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The Orion: A molecular cloud shows cosmic filamentary structures where stars are being born. Image: ESA / Herschel / Ph. André, D Polychroni, A. Roy, V Könyves, N Schneider for the Gould Belt survey Key Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the first part of this series, we saw that electromagnetic processes in plasmas – electrically conducting gases – could, over trillions of years, produce the giant filaments that we see today as the largest structures in the universe. This happened without a Big Bang, without dark energy or dark matter, based on processes that we observe here on Earth in the laboratory...

An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton's laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. In their work, the researchers investigated open star clusters. These are formed when thousands of stars are born within a short time in a huge gas cloud. As they "ignite," the galactic newcomers blow away the remnants...

With the 25th anniversary of The Hubble Space Telescope fast approaching, Brady and Keith look at a priceless artefact - Sir Isaac Newton's very own reflecting telescope.

Let's look at experts. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a mathematician and scientist. Newton has to be the greatest and most influential scientist who has ever lived. He laid the foundation for classical mechanics, and his genius transformed our understanding of science, particularly in the areas of physics, mathematics and astronomy. What's not widely known is that Newton spent most of his waking hours on alchemy; his experiments included trying to turn lead into gold. Though he wrote volumes on alchemy, after his death Britain's Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to be printed." Lord William Thomson Kelvin...

The planet Neptune has never been seen by anyone looking at the night sky through just their own eyes. So distant is it from the sun that the light it reflects toward the Earth is so faint that the planet is effectively invisible in the darkness of night. And yet, the outermost large planet of our solar system was discovered by astronomers who knew exactly where to look.... Following William Herschel's discovery of Uranus in 1781, the world's astronomers went to work to observe and describe the seventh planet of the solar system, taking detailed measurements of its trajectory in...

A 16-year-old schoolboy has solved a mathematical problem which has stumped mathematicians for centuries, a newspaper report said. The boy put the historical breakthrough down to “schoolboy naivety.” Shouryya Ray, who moved to Germany from India with his family at the age of 12, has baffled scientists and mathematicians by solving two fundamental particle dynamics problems posed by Sir Isaac Newton over 350 years ago, Die Welt newspaper reported on Monday. Ray’s solutions make it possible to now calculate not only the flight path of a ball, but also predict how it will hit and bounce off a wall. Previously...

Newton, who left enduring legacies in mathematics and the natural sciences, had centuries ago warned against using the law of gravity - which he discovered - to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done,” the 17th century scientist and non-Trinitarian Anglican stated. “This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being,” he added....

Newton's First Law Of Motion:An object in motion will remain in a state of motion unless eternal forces are applied. Reflective of Galileo's writings on inertia, this First Law is often called the "Law of Inertia." In propaganda we have a mass known as O or Obama. Without external forces, O tends to wander pointlessly without a point of view, but O has the impetus of an ideology, the ideology of Socialism, but without other external forces O and his Socialism wanders aimlessly in the universe in a type of 'Listless Inertia' peculiar to the intellectually lazy. Thus the...

Cutting the threads of the spacetime fabric and reinstating the aether could lead to a theory of quantum gravity.If there’s one thing Einstein taught us, it’s that time is relative. But physicist Petr Hořava is challenging this notion and tearing through the fabric of spacetime in his quest for a theory of quantum gravity. His work may also resurrect another entity that Einstein had seemingly buried—the aether. Physicists have spent decades searching for a way to reconcile the seemingly incongruous twin foundations of modern physics: quantum theory, which deals with the infinitesimally small, and Einstein’s theory of gravity, general relativity,...

Time doesn’t exist. The universe isn’t really expanding. And if you want a theory of quantum gravity, look to the man who inspired Einstein, says Julian Barbour. For someone who believes time doesn’t exist, Julian Barbour sure has a head for dates. He remembers exactly when he started to have doubts about time: It was October 18, 1963, and he was reading the newspaper. He spotted an article about the physicist Paul Dirac and his quest for a theory of quantum gravity—a theory linking Einstein’s ideas about gravity to the clashing doctrine of quantum mechanics. Today, Barbour is on that...

As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the ominous “dark matter” to explain otherwise inexplicable observations, much effort has gone into the detection of this mysterious substance in the last two decades, yet no direct proof could be found that it actually exists. Even if it does exist, dark matter would be unable to reconcile all the current discrepancies between actual measurements and predictions based on theoretical models. Hence the number of physicists questioning the existence of dark matter has been increasing for some time now. Competing theories of gravitation have already been developed which are independent of this...

Some years ago, the evolutionist and atheist Richard Dawkins pointed out to me that Sir Isaac Newton, the founder of modern physics and mathematics, and arguably the greatest scientist of all time, was born on Christmas Day, and that therefore Newton’s Birthday could be an alternative, if somewhat nerdy, excuse for a winter holiday. Think of the merchandise! Newton is said to have discovered the phenomenon of gravity by watching apples fall in an orchard. (His insight came after pondering why they always fall down, rather than upwards or sideways.) Newton’s Birthday cards could feature the great man discovering gravity...

It doesn’t take a team of scientist and a ten year study to understand the basics of cause and effect. Whether it’s a sociological explanation or a scriptural tenant the same rule along with its associative principles appear as the immutable law of reciprocation. Some call it karma while others use the more folksy phrase “what goes around, comes around” but by any other name it is still best summarized by the words of the Apostle Paul who said “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Gal 6:7)

Secret writings by Isaac Newton reveal his views on the Jewish return to IsraelThe world famous 17th-century scientist Isaac Newton, who discovered gravity and revolutionarized mankind's understanding of physics, may also have been the first Christian Zionist, secret writings have revealed. A new exhibition at the Hebrew University's Jewish National and University Library, Newton's Secrets, which display original writings, drawings, and maps dating back 300 years, reveal startling views held by Newton, which stray far from the scientifically pure image traditionally associated with him. "Tis said that they who sleep in the dust shall rise again some to reward and...

A Jerusalem exhibit of Isaac Newton's manuscripts has some newly-discovered papers showing Newton's calculations of the exact date of the Apocalypse. Using the Book of Daniel, Newton argues that the world will end not earlier than 2060. "It may end later," Newton writes, "but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophecies into discredit as often as...

Current theory is that nothing CAN travel faster than light (photons), and it is upon this that the theory of relativity rests. How about we change that definition to "nothing travels faster than light", ie that it is not impossible to exceed light speed, it is just that at the moment nothing does. Suppose a particle of light (photon) has some mass (otherwise it would not exist). Suppose we envisage a photon travelling at light speed. We are travelling in our turbocharged faster than light speed vehicle. We come up behind the photon and give it a little nudge. Does...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR London WE have now entered what is being celebrated as the Einstein Year, marking the centenary of the physicist's annus mirabilis in 1905, when he published three landmark papers - those that proved the existence of the atom, showed the validity of quantum physics and, of course, introduced the world to his theory of special relativity. Not bad for a beginner. "It's not that I'm so smart," Einstein once said, "It's just that I stay with problems longer." Whatever the reason for his greatness, there is no doubt that this determination allowed him to invent courageous new...

On Plato, the Early Church, and Modern Science: An Eclectic Meditation By Jean F. Drew God, purposing to make the universe most nearly like the every way perfect and fairest of intelligible beings, created one visible living being, containing within itself all living beings of the same natural order. Thus does Plato (d. 347 B.C.) succinctly describe how all that exists is ultimately a single, living organism. At Timaeus20, he goes on to say: “There exists: first, the unchanging form, uncreated and indestructible, admitting no modification and entering no combination … second, that which bears the same name as the...

Gravitational anomalies An invisible hand?An unexplained effect during solar eclipses casts doubt on General Relativity “ASSUME nothing” is a good motto in science. Even the humble pendulum may spring a surprise on you. In 1954 Maurice Allais, a French economist who would go on to win, in 1988, the Nobel prize in his subject, decided to observe and record the movements of a pendulum over a period of 30 days. Coincidentally, one of his observations took place during a solar eclipse. When the moon passed in front of the sun, the pendulum unexpectedly started moving a bit faster than...

Newton vs. The Clockwork Universe By Jean F. Drew As Wolfhart Pannenberg observes in his Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith (1993), the present-day intellectual mind-set assumes that there is no relation or connection between the God of the Christian faith and the understanding of the world in the natural sciences. Ironically this separation of God from the world is commonly credited to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of classical mechanics, whose ground-breaking work on the laws of motion and thermodynamics seemed to posit a purely mechanistic, deterministic, “clockwork universe” that was not dependent on God...