Posted on 05/11/2014 12:12:47 PM PDT by lbryce
It is, if you except the powers of human memory, the closest thing we have to a time machine.
Scientists have created the first realistic model of the universe, capable of recreating 13 billion years of cosmic evolution. The simulation is called Illustris, and it renders the universe as a cube (350 million light-years on each side) with, its creators say, unprecedented resolution: The virtual universe uses 12 billion 3-D pixels, or resolution elements, to create its rendering. And that rendering includes both normal matter and dark matter.
The rendering, importantly, also includes elliptical and spiral galaxiesbodies that, because of numerical inaccuracies and incomplete physical models, we'd been unable to see with such detail in previous simulations of the universe. It also does a better job than previous renderings of modeling the feedback from star formation, supernova explosions, and supermassive black holes.
YouTube:Illustris Simulation: Most detailed simulation of our Universe
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 February 8, 2008) was an American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist. He was a leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist.
Quotes:
“Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
“There is a strange ring of feeling and emotion in these reactions [of scientists to evidence that the universe had a sudden beginning]. They come from the heart whereas you would expect the judgments to come from the brain. Why? I think part of the answer is that scientists cannot bear the thought of a natural phenomenon which cannot be explained, even with unlimited time and money. There is a kind of religion in science; it is the religion of a person who believes there is order and harmony in the Universe. Every event can be explained in a rational way as the product of some previous event; every effect must have its cause, there is no First Cause. This religious faith of the scientist is violated by the discovery that the world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of forces or circumstances we cannot discover. When that happens, the scientist has lost control. If he really examined the implications, he would be traumatized.”
“Consider the enormity of the problem. Science has proved that the universe exploded into being at a certain moment. It asks: What cause produced this effect? Who or what put the matter or energy into the universe? And science cannot answer these questions, because, according to the astronomers, in the first moments of its existence the Universe was compressed to an extraordinary degree, and consumed by the heat of a fire beyond human imagination. The shock of that instant must have destroyed every particle of evidence that could have yielded a clue to the cause of the great explosion.”
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation, but they are driven by the nature of their profession to seek explanations for the origin of life that lie within the boundaries of natural law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jastrow
I've often wondered about that myself. You see magnets interacting with iron from afar. You see objects attracting each other in empty space. Supposedly it's caused by invisible waves. But what if it's waves riding particles of so-called dark matter? We can't see it. We can't detect it. We're just too dumb at this point. I just don't see how a wave of energy like gravity can act across completely empty space, without a medium, such as you find with sound waves using air as a medium. Scientists used to say atoms were the smallest indivisible particle. Then electrons, protons and later neutrons. Then they discovered those were divisible into quarks, and lots of different quarks there are. I think we're just too dumb to see really tiny particles that make up dark matter.
Why pay attention to a journal that can’t tell the difference between “except” and “accept”. Where did these writers go to school?
Yeah, that’s what my senior English teacher told me in high school. She gave me a passing grade on my final term paper just so I’d graduate and they could get me the hell out of the building. I understand that was approved by an informal majority vote in the faculty lounge.
“My GOD, there’s MORE of you????”
When my brother entered high school, one of his teachers
told him that he remembered me and said, “ I’ll keep my
EYE on YOU.”
Time dilation doesn’t change the age of the universe.
A motivating factor in the faculty vote to graduate us by the skin of our teeth. True story. I heard from my youngest sister (by seven years) that they were still talking about it when she attended.
Well said Gideon. It kind of correlates with some of my thinking over the years. When I first learned about the role of the observer in quantum mechanics years ago, a lot of stuff started to make sense.
Thanks for posting the article to your pings list.
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