Posted on 09/24/2004 8:17:42 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
Scientists studying the deepest picture of the Universe, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, have been left with a big poser: where are all the stars? The Ultra Deep Field is a view of one patch of sky built from 800 exposures.
The picture shows faint galaxies whose stars were shining just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
"Our results based on the Ultra Deep Field are very intriguing and quite a puzzle," says Dr Andrew Bunker, of Exeter University, UK, who led a team studying the new data."
"They're certainly not what I expected, nor what most of the theorists in astrophysics expected."
"There is not enough activity to explain the re-ionisation of the Universe," Dr Bunker told the BBC. "Perhaps there was more action in terms of star formation even earlier in the history of the Universe - that's one possibility.
"Another exciting possibility is that physics was very different in the early Universe; our understanding of the recipe stars obey when they form is flawed."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
So, really some of the light from what appears to be stars has taken so long to reach my eyes that some of those stars have already burned out? So, perhaps what is going on in the farthest reaches of the universe (and closer) is something else entirely than we think because the light from those current celestial bodies hasn't had time to reach my eyes yet? Perhaps much more has burned out and come to an end than we might think.
I'm not saying there are no astronomers that believe in God, but I'd bet most don't think God had anything to do with the creation of the universe. I have NEVER seen them mention God, other than to dismiss him.
A good example is in an S&T article about the 'anthropic principle' and how everything in the universe had to be 'just right' for us to be here. In a five page article, this is what they say about God; "And some people, inevitably use anthropic fine-tuning as an argument for the existence of God - presumably a benevolent God who 'monkeyed with the laws of physics'...so as to produce a universe capable of sustaining beings like us" That's it. They completely throw that belief aside and detail how perfectly precise things have to be in order for life to be sustained.
Don't get me wrong S&T is an excellent magazine and I devour every issue. But never - ever do they even suggest that the heavens could be the work of God's hand.
It's Bush's fault.
I didn't mean to insult you. I probably shouldn't use such broad terms. But you have to admit there's a mindset in that field that IS elitist and not very comfortable with the thought that maybe God created the universe. I don't see how my belief in God is more outrageous than their belief that the universe was created from nothing and all of it by chance.
A novel Antarctic telescope with 16-m diameter mirrors would far outperform the Hubble Space Telescope, and could be built at a tiny fraction of its cost, says a scientist from the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Sydney, Australia. Link
Roger that, my friend.
MM
I did a Google on your screen name and sure enough, it said hunble was a common misspelling of the word humble. <(•¿•)>
You Screen name would indicate that your are a not a reasonable man, guess you are trying to live up to it.
Interesting, I remember when Carl Sagan showed a tesseract on his show, "Cosmos," as well as the book of the same name. Also what complicates the issue is that the 4D cube is being shown as a "shadow" in the 3D world we live in but we see it on a 2D LCD (or CRT, I'm on a laptop now) screen. B-) This stuff fascinates me but I admit it can give one a headache.
The "Festival of Silliness & Ignorance" has suddenly gone dead. I wonder what's up with that?
First, S&T is a great magazine, but it is not a scientific journal. Second, no one uses the word “fact”. Theory is what is used in scientific circles.
I'm not saying there are no astronomers that believe in God, but I'd bet most don't think God had anything to do with the creation of the universe. I have NEVER seen them mention God, other than to dismiss him.
Hmmm…. Please cite a link here if you would.
A good example is in an S&T article about the 'anthropic principle' and how everything in the universe had to be 'just right' for us to be here. In a five page article, this is what they say about God; "And some people, inevitably use anthropic fine-tuning as an argument for the existence of God - presumably a benevolent God who 'monkeyed with the laws of physics'...so as to produce a universe capable of sustaining beings like us" That's it. They completely throw that belief aside and detail how perfectly precise things have to be in order for life to be sustained.
The universe is the way it is. We evolved in this universe. If any of those variables were different, obviously we would either not be here or be “different”. This does not necessarily posit a deity however.
Don't get me wrong S&T is an excellent magazine and I devour every issue. But never - ever do they even suggest that the heavens could be the work of God's hand.
Why would a scientific magazine use God in an argument or article? This is not the goal of such a magazine.
See here:
"The speed of light is a fundamental constant of nature. The word constant, of course, means something that is unchanging. In a sense, the speed of light can be considered to be derived from other constants - most directly from the permittivity and permeability of free space, but these constants, too, are related to other constants such as the charge on an electron, Planck's constant, and the fine structure constant. So if the speed of light were changing, these other constants wouldn’t be constant anymore and this would show up in many kinds of experiments and observations in physics, astronomy, and chemistry - indeed, everything, for atoms and molecules would not be as we know them today. If the speed of light was faster in the past, then we should see this in the ratios of spectral lines of distant quasars coming from different types of atomic transitions. The resulting frequencies have different dependencies on the electron charge and mass, the speed of light, and Planck's constant, and we can compare these to their present values on earth. Needless to say, the spectral signature of elements found in the quasars agrees perfectly with those here on the earth today."
I saw it. Its been long refuted as junk science. See:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/c-decay.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-add.html#A6
Hubble forgot to press the flash button.
"Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars." "What does that tell you?" Holmes questioned. Watson pondered for a minute. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe Saturn is in Leo. Logically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all-powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.
"Is that all?" Holmes asked. "Yes," Watson replied. "Why, am I missing something?" Holmes was quiet for a moment, then spoke: "Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen the bloody tent!"
By BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse
Scientists say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and then let it go again.
Normally light is the fastest thing there is, travelling at about 299,000 kilometres a second (186,000 miles a second). But it is slowed slightly when it moves through some materials, such as glass.
The researchers have taken this effect to the extreme and say they have effectively made a beam of light stop after it entered a specially designed gas chamber.
The experiment has been hailed as a landmark that could pave the way for faster computers and totally secure communications.
All stop
The breakthrough has been achieved by two independent teams of researchers. One was led by Dr Lene Vestergaard Hau, of Harvard University, and the other by Dr Ronald Walsworth, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, both in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.
Dr Lene Hau has worked to make light travel slower and slower
Two years ago, Dr Hau surprised the world when she slowed light to about 60 kph (38 mph) by passing it through chilled sodium gas. And then last year, she reported slowing light down to 1.6 kph (one mile an hour) - slower than a slow walk.
Transparent media like water or glass can slow a light beam slightly. The effect causes the phenomenon of refraction and is the basis for lenses and prisms.
To stop light altogether, the scientists have utilised a similar but far more powerful effect. The researchers cooled a gas of magnetically trapped sodium atoms to within a few millionths of a degree of absolute zero (-273 deg C).
Huge impact
This would normally be opaque to light. But by illuminating it with a laser called a coupling beam, it can be made transparent, thereby allowing another laser pulse to pass through it. It is a process known as electromagnetically induced transparency.
And, astonishingly, if the coupling laser is turned off while the probe pulse is inside the gas cloud, the probe pulse stops dead in its tracks. If the coupling beam is then turned back on, the probe pulse emerges intact, just as if it had been waiting to resume its journey
The biggest impact of this work could be in the burgeoning field of quantum computing and quantum communication.
In theory, quantum computers, in which information is stored in the quantum states of atoms, could be very much faster than existing machines. And quantum communications could never be eavesdropped.
The research is to be published in forthcoming issues of the journal Nature and the Physical Review Letters.
I am well aware of the speed of light changes in different mediums. This is why you see a pencil "bend" when it is dipped into water.
What I am referring to is the speed of light in a vacuum.
That is a constant by definition.
And yet the Festival continues?
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