds up in the Sun?s core, the hydrogen fusion will move to higher levels in the Sun. This will more strongly heat the outer layers of the Sun causing them to expand. (This is not an explosion.) The Sun will eventually expand to swallow Earth and possibly even Mars. At the same time the core will contract raising the temperature until helium fuses to produce Carbon. The Helium will be burned up fairly quickly. Once it is gone, the core will begin to collapse down to a white dwarf and the outer layers will relatively quietly separate from the core and move outward to form a planetary nebula (http://tinyurl.com/dhsej) . This is the fate that awaits the sun.
> 
> FYI, when astronomers talk about a star exploding, they are usually talking about some sort of nova or supernova. The Sun has nowhere near enough mass to do that.




And now for the weather forecast ...

Monday, ...the Sun will expand to swallow Earth and possibly even Mars. At the same time the core will contract raising the temperature until helium fuses to produce Carbon. The Helium will be burned up fairly quickly. 

Once it is gone, possibly late Tuesday, the core will begin to collapse down to a white dwarf and the outer layers will relatively quietly separate from the core and move outward to form a planetary nebula.

Then by Thursday we can expect a change, with light to moderate winds from the south east, and 15% chance of scattered showers....


----------



## Wysiwyg (23 June 2007)

2020....I just had a realization....A human life is so short in time because if we lived longer then one would have to keep moving house so as not to get flooded out.Everything in constant motion. 

Late Proterozoic 650 Ma...This map illustrates the  break-up of the supercontinent, Rodinia, which formed 1100 million years ago.   The Late Precambrian was  an "Ice House" World, much like the present-day......Where is Australia? 

Late Cambrian 514 Ma...Animals with hard-shells appeared in great numbers for the first time during the Cambrian.  The continents were flooded by shallow seas.  The supercontinent of Gondwana had just formed and was located near the South Pole.

Modern World...*We are entering a new phase of continental collision that will ultimately result in the formation of a new Pangea supercontinent in the future.  Global climate is warming because we are leaving an Ice Age and because we are adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.*..........Earth is slowly defrosting.

Future World 50 Ma...If we continue present-day plate motions the Atlantic will widen, Africa will collide with Europe closingthe Mediterranean, *Australia will **collide with S.E. Asia*, and California will slide northward up the coast to Alaska..........I won`t have to fly after all.


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## 2020hindsight (23 June 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> 2020....I just had a realization....A human life is so short in time because if we lived longer then one would have to keep moving house so as not to get flooded out.Everything in constant motion.
> ...Future World 50 Ma...If we continue present-day plate motions the Atlantic will widen, Africa will collide with Europe closingthe Mediterranean, *Australia will **collide with S.E. Asia*, and California will slide northward up the coast to Alaska..........I won`t have to fly after all.



Lol - good one WysiWyg , and just in time if we can walk to Europe, because there won't be any aviation fuel left by then 

But if you think about evolution - if 4.5 million years we have gone from mudpies to man.... 
imagine what we can achieve in the next 4.5 billion  
probably spend so much time in front of computers, we'll have sockets in out temples for the power chord, and no need for a monitor lol.


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## 2020hindsight (23 June 2007)

and Columbus sailed south till he saw a new star (never seen in UK for example)
and asked his mate what he should call it ... and the reply came back "Far Can Opus" (in honour of his opinion of the senior management of the ship)- 
but somehow it's been abbreviated with time to Canopus 


Call it the poor man's (northern hemispere) southern cross/ southern star, - before they saw the REAL southern cross 


> To anyone living in the northern hemisphere, but far enough south to see the star, it served as a southern pole star. (Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning). This lasted only until magnetic compasses became common, of course.
> 
> In modern times, another navigational use has been found. Due to its brightness and position away from the orbital plane of our solar system (the latter being in contrast to Sirius' position), Canopus is often used by American space probes for navigational purposes, using a special camera known as a "Canopus Star Tracker" in combination with a "Sun Tracker






> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus_(star)
> Etymology
> The other etymology of the name is that it comes from the Egyptian Coptic Kahi Nub ("Golden Earth"), which refers to the way it would appear near the horizon in Egypt and be correspondingly reddened by atmospheric extinction from that position.[citation needed] There is also a ruined ancient Egyptian port, Canopus, apparently specifically named for the star, near the mouth of the Nile; its site was the location of the Battle of the Nile.
> 
> ...



By the way it's second brightest after Sirius. 

correction apologies ,as if anyone cares lol - 
Previous post should have read :-


> But if you think about evolution - *if 4.5 BILLION *years we have gone from mudpies to man....
> imagine what we can achieve in the next (also) 4.5 billion


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## 2020hindsight (23 June 2007)

Capella (star)
Declination +45° 59' 53" 


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capella_(star)  Capella (α Aur / α Aurigae / Alpha Aurigae) is the brightest star in the constellation Auriga and eleventh brightest star in the sky. ..
> 
> [edit] Physical characteristics
> A yellow star, ... It is closer to the north celestial pole than any other first magnitude star (Polaris is only second magnitude) and as a result has played a significant role in many mythological writings. A tablet dating back to 2000 BC refers to Capella.
> ...




Was Capella even seen in (most of) Australia?
Declination 46 deg N means that it is seen at 44deg S at the equinox
and (+/- 23.5 degrees either side of that at the solstices) it would be seen at 67.5 deg S which includes all of Aust. answer yes. 

"Capella was Purra , killed by the Gemini twins???  or by the Orion Hunter?? etc"

must be a pisstake - lol - Wikipedia is making it up surely.    Since when would Ab mythology include references to Gemini, Orion etc


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## 2020hindsight (4 July 2007)

A mate went to the north coast of NSW recently - found this photo on his camera.  He reckons it's Battle Star Gallactica passing over at noon, bristling with turrets.   

Anyway, an interesting photo with various colours (similar to clouds),  shapes and "vagueness", etc .  I'll add another photo under separate post .


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## 2020hindsight (4 July 2007)

coffs breakwater


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## Pat (19 July 2007)

spooly74 said:


> LOL but I`m pretty sure it`s Faster than light!
> 
> Here is something else you might enjoy 2020 et all.
> 
> A little look into the strange world of Quantum Physics ...but don`t let it know you are watching





Thanks all to those who contribute to this thread. It's the most interesting buy far. 
Spooly do you remember what was the name of this clip?
Also, does anyone know where I saw the link to the tenth dimension clip? Can't find it, has it dissapeared or my eyes need checking?


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 July 2007)

Pat said:


> Spooly do you remember what was the name of this clip?
> Also, does anyone know where I saw the link to the tenth dimension clip? Can't find it, has it dissapeared or my eyes need checking?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc&eurl=  Dr Quantum - Double Slit Experiment

pat - if you click on the youtube insert anywhere else but on the central triangle ,  then you're taken to the website.


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## Wysiwyg (11 August 2007)

Well this event may not be recent but it will happen soon.

The Total Lunar Eclipse on August 28th 2007 will be visible in its entirety for all of Eastern Australia and New Zealand, and will be in progress at Moonrise for the remainder of Australia and most of Asia.

Link to Ice in Space http://www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?home

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path 

The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more 

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the Dark Side Of The Moon 

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me. 

And if the clouds bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the Dark Side Of The Moon .

Lyrics Copyright: Roger Waters - World Copyrights Ltd. 1973


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## ghotib (11 August 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> "Capella was Purra , killed by the Gemini twins???  or by the Orion Hunter?? etc"
> 
> must be a pisstake - lol - Wikipedia is making it up surely.    Since when would Ab mythology include references to Gemini, Orion etc



From http://sa.apana.org.au/~paulc/loreaussie.html

"The Borong people of northwestern Victoria saw the star Capella as a kangaroo named ‘Purra’ that was being pursued by two hunters ‘Wanjel’ and ‘Yuree’, we now see these two as the twins of Gemini, the bright stars Pollux and Castor."

For those who like just looking at the night sky (and aren't blinded by all those piddling little human-made light sources getting in the way), this might also be interesting:

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/research/AboriginalAstronomy/whatis.htm


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## 2020hindsight (11 August 2007)

ghotib said:


> From http://sa.apana.org.au/~paulc/loreaussie.html
> 
> "The Borong people of northwestern Victoria saw the star Capella as a kangaroo named ‘Purra’ that was being pursued by two hunters ‘Wanjel’ and ‘Yuree’, we now see these two as the twins of Gemini, the bright stars Pollux and Castor."
> 
> ...



brilliant ghoti thanx  
when they come to take the TV away, I might have to resort to watching the stars for entertainment too , lol

Interesting that the southern cross was giant stingray, and the pointers were two sharks.   Question.  Does that make em "white pointers"? 

Interesting too that the milky way becomes a "river passing through a celestial plain".  (the ‘Wodliparri’ is a watercourse curving through ‘Womma’).  So it turns out over the years we've been sending rockets from Woomera to Womma.


> "Woomera was named thus after the Aboriginal spear thrower of the same name, in recognition of the place being a launch site in much the same way the woomera launches the spear".
> 
> The population of "Woomera Village" reached 6000 people at its peak, but is now stable at around 300. Next to the village is the Woomera Prohibited Area (WPA), a military area 127,000 square km in area; it is about the same size as England, making it the largest testing area in the world.



You're not wrong about the light pollution though.  One of the real pleasures of getting away from the cities (whether bush or to sea) is to lie back and look up at the stars on a clear night.   - 1000 star accommodation as they say . 



> The night sky of Aboriginal Australia is filled with information, wonder and edification and this curiosity plus drive to connect with the cosmos still makes many of us ponder when we view the night sky



there's that "religion" sneaking in again  - *drive to connect with the cosmos *- even if it's billions of light years across. (visible universe 46 billion light years in any direction according to wiki :- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe


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## 2020hindsight (11 August 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe


> The comoving distance from the Earth to the edge of the visible universe is about 46.5 billion light-years in any direction; this is the comoving radius of the visible universe. It is sometimes quoted as a diameter of 92.94 billion light-years[5]. Since the visible universe is a perfect sphere and *space is roughly flat*, this size corresponds to a comoving volume of about etc




So - when the Pope argued with Galileo that the earth was flat, what he REALLY meant to say was that the Universe was flat ! 

I mean maybe he was misunderstood  

more or less?  (or moral-less?)

Incidentally, I posted some youtube links on "videos with a message". 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=189870&highlight=hubble#post189870

PS was trying to explain to this blonde down the road "imagine 3.4 x 10^80 cub metres - I mean that's about 2 x 10^80 fridges,  200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000  (easy ! )

She says "ridiculous! - 
and what would anyone want with that many fridges anyway.!"


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/lunaeclipse2007/
two and a bit days to go for this little number .....


> No matter where in Australia you are on August 28, you'll be in for a top show once the sun goes down. A total lunar eclipse will be visible right across the country from sunset. The only problem with all that family-friendly moon viewing is dealing with the mind-bending questions the kids are going to ask..



lol

you can only guess what effect a red moon and /or all 4 quarters of the moon on one night would have had on the savages of old days - 
 and /or the three wise men for that matter


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## Aussiejeff (26 August 2007)

Of course, you all know about this 'new' release of Google Earth that incorporates a 3D view of the universe as we know it thus far?

http://earth.google.com/sky/index.html

I've had hours of fun with this....

)

Astral cheers,

AJ


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## Flying Fish (26 August 2007)

spooly74 said:


> Must have been one of these big fellas




Amazing. So I wonder if aliens lifeforms are monitoring this forum?


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## Wysiwyg (17 September 2007)

Flying Fish said:


> Amazing. So I wonder if aliens lifeforms are monitoring this forum?





Once upon a time (no not a nursery rhyme) the earth had many people with limited knowledge of the planet Earth.Physical laws were not understood.So it was that people learned through imagination , experimentation and exploration that the planet Earth is understandable.We learned why , how and when and there is a finite (it can all be known??) amount of knowledge yet to be uncovered.

Spooly noted *the double slit experiment * with matter seemingly being in two places at once.For the average tick tocker , getting into the mysteries of this planet are just too stupid , we are caught up in money , mortgages , raising kids , traffic , politics , wars and other people influences to care less about our planet.It`s like being prisoner in a place of incredible beauty.Who is your warden and who is your prisoner?

Anyway , I thought (there is that knowledge slip) that Antares was the largest star but the boys sky gazing tell me *VV Cephie *is.So here is a brief video (not actual lol) of the size comparison.2020 ... note the size comparison of VV Cephie in relation to the Milky Way galaxy. 1/1,689,794 of a single pixel.Noting the Milky Way galaxy is one of .... 



> For example, in 1999 the Hubble Space Telescope *estimated that **there were 125 billion galaxies in the universe*, and recently with *the new camera HST has observed 3,000 visible galaxies*, which is twice as much as they observed before with the old camera. We're emphasizing "visible" because observations with radio telescopes, infrared cameras, x-ray cameras, etc. would detect other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. As observations keep on going and astronomers explore more of our universe, the number of galaxies detected will increase.






So .... is there life beyond Earth? Probably still evolving!!!!!!!!!


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## 2020hindsight (17 September 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> Once upon a time ...........
> 
> Spooly noted *the double slit experiment * with matter seemingly being in two places at once.For the average tick tocker , getting into the mysteries of this planet are just too stupid , we are caught up in money , mortgages , raising kids , traffic , politics , wars and other people influences to care less about our planet.It`s like being prisoner in a place of incredible beauty.Who is your warden and who is your prisoner?
> 
> So .... is there life beyond Earth? Probably still evolving!!!!!!!!!



wys,  brilliant post m8 - 
I don't think I used to (previuosly) really, deep down, believe in life on other planets
but after this thread I realised I'm starting to think 
that it's crazy to deny it,

that was a month or two ago, when there were only 125E18 stars out there (estimated) (and 5 times that planets I guess, or whatever) 

now (with NASA's estimate of 1E21 stars  (8 times as many), I'm starting to wonder just how many ? I mean, if I was prepared to believe that there were 2 planets with life last week - then surely I should be prepared to believe that there are 8 x 2 = 16 planets this week 

PS My mortgage still dwarfs this VV Cephie XX Cephei thing lol - I add a photo of it.


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## 2020hindsight (17 September 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> .. ... note the size comparison of VV Cephie ??  Cephei?? in relation to the Milky Way galaxy. 1/1,689,794 of pixel ..



PS Please don't think Milky Way is to scale back there 

but it's about right for my mortgage -  still "what's made round is made to go round" I guess 

PS such numbers / sizes etc force you to go back to arguing things that  arguably fall into the "arguably pedant vs possibly pedant" argument  (which as you know I also arguably happily join in) .  SO !!..... 

PS *What happened to "i" before "e" except after "C"??.!!!...*
Explain me that !! huh!

PS the fine print says something about - at this scale , VVCeph which is 1900 (?) times bigger than our sun is (something about) smaller than planet? 
sufficient to say that Milky Way dwarfs it


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## Wysiwyg (18 September 2007)

Just seen this story while looking for the meteor story.

Extreme ultra violet light girls and boys on the 21st. & 22nd. of Sept. 



> The sun is rotating (once every 27 days) and soon the hole will face Earth, causing a stream of solar wind to sweep past our planet on Sept. 21st or 22nd. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.







> AURORA WATCH: Japan's Hinode spacecraft is monitoring a gaping hole in the sun's atmosphere--a "coronal hole"--that is spewing solar wind into space. It is the enormous black gash in this image from Hinode's onboard x-ray telescope:


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## spooly74 (20 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> PS Please don't think Milky Way is to scale back there
> 
> PS the fine print says something about - at this scale , VVCeph which is 1900 (?) times bigger than our sun is (something about) smaller than planet?
> sufficient to say that Milky Way dwarfs it




How big is it at this scale? 

The parsec (symbol pc) is a unit of length used in astronomy. 

The actual length of a parsec is approximately  3.262 light-years.

1 light year = 9,460,730,472,580.8 km.

A distance of one thousand parsecs is commonly denoted by the kiloparsec (kpc)......... for example, the nearest known star to the Earth, other than the Sun, is Proxima Centauri, 1.29 parsecs away. 

A distance of one million parsecs is commonly denoted by the megaparsec (Mpc).........for example, the Andromeda Galaxy (Our closest galaxy) is *0.77 Mpc* away from the Earth.

Now check these pics out :bonk:


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## Wysiwyg (21 September 2007)

I can`t find any news on the present coronal opening facing the Earth (plenty of news on death and destruction though 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




).So here are some pictures in various wavelengths of the sun.The dark patches are coronal openings.(it`s i before e except after h too(their)lol)

An Angstrom is a unit of length equal to one ten-billionth of a meter and one kelvin equals - 272  ºC (60000 kelvin =  59727  ºC)




> EIT (Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) images the solar atmosphere at several wavelengths, and therefore, shows solar material at different temperatures. In the images taken at 304 Angstroms the bright material is at 60,000 to 80,000 degrees Kelvin. In those taken at 171, at 1 million degrees. 195 Angstrom images correspond to about 1.5 million Kelvin. 284 Angstrom, to 2 million degrees. The hotter the temperature, the higher you look in the solar atmosphere.


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## Wysiwyg (3 November 2007)

If not only for visual pleasure a few things are happening `out there` so the two i noted were the goal of recently launched NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander and the colourful pictures of galaxies in motion. Why is there not another living organism `out there`.




> NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, *launched on Aug. 4* and headed to Mars, fired its four trajectory correction thrusters Wednesday for only the second time. The 45.9-second burn nudged the spacecraft just the right amount to put it on a course to arrive at the red planet seven months from today.
> 
> At Mars, Phoenix will face a challenging 7-minute descent through the atmosphere *to land in the far north on May 25, 2008*. After landing, it will use a robotic digging arm and other instruments during a three-month period to investigate whether icy soil of the Martian arctic could have ever been a favorable environment for microbial life. The solar-powered lander will also look for clues about the history of the water in the ice and will monitor weather as northern Mars' summer progresses toward fall.




First photo is from an existing robotic explorer on Mars (Spirit)and the second photos are of galaxies from the Hubble scope.Could make a soothing desktop background.


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## 2020hindsight (3 November 2007)

great photos wys and spooly 
I just bought a $250 digital camera - it's a beauty - 
I just have to work out how to set the defaults to "night settings", and I'll post some more photos just like those.

PS they should make this Hubble's theme song... 

 A Whole New World



> "can show you the world
> - a new fantastic point of view "




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble
http://hubble.nasa.gov/


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## Whiskers (3 November 2007)

Wysiwyg said:


> If not only for visual pleasure a few things are happening `out there` so the two i noted were the goal of recently launched NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander and the colourful pictures of galaxies in motion. Why is there not another living organism `out there`.
> 
> 
> First photo is from an existing robotic explorer on Mars (Spirit)and the second photos are of galaxies from the Hubble scope.Could make a soothing desktop background.




Thats very interesting, Wysiwyg! 

I thought all the galaxies were on the same plane, but that seems to show galaxies at right angles to each other.


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## 2020hindsight (8 November 2007)

not obvious this one ...
how many times does the earth rotate in an average year (i.e averaging over 4 years including one leap year) ?

a) 364.25
b) 365.25
c) 366.25?

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.5458


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## Wysiwyg (16 April 2008)

Another reason to believe in evolution is the time line involved with the life cycle of a star.







> The lifespan of stars varies from thousands of years for massive stars to billions for smaller stars. Our Sun, which is of average mass, is predicted to live for about 10 billion years (it is about halfway through).



The Earth will be dead by the time our local sun starts to change although the change will not be noticable.We will consume the planet well before then.This video has a bit of a story on stars burning out and the time line is hard to comprehend against human consciousness. 


> The Hubble images show the evolution of planetary nebulae, revealing how they expand in size and change temperature over time. A young planetary nebula, such as He 2-47, at top, left, for example, is small and is dominated by relatively cool, glowing nitrogen gas. *In the Hubble images, the red, green, and blue colors represent light emitted by nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, respectively.*
> Over thousands of years, the clouds of gas expand away and the nebulae become larger. Energetic ultraviolet light from the star penetrates more deeply into the gas, causing the hydrogen and oxygen to glow more prominently, as seen near the center of NGC 5315. In the older nebulae, such as IC 4593, at bottom, left, and NGC 5307, at bottom, right, hydrogen and oxygen appear more extended in these regions, and red knots of nitrogen are still visible.
> 
> These four nebulae all lie in our Milky Way Galaxy. *Their distances from Earth **are all roughly the same, about 7,000 light-years*. The snapshots were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 in February 2007. Like snowflakes, *planetary nebulae show a wide variety of shapes, indicative of the complex processes that occur at the end of stellar **life*.




http://revver.com/video/393235/hubble-shows-stars-going-out-in-style/

and some rough facts on the fire in the sky.



> Earth Sun's energy output (386 billion billion megawatts) is produced by nuclear fusion reactions. Each second about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted to about 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons of energy in the form of gamma rays. *As it travels out toward the **surface, the energy is continuously absorbed and re-emitted at lower and **lower temperatures so that by the time it reaches the surface, it is **primarily visible light*. For the last 20% of the way to the surface the energy is carried more by convection than by radiation.


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## Wysiwyg (23 June 2008)

I think the pictures are real except for one.Good desktop images.


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## disarray (23 June 2008)

some nice pictures in this thread. i'm really into the whole "grand scheme of things" as far as the universe goes and from quantum physics all the way up to universal cosmology there are distinct, repeatable patterns that are largely self regulating. the universe is all about systems, given a certain set of preconditions you can expect a probable, ordered outcome. this goes for any ordered state, be it a galactic supercluster, a solar system, a tree, a human being or the stock market. that's what elliot wave unconsciously does, it just notices a universal pattern playing out through human behaviour.

grand unified theorists are after the whole 1 sum that will explain it all, and if anything could be "God" then that sum would be it, although whether it can be found, or if it even exists is a question for debate. either way the large hadron collider is coming online, they are running tests now so what we discover we can play out all the way to the edge of the universe.

first picture is a brain neuron, second is from spoolys megaparsec post.


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## Wysiwyg (23 June 2008)

How`s it goin disarray, mate that avatar looks alot like the doctors arch enemy, davros.:I was an every afternoon ABC Doctor Who watcher when I was a kid.(had to catch the next episode of the story)

Apparently there are about 100 billion of those neuron things in a human brain.Wonder why they are not all good in everyone.It`s them programmers, I bet. 
Yes the processes of life/non-life are, generally speaking, repeating cycles.(two observers can see this and agree on it) Though a bit like splashing a dollop of paint onto a wall.The process of splashing the dollop of paint can be repeated over and over but each time there is a unique and individual effect.No one splash exactly the same yet similar. 

I watched that program about SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) and felt a strange emptiness when they said they had received no signals from another life form.Sort of like ... earth is the only planet with life in the whole universe.Wouldn`t that be fascinating to hear communication from another life form.It is our destiny to ask the question and find the answer.This is evolution.

First pic. of a SETI fellow and then the massive construction of the LHC.


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## natashia (23 June 2008)

Wysiwyg said:


> I think the pictures are real except for one.Good desktop images.





LOL good pics ..just cant makeout something written on their board though.... does it say 'ever your spirit'?


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## MRC & Co (23 June 2008)

Fantastic thread, this stuff always fascinated me also.

There was a good documentary "the Universe" on the history channel I beleive.  Well good for the images, not so great for the information IMO.  

I seriously doubt humans can get their head around 'the universe'.  There are just too many things we cannot understand (or see), dark matter, black holes etc.  Contradicting theories all the time.  So interesting to think about, a real mind blowing experience when you start even trying to learn about it and form your own opinions!    Really makes you question existence and it's purpose and put things into context!

Here is a good image, it is actually my laptop wallpaper.  A picture of the Sombrero galaxy.  

Cheers


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## Wysiwyg (23 June 2008)

Hi MRC & co., Is that galaxy still there?Since it took (give or take and believe what you will) 30 million light years for that reflection to reach this planet it may well be very different now when we consider light travels pretty quickly and would travel a long way in just 1 year.Let alone 30 million light years.
I know what you mean, comprehension is difficult.With numbers and distances so large it surely gains more probability for a similar planet that creates life.

Ques... are these distances for real?They seem exaggerated or too far to be true. 



.


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## MRC & Co (23 June 2008)

Hi Wysiwyg,

Agreed, it may not be there!  Should have said "this is a picture of how the Sombrero galaxy used to look" lol.

I once studied the measurement of these distances with a student of astronomy, though was many years ago now and let it all go after realising I just had NO idea!  I think our measurement of their distance, by waves, is somewhat accurate, at least in our terms.

Then again, light bends (we can see star light which is technically, according to our measurements, 'behind' our sun), fastest way to a point is a straight line, so how far has the light actually travelled?  Though, these are not the questions that phase me.

What is dark matter, or a black hole, is it simply that with our dimensions, we cannot see it?  Is there "the universe" or many, even paralel?  Do 'time warps' exist, where people actually time travel?  What is a black hole (why don't the laws of physics explain them, are we missing something)?  What is inside a black hole?  Is it a pathway to a paralel universe, or what?  Is 'the universe' expanding (hence one day everything will freeze), and once it expands, will it then contract and crush everything?  Or is it simply a 'fixed size' and if so, what is at the 'ends' of the Universe?  What was before the big bang?  Was there a big bang?  Is static on your TV etc the 'noise' of the big bang (heard a theory lately disprooving this theory, lol)?  I have even heard a theory that the Universe is actually rotating around a given point, which entirely throws out the laws of physics as we know them and our comprension of them.  Though, think this was more of a qualitative theory by academics.  It's all been too many years now and I forget half of what I read or what I thought at the time.

What will happen when the Andromeda collides with the Milky Way (even if we escape earth before the sun fries us), will humans have to escape the entire galaxy by that stage, and how will this happen if we can only reach the speed of light (or even slightly faster)?  A worm hole, time travel?   

What is the point of life considering in all probability, the human race will be wiped out!  So much for Archilles and his speech to be remembered in history. We have been around for 50k years in our time, the earth for over 14 billion years, so what small portion of our history even matters in the grand scheme of things?  Why are we here then?  Happiness?  Spreading our seed will ultimately, probably not mean a thing.  To be good and to go to heaven?  What is good?  By whose standards?  Is is only perception and norms and values?  

Sorry, getting off topic.  But you can see how many questions even thinking about this can pose.  Ones, which, unfortunately, will probably never be answered!


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## MRC & Co (23 June 2008)

opcorn:


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## 2020hindsight (23 June 2008)

heck wys - it's like the riddle as your first post,  which showed something that happened 240 million years ago!  



Wysiwyg said:


> http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/57291.html
> 
> "The death of a star in a galaxy some 240 million light years away produced the brightest supernova ever viewed.




as per post #14.... they would be simultaneously seeing us .. for the first time - in whatever state we were in 240 million years ago. - in fact if they had a telescope (today) they'd see us for the first time - with some early Triassic dinasaurs, etc .....

Trouble is they were pretty well fried up 240 mill years ago, so only if they'd been wearing asbestos suits then and since etc.


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## disarray (23 June 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> I seriously doubt humans can get their head around 'the universe'.  There are just too many things we cannot understand (or see), dark matter, black holes etc.  Contradicting theories all the time.




this is where the lines of philosophy and religion meet. there is no reason we can't comprehend the nature of the universe, religion is a crude attempt to do exactly that. gaps in our knowledge are just that, curiousity and technology will keep forging forward.

seriously some of the experiments they are going to do at CERN are real nature of the universe philosophy like stuff. they want to create black holes and find out what causes mass, all these people banging their heads on the flagstones worshipping the great spaghetti monster in the sky are stone age. we might as well worship the sun and at least get more fertility festivals out of the whole deal. the current god is too uptight, bring back bacchus.


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## wayneL (23 June 2008)

disarray said:


> this is where the lines of philosophy and religion meet. there is no reason we can't comprehend the nature of the universe, religion is a crude attempt to do exactly that. gaps in our knowledge are just that, curiousity and technology will keep forging forward.
> 
> seriously some of the experiments they are going to do at CERN are real nature of the universe philosophy like stuff. they want to create black holes and find out what causes mass, all these people banging their heads on the flagstones worshipping the great spaghetti monster in the sky are stone age. we might as well worship the sun and at least get more fertility festivals out of the whole deal. the current god is too uptight, bring back bacchus.



I think the problem is a matter of attitude.

Scientific knowledge tends to be dynamic, for obvious reasons.

Religion tends to be static and resists change, again for obvious reasons.

However there is no reason religion can't be dynamic as knowledge increases. The scientific mind may reject old ideas about "God" (for want of a better word), or it may evolve it's idea of what "God" and nature actually are. 

BTW These fertility festivals sound like fun; where do I sign up? 

A "religious" (again, for want of a better word) event occurred just over the hill from me the other day that was very "un-uptight" http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/stonehenge/

But wandering off topic here.... ciao!


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## MRC & Co (23 June 2008)

disarray said:


> there is no reason we can't comprehend the nature of the universebacchus.




I would like to think so, though, I am not so sure.  

We don't even know what caused the last "mini ice age" just a few hundred years ago on our very own planet, let alone some of the tests they are trying to achieve, with very little success from what I understand.  

I still struggle to get my head around the concept of "spacetime".


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## disarray (23 June 2008)

religion is too dogmatic, it's very nature is emotional and ordered and hierarchical and requires the many to listen to the few. blah blah behave or else you'll feel bad forever.

philosophy is great though because its a pursuit of logic, not emotion. there's no reason a philosophy can't provide an answer for those emotional questions consciousness throws at us. "God" is such an abstract term you really need to be suspicious of people who use that term absolutely.

"any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" - Arthur C. Clarke.


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## Wysiwyg (23 June 2008)

wayneL said:


> Religion tends to be static and resists change, again for obvious reasons.
> 
> However there is no reason religion can't be dynamic as knowledge increases. The scientific mind may reject old ideas about "God" (for want of a better word), or it may evolve it's idea of what "God" and nature actually are.




They are `out there` too.They probably have all the best kept secrets about the visible universe.


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## disarray (23 June 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> We don't even know what caused the last "mini ice age" just a few hundred years ago on our very own planet, let alone some of the tests they are trying to achieve, with very little success from what I understand.




it doesn't matter, what is important is that we are cracking a process.

take climatology and the mini ice age. a climate is a chaotic system, you have all these inputs of pressure and moisture and solar radiation and ocean currents and atmospheric dust and temperature. so when you analyse weather you look at all this fundamental analysis to come up with a probability forecast which usually is right but random (read: unaccounted for) things can happen and bugger things up.

as computers get better (like with the new 1 atom transistor) and all the fields of science keep pouring knowledge into the net, the pieces will slowly fall into place. evolution in progress.

seriously its not the logic side of humanity you need to worry about, that can take us to the stars. its the back half of the brain we need to manage if we're going to keep it going.


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## wayneL (23 June 2008)

disarray said:


> religion is too dogmatic, it's very nature is emotional and ordered and hierarchical and requires the many to listen to the few. blah blah behave or else you'll feel bad forever.
> 
> philosophy is great though because its a pursuit of logic, not emotion. there's no reason a philosophy can't provide an answer for those emotional questions consciousness throws at us. "God" is such an abstract term you really need to be suspicious of people who use that term absolutely.




Exactly.

But no need not to be adventurous in thinking about the topic and discounting the concept altogether... throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As MrC points out, there is a lot to get the mind around. Rejecting concepts out of hand can smack of dogma as well, though most of the traditional "religions" are probably about as discredited as you can be.

Many still enjoy the tradition however.


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## nioka (23 June 2008)

Some events are beyond reason.

 I travel to Brisbane and beyond ( from the NSM northern rivers) regularly and the trip takes about 4 hours each way. I had an old friend that lives about half way. I often stopped and had a yarn about old times with a cup of tea. I hadn't stopped for a while, saying to myself "next time". One day recently I was getting near his place and decided I didn't have time so it was "next time" again. Suddenly my car just stopped. Luckily I was almost opposite the NRMA. I got the mechanic to look at the car. He couldn't get it going, suggested an electrical fault. He decided to tow me to an auto electrician a few blocks away. When we got there the auto electrician said the he couldn't look at it for an hour, could I find something to do for that time.

 As my friend lived only about 500m away I said yes and my thought was that my conscience had stopped the car and that I was meant to see Harry. When I got to his place his wife was coming out the front gate. She told me Harry was in hospital and not expected to last more than a day or two. I told her about the car and said that as soon as it was fixed I would go and see him. Her reply was that it would not be worth going, he had not recognised any of the family for days and may even be in a coma.

 I went back to see if the car was ready. When I got there the car was running and the auto electrician couldn't find anything wrong with it. !!!

 I then drove to the hospital and went in and asked for Harry. I was told that he was sleeping and may not wake. I was about to leave when the nurse said that I could go in if I liked. I went into the ward, looked at an unconscious pale man and decided to leave. Before I left I put my hand on his, thinking I was saying goodbye. As I did it he opened his eyes, gave me a good big smile and said;
 "hello mate I've been laying here thinking of you. They're about to kick me over the fence, it's that time. I don't know what's there but if it is what I hope for I'll put together a good bunch of horses and cattle and have them ready for both of us to enjoy when you get there"
 We chatted for half an hour about old times. I left happy that I had called. His funeral was a few days later.

 I don't know an answer. The car never stopped before or after. Harry never again recognised his family. It will always be one of my most precious memories. If there is something "over the fence" it will be an added bonus.


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## 2020hindsight (24 June 2008)

Church vs science... 

wys, you mention that the Vatican has its own observatory.  Putting a meteorite rock collection together - Not bad  - only took them 350 years or so to apologise to Galileo 

http://www.geocities.com/ganesha_gate/galileo.html



> Galileo, Icon and Scientist
> 
> Born: February 15, 1564; Pisa, Republic of Florence
> Died: January 8, 1642; Arcetri, Republic of Florence
> ...






> During the Pontificate of Pope John Paul The Great, there has been considerable reconciliation between Church and science. In a speech given on *19 November 1979*, for the centenary commemoration of the birth of Einstein, *Pope John Paul II deplored the lack of understanding between Christians and the failure of the Church to perceive the legitimate autonomy of science. *
> 
> The Pope began by saying that Galileo and Einstein characterised an epoch of humanity. The Pope said that science had its own autonomy, and the collaboration between religion and science did not violate the autonomy of either. *The pope made it clear that in the past, the church had acted outside its proper competence*.






> The pope speaks about Galileo:-
> Filled with admiration for the genius of the great scientist, a genius in which there is revealed the imprint of the Creator Spirit, the Church, without in any way passing a judgment on the doctrine concerning the great systems of the universe, since that is not its area of competence....




understatement of the year..
the Church's comments on the universe should be taken with a grain of salt "since that is not its area of competence".

I would say that is only one of its areas of incompetence.  There are many more of course.

PS You'd think jesus would have explained all this stuff yes? - instead of making us work it out for ourselves ....

ok  disciples... gather round ..
see that moon? - well it's one light second away ..
see that sun? - 8 light minutes 
nearest star? Proxima Centauri... 4.3 light years .. about 40 million million km if you prefer  etc

PS btw, it's almost certain that the world is not flat...


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## 2020hindsight (24 June 2008)

... and btw, 
 the old man would like me to tell you that you made a few typos in the Old Testament ...
like where you say ... Day 1 "let there be light"...
and then Day 4 "let there be the sun" 
now that day there might have been a lousy internet connection ? -  maybe ... who nose.. 
maybe that burning bush was a marijuana plant ? 
but that's not quite the way it happened ok? etc etc


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## MRC & Co (24 June 2008)

wayneL said:


> Rejecting concepts out of hand can smack of dogma as well, though most of the traditional "religions" are probably about as discredited as you can be.
> 
> Many still enjoy the tradition however.




Yes, I agree Wayne.

Being bought up Catholic my entire life (as short as that is), I cannot agree with the concept of religeon.  Studying the bible and the history behind it's creation, has just thrown me way off the idea!  

That being said, though I do not believe in religeon per se, I think the probability of 'god' creating the Universe, would be on par with a 'big bang' or however else people think it came to be.  What came before?  Boggles my mind.

Nioka, great story!  Problem with this, is how many have their car break down and sit there waiting?  With absolutely NO profound 'reason'?  Damn me and my mind of probabilities.  

On another note, does anybody know the name of that mathematician (was very famous, oh and it wasn't Fibonnaci ) who once described the probability of life on earth forming the way it has, as about as much chance of going into your garage, throwing the tools around and a car appearing?  

The way the earth was formed, everything from the place in the solar system, distance from the sun, compounds of the earth (iron core shielding us) etc, is just spectacular and mind boggling in it's own right!  I mean, scientists still don't even know how water came to be?  Astroids?  Right, latest is commets.  What is the next 'theory'?  

I really wonder if we are nearly as complex as we believe ourselves to be and if we are on the right track at all with grasping some of these concepts?  I often also wonder, when my dog (who sits beside me all day and all night in my humble little trading room, 'god' bless him) comes and sits next to me, just how smart animals really are?  Probably a lot more so than we give them credit for.  How much do they really know is going on?  Other life forms on our planet are not given the credit, nor respect they deserve IMHO (but then again, I am probably bias, due to my extreme love for animals).

End of my rant   For now. 

Cheers


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## Wysiwyg (25 June 2008)

nioka said:


> Some events are beyond reason.




A unique experience with energy of a different kind Nioka.





> 2020hindsight wys, you mention that the Vatican has its own observatory. Putting a meteorite rock collection together - Not bad - only took them 350 years or so to apologise to Galileo




Watching the SETI program on Sunday night, there was mention of Giordano Bruno whom was burned at the stake for herisy.He may have been a fruity loop as the church representative in the program suggested and also seemingly stubborn from what i have read.A story of The forgotten Philosopher   is here and he won`t be getting an apology.



> Bruno wrote: "Everything, however men may deem it assured and evident, proves, when it is brought under discussion to be no less doubtful than are extravagant and absurd beliefs." He coined the phrase "Libertes philosophica." The right to think, to dream, if you like, to make philosophy.






> He is one martyr whose name should lead all the rest. He was not a mere religious sectarian who was caught up in the psychology of some mob hysteria. He was a sensitive, imaginative poet, fired with the enthusiasm of a larger vision of a larger universe ... and he fell into the error of heretical belief. For this poets vision he was kept in a dark dungeon for eight years and then taken out to a blazing market place and roasted to death by fire.


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## 2020hindsight (25 June 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> I often also wonder, when my dog (who sits beside me all day and all night in my humble little trading room, 'god' bless him) comes and sits next to me, just how smart animals really are?  Probably a lot more so than we give them credit for.  How much do they really know is going on?



:topic:
MRC, yep I've been thinking I might teach my dog to sniff the computer - maybe tell me when there's a correction in the market.  I'm sure she could do it too. 



> On another note, does anybody know the name of that mathematician (was very famous, oh and it wasn't Fibonnaci ) who once described the probability of life on earth forming the way it has, as about as much chance of going into your garage, throwing the tools around and a car appearing?



or "whirlwind going through a junkyard and a jetplane appearing?" 
... someone who wants to "spin" the story so that it appears that it all appeared in one foul sweep - or fell swoop if you prefer 
mischievous imo
that whirlwind has been blowing for 14 billion years 

PS here's a PNG quote  
"slowly slowly build the monkey"
or is that 
"gently gently catchee monkey"?  I forget


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## wayneL (25 June 2008)

Well, there is a perfectly good God/no God thread elsewhere. Let's keep this one on topic.

Just a thought though, belief in "black holes" and "dark matter" requires belief in something nobody can see. Their existence is hypothesized, based on behaviour of other heavenly bodies.

Other scientists contest that they exist at all... electric universe proponents et al.

(IIRC)

Food for thought.


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## BIG BWACULL (25 June 2008)

Heres some pics from last year  Enjoy
PICS HERE
Check the news pics too (careful quite graphic)


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## disarray (25 June 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> On another note, does anybody know the name of that mathematician (was very famous, oh and it wasn't Fibonnaci ) who once described the probability of life on earth forming the way it has, as about as much chance of going into your garage, throwing the tools around and a car appearing?




you might be thinking of the Drake Equation



			
				WayneL said:
			
		

> Just a thought though, belief in "black holes" and "dark matter" requires belief in something nobody can see. Their existence is hypothesized, based on behaviour of other heavenly bodies.




its just the gaps in our knowledge thing. the strength of science is that it needs to be challenged, tested, proved or disproved, that is a far more robust intellectual model than "listen to the guy in the white pointy hat because his 2000 year old book says so". science doesn't require "belief", it requires "proof". hypothesis is only a stepping stone to fact.

it's a really exciting time at the moment and you can see the level of our technological development has gone parabolic (along with population, resource depletion, pollution, extinction etc).


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## MRC & Co (25 June 2008)

disarray said:


> you might be thinking of the Drake Equation
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Hmmmm, don't think it was Drake.

The trouble with science, is that what is prooven, is then disprooven.  As is the nature of complex and chaotic systems.  Change one variable, and the entire system is thrown out, 'solve it with all our academia' and then in 100 years, another acadmic will disproove it and so repeats the cycle.   

Wayne also makes a good point about the electric universe, just another possibility, there are so many I have given up trying to grasp the concepts of them all.  

Definately exciting times though.

Absolutely fantastic pictures there BIGB, some I had not seen before.

Cheers


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## wayneL (25 June 2008)

disarray said:


> its just the gaps in our knowledge thing. the strength of science is that it needs to be challenged, tested, proved or disproved, that is a far more robust intellectual model than "listen to the guy in the white pointy hat because his 2000 year old book says so". science doesn't require "belief", it requires "proof". hypothesis is only a stepping stone to fact.
> 
> it's a really exciting time at the moment and you can see the level of our technological development has gone parabolic (along with population, resource depletion, pollution, extinction etc).



That's a bit skewed and not really the point.

* Some science is not about gaps in knowledge to be proved or disproved. Astronomical science being a great case in point. Some parts of the big bang theory have been added specifically because the theory doesn't work. It has effectively been disproven. The response has been to add mysterious, unseeable and unprovable "forces" to make it work.

That's OK, providing it's status remains as hypothesis, rather than theory. But in fact, it is taught more as fact. 

Much science can take on aspects of religious belief. Climate science is another one that come to mind. Dissenters are regarded by the high priests of the IPCC and their disciples as heretical. Trying to discuss the matter with AGW adherent is exactly like trying to discuss the origins of the universe with an evangelical Christian. 

It's a human trait to fervently and militantly align themselves with some belief or cause, whether or not based on actual fact. Humans behave no differently in the fields of scientific hypotheses and theory. Heck, there are still people who believe Gordon Brown is the political messiah .

* While we do have pointy hatted, bible waving filibusters, spewing out nonsense of various flavours, the thinking person doesn't see that as disproof of God or some other non-physical reality, just because they spout easily disprovable concepts. Equally, one can hypothesize on this subject as well, developing and changing based on advances in knowledge.

Chuck the books and think about it (if one wants to that is), based on knowledge and experience. Reject the fear and guilt mechanisms of "religion" without rejecting 'spirituality' (for want of a better word) and there is much to think about and hypothesize over.

The fact is, when viewed this way science and errrr (I'll have to think of a word with non-religious connotations) have more in common than most would like to accept.

But what definitely should happen, is that proponents of the science only view, really should stop dragging up 2000 year old books, pointy hats and genesis creation stories as representative of people who are exploring the other side of the coin. Let's leave those people to their tradition and their beliefs, but recognize the views of other thinkers.

Not to do so is unscientific and narrow-minded... based as much on emotional factors as the pointy hat followers. The few scientists looking at non-physical phenomena are exploring some remarkable avenues. 

There is more in common with both trains of though than is generally accepted.


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## 2020hindsight (25 June 2008)

http://www.ebonmusings.org/evolution/tornado.html

PS nothing personal intended about the reference to disarray ..  pure coincidence 



> In his 1983 book The Intelligent Universe, astronomer Fred Hoyle wrote the following infamous passage:
> 
> "A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in *disarray*. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe." (p.19)






> *Though Hoyle actually intended this as an argument against abiogenesis, the creationists have since assimilated it and used it against evolution*






> In creationist literature, this argument has mutated into a diversity of forms: setting off an explosion in a print shop to produce a dictionary, disassembling a watch and shaking up the pieces in a box to reassemble it, and so on, building a bicycle by applying a blowtorch to a pile of bicycle parts, and so on. No matter what form the analogy takes, however, creationists have promoted it as a common-sense proof of the impossibility of evolution producing complex, highly ordered forms. There is even a creationist book titled Tornado in a Junkyard.






> *This essay will show that this analogy is not an accurate representation of how evolution (or, for that matter, abiogenesis) works. In fact, it is a straw man, a ridiculous caricature that bears no resemblance to what the theory actually says... etc *






> a) It operates purely according to random chance.
> b) It is an example of single-step, rather than cumulative, selection.
> c) It is a saltationary jump - an end product entirely unlike the beginning product.
> d) It has a target specified ahead of time. ....






> a) The first point is the most important. The tornado in the junkyard is an example of an intricate, complex and highly organized form being produced by nothing more than random chance. But evolution is not chance... Rather, it operates according to a fixed law - the law of natural selection - which favors some assemblages over others; it preferentially selects for those adaptations which improve fitness and selects against those that do not. The tornado, by contrast, slams parts together and tears them apart with no preference whatsoever, thus completely failing to represent natural selection, the central force which drives evolution. To more accurately represent evolution, one would have to grant the tornado some power to recognize assemblages of parts which could serve as part of a 747 and prevent it from tearing them apart.






> b) Second, the tornado analogy is an example of single-step selection - in one step, it goes from a random pile of parts to a fully assembled airliner. This is completely unlike evolution, which operates according to a process of cumulative selection - complex results that are built up gradually, in a repetitive process guided at each step by selective forces. To more accurately represent evolution, the tornado could be sent through the junkyard not once, but thousands or millions of times, at each step preserving chance assemblages of parts that could make up a jumbo jet.






> c) Third, in relation to the point above, the tornado in the junkyard is an example of saltation - a sudden leap in which the end product is completely different from the beginning product. Evolution does not work this way; birds do not hatch out of dinosaur eggs and monkeys do not give birth to humans. Rather, species grow different over time through a process of slow change in which each new creature is only slightly different from its ancestor. Evolution forms a gradually shading continuum ....






> d) Finally, the tornado analogy fails to represent evolution in one more significant way: it has a target specified ahead of time. Evolution does not. Natural selection is not a forward-looking process; it cannot select for what may become useful in the future, only what is immediately useful in the present. To more accurately represent evolution, we might add the additional stipulation that the tornado be allowed to assemble, not just a jumbo jet, but any functional piece of machinery



.


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## wayneL (25 June 2008)

Irrevocably, the the theory of evolution boils down to abiogenesis though, so where to from here?

Life from non-life.


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## 2020hindsight (25 June 2008)

Carl Sagan on Drake Equation

Speaking of the Drake Equation…
if you watch the interval 4m10s to 4m40s…
ONE ELEMENT of that equation is the factor f(smallL).. = the percentage of suitable planets that go on to develop suitable life

Sagan says only 50%
Drake assumed 100%
It would seem that this is the least of your problems (according to these blokes).  As Sagan says, "*the molecules of life spontaneously self-assemble*" 

Sagan :-  “now what about (the chances of) life (appearing on a suitable world )…. he assumes 50/50 chance , viz:-



> what about life?
> under very general cosmic conditions, the molecules of life are readily made…they spontaneously self-assemble
> It is conceivable that there might be some impediment – like some difficulty in the origin of the generic code say
> although I think that’s very unlikely, given the billions of years of evolution,
> ...






> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
> The Drake equation states that:
> where:
> N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
> ...






> Sagan arrives at the same answer , albeit with different assumptions …..…
> •	N* = the number of stars in the galaxy now = 400E9= 400 billion in the milky way
> •	fp = 0.25 (a quarter of all stars formed will have planets)
> •	ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of supporting life)
> ...


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## Wysiwyg (26 June 2008)

The reason for human existance is to learn how life first came about.Once this is discovered then the game is over.The puzzle solved.The charlatans laid to rest.The imposters exposed.A mystery that taunts and teases mankind, causing wars, insanity, cruelty and destruction has an answer to be known.And so it shall be.

Wysiwyg 3:35-42




.


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## wayneL (26 June 2008)

Wysiwyg said:


> The reason for human existance is to learn how life first came about.Once this is discovered then the game is over.The puzzle solved.The charlatans laid to rest.The imposters exposed.A mystery that taunts and teases mankind, causing wars, insanity, cruelty and destruction has an answer to be known.And so it shall be.
> 
> Wysiwyg 3:35-42
> .




So if we find the truth... it's all over? The universe implodes back into a superdense pinprick? The Book Of Life is closed? 

Long may the mystery prevail then.


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## Lucky (26 June 2008)

*Hadron Collider almost complete*

http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/LHC/LHC-en.html

The Large Hadron Collider 

Our understanding of the Universe is about to change...

_The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a gigantic scientific instrument near Geneva, where it spans the border between Switzerland and France about 100 m underground. It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionise our understanding, from the miniscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.
Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap. Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy. Teams of physicists from around the world will analyse the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.
There are many theories as to what will result from these collisions, but what's for sure is that a brave new world of physics will emerge from the new accelerator, as knowledge in particle physics goes on to describe the workings of the Universe. For decades, the Standard Model of particle physics has served physicists well as a means of understanding the fundamental laws of Nature, but it does not tell the whole story. Only experimental data using the higher energies reached by the LHC can push knowledge forward, challenging those who seek confirmation of established knowledge, and those who dare to dream beyond the paradigm. 
_

http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/5021/


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## MRC & Co (26 June 2008)

wayneL said:


> It's a human trait to fervently and militantly align themselves with some belief or cause, whether or not based on actual fact.




Amen to that.  Some of the scientific community are so sure about their "prooven theories" it reminds me of some of the god botherers (pointy white hat men) you see preeching in the streets!  

It is refreshing to watch many documentaries lately and see scentists admit they really have no idea about most of what they believe in or talk about. 

Talk about people finding it hard to keep an open mind!


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## MRC & Co (26 June 2008)

wayneL said:


> The response has been to add mysterious, unseeable and unprovable "forces" to make it work.




That appears the case with 'dark matter', not to mention 'worm holes'.

However, aren't black holes actually seen?  Matter circling around, being sucked into them?  Not to mention light............


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## disarray (26 June 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> That appears the case with 'dark matter', not to mention 'worm holes'.
> 
> However, aren't black holes actually seen?  Matter circling around, being sucked into them?  Not to mention light............




yup


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## spooly74 (26 June 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> That appears the case with 'dark matter', not to mention 'worm holes'.
> ............




There are currently 2 candidates for cold dark matter.

The first is the axion, and if it does indeed exist it is too small to be detected directly. There is hope that they may be detected due to their interaction with electromagnetic fields but it`s a long long shot.
There has been an experiment which claimed to have found it, but scientists have been unable to replicate it in othe rlabs (DAMA-dark matter experiment). There is also hope for its discovery in a lab underground in Yorkshire

The 2nd is called the neutralino and if you were a betting physicist this is where your $$ would be.
Although its been given this name, it is not any specific particle but a general name to cover all options. This particle (or combination) emerges naturally out of supersymmetry!!!

This will definitely be detected at the LHC if it exists so sit tight, not long to go.


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## 2020hindsight (26 June 2008)

spooly74 said:


> This particle (or combination) emerges naturally out of supersymmetry




that's how they pick Miss Universe as well, I'm told.


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## spooly74 (4 July 2008)

wayneL said:


> * Some science is not about gaps in knowledge to be proved or disproved. Astronomical science being a great case in point. Some parts of the big bang theory have been added specifically because the theory doesn't work. It has effectively been disproven. The response has been to add mysterious, unseeable and unprovable "forces" to make it work.
> 
> That's OK, providing it's status remains as hypothesis, rather than theory. But in fact, it is taught more as fact.
> 
> Much science can take on aspects of religious belief. Climate science is another one that come to mind. Dissenters are regarded by the high priests of the IPCC and their disciples as heretical. Trying to discuss the matter with AGW adherent is exactly like trying to discuss the origins of the universe with an evangelical Christian.



Specifically, what parts ot the big bang theory do not work?

Big bang *is* a theory, not a hypothesis ... and by definition dosent have proof, only evidence. 
Are there better explanations for cosmic microwave background, for the observed redshift of galaxies or the abundances of the light elements in the universe?
BB is supported by these observations, the lack of alternate theories makes it very strong.

I`m not sure what aspects of science take on religious belief. I am going to assume you mean 'faith' so apologies if I assumed wrong.
Dark matter, dark energy etc are all theories from observations (albeit indirectly) with predicted energies and values. They can all be falsified by coming up with a better theory from observations.
Electric Universe hypothesis on the other hand, is almost totally based on faith.


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## spooly74 (9 July 2008)

The WorldWide Telescope (WWT) is a Web 2.0 visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope””bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

Brilliant program available for download.

http://www.worldwidetelescope.org

Some screenshots attached.


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## MRC & Co (9 July 2008)

Brilliant Spooly, I'm gonna be playing around with this for a while!


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## wayneL (9 July 2008)

Yeah thanks Spooly,

I'll have to update my abacus before downloading. Saved for later.


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## MRC & Co (10 July 2008)

spooly74 said:


> Electric Universe hypothesis on the other hand, is almost totally based on faith.




I was reading the other day (sorry can't remember the site), that there is a space explorer moving out of our solar system and into the galaxy, of which was being pulled back by the apparent gravity of the sun.  Obviously, as the explorer gets further away, the pull of gravity will ease and the explorer will be able to pick up speed, the further it got away, no speed was gained.  One arguement beyond faith (unless something else explains this phenomena), for the electric universe.  

Then again, skim read it, so probably missed a few points.

Does this sound right?


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## wayneL (10 July 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> I was reading the other day (sorry can't remember the site), that there is a space explorer moving out of our solar system and into the galaxy, of which was being pulled back by the apparent gravity of the sun.  Obviously, as the explorer gets further away, the pull of gravity will ease and the explorer will be able to pick up speed, the further it got away, no speed was gained.  One arguement beyond faith (unless something else explains this phenomena), for the electric universe.
> 
> Then again, skim read it, so probably missed a few points.
> 
> Does this sound right?




M,

Re theory vs faith (with regards to science)

Faith ==>> what they believe

Theory ==>> what you believe


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## MRC & Co (10 July 2008)

LOL.

Yeh, science is definately a bit arrogant and dogmatic about their 'proof'.  

Generalisation of course.

Any news on creating a black hole yet?  I don't follow this, but the possibility and if it was actually achieved, would be astounding!  Hope it doesn't suck them in!  Once they eat, they grow, right?


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## 2020hindsight (10 July 2008)

MRC...  

ps science is better than blind faith mate


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## spooly74 (10 July 2008)

MRC & Co said:


> I was reading the other day (sorry can't remember the site), that there is a space explorer moving out of our solar system and into the galaxy, of which was being pulled back by the apparent gravity of the sun.  Obviously, as the explorer gets further away, the pull of gravity will ease and the explorer will be able to pick up speed, the further it got away, no speed was gained.  One arguement beyond faith (unless something else explains this phenomena), for the electric universe.
> 
> Then again, skim read it, so probably missed a few points.
> 
> Does this sound right?




Yep, they are the Pioneer probes 10 and 11.
They are off by about 3000km each year ....nobody has been able to explain this yet.
This could be though of as an effect of the Electric Universe but it`s certainly not a prediction...don`t know of any actually.

Could be that the vacum of space is not uniform wrt speed of light, dust from the kuiper belt, or we don`t understand gravity as well as we think we do 

There have been some more recent anomolies found by NASA and closer to home.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080229-spacecraft-anomaly.html


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## bassmanpete (10 July 2008)

> I was reading the other day (sorry can't remember the site), that there is a space explorer moving out of our solar system and into the galaxy, of which was being pulled back by the apparent gravity of the sun. Obviously, as the explorer gets further away, the pull of gravity will ease and the explorer will be able to pick up speed, the further it got away, no speed was gained. One arguement beyond faith (unless something else explains this phenomena), for the electric universe.




Pioneer 10 & 11 are heading out of the solar system and both appear to be slowing down more than expected. Scientists are trying to find out why. This is where science differs from fundamentalist religion - the fundamentalist believes the Bible, Quran, or whatever is correct, any evidence to the contrary is just ignored or passed off with "It must be wrong."

Scientists do experiments to test their theories, the results of which may mean the theories have to be adjusted. There's no faith involved. A scientist may say "I have faith that this experiment will give such-and-such a result" because he believes a theory is correct. But if the result is different from  expectations the theory will be adjusted to take account of the new data. The fundamentalist just says "Whatever happens, it's all part of God's plan"/"We can't presume to know God's mind"/"God moves in mysterious ways" and other such bull****!


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## wayneL (10 July 2008)

bassmanpete said:


> Pioneer 10 & 11 are heading out of the solar system and both appear to be slowing down more than expected. Scientists are trying to find out why. This is where science differs from fundamentalist religion - the fundamentalist believes the Bible, Quran, or whatever is correct, any evidence to the contrary is just ignored or passed off with "It must be wrong."
> 
> Scientists do experiments to test their theories, the results of which may mean the theories have to be adjusted. There's no faith involved. A scientist may say "I have faith that this experiment will give such-and-such a result" because he believes a theory is correct. But if the result is different from  expectations the theory will be adjusted to take account of the new data. The fundamentalist just says "Whatever happens, it's all part of God's plan"/"We can't presume to know God's mind"/"God moves in mysterious ways" and other such bull****!



Yes we all know fundamentalists do that. Let's not bother with them.

My issue is i the "adjusting" of theories to suit new data. Sometimes adjustments are valid and an improvement of theory.

Sometimes they are are to rescue a theory.

Come on!! We've seen over centuries that scientists stick doggedly to theories well past their use by date. This cannot be denied.

Don't get me wrong, I am not bagging out science. But science is run by fallible humans who are inclined towards faith and cognitive bias, whether that faith is directed towards some musty old book, or a pet theory. Scientists can be as resolutely close-minded as fundamentalists.

They are both naked apes.

Sorry for the cynicism, but my point is consistently observable and therefore irrevocable... not an article of faith at all.


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## MRC & Co (10 July 2008)

You seem to really follow this stuff Spooly.  

That article is definately very interesting, particularly the part about 'new physics'.  

This is one reason I wonder how much the scientists know about the effect of a black hole, if they can infact, create one.  What will happen?  How do they know they can confine it?  

Keep us updated anyways, as I do not follow these things anymore.  

But always watch the moon when I go outside at night and just think, WTF!!!!!


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## spooly74 (11 July 2008)

wayneL said:


> Yes we all know fundamentalists do that. Let's not bother with them.
> 
> My issue is i the "adjusting" of theories to suit new data. Sometimes adjustments are valid and an improvement of theory.
> 
> ...




I don`t think you are really being cynical here, but I feel it covers a broad spectrum of scientific fields.
In the context of this thread though, i just don`t see how faith plays any part.
Physicsts have a very good model for our understanding of the Universe and it`s all straight forward inference from observation....and all falsifiable!

You couldn`t prove to a person of (insert religion here) faith, that there was no god....not the same here 



MRC & Co said:


> This is one reason I wonder how much the scientists know about the effect of a black hole, if they can infact, create one.  What will happen?  How do they know they can confine it?




I`m almost sure that the LHC machine itself does not have enough power to create black holes .... but if they do manage to see the result of a black holes, the extra energy would have had to come from somewhere else .... more dimensions
As for containing them, even if did last, they would be _theoritically_ so small that they could pass through an iron bar from here to the moon and be lucky to hit even one proton 
Don`t think they can say with any certainty what will happen....more a case of what they _think_ they know, rather than what they think they _know_.


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## Wysiwyg (30 March 2009)

Hey dudes, just arrived home after visiting a favourite holiday destination with my friends Fleagle, Bingo and Drooper.Had a ball in the dune buggy until Drooper crashed into a rock (one of the many I might add) but he came out unscathed though a little red faced.
Managed to take some shots from the balcony of our apartment.Hope y`all like them. 

Glad to be home. Your friend, Snorky.


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## white_goodman (30 March 2009)

Wysiwyg said:


> Hey dudes, just arrived home after visiting a favourite holiday destination with my friends Fleagle, Bingo and Drooper.Had a ball in the dune buggy until Drooper crashed into a rock (one of the many I might add) but he came out unscathed though a little red faced.
> Managed to take some shots from the balcony of our apartment.Hope y`all like them.
> 
> Glad to be home. Your friend, Snorky.




geez Mars looks like a hole


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## darnsmall (30 March 2009)

wayneL said:


> Yes we all know fundamentalists do that. Let's not bother with them.
> 
> My issue is i the "adjusting" of theories to suit new data. Sometimes adjustments are valid and an improvement of theory.
> 
> ...




Thats the beauty of science, a dodgy theory can be tested and disproven/confirmed. Just because someone wants to hold onto a false assumption, doesn't mean science will follow along with the scam. All it takes is one to question, test, and analyse the results.


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## drsmith (30 March 2009)

white_goodman said:


> geez Mars looks like a hole



Mars is actually class K.


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## jonojpsg (30 March 2009)

Here's one for y'all from the lil island down south   Don't know what they're looking for in Launnie though 


http://www.examiner.com.au/news/local/news/human-interest/ufos-spotted-over-launceston/1439918.aspx

UFOs spotted over Launceston
DANIELLE BLEWETT
20/02/2009 9:41:00 PM


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## Wysiwyg (6 December 2011)

Kepler 22b a bit of noise and highly unlikely to be anything more than wishful thinking. Being 600 light years (600 * 9,460,730,472,580.8 kms) away, no one is going to go there either. 



> The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.
> Kepler-22b is located 600 light-years away. While the planet is larger than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our world. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.


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## drsmith (6 December 2011)

Wysiwyg said:


> Kepler 22b a bit of noise and highly unlikely to be anything more than wishful thinking. Being 600 light years (600 * 9,460,730,472,580.8 kms) away, no one is going to go there either.



One of these will do the trick, with the exception of bottom middle.


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