Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,807 Year: 3,064/9,624 Month: 909/1,588 Week: 92/223 Day: 3/17 Hour: 1/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   These Fellows Is Crazy!
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5907 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 31 of 44 (61938)
10-21-2003 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Lizard Breath
10-21-2003 9:49 AM


Re: To anyone other than Rrhain,
Try this website to get an idea of how the speed limit of light was ascetained and its ramifications.
Short Words to Explain Relativity
in the last part of your post is this item.
"all being aligned to a focal point somewhere in the direction of the initial instant of the Big Bang."
This occurs because the universe is composed of space-time which is to say like the sides of a coin what happens with one as a rule affects the other.Notice that you use the word POINT(space)and the word INSTANT(time) together in the sentence.Space tells time its direction, time tells space its sequence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-21-2003 9:49 AM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 32 of 44 (61989)
10-21-2003 6:45 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Lizard Breath
10-21-2003 9:10 AM


Re: Rrhain,
That's what I was trying to avoid and what I ment by spin but I gets it's the same game on both sides of the isle. It's either "Go read Genesis" or "Go back to College".
It's just that the questions you're asking aren't simple ones. They're at the core of astronomy, and astronomers have devoted much time and work to their answers, and the answers aren't simple. It's going to be very hard indeed to answer a general question like "how do we know what we know?" to a non-scientist on an internet board.
You'd do much better to read something like Hawking's "A Brief History of Time". He explains it all so much better than any of us here could do for you, and it's very much a book for intelligent laypeople.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-21-2003 9:10 AM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 33 of 44 (61993)
10-21-2003 7:33 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Lizard Breath
10-21-2003 9:10 AM


Re: Rrhain,
Lizard Breath responds to me...I think...he doesn't say and since he used the big reply button at the bottom of the page rather than using the little reply button beneath my message, it's only a guess:
quote:
I was looking for some info from you as far as the most convincing observational evidence that you have read / discovered that sets it in stone the acceptable age of the universe.
First, nothing in science is ever set in stone. Everything is always subject to review when new evidence comes along. Some things are so well-established that it will take extraordinary evidence in order to cause us to reconsider, but it will be reconsidered when that evidence is presented.
Second, all you had to do was a simple internet search and you would have found what you were looking for. Why do you make us do your homework for you? Go to Google, type in "age of universe," and take a look for yourself.
First link, from the BBC, discusses calculations from observations from the Hubble of white dwarfs, placing the age of the universe between 13 and 14 billion years:
Age of Universe confirmed
The second link, from Space.com, makes calculations from the structure of space and puts it between 11.2 and 20 billion years, indicating that the Hubble result is consistent.
Age of Universe Revised, Again
Third link uses data from WMAP and calculates the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years:
Age of universe refined
Now, why did I have to do this for you? Why couldn't you do it for yourself? Methinks you're simply playing a game.
quote:
True, I can go to a university and study astronomy and physics and find out the answers that way,
That is the best way. They have the equipment, the time, and the expertise required to make sure you get all of your questions answered. They have a structure whereby they start at the beginning and don't skip ahead in order to make sure that you don't get left behind. Everything we discuss here will be in layman's terms.
quote:
it seems apparent that you are not going to share what you have found out with me and I can accept that.
Oh, please. Now I know you're playing a game. What's with the wounded martyr routine? I know...you see, now you can go on and on about how you tried to talk with us with an open mind, but you were met with derision and scolding.
If you really cared about this subject, you would do some work. I actually asked you if you were willing, and you blew me off:
Are you willing to do the work? Just how far back to the fundamentals do I need to go in order for you to follow along? Do I need to discuss the nature of light and provide you with experimental evidence that it has an upper limit on its speed? Are you willing to wait the six months required for the earth to move to the opposite side of the sun in order for you to measure the parallax generated and thus make a direct calculation of the distance of certain cosmological objects?
So are you? This is a two-way street. I cannot tell you what you want to know unless you be honest about what it is you want to know.
quote:
you seem to know your stuff in the realm of science and astronomy so I was truly interested in the set of core scientific facts that you employ and the logic tools that you use to lock the picture of the age of the universe as well as it's formation into clear focus.
Then get off your butt and do some work.
quote:
As far as the spin was concerned
You're playing games again....
quote:
That's what I was trying to avoid and what I ment by spin but I gets it's the same game on both sides of the isle.
But you're the one playing it. "Spin"? What "spin"?
You've done an amazing job of making yourself look like a reasonable, innocent bystander and I just don't buy it. I've seen too many people who do the exact same thing that you do who eventually self-destruct and show their true colors.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-21-2003 9:10 AM Lizard Breath has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-22-2003 9:54 PM Rrhain has replied
 Message 40 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-23-2003 10:52 AM Rrhain has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 34 of 44 (61997)
10-21-2003 7:53 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by Lizard Breath
10-21-2003 9:49 AM


Re: To anyone other than Rrhain,
Lizard Breath writes:
quote:
Is it possible to explain how the upper limit of the speed of light was determined - to a non scientist like myself? Probably not.
If you actually got off your butt and did some work, you'd have a better shot at it, don't you think?
What you have asked is not a simple question.
Here's an example of what I mean. You can calculate the speed of light in your own home, most likely.
Take some marshmallows, put them on a microwave safe dish, and put them in the microwave. Make sure that your microwave does not have a turntable as we want the marshmallows to remain in one spot while you cook them.
On low heat, zap the marshmallows until you can see four or five spots on the marshmallows where they are starting to melt. Take out the dish and measure the distance between the melted spots. You'll find that they're all about the same distance apart.
That distance is half the wavelength of the microwaves used by your oven. Somewhere on the oven will be a label telling you the frequency of the microwave.
Now, since velocity of waves is frequency x wavelength, all you have to do is multiply your wavelength measured by the frequency of the oven and you get the speed of light.
Now, does that help you? Do you understand the nature of light and the wave nature of light such that the multiplication of frequency and wavelength giving velocity makes sense?
There are many ways to calculate the speed of light. In 1676, Olaus Roemer noticed the time it took for the moons of Jupiter to eclipse varied according to whether the Earth was approaching or receding from Jupiter. Using the estimated distance between the two planets, he calculated c to be 214,000 km/s.
More direct measurements were done by Armand Fizeau in 1849 where he took a beam of light that passed through the teeth of a cog, traveled 8 km to a mirror, and then passed back through the next gap between the teeth of the cog as it rotated. He calculated c to be 315,000 km/s. Leon Foucault used a similar method to refine the result to 298,000 km/s.
For more information:
How is the speed of light measured?
quote:
I have read that space appears to be spread out like a curtain instead of a speriod
Where did you read this? It isn't true. A recent study found that the universe is shaped like a dodecahedron:
A finite dodecahedral Universe
quote:
Again it would seem to me that if the explosion was uniform, the universe should be just one giant super galaxy or even just a globular cluster sitting static.
You're forgetting about quantum fluctuations.
quote:
but I find it puzzling the number of Galaxies and their odd orientations to each other vs. all being aligned to a focal point somewhere in the direction of the initial instant of the Big Bang.
Why?
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-21-2003 9:49 AM Lizard Breath has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Coragyps, posted 10-21-2003 8:15 PM Rrhain has not replied
 Message 41 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-23-2003 11:09 AM Rrhain has not replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 35 of 44 (62001)
10-21-2003 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by Rrhain
10-21-2003 7:53 PM


Re: To anyone other than Rrhain,
LB: I have read that space appears to be spread out like a curtain instead of a speriod
----------------------------------------------------------
Rr: Where did you read this? It isn't true. A recent study found that the universe is shaped like a dodecahedron:
I'll bet that what LB is referring to is the observation that clusters of galaxies within the universe are distributed in sheets and filaments, with big (really, really big) relatively empty "bubbles" in between. All this structure, big as it is, is small compared to the whole enchilada, or soccer ball, or "Poincare dodecahedral space" that is the universe.
Apparently, one can go putz around with what that "P. d. space" looks like at
I'm going there to see if it hurts my eyes, or just reminds me of an album cover from 1969, momentarily.
Added by edit: you can see the articles from Nature for free by going to the links in the 8 October item here:
http://geometrygames.org/ESoS/CosmologyNews.html
[This message has been edited by Coragyps, 10-21-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Rrhain, posted 10-21-2003 7:53 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1478 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 36 of 44 (62121)
10-22-2003 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by MrHambre
10-20-2003 9:37 AM


That doesn't mean you cannot make the attempt to detect
though, surely ... otherwise science would never have become what
it now is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by MrHambre, posted 10-20-2003 9:37 AM MrHambre has not replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6695 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 37 of 44 (62235)
10-22-2003 9:54 PM
Reply to: Message 33 by Rrhain
10-21-2003 7:33 PM


Re: Rrhain,
On the first link that you gave me, half way down the article it says that "The cooling cinders give an indication of when the white dwarf stars were born - just under 13 billion years ago." I can understand this measurement if I am correct in how they are calulating it.
Correct me if I'm out there but the cooling cinders would be similiar to a smoldering camp fire where there is little visible light being emitted but you can measure the amount of heat (roughly) by how warm the remains feel as you draw your hand close to it. The more residule heat you can feel along with some smoke can give an indication of how long ago the fire was fully active with respect to the size of the fire ring and ash heep. You just add that value with the size of the fire to determine how long it burned full strength and then add a unit of time to account for the starting and stabilizing of the camp fire, and by knowing the burn rate of the wood fuel, you should have the duration of the camp fire from initial lighting to the smoldering present.
What you cannot know by this is how old is the fire ring (pit), and what I'm wondering is later on in this article they give a date for the age of the universe as 1 billion years older than the 13 billion year old white dwarfs. Just like the fire ring might be 3 months old and used for several fires, how is it determined that these white dwarfs are first generation stars.
I'm hitting all of your links and then doing the Google searches that you recomended but it will take me some time to start to sound informed on the universe age date methodology so please excuse my questions if they sound like Jon Boy Walton Farmer Chat at this phase.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Rrhain, posted 10-21-2003 7:33 PM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by Coragyps, posted 10-22-2003 11:10 PM Lizard Breath has replied
 Message 39 by Rrhain, posted 10-23-2003 7:47 AM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 734 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 38 of 44 (62251)
10-22-2003 11:10 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by Lizard Breath
10-22-2003 9:54 PM


Re: Rrhain,
and what I'm wondering is later on in this article they give a date for the age of the universe as 1 billion years older than the 13 billion year old white dwarfs. Just like the fire ring might be 3 months old and used for several fires, how is it determined that these white dwarfs are first generation stars.
My understanding is that the age of the universe proper is derived from its dynamics - the way it's expanding - and has nothing really to do with how white dwarfs are dated. In fact, the first star ever that can be assigned to the "first generation" of stars to form was only discovered in the last year or so - they call it a "Population III" star. The 13-by-old white dwarfs are surely Population II, the second generation, and our Sun is Population I. They tell the "generations" apart largely my how much of heavy elements, "metals" in astronomyspeak, they contain.
And your campfire analogy is brilliant!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-22-2003 9:54 PM Lizard Breath has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-23-2003 7:43 PM Coragyps has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 39 of 44 (62307)
10-23-2003 7:47 AM
Reply to: Message 37 by Lizard Breath
10-22-2003 9:54 PM


Re: Rrhain,
Lizard Breath responds to me:
quote:
Correct me if I'm out there but the cooling cinders would be similiar to a smoldering camp fire where there is little visible light being emitted but you can measure the amount of heat (roughly) by how warm the remains feel as you draw your hand close to it.
No. You are taking the metaphor too far.
quote:
What you cannot know by this is how old is the fire ring (pit), and what I'm wondering is later on in this article they give a date for the age of the universe as 1 billion years older than the 13 billion year old white dwarfs.
Yes. It's called correlation. If you know that the first stars of a certain type occurred about a billion years after the Big Bang through one method and you find that the first stars of a certain type are just under 13 billion years old by another method, then you simply put the two together and you find that the universe is just under 14 billion years old.
I don't understand why this is difficult for you. If one method tells you what the lower limit is and another method shows you that the actual answer is about distance X in front of the lower limit, then what is so hard about combining these two facts?
quote:
how is it determined that these white dwarfs are first generation stars.
Do some research and find out.
And notice that the article also points out that multiple methods, mutually exclusive in methodology, all seem to come to the same answer. That gives us confidence that the answer we have is accurate.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by Lizard Breath, posted 10-22-2003 9:54 PM Lizard Breath has not replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6695 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 40 of 44 (62343)
10-23-2003 10:52 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Rrhain
10-21-2003 7:33 PM


Re: Rrhain, WMAP link
The 2 photos that are shown in this link are a "course and fine" rendition of the universe as it would have appeared to us on earth 380,000 years after the initial Big Bang (I know the earth didn't exist yet) if we would have looked up in the sky and our eyes were able to see that type of energy? This is an after glow that's left over from the original event and is visible all around us as a 2.73 degree background radiation emmision. I can follow that like the heat you feel in a room after an intense gas fireplace was shut off. The heat in the room is roughly equal all over though not as uniform as the 1 part in 100,000 variance of the background radiation of the universe. Am I describing it correctly or am I mis-correlating two very different concepts?
Anyway, what they are saying is you can messure the amplitude of the polarization of this background radiation and the variances indicate where more or less star energy was being emitted and caused ionization of the surrounding (matter?). The larger the amplitude of the polarizations, the earlier the starlight was ionizing the matter. I've got it I think but can you answer a few questions about this?
First, would it be correct to say that the background radiation has been "permanently scarred" by the early ionization of matter from the first shinning stars? I believe that they are using the polarization amplitude fluctuations as a time stamp on the radiation and coming up with the first stars igniting around 200 million years after the Big Bang.
Is it posible to effect the polorization ampitude of the background radiation when this energy that we are measuring moves past a current star?
If the background radiation that we meassure is highly dirrectional, which is what is enabling us to paint a picture of the early universe, are there any other factors that could attribute to the polarization flux's or can those only happen when the "soup" of the young universe is in a certain state and has the ability to be "scarred" - ionized, and now the resulting image from the background radiation is unchangable or uneffected by current solar radiation? I realize that I've actually asked the same questions in 3 different ways but I think you can see what I'm looking for.
I am trying to see for myself if there is any way to correlate the uniform background radiation with a 10,000 year old "Biblical" creation model of the universe.
BTW, thanks for taking the time to give me these links, I know that was a lot of typing but I am grateful. This issue is not so much me getting off my butt, I would have responded sooner but I ran a new natural gas line for a couple fireplaces I bought for my house and not being a plumber by trade, it was most time consuming. Thanks again.
[This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-23-2003]
[This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-23-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Rrhain, posted 10-21-2003 7:33 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6695 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 41 of 44 (62349)
10-23-2003 11:09 AM
Reply to: Message 34 by Rrhain
10-21-2003 7:53 PM


Re: Rrhain,
In this link I believe that what they are getting at is the shape of space is not a curtain but a soccer ball shaped prism. I guess then what we observe as a linear distance is really a curved distance to other distant galaxies? So the galaxies are actually closer to us but because percievable space is bent on 36 degree angles and is roughly a sphere, we see it as a straight line distance?
If as they state, our universe would be 120 times smaller in this model(in volume), given the speed of light remains constant, would the background radiation that WMAP plotted actually been reflected past us by these "universal boundry walls" several if not many times instead of being the direct distant emminence of something very hot a long time ago?
I'll read this article over again a few time to make sure I have the total jest of what they are saying but I wanted to get your perspective on my question first.
[This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 10-23-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by Rrhain, posted 10-21-2003 7:53 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6695 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 42 of 44 (62392)
10-23-2003 2:12 PM


Age of Universe struggles
When you travel up to Mt. Rainer on the Paradise side you first pass by the Longmire Lodge about 1/3 the way up to Paradise. Outside of the ranger office is a slab from a Douglas Fir that was cut down 50 years ago. They have the slab mounted side up so you can get the full effect of it's size.
The accepted method for determining the age of a tree is to count the growth rings which requires you to cut the tree down, but the answer is fairly definitive. We would all count the rings and everybodys answer was close to within 3 years on a 784 year old tree. If the tree was still standing we would all be forced to employ different methods to guage the age of it and probably guess anywhere from 750 to 900 years - by knowing a little about the growth rate of a Doug Fir.
In the same manner if I asked you to guess the age of Margaret Thatcher and you did some exmamining we would all get very close to her age of 78. Some might say 73 and others 83 but all within a tight spread of 8 - 10 years or about 12% either side. If however I asked you the age of a little girl some might say 4 while others say 9 or 10. Girls can look much older or younger within a few years at that age as I have a daughter of my own. The sperad is only 5 years but it represents a much larger percent of her actual age of 5. The only difinitive way to know is to see her birth certificate.
What does this mean? I have seen on some of the web links that the age of the universe has been placed between 10.7 to 20 billion years old. A big spread and we don't seem to have a real tangible way to date the thing(birth certificate or counting growth rings) so the summations that I see are closer to what people would get if they are trying to guess the age of a very Young universe and the data is inconclusive, verses the Old Doug Fir or Margret Thatcher model where the values seem to group tighter.
The only thing that I find interesting is now all of a sudden I'm not the only one who sees this and several independent experiments almost simultaenously say the universe is 13.7 billion years old plus or minus 1%. I'm not saying they are wrong, but I am striving to understand their methodology better with help from Rrhain dirrecting me to this web links.

  
Lizard Breath
Member (Idle past 6695 days)
Posts: 376
Joined: 10-19-2003


Message 43 of 44 (62428)
10-23-2003 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 38 by Coragyps
10-22-2003 11:10 PM


Re: Rrhain,
Our sun is a population one star I assume because of the higher order elements that can be detected in it's atmosphere. I've read that Lithium in trace amounts is still detectable and Berillyum is found in abundance.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 38 by Coragyps, posted 10-22-2003 11:10 PM Coragyps has not replied

  
Dr Cresswell
Inactive Member


Message 44 of 44 (63788)
11-01-2003 8:54 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by Rrhain
10-20-2003 6:54 PM


First off, sorry for the delay in answering. It wasn't a deliberate avoidance, just life getting too busy for me to get back on here recently.
quote:
quote:
But, it is a big step from "don't matter scientifically" to "don't matter at all" ... which is a step some athiests seem to want to make.
Evidence, please?
I know that people like to say this about atheists, but I have yet to find a single one who seems to think that atheists don't care about anything that can't be examined "scientifically."
You're right, I did overstep my ability to provide supporting evidence. I suppose the sort of thing I was thinking of (admittedly not as strong as what I stated) are the likes of Carl Sagans introduction the A Brief History of Time
a universe with no edge in space, no beginning or end in time, and nothing for a Creator to do.
Almost as though once you have a scientific explanation for a phenomenon then there is no longer a need for any complementary description.
Again, I admit that isn't as strong as the statement I originally made, and concede that my original statement is not representative of the views of the majority of atheists.
Alan

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Rrhain, posted 10-20-2003 6:54 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024