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| Thread ID: 55052 | 2005-03-01 10:10:00 | Teleportation / Time travelling... | Renmoo (66) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 329545 | 2005-03-12 10:02:00 | Naturally this stuff gets me thinking, so this deserves a separate post . If there is one book I would recommend everyone here to read, it is: Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" . Bryson is a successful travel writer . Very enjoyable . But this book is a tour de force . He is an ordinary non-scientist who has made the effort to understand the stuff we are discussing here . But that's only chapter one . He explores geology, Darwinism, and a myriad of other topics . In laymans terms . I bought this book just to have a copy to lend to friends . Check it out at your library . . amazon . com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/076790818X/qid=1110620836/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-3100856-5359236?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" target="_blank">www . amazon . com |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 329546 | 2005-03-12 10:22:00 | Yes Winston - Bryson sets it out very well. He packs a lot of stuff onto each page. But don't overlook the Greene books I mentioned earlier. As to expansion, that miniscule speck expanded to about the size of a grapefruit weighing about 20 pounds in 10 to the minus 40 something of a second. Why or how ? Dunno, but it fits. Next month it will be some other ingenious idea. ( of course, it is all a lot of rubbish as the Creationists will tell you...) Standby to duck .. Tony ( in some ordinary dimensions ..) |
TonyF (246) | ||
| 329547 | 2005-03-12 10:39:00 | Cheers Tony, and I haven't forgotten your recommendations. Bryson is a huge and entertaining leap for general readers. The early inflation of the universe does puzzle me. It was faster than the speed of light. But then, the photon was bound to the electron, so the rules were still being introduced. Pass. :help: Terry has been around for a while - maybe he remembers. ;) |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 329548 | 2005-03-12 18:23:00 | As is my wont,to digress,Notes from a small Island was,is my fovourite. | Cicero (40) | ||
| 329549 | 2005-03-12 20:02:00 | Terry has been around for a while - maybe he remembers. ;) Terry may be ancient (g) but not by billions of years ... Read Greene on inflation, or even better Martin Rees ( Our cosmic habitat). Also maybe Dr Cullen on inflation .... Cheers Tony |
TonyF (246) | ||
| 329550 | 2005-03-12 20:35:00 | You all should definatly have a peep at an emerging website: [edit: URL removed] and offer your opinions Adam. It will only grow if you water it with your opinion. |
Adam (7474) | ||
| 329551 | 2005-03-12 21:24:00 | There ought to be a limerick there somewhere: The day the cosmos went bang, Unfortunately that's as far as I have got :D |
Tony (4941) | ||
| 329552 | 2005-03-12 21:33:00 | Or that our universe curved around on itself in the early stages and created itself . The big question today is whether the universe is open or closed . Will it continue to expand forever, or falter and then collapse . Well Winston, I can't help with the first hypothesis because it contains a logical inconsistency . In order to curve around and create itself, first it must exist . This is very much a chicken and egg conundrum, and we now need to work out who will play the part of the rooster as it is now generally acknowledged that it was he who came first . However, on the second point, I recently read an interesting article that said scientists had found clear evidence that the rate of expansion of the universe was slowing, and they postulated the possibility of an impending collapse sometime in the next few billion or trillion years . I am not sure where I read it, but it may have been in New Scientist or such similar journal . However, the uncertainty about the timelines will not stop interest rates rising due to increased uncertainty about our financial future, and doubtlessly insurance premiums will also take a hike in the coming months as Insurance Companies seek to minimise their losses from a universe-wide disaster . Lawyers will profit regardless . Cheers Billy 8-{) :p |
Billy T (70) | ||
| 329553 | 2005-03-12 22:44:00 | Tom - my favourite Bryson book is "A Walk in the Woods". Billy - I'll post on the expansion question when I've checked one of my books. There is also the fascinating two slot experiment, mentioned by Terry and Tony, but I think it deserves a separate thread. Terry has mentioned the Doppler effect. This is commonly observed when the noise of a passing car is high pitched on the approach, changing to a lower, deeper sound after it passes. The reason is that the sound waves are pushed towards the listener, thus rising in frequency, as the car is arriving, and attenuated, stretched, on leaving, thus being a lower frequency and deeper sound. So it is with star light. Red shifted stars are moving away from us. The deeper the red, the faster they are moving. Blue stars by contrast are moving towards us. Currently Hubble can see galaxies about 14 billion light years away. Specifically, out beyond the Crab Nebula. Way out. Of real interest however is that these far away objects are accelerating away. Thus the edge of the universe is still expanding at a great rate of knotts and speeding up. Why? Don't know. We do know that there isn't enough visible matter in the universe to fuel this expansion. In fact, about 90% of matter is unaccounted for - unseen. This leads us to the subject of Dark Matter. Which will have to wait for another day. Got to go to my daughters athletics. Having given up being our Nadia Comanichi gymnast, she might be an Alison Roe or Erin Baker. We dads live in vicarious hope. [www.pressf1.co.nz |
Winston001 (3612) | ||
| 329554 | 2005-03-12 23:35:00 | Of real interest however is that these far away objects are accelerating away . Thus the edge of the universe is still expanding at a great rate of knotts and speeding up . Why? Maybe you will need to mention what astronomical observations have been made to arrive at this conlusion, or what other considerations say this . As far as I'm aware measurement of the red shift shift wont directly tell you that, though gravitation also produces a red shift . Red shift can also be explained by imagining distant bodies to be rotating in vast orbits and having a radial acceleration of an amount rω² to keep them at a constant distance . :rolleyes: At all times remember that theories are subject to dispute and revision, and are based on the same sets of limited physical observations . Fred Hoyle for example was an advocate of a constant creation universe, he had no time for the big bang, even though he coined the term . Enormous controversies in the 1960s/70s between authorities on the subject . |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
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