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 ...
Man will always be insatiably curious for as long as the sun, the moon, and the stars circle the earth.
Ptolemy, is that you?
Give me one single physical example, here on Earth, were this rather special view can be demonstrated.
Any actual physical examples?
I have even tried to imagine being located on the first Atomic bomb, but that hypothetical position does not work.
Can you provide us with any physical examples for our education?
In Japan, 42% believe the sun circles the earth.
I know a physicist who might be coaxed out of retirement to work on this if both the problem and the budget are interesting enough.
Indeed; for instance, everyone knows that Pavlov invented the dog...
Gotta love all the monkey wrenches Relativity throws into our attempts to measure the universe, dont'cha?
What you ask isn't possible. The best "easy" education I know of is the book, "Flatland: A romance of many dimensions," by Edwin A. Abbott.
It describes "life" as viewed from a critter who only knows a two dimensional world, and sparks our imagination to extrapolate that concept to our "apparantly three dimensional" world.
http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/
To
The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL
And H. C. IN PARTICULAR
This Work is Dedicated
By a Humble Native of Flatland
In the Hope that
Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries
Of THREE Dimensions
Having been previously conversant
With ONLY TWO
So the Citizens of that Celestial Region
May aspire yet higher and higher
To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions
Thereby contributing
To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION
And the possible Development
Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY
Among the Superior Races
Of SOLID HUMANITY
My time is incredibly limited from the lab, so I will post and answer all the questions I can this evening! Sorry for not being more proactive today.
That's one of the trolls zotted last month.
Nope. By definition, the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant.
Indeed.
The only surprise in this article is that the scientists were surprised that their puny theories failed to grasp the creation of the universe.
It's only the surface that counts. There is no up or down. The Earth is embedded in a three-dimensional space which gives the up-down distinction. The surface is intrinsically two dimensional. All this was shown by Gauss about 200 years ago. One need not go to more than two dimensions to describe the surface of a sphere.
That's just the result of good ol' PV=nRT, the ideal gas law. It isn't exactly right, since no gasses are ideal (lol=, but it is close enough to describe what (didn't) happen.
Where the temperature of the universe is about 3 K on average these days, it was quite a bit higher back then. In the early universe, T was big enough that the internal pressure of most gas clouds was enough to overwhelm gravity. Galaxies, much less stars, couldn't pull themselves together until they could shed enough heat to allow gravity to take its course.
That was my point dear friend. We live on this Earth and in this physical universe. It something is a fact, then it is an easy process to provide a physical example of it.
We do not live in the land of mathematical theories such as Flatland. Flatland never was reality and never could be.
I have been an Astronomer for well over 30 years now. I fully understand what you are trying to support.
However, eventually, even I must seriously demand atleast one physical example of this mathematical reality. If it is impossible to provide a physical example, then perhaps the mathematical theories need a little extra study.
Trust, but verify!
The surface of a polkadotted balloon is a physical example. Only the surface is relevant, the polkadots only observe that they recede from each other as the balloon expands.
You will have to learn the mathematics to understand what's happening though. If you haven't walked the walk, it's hard to talk the talk. Life's that way sometimes.
Well, I don't know about "back then" but at 2:30 p.m. (EST) on a Friday afternoon it da*n near stops!
One doesn't have to be an Einstein to know that time is relative.
Of course, I'm not under a deadline by COB today. If I were it would be flowing past at the same rate as our river after Ivan hit.
Shalom.
Understood.
Obviously, according to this article, the Universe was able to cool off rapidly enough for gravity to concentrate the mass into stars.
Ahh, but you appear to be seeking a reality where you might, in theory, be outside the universe and look back at it, as a distant observer. Much as we can observe a mythical flatland from a third dimension. Perhaps THAT notion is not rooted in reality.
And, while I agree that flatland does not represent reality, Abbott's work provides a tool for the mind, to help it see possibilities outside of its ability to experience examples.
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