Photo Credit: Astronomy Picture of the DayPhoto Credit: Astronomy Picture of the Day
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WORD PAGE NW TRANSLATION PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION(S) actinide 27 ak'ti-nied Andrei 16 ahn'dray andromeda 10 an-drom'i-duh antimony 26 an'tuh-mohnee architectural 24 arki-tek'chur-uhl arsenic 26 ahr'suh-nik, ahrs'nik argon 26 ahr'gahn astronauts 10 as'truh-nawt, as'troh-not astronomy 16 uh-strahn'uhmee astrophysicist 25 a'stroh-fiz'i-sist bismuth 26 biz'muth Breuer 18 broi'ur carbon 17 kahr'bun chaotic 25 kay-ot'ik cosmic 18 koz'mik cosmology 16 koz-mol'uh-jee cosmos 17 koz'mus, -mohs Davies 21 day'veez disintegrate 24 dis-in'tu-grayt Dyson 21 die'sun electromagnetic 17 i-lek'troh mag-net'ik electron 17 i-lek'tron encyclopedia 15 en-sieklu-pee'dee-uh entropy 25 en'truh-pee fusion 18 fyoo'zhun glaciation 23 glay'shee-ayshun, -see-ayshun Guth 15 guhth helium 20 hee'lee-um Hoyle 20 hoil hydrogen 20 hie'dru-jun Hubble 14 hub'ul intractable 16 in-trak'tuh-bul Jastrow 16 ja'stroh krypton 26 krip'tun lanthanide 27 lan'thu-nied Linde 16 lind Lovell 13 lov'ul Mendeleyev 26 mendl-ay'uf, myin-dyi-lye'yef Milne 16 miln Moseley 26 mohz'lee neon 26 nee'on neutron 17 noo'tron, nyoo'tron nitrogen 26 nie'tru-jun nuclear 17 noo'klee-ur, nyoo'klee-ur, (or by metathesis, -kyu-lur) nucleus 17 noo'klee-us, nyoo'klee-us oxygen 17 ok'si-jun Penrose 25 pen'rohs Polkinghorne 21 pohl'king-horn proportionately 18 pru-pohr'shu-nit-lee, pru-poor'shu-nit-lee proton 17 proh'ton radon 26 ray'don radioactive 17 ray-dee-oh-ak'tiv Reinhard 18 rien'hahrd, -hahrt singularity 13 sing-gyoo-lair'i-tee supernova 11 soo-pur-noh'vuh systemization 26 si-stem'i-zay-shun thermonuclear 17 thuhr-moh-noo'klee-ur,-nyoo'klee-ur (or by metathesis, -kyu-lur) Tipler 23 ti'plur xenon 26 zee'non, zen'on ( Pronunciation KEY )
Picture Credit: National Science
Foundation
Pictures and photographs have long been a part human society, both for delight and record keeping. Some interesting views from space have been recorded, and it must be a real joy to be the camera operator in moments like that!
Here's a picture of a hurricane from space.
Here's a composite picture of the lights on earth that was taken from space.
Here is a picture of a galaxy cluster (CL 0939+4713), almost half way across the visible universe (about 12 billion light years). This represents nearly what our local group is like.
From the Insight on the Scriptures, under the subject of Heaven volume 1, ¶ 1064:
Jehovah, "the Father of the celestial lights" (Jas 1:17), is frequently spoken of as having 'stretched out the heavens,' just as one would a tent cloth. (Ps 104:1, 2; Isa 45:12) The heavens, both the expanse of atmosphere by day and the starry heavens by night, have the appearance of an immense domed canopy from the standpoint of humans on earth. At Isaiah 40:22 the simile is that of stretching out "fine gauze," rather than the coarser tent cloth. This expresses the delicate finery of such heavenly canopy. On a clear night the thousands of stars do, indeed, form a lacy web stretched over the black velvet background of space. It may also be noted that even the enormous galaxy known as the Via Lactea, or Milky Way, in which our solar system is located, has a filmy gauzelike appearance from earth's viewpoint.
Also consider below the recent super-computer generated galaxy and dark matter maps imaged by the Virgo Consortium. The phrase 'fabric of space' can take on renewed meaning, as it appears not too dissimilar to an eye view of hand made gauze. The author of the Bible most certainly understood this before we did, as man's discovery once again shows.
| left Photo credit: Virgo Consortium | ||
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 |
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| Each dot of light is a galaxy | Handmade gauze threads |
Here is a link to an mpeg movie showing an observer moving at light-year speeds what
the structure of the universe looks like. Each dot in the 'foggy strands'
represents a galaxy.
Movie credit: Virgo
Project
The term big bang was coined by a young astrophysicist, Fred Hoyle, on a Saturday morning radio series on the BBC in the early 1950's. He intended the phrase to become, if anything, a denigration against the theory of all matter coming into existance at one moment. However the pithy statement became iconic of the theory held to be inaccurate by Hoyle because it would entail the necessity that at the height of the beginning no known physical theory could be sustained. Hoyle's theory favored a cosmic 'evolution', or slower change toward our current time and place in the cosmos.
There are several causes of red shifting, which are explained here.
The Awake, 1974 Jan. 8, pg. 13, in an article entitled, "Our Mysterious Universe" had a paragraph that does an excellent job of succinctly explaining red shifting:
On the basis of what is called "red shift." Light appears to travel in a wave-like pattern. As it passes through a prism, longer waves produce a deep-red color; the shorter ones are bluish. The process of "red shift" maybe illustrated with a train whistle. As a train approaches you (causing the sound waves to shorten), the whistle's pitch seems to rise. However, after passing (and as the sound waves lengthen), the pitch drops. Light waves behave in a similar way. According to the "red shift" rule, objects leaving the earth have a longer wave length and so produce an increased amount of red shift. On this basis, quasars are thought to be the most distant objects in the universe. But there is still more to the quasar mystery.
Note on footnote pg. 11
Graph Credit: European Southern Observatory
Above is the graph showing the red shift difference between that of the
SN1995K and that of a 'standard' supernova. The capture and measurement of a
supernova is the delight of a cosmologist, because they are bright, so can be
more easily measured. In perusing over the measurements of supernova, it is
concluded
that the universe has a 'preferred' direction, in other words most of it is
moving in a particular direction. However, it would seem to me that it is safer
to say that the portion of the universe we can detect, has this. Perhaps there
are parts of the universe beyond 16 billion light years distance that might be
traveling in a
different direction, with us being just a part of the 'cosmological weather
system' affecting our portion alone. (Much like winter in Australia, while
summer in Finland).
The picture on these two pages in the book is of a simple spiral galaxy, which is useful to show the basic dynamism of our home galaxy, since no space ship has ever traveled far enough away to photograph our galaxy. This would take at least 1,000 years, traveling at light speed, to arrive at a positioned for a decent "close-in" shot using a wide angle lense. So we are in a position much like a camerman trying to take a picture of his own body at arms length. At best, he can only snap different sections of his torso, then piece the photographs together afterward, developing a composite photo. Astronomers are becoming quite skilled at this process, as a large percentage of released photos are composites. (The "Pillars of Creation" photo on the front cover of the book is an example of this, as the upper right corner is usually airbrushed in order to smooth out the harsh square edges.)
Recently another nearby galaxy has been discovered (1994), named the Saggitarius
Dwarf Eliptical Galaxy. This galaxy is so close, that if the Milky Way
wasn't so bright, it would cover nearly 2/3's of the night sky. Why wasn't it
discovered earlier? Three reasons:
1) It's on the other side of the Milky Way center from us, thus the light
from our home galaxy masks out easy detection
2) It is smaller in size than the Milky Way, hence the name "Dwarf"
3) It is actually colliding with our home galaxy. This sounds bad, however
there is more space between stars in relation their mass than there
is between most galaxies in relation to their neighbors. So the stars merely
wobble in their orbit as the galaxies pass through one another, the Milky Way
ripping apart the Saggitarius Dwarf's structure, star by star. The observation
of other similar situations leads astronomers to expect that in the end we will
live in a larger, more massive galaxy.
Here is a picture that gives us more of an indication of
what the situation is.
And here is a picture of two spiral galaxies that helps us
to visualize what it looks like from a (light years) distance.
If you want to read on theory as to what causes some galaxies to have spiral
harms, then
here is a link for you.
Photo Credits: Mt. Wilson Archive
Note on photo
Edwin Hubble was known as a hard worker in many areas, not just intellect.
When handed his high school diploma in l906, the principal said, "Edwin Hubble,
I have watched for four years and I have never seen you study for ten minutes,"
as he was known more for his athletic interests. Continuing in further
education, he passed the bar exam, and then quit practicing law after a short
stint in favor of a post doctorate degree in astronomy. After turning down an
offer to join the staff at the Mount Wilson Observatory, Pasadena, California,
he instead joined the infantry. For some time his career bounced between
military service during war and astronomical research during peace. After world
war II he continued in research hoping to "find something we hadn't expected" at
the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories until he died.
Here is an obituary describing Hubble's accomplishments in
life.
As a co-op at MIT in 1979, Alan Guth tried to take theory beyond the beginning of space, and proposed that there was a period of hyper-rapid "inflation" a billion-trillion-trillionth of a second before the big bang. His theories, such as 'cosmic inflation was the 'bang' that made the big bang' met with ridicule and disbelief in scientific circles, however he found some powerful allies in some with renowned names as Stephen Hawking and Andrei Linde, both supporters of the inflationary theory. Due to different expected forces before, during, and after the 'big bang', the inflationary theory predicts a larger universe than does the standard 'big bang' model. In 1992 when the COBE spacecraft measured fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background noise, which was predicted by the inflationary theory Guth was promoting, his theory gained credibility. He is now a professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Andrei D. Linde is one of the originators of the inflationary
theory. He studied
the connections between particle physics and cosmology after graduating from
Moscow University and receiving a Ph.D. at the P.N. Lebedev Physics Institute.
Afterward he became a physics professor at Stanford. Aside from theorizing about
the origin of the cosmos, he enjoys performing shows consisting of
sleight-of-hand tricks, acrobatics, and hypnosis.
Some of the issues he has with the big bang theory is that
the predicted superheavy particles would require the universe to have a mean
density of about 15 orders greater than it's present "measured" value, which is
about 10-29 gram per cubic centimeter. Also the big bang theory
suggests that space would have to be curved, but evidence thus far is that it is
straight. (If space were curved, we would eventually be able to see our own
planet in a telescope.) Other difficulties are the size of the universe, and the
uniform distribution of matter. He also cites what he calls a "uniqueness
problem", in that our existance resulted in only four dimensions (three spacial
[up,down,sideways], one temporal [time]), and not all of the other theorized
dimensional potentials. In this he quotes Einstein as pondering, "What really
interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." Could
it be this is Linde's real issue with the big bang theory, because it can still
be tied in some manner to an originator, a creator?
When discussing the synchronized expansion of the universe,
Linde asks, "But how could all the different parts of the universe synchronize
the beginning of their expansion? Who gave the command?" He offers this as
'proof' that the big bang theory is weak, because there is no known intelligence
that could have made this order of execution. But it should remembered that the
absence of proof, is not proof of absence. Most of Linde's theories rely heavily
on elementary particles.
Whatever his reasons for discounting the big bang theory, he
does bring up some valid issues about it regarding the physical universe,
especially in light of recent evidence support, but still not proving please
note, the inflationary theory. (note there are also some discoveries that
challenge this theory as well, such as resolving the apparent age of the
universe.)
However, the inflationary theory is itself yet an infant under study, and
subject to modifications and updates as evidence pours in. After contemplating
our existance in the thin possibility of a universal domain that can sustain our
life, he asks and states, "Does this mean that understanding all the properties
of our region of the universe will require, besides a knowledge of physics, a
deep investigation of our own nature, perhaps even including the nature of our
consciousness? This conclusion would certainly be one of the most unexpected
that one could draw from the recent developements in inflationary cosmology." In
the language of particle physics, I think he's asking pretty much, "Where do we
come from? What are we? Where are we going?" Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Note on footnote pg. 15
There have been two major schedule debates regarding inflation vs. big bang.
The first was in 1920. Below are links to the contents of six published papers
from the 1996 program:
Here's an interesting article that covers very well what questions the "big bang" answers, and what it doesn't. Many of the points made are valid for the inflation theory as well.
Everyone, from basketball players, to airline pilots, to automobile operators
rely on each of the four forces on a daily basis. One thing that might be
surprising as well, is that "30 percent of this country's [United States] gross
national product derives from instruments that operate on quantum principles:
the transistor, the laser, MRI scanners, supercondcuting magnets and much more."
Scientific American, Feb. 2001, pg. 8 When Physics Goes
Pop"
Included in this would be CD's, both music and computer, televisions,
radios, anything labeled "solid state" or "digital", etc... This above S.A.
article also states, "The world has changed and accepted much since [1900, when
the quantum theory first glimmered], obviously. But has it learned to embrace
quantum theory? The words can still induce panic attacks among the
physics-challenged. Few nonscientists would even claim to understand what
quantum mechanics is. Nevertheless, it has gained at least some kind of broad
cultural currency." It is pointed out that our daily language now includes such
phrases as "took a quantum leap forward" and "uncertainty principle", as well as
many plots in science fiction story lines. Thus a discussion of the four forces
need not be placed on a pillar of fear, as the use of them encompasses our daily
lives.
Note on box at top of page
Robert Jastrow
was also a theoretical physicist who joined the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration in 1958 as chief of
the Theoretical Division of the
Goddard Space Flight Center. He made the quote in the book because,
as he explained it,
"if we retrace the movements of the moving galaxies backward in time, we find that at an earlier time they must have been closer together than they are today; at a still earlier time, they must have been still closer together; and if we go back far enough in time, we find that at a certain critical moment in the past all the galaxies in the Universe were packed together into one dense mass at an enormous density, pressure and temperature. Reacting to this pressure, the dense, hot matter must have exploded with incredible violence. The instant of the explosion marked the birth of the Universe. The seed of everything that has happened in the Universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the Universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion. It was literally the moment of Creation."Some regarded Jastrow as the greatest scientist writer of recent history because he was able to cull the information and present it to anyone with understanding. Others however, felt he had sold out to true science, often because he, although a claimed agnostic, would mention on occasion in his words and writings the possibility of religious beliefs being viable. The latter strikes fear in many scientists, not because they necessarily hate religion as a system of faith, but they have deep concern over the unthinking fanaticism that often comes as a part of the 'religious' package.
Message from Professor Robert Jastrow to the Truth Journal Board of Advisors
For the scientist who has lived by his
faith in the power of reason, the story
ends like a bad dream. He has scaled
the mountains of ignorance; he is about
to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls
himself over the final rock, he is
greeted by a band of theologians who
have been sitting there for centuries.
--Robert Jastrow
Jastrow like to quote from Edward Arthur Milne on occasion. Milne concluded that time was not constant in all parts of the universe, in that an observer in one location could watch two different events occur in rapid succession, while another observer at some distant location would watch the first event, then with a long wait, finally observe the occurance of the second. In Milne's words,
You can say "was" or "is" at your choice. There is no difference in the two propositions until an observer is mentioned. In any one observer's worldwide present, for whom Creation "was" so many years ago, we can always specify events the observers at which reckon creation as arbitrarily close to "is". . . . To summarize, the passage of time is a definite part of the experience of each individual, and from it may be constructed both time measures and space measures. . . . Different individuals assign different epochs and different distances to the same event, and the relation between the epochs they assign is perfectly definite for any two observers (in uniform relative motion) who stand in the same relation to the rest of the Universe.Robert Jastrow's book "THE ENCHANTED LOOM: MIND IN THE UNIVERSE" was a trilogy, with the first two parts focusing on astronomical implications toward life, and the third part covering intelligence, how the brain evolved, the way it works, how it balances instinct and reason, and what it is evolving into.
Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, 1933, p.236.
Here is a "family tree" of the four fundamental forces:
| basic force | fundamental force | weak space | resolving theory | grand unification | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity | ||||||||
| Magnetism | Electromagnetism | |||||||
| Light | Electroweak Interactions | |||||||
| Beta Decay | ||||||||
| Weak Interactions | ||||||||
| Neutrino Interactions | Standard Model | |||||||
| Protons | ||||||||
| Neutrons | Strong Interactions | |||||||
| Pions | ||||||||
| ? | ||||||||
| Terrestrial Gravity | ||||||||
| Universal Gravitation | ||||||||
| Celestial Mechanics | General Relativity | |||||||
| Space-time Geometry |
The reason why "Space-time Geometry" is not normally listed as a fundamental physical force is because it is an inferred force, and not one that can be observed or measured from an outside scale. There are several reasons why the Standard Model and General Relativity cannot yet be resolved (Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life trying to find the solution to this dilemma). One example I give below illustrates one unresolved difference in the behavior of particles at the subatomic level, as opposed to the behaviors at the macro and even astronomical level.
Imagine that the ball on the left is the size of an electron,
and the ball on the right is a basketball. If the ball had a choice of bouncing
to the right, or the left, the electron could show properties of having chosen
both, whereas the basketball could only show the properties of one direction. In
isolation, this property of duality has been shown to occur in masses the size
of a carbon molecule, and experiments are being planned to check this with a
virus. (Whether the virus was to be living or dead was not mentioned) It is
theorized, but not resolved yet, that perhaps any interruption, even the size of
a single photon, is sufficient to introduce enough decoherence to prevent such
duality in the macro world.
Personal opinion alert: I think that in time
what might be discovered is not a duality, but an unobserved vibration. Because
the general rule of nature is that if active energy is being stored, oscillation
is the most efficient means for such storage. Thus it's possible that what is
being observed are both ends of the reciprocating motion, and not an actual
duality. But, like any other scientific guess, that's just my theory...
As evidence that the strength of gravity plays an important role in the fusion reaction of stars, the surface of the sun is hotter than the underlying layers. Apparently the surface holds just the correct level of gravity to efficiently convert mass into energy Note þ 89 ¶ 2, whereas the inner layers are sufficiently dense due to gravity that runaway ingition (or a supernova explosion) is inhibited. In other words, our local space would appear much like the picture I have at the beginning of my chapter 1 notes.
Dr. Reinhard Breuer has written articles on simulating the universe, meme replication selected by species, large-scale research, the usefulness of physics, and on disputes over science and religion. He made the statement, "Science as a cultural project of mankind suffers from growing fragmentation due to continuous overspeculation in all its fields. Hence the communication gap between science and the public is growing rapidly. Any attempt to bridge this gap is largely doomed to failure unless new methods and measures of communication between science and the public are established." Spectrum of The Sciences I must interject here that the wonderful book, "Is There a Creator Who Cares About You?", of which these my notes are about, indeed does a wonderful job in establishing such a bridge. I wonder if anyone has yet gotten a copy into his hands. I think he'd be pleased with it.
No matter the field of science, precision and accuracy are found in everything. And that this has to be discovered indicates indeed that we, the creation, did not put it in there. For a very long time it has been wondered what allows protein fibers in our bodies to have elastic properties. Recently it has been discovered that the microfibrils of long polymers, called fibrillin, are actually strung together sort of like a string of beads. They connect together at the ends, however each 'bead' has two bent 'arms' that fold back and form the shape of a cartoon heart. This allows the fibrillin to compress or stretch by 'squishing' or 'stretching' each heart shaped section without tearing or ripping from one another. The collective stretching allows for comparitively great distances of momentum, allowing for us to move our muscles, breathe, open our eyes, and a host of other activities. Since such precision takes consciousness if embedded into a machine, whether electronic or mechanic, then how did it become embedded into our design?
Here is a picture of what space would look like if only
hydrogen could exist (based on hydrogen imaging of the universe).
Here is a picture of what space would look like if only
heavy elements existed (based on carbon dioxide imaging of the universe).
I was going to try and explain the "rules" of the strong and weak nuclear forces. But in actuality this would require at least a dictionary sized publication, if not an encyclopedia. Just to give an idea of the complexity of quantum physics, here's a brief description of the rules quarks from a November 1998 Scientific American article:
Along with the electric charge, quarks have other,odder attributes. One kind -called flavor- comes in six varieties whimsically named up, down, charm, strange, top and bottom. Another kind of property is called "color" charge. An up quark, for instance, comes in three basic colors: red, yellow or blue.Wow. And this was the beginning of the article. At this point in the article, they hadn't even discussed the rules of glueballs (gluons) yet, which exist for on the amount of time that it takes light to travel across the width of a hydrogen atom. Since quarks and photons carry no charge, it is thought that these components play the role of "gluing" the basic components of matter together following some very specific rules of behavior. Atomic spin on atomic and subatomic particles carries another set of complex rules, for example if the spins of an atom's proton and it's electron are aligned, the total mass of the atom can be affected. And this effect is even more pronounced in subatomic particles. I gotta ask at this point. Why is it they never ask the question, "Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all. Which is the way to the resting-place of the light?"? (Job 38:18,19 Bible in Basic English) Doesn't the order of the universe, from the astronomically gigantic, to the miniscule levels of energy/matter give enough sense of orderliness and structure to cause an intelligent person to at least wonder how the One who asked the question in that passage knew what to ask so many years ahead of modern discovery?
A blue quark will bind with a red quark and a yellow quark, forming a "white" object that has no color charge. The result may be a proton, a neutron or any one of innumberable three-quark composites called baryons. (Physicists call these charges "color" because all three of them add up to zero, just as the three primary colors add up to white.) The attraction between different colors is in fact the so-called strong nuclear force, which binds quarks into these larger, stable objects.
Quarks may also attach to antiquarks, particles that have opposite charges to the quarks. An antiquark comes in anticolors -antired, antiyellow or antiblue. (An anitcolor is mathematically denoted by negative color. Antired, for instance, is a "minus red.") Opposite colors attract. A red quark, for instance, will bind with an antired antiquark to form a white object called a meson. The most common meson is a pion, often observed in nuclear reactions.
Glueballs by Frank E. Close and Philip R. Page
John Polkinghorne distinguished himself in the field of elementary particle physics, was named as a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was a Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge until 1979, made what appeared to many as a significant career change. He became a student of theology. He is now an author who attempts to correlate quantum physics with Christian faith, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1997. His wife heard him say "Epistemology models ontology" so often that she gave him a sweatshirt with the slogan inscribed upon it. ["(The study of the nature of knowledge) models (the religious study of our nature)" In other words, "how we know things matches how we came to exist"]
§
Here's a web page called The Partical Adventure that uses non-geeky methods so the site visitor can experience an understanding of quantum mechanics.
Here's a web page that has a fun Java Applet demonstrating how protons and electrons affect each other.
Professor Paul Davies recently wrote a book entitled "The Fifth Miracle: The Search For The Origin Of Life". He promotes the theory that Earth was seeded with Martian microorganisms. Note: Appendix B þ 48 of the book He states:
Everybody agrees that the sort of life now found on Earth could not have originated without two basic raw materials: liquid water and a supply of organic substances--carbon-based molecules that typically include hydrogen, oxygen and perhaps nitrogen. So the first question is: where did these raw materials come from? The answer, many now believe, is that they probably did not originate on Earth.He brings up some valid points that would require resolvement, as far as the source of many of the necessary components required by life on the earth, as opposed to other planets, and the moon, so nearby that do not have them. Whether or not the water and atmosphere came from a barrage of comets, or not, the scriptures do not say. He his evidence is circumstantial at best, so this theory is truly unresolved. Although his explanations on the arrival and evolution of life are rather, uhm, convoluted (whatever happened to the principle of simplicity?), at least he recognizes and exlains the enormous odds of any planet having conditions that are just right for the survival of life. He also promotes the idea that all life on the earth resulted from extremophiles, or organisms similar to those found kilometers deep in earths crust, or around volcanic exhaust vents.
New Scientist, 12 September 1998
Our atmostphere keeps out dangerous rays from the Sun, as well as gamma radiation from space. Our suns position in the Milky way is just right to keep our planet safe from too many near-collisions as well as structural pull which might rip our home from orbit, or at least cause it to become widly elliptical and dangerous to life. Our galaxy is positioned within a cluster that is relatively small and safe, and our cluster is in a delicate gravitational dance with some unkown "great attractor" (an unseen mass that by it's pull measures to be some ten time the mass of the Milky Way contained in the core of galaxy cluster Abell 3627) and the Virgo cluster. All this is occuring within the galactic plane of our local universe. And in all of this, conditions for our little space are "just right". If I found a home with a warm bed and a note next to a cup of hot chocolate that told me to come in and relax, I would not find my self wondering "just how did this happen to fall out of sky like this?". I'd know the owner was going to be back someday, and I'd want to thank him for it.
Here's an interesting article that discusses some of the 'spacial dancing' that occurs in our "little" part of the universe. It also mentions a little about the smaller galaxies discovered nearby, such as the Saggitarius Dwarf, which might be interesting.
John Barrow has a background strong in astronomy and astrophysic studies, even co-holding a NATO Exchange grant with Andre Linde. He states that one of the most striking consequences of human consciousness is "a paradoxical revelation that we can know what we cannot know." Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits He points out the fact that our consciousness can comprehend subjects of which we can never attain a direct knowledge is a paradox. One example he cites of a religous paradox (or of some faith's omniscient diety) is:
THIS STATEMENT IS NOT KNOWN TO BE TRUE BY ANYONE.Then later on he goes to point out, using examples from Anatol Rapoport, that certain paradoxes have actually helped mankind to make yet further discoveries:
Now consider the plight of our hypothetical Omniscient Being (`Big O'). Suppose first that this statement is true and Big O does not know it. Then Big O would not be omniscient. So, instead, suppose our statement is false. This means that someone must know the statement to be true; hence it must be true. So regardless of whether we assume at the outset that this statement is true or false, we are forced to conclude that it must be true! And therefore, since the statement is true, nobody (including Big O) can know that it is true. This shows that there must always be true statements that no being can know to be true. Hence there cannot be an Omniscient Being who knows all truths. Nor, by the same argument, could we or our future successors, ever attain such a state of omniscience. All that can be known is all that can be known, not all that is true.
As a side note, applying this to some unresolved scriptural point that we may not understand, we can learn new things along the path of waiting to resolve them. As Isaiah 40:28 points out, "there is no searching out of his understanding," forever we will find new paradoxes, and forever we can learn by them, even if the direct answer we seek is elusive.
Frank Tipler is a mathmetician at Tulane University. When the "martian rocks" were found in antartica some years ago, Tipler made the statement to the news media:
"If the Martian evidence holds up," he says, "we may have to face the fact that primitive life is common in the Universe but that the development of intelligence is vastly improbable." In fact, he believes it is so fantastically improbable that it has happened only once since the big bang. "I believe we are the very first intelligence to arise in our Galaxy," he says. New Scientist 1997He has arrived at theories which would show how an intelligent race could populate the universe in cosmologically short time frames using self-replicating robots that were designed with an intelligence at least equal to humans. Even at the speed of space ships, it would take "only 300 million years to explore every corner of the Galaxy and maintain a base around each star". And after Hawking's theorized evaporation of all black holes occured, which would lead to the end of the universe as we know it, that survival from the end of this universe into the next would require supercomputers that can compute an infinite number of computations in order to act against collapse. Pretty much as a mathmetician he's telling us that it's impossible for us to be here, and therefore for anyone else either. Yet, here we are.
Roger Penrose enjoys dabbling in recreational mathematics
(yes, there is such a thing 
) and
indulges himself in "Twister theory", which is a radical reformulation of the
geometrical description of space-time. Aside from this creating new puzzles, it
pushes spacial geometry, which is applied to all sorts of mathematics, from
cosmology downward, to new levels of consideration. His conclusions are that a
quantum theory of gravity will be needed soon to describe nature which would
allow for space-time to curve even in regions that are empty. If this is found,
will the discoverer apologise to Einstein, as Einstein did to Newton?
Alan Lightman teaches physics and writing at MIT. (Now there's a someone in science that Dr. Reinhard Breuer from þ 18 might appreciate.) His writings instill in those who have scientific careers the need to press on, and for those who are not, to understand the sciences being explained. He explained Einstein for the layman in "Relativity and the Cosmos", and through descriptive prose that through physics and neurosynaptic response we know how a person smiles, but not why. He once stated:
Scientists often make their greatest discoveries just at those moments when they follow their intuition instead of equations. In other words, when they behave the least "scientifically." That secret, known to historians but rarely to scientists, became the hidden thread running through my essays. forward in Dance for Two
Comment on the box "Believe Only What You See?":
Here is a picture of an apparent hole in the sky,
the reason astronomers know it's there is because they can't
see it.
Black holes are another thing that cannot be seen, but are now proven to exist. (Note: þ 85 ¶ 3)
One unseen component of the universe that many scientists are convinced exists is "dark matter", which makes itself evident by the pull it has on galaxies and stars. But here is an article that reminds us that often in scientific circles, something more than dark matter is missing.
The atomic numbering of an element is just a count of the protons in the nucleus of the atom. Thus, hydrogen, the smallest on the scale, has one proton, and therefore has an atomic count of "1". Helium has two protons, thus a count of "2". And so on up the scale.
Researchers had a difficult time sythesizing atomic elements with counts above 106 because they had a tendency to fission. However in December of 1998 (after the "Is There a Creator Who Cares About You" was already in print) the DUBNA laboratory in Russia (near Moscow) went on line using a process called "cold fusion" (not the discredited version that was well publicized in the 1980's), and the Periodic Table has now been updated. It's worth noting that the elements are so well organized such that that element 114 was predicted to be an "island of stability" among the other high count atomic weights surrounding it. The fact that it was observed to decompose into element 112 with a half life of about 30 seconds, which was the prediction, adds credibility to this. However, only about three atoms of element 114 have ever been made, so a larger sample is necessary for undisputable proof. But even such predictions are based on the assumption that as humans all of the necessary facts are truly captured and understood.
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2001