The Science Thread

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by Hakkola

So I was reading the other day that the Universe is about 45 billion light years across, and only ~13 billion light years old. So it expanded faster than the speed of light... Any good info on this?

It has something to do with the photons moving through space, but that space is expanding, meaning that the light began its 'journey' 13B years ago, but the space between the object it came from and the Earth would continue increasing meaning that even though the light appears to be 13B light years away, in the time it took to travel the object is now 45B light years away. And as such, the universe itself is much bigger. The observable universe would remain ~14B light years (radius) because even though the object are much farther away now, we can only see them as they were when they first emitted the light.

I know I'm not making much sense, but nothing I've read on the subject makes much sense either.

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by Canmorite


The creation/evolution science debate is always interesting

This is a thread about science, and therefore should remain with it. A creation/evolution thread could be opened, but i would be nice if this could just stay with science.


But on the note of evolution and its history, I recently heard talk about the Richard Owen and T.H. Huxley feud. Huxley was a staunch supporter of Darwin's work and was generally accepted as one of the great natural history minds. Owen was a staunch opposer of Darwin and was generally an asshole (stealing ideas, blacklisting scientists etc.) but unlike Huxley, felt museums should be opened to the public. Common thinking of the time was that only scholars should have access to museums but it was Owen who changed everything. He felt they should be open so people could learn. The idea of setting up displays with little cards providing descriptions seemed offensive to people in Huxley's camp.

So amazingly, it was one of the scientific communities biggest douchebags who helped make science open to the masses. A bit of useless trivia for your next party.

[yue]

Originally posted by kertejud2


This is a thread about science, and therefore should remain with it. A creation/evolution thread could be opened, but i would be nice if this could just stay with science.

is there any specific subject of science that you want to discuss on this thread?

[vadeit]

I this thread.

As a scientist (chemist) who gets paid to do science and the spouse of a scientist (microbiologist) I think I can offer some insights into the world of "science".

As TKRIS pointed out it does not take a genius to work in a scientific field. A good scientist is someone who is very inquisitive, very patient and very determined. Science is not easy. Discoveries take a lot of time and effort; there will be countless failures for every one success.

Notice I have not mentioned education. I don't think a formal education is required to make a good scientist. It gives you the background knowledge to things and most importantly teaches you how to do the acts of science; research, study, experiments, etc. However, all of those things can be learned by oneself if one is determined.

Unfortunately for science and scientist we attract a lot of elitist douche bags who think they are god's gift to the world and that hurts our reputation with the general population. The other thing that hurts the image of science as I mentioned above, is that it is hard.

TKRIS: take the linear algebra courses. I loved linear, the better half hated it though, kind of a love it or hate it sort of subject I think.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by kertejud2


It has something to do with the photons moving through space, but that space is expanding, meaning that the light began its 'journey' 13B years ago, but the space between the object it came from and the Earth would continue increasing meaning that even though the light appears to be 13B light years away, in the time it took to travel the object is now 45B light years away. And as such, the universe itself is much bigger. The observable universe would remain ~14B light years (radius) because even though the object are much farther away now, we can only see them as they were when they first emitted the light.

I know I'm not making much sense, but nothing I've read on the subject makes much sense either.

I believe it had to do with expansion ... let me try and explain

Imagine 3 points in a straight line equally spaced out labeled A - B - C

You are standing at A, all objects are moving apart at 100km/hour - this is the maximum speed they can move apart.

After 1 hour, you notice that B is now 100km further away from you. To the observer at B, C has moved 100 km away from it. However, since you are standing at A, you see that C has moved 200km away from you in 1 hour - seemingly violating the speed limit.

Replace the 100km/hr with the speed of light, and if you were standing at A, it appears that C is moving away from you at double the speed of light (which it is not). Consequently, the space between A and C has also increased by 2 light hours. Now the expansion of the universe isn't happening at the speed of light of course, but hopefully that explains how the space between 2 objects can appear to increase by faster than the speed of light.

Edit: at least that's how I remember it. haha it's been a while. I think the analogy used in school was the distance between raisons in a loaf of broad while it was being baked.

[95civicgsr]

what the bleep do we know has some interesting views on quantom mechanics and it puts it into pretty good lamens terms.
But every time I try to bring it up in conversation people look at me like im a nut for even considering the possibility that we create our own reality or the string theory with its 11 dimensions... its pretty interesting stuff I think, weither I believe it or not!
If your not educating yourself you might aswell be moving backwards!!!

[lint]

Originally posted by 01RedDX
String theory - anybody want to weigh in, in layman's terms? (If that's even possible lol)

I love how the theory opens up the possibility of extra dimensions and parallel universes, but I'm not nearly intellectual enough to grasp it properly.

Check out this series from Nova:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

[D'z Nutz]

I'm really into astronomy and I've found the related episodes of Naked Science on National Geographic to be really entertaining. (I haven't caught any of the non-astronomy/space episodes though.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Science

"Birth of a Solar System":

[diamondedge]

TKRIS, Linear Algebra...ah. I don't know if the course you're looking at has a component on complex numbers...the one I took 2 years ago did. Complex numbers represent so many things in science and engineering, even the quantum mechanics stuff we're talking about here.

Transmission and propagation of electromagnetic waves anyone?

[msommers]

Originally posted by TKRIS
I've said this before, and I'll say it again:
In this day and age where the cumulative knowledge of mankind is literally at your fingertips, there's no excuse to not know about anything you want to know about. No longer is what you know indicative of how much education you have, but of how much intellectual curiosity you possess.

For me yes. For some kid in Kenya, I don't think so.

EDIT: But to add something useful! These are some of my favorites so far but the whole site is filled with an incredible amount of recent research.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/m...tti_sauce.html

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/g..._universe.html

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/b...and_space.html

And just for fun:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/k...reativity.html

[Zero102]

The universe is a hologram
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...rue&print=true


That one is my favorite recent discovery. Since the LHC has been off it has lost my attention for now. I'm sure when it powers back up this spring all sorts of new and shiny things will be discovered there, but for now all the attention is on gravity wave detectors!

[atgilchrist]

I was cruising the TED site a few days ago...very cool!

[TKRIS]

Originally posted by 95civicgsr
what the bleep do we know has some interesting views on quantom mechanics and it puts it into pretty good lamens terms.
But every time I try to bring it up in conversation people look at me like im a nut for even considering the possibility that we create our own reality or the string theory with its 11 dimensions... its pretty interesting stuff I think, weither I believe it or not!
If your not educating yourself you might aswell be moving backwards!!!

That is the biggest pile of bullshit imaginary science I've ever had the extreme displeasure of attempting to watch.
To call it pseudo-scientific would be an insult to homeopathy and acupuncture.

It contains zero science, and the bullshit it tries to pass off as "Quantum Mechanics" is fucking laughable and demonstrates that the producer obviously has absolutely no fucking idea what real Quantum Mechanics is. You may as well read The Secret.

I'm not trying to rag you out too bad here, but I want to make myself perfectly clear: "What the Bleep do we Know" is a retarded movie for stupid, gullible people, made by morons who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and the only people who find it anything other than hilarious or revolting (depending on your tolerance) are those who've simply taken the movie at it's word and not bothered to look into the actual science behind it's massive misrepresentations.

[01RedDX]

.

[semograd]

the string theory is just a bunch of mathematics that they cant actually prove or disprove yet (or for a long time). If we are going to talk physics we might as well keep it in the realm of physics and not mathematics. Nuclear, Quantum etc..

[95civicgsr]

Originally posted by TKRIS


That is the biggest pile of bullshit imaginary science I've ever had the extreme displeasure of attempting to watch.
To call it pseudo-scientific would be an insult to homeopathy and acupuncture.

It contains zero science, and the bullshit it tries to pass off as "Quantum Mechanics" is fucking laughable and demonstrates that the producer obviously has absolutely no fucking idea what real Quantum Mechanics is. You may as well read The Secret.

I'm not trying to rag you out too bad here, but I want to make myself perfectly clear: "What the Bleep do we Know" is a retarded movie for stupid, gullible people, made by morons who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and the only people who find it anything other than hilarious or revolting (depending on your tolerance) are those who've simply taken the movie at it's word and not bothered to look into the actual science behind it's massive misrepresentations.

Well I never once said I believed any of it. But its movies like this, bullshit or not which can open up the eyes of blue collared worker like myself. I'm a tradesmen for god's sake how else would I have ever found out about quantom mechanics if I had not watched a mainstream supposidly BS movie? I have since read a many articles and viewed many documentary's which may be more correct but that still doesnt mean I believe any of it. I'm just trying to watch/read/learn as much as possible about a topic I find interesting. But thanks for making me look like a douche.

[lint]

Originally posted by semograd
the string theory is just a bunch of mathematics that they cant actually prove or disprove yet (or for a long time). If we are going to talk physics we might as well keep it in the realm of physics and not mathematics. Nuclear, Quantum etc..

String theory is theoretical physics. By definition a theory cannot be proved or disproved, but accurately describes observations and can predict future behavior. And mathematics cannot be separated from physics. Or do you mean you'd rather the discussion centre around more commonly known/understood physics theories?

[kertejud2]

Originally posted by hampstor

Edit: at least that's how I remember it. haha it's been a while. I think the analogy used in school was the distance between raisons in a loaf of broad while it was being baked.

Yeah, I was given the 'dots on a rubber band being stretched' example. Its a simple enough concept but its surprisingly hard to explain.


On the universe, the idea that there are no sides is also a tough one to grasp. For example if you were able to travel much faster than the speed of light to make it to the 'edge' we would just end up back where we started, but we wouldn't be travelling around like we fly around the Earth. Though the example is always having a person from a 2D universe who has never seen a sphere, and cannot comprehend what a sphere is, coming to Earth and trying to find the edge. It would be similar to us understanding the shape of the multi-dimensional universe if we were to travel "around it."

[Eleanor]

Originally posted by hampstor
snip

I am pretty sure I heard from one of my that the speed of light is a fixed constant, regardless of your coordinate system, therefore ignoring relativity effects.

Example: if you have a plane traveling at 90m/s and it shoots a laser out the front of it, people on the ground would measure the speed of the laser at 2.99E8 m/s rather than the 2.99E8 m/s + 90 m/s you would expect and that the pilot of the plane would see 2.99E8 m/s - 90 m/s.

I could be wrong however, so feel free to correct me if that's the case.

[01RedDX]

.