Starship Asterisk*

... however, I am on record, in this forum, as stating that Plasma Cosmology (PC) is non-science, so in respect of this being a science-based discussion forum, PC has no place here. Nereid - I was surprised considerably last night when I read that Hannes Alfven who took Kristian Birkeland's idea fo...

I just read that Technetium has a half life of 2 million years .. "far shorter than the age and life expectancy of the stars in which we observe it." ('peculiar' Red Giants. To me this is another example that the current 'concensus' if there is one, supporting Big Bang and theorized ages o...

Wow - leave it to Neufer!

It seems that many of the small, dark, 'holes' in the cloud band also seem to be hexagonal.

... however, I am on record, in this forum, as stating that Plasma Cosmology (PC) is non-science, so in respect of this being a science-based discussion forum, PC has no place here. Nereid - I was surprised considerably last night when I read that Hannes Alfven who took Kristian Birkeland's idea fo...

Also, a few days ago you made the statement to me that Kant's philosophysing of island universes (galaxies) did not spring from philosolphy, but from astronomical observations. I left my notes at home, but I've done a lot of reading the the past week and was reminded that direct observations of oth...

http://nrumiano.free.fr/Images/bh_warp1_E.gif These 2D representations of potential wells could represent a gravity well of any size from a small asteroid to a super-massive black hole. For a moment, stop picturing just the paths that light takes around a mass (gravitational lens, etc.) to get to a...

Light (EM) travels through spacetime (4d). A geodesic is the shortest distance through spacetime. Light follows the geodesic. Massive objects cause space (3d) to warp (gravity), the more massive, the greater the warp. As light follows the geodesic, as it passes a massive object,the projection of th...

Infinity and operations involving infinity are well defined in mathematics. http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=132805 http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=1438 Very interesting stuff. Thanks Aman. I'm going to have to examine a dictionary to see if there are differences between ...

We run into trouble constructing mathematics when we treat infinity like a number, so doing so is strictly avoided by mathematicians doing logic and proof. "Divided by" is arithmetic. Arithmetic only applies to numbers. "Infinity" is not a number. As a mathematician or a layman ...

Arp 273 gatkinson@nexicom.net lfreeman@ghrc.ca, tmclaughlin@ghrc.ca seems to show the smaller galaxy's tail being bent by Dark Matter of the large galaxy whereas the other tail farthest from the large galaxy is not bent - therefore (?) no DM?

Beautiful photo.

I sympathize with the plight of a curious mind in a town with an inadequate library. Every library I've known has come up short, and I've tried quite a few. Though some are heads and shoulders above the rest. Surely it's a matter of budget as well as the selection process for material. The libraria...

Meghnad Saha's paper 'Ionization in the solar chromosphere' was rejected by 'The Astrophysical Journal' but was pulished by 'Philiosophical Magazine'. "Some historians mark the beginning of modern astrophysics with the publication of Saha's ionization theory." P. 99 Through a Universe Dark...

'Anything divided by infinity is 0' is a phrase I came across in 'Origins' by Neil de Grasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith, published 2004. In the same book it says the currently accepted model of the universe says it will expand infinitely .. resulting in a cold, dark, dead void. the first supposition...

I don't know, Bystander.

Another observation - granted that I live in a small town of only 70,000 people having only one university and one college.. but the public llibrary seems to have no books which even consider theories of cosmology outside the Big Bang .. and it took a whole week reading seven books written by PHDs b...

Perhaps an analogy will help. Great circles routes provide the shortest distance between any two points on the surface of a sphere. When projected onto a 2d map, they appear curved, or "bent" . But in 3d, on the surface of the sphere, they are analogous to a straight line in 2d. I can't s...

Why would nature (or whoever) spend effort assembling a singularity into which all the matter of the universe is packed - when a simple quantum fluctuation could create everything out of nothing? Nature always (or almost always) takes the easy path.

First paragraph from Wiki on Gravitational Lensing ... Ah, but notice how careful they were in that article to put the quotes around "bent". They did that because the word is an analogy, but not a perfect description of what happens.[/quote] In Riordin & Schramm's book there were no q...

Perhaps Dark Matter anti-matter particles are too small and too weak to affect us? Or perhaps they do effect us .. causing mutation as well as cosmic rays. Seeing how every particle known to science seems to have an anti-particle it is only natural to assume Dark Matter has anti-Dark Matter. Perhaps...

=Sputnick. Well said, Chris, far better than your 'light doesn't bend, space bends'. I will have far greater respect for your opinions when I see them presented not as plain fact, but as theory, adding to that word 'stronly supported' if you like. Also, a few days ago you made the statement to me t...

I'm going to post my response on What is Dark Matter instead of here, as this thread is What is Science.

Hello Sputnick, I think it's like Tinkerbell through the leaf myself, but your right, redshift is where it's at. I doubt if it was ever a binary BH system that came apart because of like charges repelling. Which brings up an old thought of mine (oh no! Not that!) If BH"s are so prevalent down ...

astrolabe wrote:.

Maybe something like this is what you are looking for? :http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080917.html

I will check this out.

Thanks Astro - so, Dark Matter does not react with regular matter that we know of (except it is said by gravity) could DM be anti-matter?

Hello Sputnick, Sure do! You can have some of wifey's. While I have your attention (hee-hee): http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap081115.html Such a beautiful photo - If these Galaxies are enveloped in Dark Matter - the envelopes will be interacting .. possibly exchanging energies - are these exchanges bei...

Hello All, The "gap" in the upper part of the larger Galaxy's disk appears to be complementary to the shape and orientation of the smaller. Illusory? Excellent observation Astro, and my instinct says you're correct; and that either the smaller galaxy sprung from (was birthed by?) the larg...