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To: JoJo Gunn
Great question. You have stumbled upon Olbers' Paradox.

A detailed description of Olbers' paradox allows you to conclude that if the universe

(a) were big enough so that every line of sight ended in a star,

(b) were infinitely old,

(c) were static and not expanding and

(d) if several other simple assumptions were satisfied,

then the entire night sky would be roughly as bright as the surface of our sun!

Therefore, the simple observation that the night sky is dark allows us to say something very profound about our universe: it cannot be infinitely big, infinitely old and static all at the same time! Many people used to believe that the universe was this way, and it turns out that all they would have had to do to convince themselves otherwise was think carefully about a simple question that every child asks: "Why is the sky dark at night?" This is definitely an argument for the old adage that there's no such thing as a stupid question! As it turns out, we still don't know whether the universe is infinitely big (but most of us think not), but we do have a good grasp on the age of the universe and we do know that it is expanding, and of the two, it is the finite age of the universe which seems to provide the main explanation for Olbers' paradox.

5 posted on 12/12/2003 11:46:22 PM PST by petuniasevan (General failure reading Drive A. Please remove your fist.)
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To: petuniasevan
Thank You for this tread. I especially love today's picture.

6 posted on 12/13/2003 6:54:16 AM PST by Soaring Feather (I do Poetry.)
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To: petuniasevan
Thanks for that quick reply. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I appreciate that others have thought the same. I'd read a lot of Sagan's books, and don't remember him even bringing this up.

Now there's even more questions to ponder.
8 posted on 12/13/2003 10:15:02 PM PST by JoJo Gunn (Help control the Leftist population - have them spayed or neutered. ©)
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