Coffee House Musing

I was flipping through some Quanta magazine articles, and came to a 2015 interview. He was asked about the multiverse hypothesis (which Alan Guth says is more likely than not, with the existence of the early inflation field), by the interviewer.Weinberg said: The Big Bang, combined with the Dark Energy theory, does actually involve theological explanations by some. It might explain why some will bring god/gods into the discussion.( One poster attempted to get around my suggestion, that space expansion, at the galaxy level, at the present time, has not been demonstrated, by bringing god/gods into the discussion. The comment was clearly an attempt to twist and confuse my points, but the poster bragged, in a subsequent post, about what a clever attack he was making.)It is interesting that the issue of the (possible) multiverse will quickly become something of a theological issue. The first ever proponent of the Big Bang, George's Lemaitre, in a 1927 scientific paper, had to remove references to the biblical book of Genesis from his theory.I would urge posters here to avoid dishonest behavior, while discussing scientific theories. Religion and science have a complicated relationship, because both try to answer some of the same questions. George Gamov erroneously said that Hoyle's Steady State theory was the official theory of the Soviet Union, while Hoyle made far too much out of the Pope's support for the Big Bang theory. (In reality, the whole theological angle had little to do with the scientific work while both theories could be used to argue for or against a god/gods)Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

I would urge posters here to avoid implying dishonest behavior.--Percy

Not will but is. Everything in cosmology raises theological issues for those religiously enamored. We'll disagree on the emotional overtones of your little whine. Anyone interested in details can see Message 51. They were originally in there because, as ignored facts would have it, Fr. Lemaître was an ordained catholic priest. Of course he saw his hypothesis in biblical terms.These religious treatments are to be expected from those attempting to shoehorn the new views into their stone-age philosophies. Other than an astute observation and opinion, do you see something of more significance to his answer?Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

He was asked how we can test the multiverse theory, when we can't observe it.He went on to tell us how we can perform tests that will give us a likely answer.(It's possibility of having a demonstrable existence was heavily tied to observations surrounding String Theory)(He also mentioned the scaler field particle, the Higgs Boson, but that was earlier, I think. It helps to provide infirect evidence for the Inflaton particle, along with the WMAP evidence, I believe)Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

InciWeb the Incident Information System Northern Minnesota has the only fires in the eastern half of the US. There are also fires to the north in Ontario.By far the largest Minnesota fir is the Greenwood fire, currently at about 26,000 acres, which is pretty small relative to what's happening out west.We got a quality rain Saturday evening and night, which should have much helped things.Moose

He mentioned some of your favorite buzz words: Higgs, multiverse, god etc.And this is significant, how?

He did not mention god when he was asked if the multiverse theory could ever be tested. He earlier mentioned the god issue.(You combined words from an earlier post, when gods were mentioned, by me. If you cant label my quotes, with a post number, then at least use a 4 dot ellipsis between quotes)Higgs was mentioned earlier in his interview. I mentioned it because Higgs is a scaler field particle. It provides a hope that an inflation field particle can possibly exist ( hope as in a hope to find answers). The existence of the Alan Guth inflaton particle is powerful evidence for a multiverse.

But he did mention the god issue and you must have given it significance enough to point that out. Even in your title. Having problems following the discussion? So there is no significance to why Dr. Weinberg uttered the word "god". It was just a part of the history he was relaying. Yes, I read the article.Ok.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

I don't think that mentioning the god issue, while looking at the possible multiverse existence, should be described as a historical tidbit.It might be considered a rebuttal to the early 1980s stuff Fred Hoyle was putting in his books. About some sort of intelligence creating the Universe we all know of. I think Hoyle coined a technical term, called "anthropic". Fred Hoyle knew how to write books that would be widely cited. He attempted to "go viral" before the internet age.That aside, I dont see the multiverse as an old theory.Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.

This is the first solution to the problem of extinction level impacts that might actually work and that could work with much less warning time. Planetary Defense: Physicists Propose New Way To Defend Earth Against Cosmic Impacts

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However, one cannot discount the possibility of larger objects coming uncomfortably close to Earth in the near future: Apophis, with its 1,214-foot (370 meter) diameter, is due to make a close pass on Friday the 13th in April 2029, while Bennu, at 1,608 feet (490 m) in diameter, is expected to perform a similar pass in 2036. Though they are not anticipated to hit Earth, even relatively small changes in their orbit could cause them to enter gravitational pockets called “keyholes” that can place them on a more direct trajectory toward Earth.

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“If it goes through the gravitational keyhole, it will generally hit Earth on the next round,” Lubin said.

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Strategies for planetary defense have progressed from research into better methods for understanding the threats, to efforts to deflect potential hazards and change their orbits, including a strategy developed by Lubin’s group, which proposed the use of lasers to push threatening objects out of Earth’s way. (See their website for more information on laser-based planetary defense: DE-STAR)

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In two papers on the topic of terminal planetary defense submitted to the journal Advances in Space Research, accompanied by an opinion piece published in Scientific American, Lubin and co-researcher Alexander Cohen lay out a more proactive method for dealing with dangerous extraterrestrial space debris. The project is called PI, which affectionately stands for Pulverize It.

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Key to the PI strategy is the deployment of an array of penetrator rods, possibly filled with explosives, laid in the path of the asteroid to “slice and dice” the threatening object. The penetrator rods — about 4-12 inches (10-30 cm) in diameter and six to ten feet long — fragment the asteroid or comet nucleus as it crashes into them at extreme speed.

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Crucially, instead of deflecting the object, the strategy is to let the Earth take the hit, the researchers said, but first to disassemble the asteroid into smaller pieces — typically the size of a house — and let the fragments enter the Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere can then absorb the energy and further vaporize the house-sized pieces into small debris that do not hit the ground.

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UCSB Experimental Cosmology Group

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PI-Terminal Planetary Defense
Links to papers:
Detailed technical paper:
PI-Terminal Planetary Defense
arXiv archive link:
http://arxiv.org/abs/2110.07559
Scientific American Article:
Planetary Defense Is Good--but Is Planetary Offense Better? - Scientific American
UCSB Press Release 10-11-21:
Is Planetary Defense PI in the Sky? | The UCSB Current

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Space agencies around the globe should start planning tests. This would be a much more useful project for the billionaire rocket men than sending dimwits into space.

If done properly shooting billionaires into space could be a very worthwhile project for our species. The issue I see is, right now, we spend too much effort and resources to get them back once we got them up there. Cut out the return trip expense. The next flight of billionaires could be called The Guillotine. On a reusable rocket.Or maybe not.

Ok, these guys are way smarter than I but this seems ... nuts.Chelyabinsk was the size of a house. Ok, so a really big house, but it wasn't mountain-sized. These guys want to breakup the mountain into a gazillion Chelyabinsks spread all around the globe. Is that much better than getting hit by a Chicxulub?

If you observe examples of demolition you would know that it always succeeds and that it successfully breaks everything up into uniform size pieces.The secret is to use high quality CGI.

Serious concern there, jar. Can they pulverize such a thing fine enough to just flash fry the surface of the earth rather than punch a big hole in it first?