Starship Asterisk*

Ok.. so that topic was closed, because someone started ranting after they saw this hastily produced film that tries to use conspiracy as a scientific tool. There are a billion other things that can go the way of conspiracy if we try hard enough to 'let' it. Just like my g/f saw Zeigeist The Movie or whatever its called, talking about the same junk, but from a different point of view... but only about the same conspiracy theories.

Here's my thing.

Go outside...

Look up...

What's there? A 6000 year old universe (as even my g/f wants to believe), or one that has over 6 trillion blobs of shining light... galaxies and galaxies containing billions and billions and billions of stars? And these lights and stars are moving and creating new stars even as we gaze upon them!

No one is pulling any trick of light. No one is trying to make a conspiracy that maybe someone went out at night and painted little lights above people's heads to make them believe something that isn't true. I have a belief of my own, it is religious in nature, but when I stare into the heavens and see that what we have been taught is far from whats actual, I begin to question not the original intent of the belief I've had forever, but the intent of those who want to teach that belief in their 'own' ways, and not in ways that include possibilites of all things.

The universe is greater than any book could ever make it (even a book created by the Hubble telescope and its many images)... Man of today, with all of their technology, can't even explain what the reason for everything is. How could man of yesterday, in a time wrought with violence and emperical rule, know so much more to the point that the creation of the Universe is explained within the confines of a single chapter in a Book?

I think that Science and Astronomy can have its drawbacks, especially if people choose to use it for things other than the preservation of mankind and its fellow animal kingdom and the benefit of the entire system we live in (in the confines of space). But when Astronomy brings to light the massive misunderstanding of what we've known so little about, then there's cause for celebration of a different kind, because the 'truth' may one day be had... not by prophetic visions, but by human experience.

People tend to call the unknown 'the devil's tendency towards leading us astray'. What would you call those that try to put blinders on the ones who 'look up' and see that millions and millions of years have gone by since the world first saw a human species dare to crawl from beneath cavern-like holes that once protected, but now kick them into gear by forcing them to walk outside and see the 'light' of day (not to mention that life walked the planet long before humans ever did).

Just because you cannot see beyond a hill in the distance doesn't mean that an ocean of immeasurable wealth isn't on the other side. Just as looking into the full face of a T-Rex skeleton at a museum can bring a new feeling of an immense insignificance to my soul.

Our own civilizations have been built because people thought more than just what others would teach them. They wanted to know for themselves and so sought the truth. And they found it. A New Land where millions of people flocked, where battles were faught, where people died, and where a Nation found its creation. The same will be for Space and the travel humans will make once the technology allows for us to do so.

We will see other planets, moons, and stars up close. We will find other worlds similar to earth, similar to our solar system, so similar that finding life will become a tedious task of cataloguing all of the new species that we'll encounter.

Creation, Evolution and Revolution cause many things... we either accept that we are all different, and begin to gather these differences and try to make some sense of the tangled web 'we' didn't weave, or we just up and find our own 'worlds' to live as we see fit if we can never get along and just agree that no one is truelly correct about any assumption (which most things are).

Use any variable you want, but when those things that we cannot see affect who and how we are, then those invisible variables will one day need to be explained. And if finding an explanation means looking towards the Heavens in a new way (not in a way that keeps me simplistic and only wondering 'when will it end?'), then so be it... I will look to the skies and stars and envision that one day Man will be out there... Man will find a way to overcome the bonds of archaic means of survival.

If we want to find our way as a living and thriving species, we need to encompass all things that make us who we are: trivial, breathing, bleeding, curious little beings on this small speck of rock we call home.

Sometimes my feelings are hurt when I hear (or read) that people are so different that the difference is keeping them apart, when its that difference thats been creating this entire time. The processes of the Universe are no different. Thats how atoms and chemicals and newly formed compounds take shape and create the beautiful expanse above and all around us. Death and Life. Humans and religion aren't the only ones to destroy life. Blackholes are doing it now as we speak. That massive explosion from billions of lightyears away... destruction on a scale unimagined to those in its proximity.

We need the difference. Because if everything were the same... well, I'd rather not imagine that. The heavens may not have even formed at all. When I look up and see the Galaxies and Stars above, I am awed that we have even been given the time to actually live and breathe within this universe since it could so easily just wipe us out.



*tried to keep this as much about astronomy as I could but some things just need to be said..sorry*

so, what are you saying here? religion makes things progress faster, and so should be allowed as subject of discussion here?

Religion has no place for science, science has no place for religion and now my dog hates me too.

Let us not forget the heroes that challenged religion to "explain" its beliefs. While offering observations that contradicted it, most times at the expense of their own life or worse.

Religion should not be banned from any scientific forum.

G'day

I'm sitting on the fence for this one.

Bravo, Arramon. Well said.

If there is a forum about "monster truck" then you will not want to ear and talk about how to make and cook bread. You will want to talk about monster truck.

It's the same here. This server is about science and astronomy not at all about religion. So religion is unwelcome. Go into a religion forum to talk about religion.

Thank you for your understanding.

Oh please!

Religions are theories (basically). So what is everyone afraid of?



This is an astronomy and science forum eh?

Doum Wrote:

I see a schizophrenic dialogue between the same person. Gee may be it's contagious.

Sounds pretty scientific to me. Apparently it is also a personal forum for character attacks as well.

hehehe... I didn't say talk about religion should be allowed. I said that the difference between Religion and Science is that they are both needed in some fashion or another because what one spectrum doesn't bring to the picture, the other does... =b

Not necessarily that you need to TALK about religion in an Astronomy forum or vice versa. I don't think people would want to read about the billion age universe in a religious forum, but as all people should be, having an open mind can help to expand many things, not just people's ignorance that all share.

I was just saying that people shouldnt shoot someone down, when not all facts are presented for everyone in the first place. We are babies. The Earth is a baby. Our solar system is the only adult near us, and here we are trying to explain everything by cancelling other things out. How can you cancel something out without leaving something else incomplete?

Differences filling this expanse we call space are all connected in the smallest of particles, and even those smallest particles don't have answers to what remains within even what our technology can't see.

Sometimes believing that something exists even when you can't see it allows for postulations to help try and place these 'blocks' of knowledge in a somewhat recognizable order, so we can at least BEGIN to try and understand. I for one do not tell people what you know and don't know makes you the person you are. From the day you are born to the day you die, knowing who you truelly are may never be known until you find yourself outside of what you once inhabited (your lifeform). religion and science aside... all things must coexist.

Here is your astronomy image for this post:

To some of you , religion seem to mix well with science. To others (Me include) it does'nt at all. Are you saying that i should follow your beleive and shut up about mine? Astronomy and religion have nothing in common. That's all what i beleive. So what your telling me is, that if some one want to have an astronomy science only forum then he is wrong and he must be condemn because he didnt include religion. That the religion must be include in it or then it's wrong. I DISAGREE. There are science and there are religion. BIG difference. Here, the forum is about about science and astronomy. If you disaprove then leave this forum and go into a religion one. If you want this forum to change his rule then do so and if it do then i will leave.

You made you point about wanting religion to be in, well i made mine about wanting any religion to stay out. I'm not a bad guy because i want it to continue to be the way it is. But you are, because you want to introduce religion where it is said to be not pertinent to this forum. Go practice religion elsewhere. If you say i'm harch then i say you are harch to impose your religion in a forum that is not about religion. Are you forbiding all forum if it does not contain any religion in it? Again, this is about astronomy and still is untill an official notice said otherwise. Understand me here, You have the right to your religion and this forum have the right to not want to include any religion in it.

If you disagree again, then tell me what religion you are in. Because it is a mean religion for sure to forbid any freedom of opinion without having that religion include in any forum.

I am not so Anti-religion that I cannot logically discuss religious subject matter using the self-correcting process of science. A mixing of the two is only natural in a effort to understand one's entire surroundings. The path to enlightment is not always a scientific one.

Why are people so confrontational when it comes to differences? People are always trying to make another seem wrong, when what they believe is their own belief and can be changed at any point in time if something extreme brings them to new territory in what they know or don't know. Humans tend to learn that way.

I was stating an opinion of mine that people are different and all differences should be allowed if an entire image of all things could ever be assembled from the garbled mess of our knowledge of the universe and the unseen (as Martin stated above).

I won't tell you my religion, because its a simple one and only requires me to serve my brethren as I would have them serve me if needed (as in helping out the helpless and your own communities and hopefully other parts of the world). My religion has nothing to do with what I think is going on in the universe (seeing as how most leaders of religion think differently than today's believers of faith), except for the fact that the universe is so extreme that anything is possible. So I don't exclude ideas and opinions from others because I will never truelly know in my puny little lifetime.

Grain of salt yo.

And I'm not trying to make a point that religion needs to be discussed here. There are no forums for this religion or that, what religion is older, or what prophets said what. You seem to be missing 'my point' because you want to debate. I don't. I'm only observing the fact that people tend to put down others who think differently, just because what they think is not the same and they won't submit to the oppression of being quiet. Who's to say that what our forefathers believed is now false? Who's to say that ancient technology didn't rival today's? Who's to say that people are not born with the ability to heal? You'd be amazed at the wonderful things that occur, even today... just as they did centuries ago. But its sad that people say "if my eyes don't see, my heart don't believe". Your choice.

Something DID make this universe (or multiples thereof). The filaments connecting all known visible sources of energy are also connected by invisible forces that MAN may never know of (although the XMM-Newton is doing a pretty good job of the beginning processes of these new discoveries). Theories exist about how the universe started, but if you debate that, nooone will close your topic. Once someone comes along and says, "well, why can't the Creator of the universe be a tangible thing? Something so vast that we are only a microscopic dot within its entire existence?" How is that a no-no? I agree that noone could ever state, "My God created this and yours didn't"... I'll ask that after I die, if I die, and if I actually go to another realm of existence where the energies of our bodies still remain, where we can at least still have consciousness. Maybe it is all darkness and your flame it snuffed out once you die. Again, theories, but still connected with the universe because entites we know not of exist (blackholes) that have the possibilty for things we could only imagine.

And maybe imagining isn't such a bad thing, as some may think religion is to a degree. But then Scientists imagine that certain particles and atoms and elements could possibly do this or that, and they don't really know until technology backs them up with results. Religion seems to be something that uses imagination, but is harder to back up those beliefs with results because it demands that you look within yourself for discovery, not just within the universe. Both places contain the invisible and unseen, yet science is so quick to believe what they can't see only based on calculations using unknown variables.

Its good to look at images of galaxies and stars and moons and all the other marvelous creations we take for granted, but that still doesn't explain how everything came to be- how it all came to be EXACTLY as it did. That point may never be known. And I won't use Religion to try and prove or disprove it, because religion is also a theory based on faith, as science is theory based on fragments of facts in the whole scheme of all things.

I view the Sun as a Creator. Doesn't mean thats my religion. Just means that the Sun creates life, just as it can destroy. I view the resonance of the Solar System as the means to transport energy and that life throughout space (and between systems and galaxies and clusters, as all of it IS connected), doesn't mean I think its God and so I should bow before it. Anything not of earth is so great, and our understanding so miniscule, that non of us should ever proclaim that this or that way is the absolute. That's just nonsense. I do believe that we are alive only by the whim of something we know not of (be it religion or science). We could even live within an entity so great that each particle is merely its own cell dividing and multiplying.

I just like to think that with the visible greatness before our eyes (about as visible as the percentage we use our brain), anything is possible. The universe, if anything, has taught us that. But there are people (ahem, like a good fraction of our entire planet), that thinks the Universe didn't just 'pop' out of nothing. Given what we do know, it always takes something to create something. Even at the smallest of levels.

But that's a pointless observation. Man will begin to create and so therefor play God. Doesn't mean I will bow to Science as an alternative to what I believe within. In some aspect, Science and Religion really are two seperate entities... one needs fact, one needs faith. But to have faith that our world will survive another millenium doesn't mean its a religion, nor would having a fact that someone's Prophet really did live and bathe the land with myricals doesn't mean you can then call it science.

Just terms placed on different types of belief systems. Both but are still bound by the same laws that govern everything, just seen through different eyes.

I'm not telling you what to believe or say, just as I would hope the same would come from you (or others, or whoever... this isn't aimed at anyone in particular, its just me voicing my opinions that are still so childish in thought and experience).

=)

I love the universe and space and want man to take its first steps into the frontyard of our entire beginnings. If we could travel through time into the future, would Man have entirely removed religious beliefs because they could never be proven? Or would those beliefs help sustain Mankind within a universe so hostile and chaotic, having a faith to survive and hoping Someone watches over them as they terraformed and journeyed to new areas.

History repeats, so maybe with the discovery of new worlds, we will see that what our forefathers believed isn't so different from what our future generations will believe. Predestined or Manifest Destiny? Free will is more like it.

I accept my brother for thinking differently, because he has insights into areas I know nothing about, just as I can help explain things to him he knows nothing of if need be. And if something in space were to happen to the future pioneers, that even the most intelligent scientist couldn't explain, maybe having a faith that Man will make it through will seem more logical than sitting infront of your computer this day and thinking, "Why do I need to believe in anything else, when all I need to believe in is right here". Its not all right here.

dang... i write too long.

I see your point to both of you. Continue as you wish of course. You can even say it's none of my business because it's true. I'm not an admin and have no authority here. I was saying that this forum is suppose to be just astronomy and science and i like it that way. So just dont be mad at me if at some point i'll gently say that i disagree with some part of a religion in describing a science phenomenon. It seem to be as hard for you to ignore religion as it is for me to comprehend it in the subject discuss here. Let see how it goes from now on. We probably wont exchange a lot . It's for the best i suppose. Uhh the admin didnt change the rule yet. Be careful with them. Cya!

The Administrators here are not consistant. It appears the rule-of-forum is subject to bias interpretation.

Unlock the previous thread or I will never return!

Martin wrote:Unlock the previous thread or I will never return!

I'm fairly certain your threat is quite impotent. You are, of course, welcome to leave, or stay, as you wish.

Ca, I replied in that other place where you have left the message.

To cover my ass, I can say that I was discussing an astronomic theory that there are lots of water very far from the rest of mass in the Universe. Beyond being based on Genesis kids good-night story, there is no connection to religion there. But, if the thread will be locked or not, is up to Nereid. I can't lock it myself, not because I posted there, but because I have not access to magic locking button.

Now, this thread seem to have no any theory in discussion, it is pure and pointless flaming. But again, I will not be able to lock it. If it bothers you, you know whom to PM.

No flaming aloud. =)

Here's a nifty explanation about Measuring the Speed of Light:
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/wa ... dence.html

Student: How has the speed of light been measured?

Teacher: That's a very good question. In the early 17th century, many scientists believed that there was no such thing as the "speed of light"; they thought light could travel any distance in no time at all. Galileo disagreed, and he came up with an experiment to measure light's velocity: he and his assistant each took a shuttered lantern, and they stood on hilltops one mile apart. Galileo flashed his lantern, and the assistant was supposed to open the shutter to his own lantern as soon as he saw Galileo's light. Galileo would then time how long it took before he saw the light from the other hilltop.

Student: And then he could just divide the distance by the time to get the speed. Did it work?

Teacher: Nope. The problem was that the speed of light is simply too fast to be measured this way; light takes such a short time (about 0.000005 seconds, in fact) to travel one mile that there's no way the interval could have been measured using the tools Galileo had.

Student: So what you'd need is a really long distance for the light to travel, like millions of miles. How could someone set up an experiment like that?

Teacher: Well...during the 1670's, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer was making extremely careful observations of Jupiter's moon Io. The black dot is Io's shadow. Io makes one complete orbit around Jupiter every 1.76 days; the time it takes to make each orbit is always the same, so Roemer expected that he could predict its motion quite precisely. To his astonishment, he discovered that the moon didn't always appear where it was supposed to be. At certain times of the year, it seemed to be slightly behind schedule; at other times, it was slightly ahead.

Student: That's weird. Why would it orbit more quickly at some times and more slowly at others?

Teacher: That's exactly what Roemer wondered, and no one could think of any plausible answer. Roemer did notice, however, that Io seemed to be ahead of its predicted orbit when the earth was closer to Jupiter, and behind when it was farther away...

Student: This has got to have something to do with the speed of light, but I don't quite see how it all fits together.

Teacher: Well, think about this: if light doesn't travel infinitely fast, then it must take some amount of time to get from Jupiter to earth. Let's say it takes an hour. Then when you look at Jupiter through a telescope, what you're actually seeing is light that left an hour ago--so you're seeing what Jupiter and its moons looked like one hour in the past.

Student: Wait a second--I think I see where this is going. When Jupiter was farther away, light would take even longer to get from there to here, so that Roemer was seeing Io as it had been at an even earlier time than usual--maybe an hour and fifteen minutes ago, instead of an hour. And the opposite would happen when Jupiter and the earth were especially close together. So Io wasn't changing its orbit at all; it would just appear to be in different places depending on how long its light had taken to get here.

Teacher: Very good! Now, knowing how much Io's timing seemed to change and how much the distance from earth to Jupiter varied, Roemer was able to calculate a value for the speed of light. The number he came up with was about 186,000 miles per second, or 300,000 kilometers per second.

In the years that followed, as better equipment and techniques were developed, many other people were able to measure the speed of light more accurately. With the resources of today's technology, we can measure it to an incredibly high precision. For instance, astronauts have attached a mirror to a rock on the moon; scientists on earth can aim a laser at this mirror and measure the travel time of the laser pulse--about two and a half seconds for the round trip. (The idea behind this experiment is not so different from Galileo's, if you think about it...) And anyone who measures the speed of light, at any time, using any method, always gets the same result: just slightly less than 300,000 kilometers per second.

Student: Other kinds of electromagnetic radiation, like radio waves and microwaves, are supposed to travel at the same speed as light. Has their speed been measured also?

Teacher: Yes; in 1888, more than 200 years after Roemer's observations, Heinrich Hertz generated some electromagnetic waves in his laboratory. He measured their speed and came up with that familiar number, 300,000 kilometers per second--a very strong piece of evidence that light and electromagnetic radiation are the same thing.

The full tutorial for Wavelengths and Speed of Light:
http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/wa ... index.html

Kind of hard to ignore the obvious. The Universe is huge. The distances are vast... so vast that we can't see beyond certain distances about 13-14 billion light years away, only a microwave print of the entire surrounding structure of our known universe. If Light is constant, could unknown forces possibly alter speeds beyond these vast distances that we're not aware of?

Like the Bose-Einstein condensate that slows light down to about 38 miles per hour:

This so-called Bose-Einstein condensate was not actually made until 1995, because the right technological pot to cook it up in did not exist. Vacuums hundreds of trillions of times lower than the pressure of air at Earth's surface, and temperatures almost a billion times colder that that in interstellar space, are needed to produce the condensate. Temperatures must be lowered to within a few billionths of a degree of absolute zero (minus 459.7 degrees F), where atoms have the least possible energy and all but cease to move around.

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/


BUT, if the composition of the universe at early stages was different from the composition of where we are now (in time and distance), could the particles of light have travelled at different speeds in that embryonic stage as they do in the current stage?

the particles of light can "travel" at whatever speed they want, yet this does not change the value of c. in fact, if this value would change, I find it very plausible that we wouldn't notice, especially with new SI'83 units definitions. the way it enters the equations, makes it possible to "re-scale" them, replacing it with dimensionless number such as 1.