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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Is This Information About the Formation About Our Sun Moderately Accurate?

« on: 29/03/2013 14:17:49 »

I was reading an article on a website which suggested that the sun and solar system were born with the Big Bang!!!!!! Now I know I am an amateur, but even I know that is totally bogus.

So I wrote a simplified, abbreviated correction to the site. I'd be grateful for some feedback if what I wrote is mostly accurate as, again, I am no expert.

This is what I sent them:

The information about the formation of our sun is incorrect, and it leaves out a huge portion of the story.

The gas and dust that eventually formed our sun and solar system was not created from the Big Bang. The Big Bang is currently believed to be roughly 14 billion years ago. Our sun is believed to be 4 1/2 billion years old.

A lot happened between the Big Bang and when our sun finally formed. After the Big Bang and expansion of the universe, the first stars to be formed where massive super stars, monstrously larger than anything but perhaps the largest stars currently in existence.

The early universe was filled with these star giants. It was their deaths, as supernovas, that created and released many new, heavier elements that would someday become stars like our own, and also the planets.

Hope this is of some help.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / If Venus had had the orbit of Mars???

« on: 20/03/2013 15:54:25 »

If Venus had been in Mars' orbit, could it have evolved into an Earth like planet?

With all the information coming out about Mars recently it seems more and more likely that Mars was Earth-like very early on. But it's small size, lack of a magnetic field, etc. caused its atmosphere to be ripped away by the Sun.

But what if Mars and Venus had had the others orbit. Mars one planet closer to the sun and Venus one planet further from the sun than Earth. Venus is roughly the same size of Earth and certainly maintains an atmosphere.

How would Venus have turned out in this hypothetical. Would it likely, not likely, possibly, have  become very similar to Earth?

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / The Earth is 4 1/2 billion years old?

« on: 28/09/2012 14:28:18 »

Not questioning the time. A curious comment came up in a discussion last night with some friends. When we say the Earth is that old, at what point in Earth's creation are we talking about?

Did the Earth start forming from minuscule pieces of dust and debree 4 1/2 billion years ago? Or do we start the age count after the Earth was more less fully formed?

Pre Thera? Post Thera?

In what stage of its creation was the earth at the "beginning" that we say was 4 1/2 billion years ago.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Must there be a Theory of Everything?

« on: 13/08/2012 18:25:19 »

Science seems to have a fairly good idea of how the Very Big works, with the foundation being Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Science seems to have a fairly poor idea how how the Very Small works, that having been contributions by a host of folks we call Quantum Theory.

There seems to be a desire to bring these two very disparate systems together somehow. A single theory that explains both how the Very Big AND the Very Small works.

My question (finally) is does there HAVE to be such a unified theory? Is it not possible that things simply act differently; that there are entirely different laws for the Very Small and the Very Big???

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Should String Theory Really Be Considered a "Theory"?

« on: 17/06/2012 02:56:13 »

This has been buggin' me for some time. As I understand it a scientific theory is a query that is analyzed through experimentation to achieve an answer. Results must be capable of being duplicated independently to be considered valid.

That is a loose definition, but it will do for my purposes.

Although mathematically, strings seem to answer some basic questions about quantum mechanics, equations are not proof.

Strings, if they exist, are infinitesimally smaller than anything we can perceive by any devices currently in existence. As such, there is no way to test for the existence of strings.

Ergo, ipso, facto, Columbo, Oreo the existence of strings cannot be considered a "theory". Can it?  Wouldn't a more appropriate terminology be the String proposal?

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Just Chat! / The Day the Earth Stood Still. 1951.

« on: 04/04/2012 15:22:19 »

Klaatu's words from 61 years ago!

"I won't resort to threats, Mr. Harley. I merely tell you the future of your planet is at stake"

"I am fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason."

"This planet is dying. The human race is killing it."

"We've watched, we've waited and hoped that you *would* change."

"Your problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change."

"I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other."

The more things change!!!!!

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Just Chat! / Has trust in science plunged among educated conservatives?

« on: 02/04/2012 04:41:51 »

Excerpt from this article:

Conservatives, particularly those with college educations, have become dramatically more skeptical of science over the past four decades, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a "great deal" of trust in the scientific community now, compared to nearly half in 1974.

"The scientific community ... has been concerned about this growing distrust in the public with science. And what I found in the study is basically that's really not the problem. The growing distrust of science is entirely focused in two groups—conservatives and people who frequently attend church," says the study's author, University of North Carolina postdoctoral fellow Gordon Gauchat.

Full Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/study-trust-science-among-educated-conservatives-plunges-133908205.html

My reason for starting this thread is simple. Like many, I believed that mistrust in science was an outgrowth of decades of a poor educational system in the U.S. Too many people graduating our high schools were not prepared to function effectively in a 21st century environment. The less educated don't understand how science works and are more likely to distrust it as a consequence.

This article is a stunning, and frightening, revelation to me. If the results as reported are accurate, and the crusade against science is being led by the most educated of conservatives, that is very disturbing.

The article mentions Global Warming by name. That most conservatives do not believe in it, and because most of scientific research tends to find it true, trust in science declines.

This makes NO sense to me. I look at the times in the past I have not believed scientific conclusions and for me, it was always a suspicion of the reasons for the research, not a suspicion of science itself.

Tobacco use, for example. Studies funded by the big tobacco companies that always managed to conclude that there was no significant danger in smoking cigarettes. I didn't trust those studies. Anytime the group paying for the study has a desired outcome ahead of time is a source of distrust.

The response from me was to look for science that was done by more reputable groups.  Not to simply choose to distrust science itself.

So I am asking for opinions about all of this. How can educated people choose to not trust science just because its conclusions do not agree with their preferred world view?

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Marine Science / A Third Person May Reach the Challenger Deep. Guess Who?

« on: 25/03/2012 04:41:11 »

Yep. The bottom of the Mariana Trench. None other than our favorite Hollywood producer who sidelines as a marine researcher, James Cameron. The man is already famous for his research and photographic dives to Titanic. Now he wants to be only the third person to ever reach the deepest place on the ocean floor, and as a solo mission to boot!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120324-james-cameron-mariana-trench-dive-deepest-science-sub/

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General Science / Extraordinary sliding scale of the size of things

« on: 12/03/2012 19:05:02 »

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. A sliding scale starting at human size and going up from there to the biggest thing known in the universe (hint: It's the Universe), and going down to the believed smallest thing in existence. Way cool!

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / How Deep is a Black Hole?

« on: 16/02/2012 15:08:27 »

Someone mentioned on a segment of The Universe that a Black Hole is only called a "hole" because things fall into it (and don't come out). Got me to thinking how deep a hole is a black hole anyway?

Are we talking a cosmic sized puddle? Or something of enormous depth. We often see depictions of a black hole being a wormhole that doesn't have a bottom at all, but rather comes out in a different part of the universe.

Does science have a clue? If not, what is the prevailing theory on the subject.

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General Science / Do People have Free Will, or is the Concept Nothing But Illusion.

« on: 09/02/2012 01:54:09 »

David Cooper and I have been having fun (at least I have been having fun; I hope he has too!) discussing whether people have free will or not. That discussion is buried in another topic though so I thought I would start a fresh one as I am interested in everyone's views.

My original statement from the other thread:

Much more complicated than I was aware of. Some branches of modern science, especially Neuro-Scientists, have concluded that free will isn't all that free. Then there is the view from physics.

Stephen Hawking on Free Will:
Under the assumption of physicalism it has been argued that the laws of quantum mechanics provide a complete probabilistic account of the motion of particles, regardless of whether or not free will exists.[51] Physicist Stephen Hawking describes such ideas in his 2010 book The Grand Design. According to Hawking, these findings from quantum mechanics suggest that humans are sorts of complicated biological machines; although our behavior is impossible to predict perfectly in practice, "free will is just an illusion."[48] In other words, he thinks that only compatibilistic (deterministic) free will is possible based on the data.

There is apparently quite a debate going on between scientists and philosophers about what free will is, and how real, or unreal it is. Here is another example from Nature Magazine.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html#B1

My opinion is that in the big picture statistically, free will is largely an illusion. But I DO believe on an individual moment by moment basis, free will is available to us.

David believes there is no such thing as free will.

If anyone is interested, they can follow the first page of comments starting here:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=41586.50

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / What is Spooky Action at a Distance?

« on: 09/01/2012 15:39:40 »

I was watching a science program, likely the same one Namaan was watching. And if I am understanding what the narrator was saying correctly (which is a big if!), he made an if/then statement that seemed completely nonsensical to me.

He was talking about whether Spooky Action at a Distance was a real phenomena. That Einstein said it wasn't and Bors championed that it was. Some experiments were run that showed that identifying a particle immediately affected the particle it was entwined with, no matter what the distance.

Which brings me to the disturbing part. I have to paraphrase, but I believe I am stating the narrator's statement accurately. He said that because the two particles did alter simultaneously across vast distances, and Einstein proved that nothing can go faster then the speed of light, that was proof that Bors was right and Spooky Action was a real phenomenon.

HuH?? It proves nothing of the sort! Just because there is no way the information could have travelled the distance between the two particles slower than the speed of light does NOT automatically mean that Spooky Action is the only alternative to what is happening.

If particle identity can teleport instantly from one to the other simultaneously without any information traveling between them is considered a possibility? Why isn't it equally possible that that information IS passing between, just at speeds much faster than light at the quantum level. Both concepts seem equally far fetched to me. And I do not see any reason to give more weight to one impossibility over the other one.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / So Space can Travel Faster then Light?

« on: 19/12/2011 15:37:30 »

I have been seeing some reports that state that at the farthest distances that we can see, space is moving faster than the speed of light. It has also been said that at the very beginning of the Big Bang, space expanded faster than the speed of light.

Supposedly, anything within "space", is limited by the speed of light. Space itself is the only exception. Am I understanding this information correctly? Is this accepted theory, i.e. most cosmologists would agree? Or otherwise.

And the big Q. Any theories as to why space can travel faster than light?

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General Science / Has There Been Any Significant Evolution in Humanity?

« on: 12/12/2011 20:44:31 »

"I am surprised how little improvement there has been in human evolution. Oh, there has been technical advancement, but, how little man himself has changed." Khan Noonien Singh from the Star Trek original series episode Space Seed.

It is a question I wonder about. Just how much, if at all, has humanity evolved in the time span of recorded history. Say starting around 5,000 BCE till the present. If so, how so.