God's Aside 4

I think I’ll just keep going on this train of thought. If he designed math and the universe for us to figure out than that implies he wants us to (goodness, I sound so much like a philosopher). And why wouldn’t he? If he is anything like us (the whole created in his image thing) I should think he would like to show off. One of my dearest and oldest friends is a terrific artist and he is always ready to show his latest work and explain the how the why the details to any ear that would listen. Why wouldn’t God be any different? His masterpiece, the creation, is so much more complex and intricate, and daresay beautiful, and why wouldn’t he want to show it off. In all honesty he does seem a big showy. I mean even for those who aren’t (to further the analogy) art students, he’s created features that absolutely cannot be ignored, like the sunset and the ocean and the stars. Now, for those who do study his work, he is…well, a downright showoff. Quantum mechanics is the most ridiculously dumfounding thing I’ve ever found. For the bio people out there the transition from larger scale chemical combinations to a living thing has always seemed rather incredible to me. The scales on which the structure of the universe lies, in and of itself is enough to blow the mind of any rational human. He is a showoff on the grandest scale. And if you have no one to show it off to, well that’s just no fun. But it seems he does. (no, I’m not suggesting humans were created just to study science) But he does have use, and we do seemed to be programmed with this innate curiosity. And well, somehow I don’t think he minds at all. But if all this is true why do we have to search so hard? Perhaps it’s simply more fun that way. I mean after all I do like a challenge. If I didn’t I would have done something else.

God's Aside 3

Today I must share an experience with you. I had this cake…it was be best thing I’ve ever eaten. It was divinely blessed cake and it make me so so so so happy. It make me believe that if there are things that are that good and make people that happy there must be a God…there must. Someone had to create that kind of feeling. And with that lead it here is the next part on my God series.

Perhaps there is a God, such as the Jews claim, who has spoken with humans and cares about them. I’ve read quite a few of their texts and in one, I do believe the Christian’s share this part, it is said the God made man in his image. I’m not quite sure what this means to them, but I am rather certain that there is defiantly something special about man (and woman of course, there is no doubt in my mind there is something special about woman!). We are the only species on earth to have the kind of advanced cognitive thinking that we do. Well, let’s just put it this way, I’ve never met any other animals that wondered about God. We believe we are special. This kicks back to an earth centered model of the universe. We have always thought we had a special place in the universe. As far as the actual location of earth, we really aren’t that special. We are just in a small branch of an average galaxy in a rather uninteresting part of a (supposedly) uniform distribution of matter. But how come we know that (or at least we think we do). We’ve never found any other beings as intelligent as us (at least not yet), but I will be very honest, the fact that all our math and physics works seems a little more than coincidental. That’s why all of the physicists and chemists and mathematicians put their trust in it. It works. It’s works in so many situations and under so many circumstances. We can predict things with it, and we are right. We measure, calculate, modify, conceptualize, invent math, and in the end we get it right, at least so far we have. I can firmly say I don’t believe science is going about understanding the universe in the wrong way. And if this is so well, then there is a set mathematical structure to the universe. Yes, take a moment to try to comprehend this. There is a set mathematical structure to the universe. Math sort of governs the universe. Math. I often hear stories from math teachers of student’s asking how math applies to real life. Operations and relations of constants and parameters govern the universe! Talk about structure. Think with me for a moment about some of the highest forms of structure that humans have created, languages, the stock market, the internet, the space shuttle, etc., they don’t even compare to the higher structure of the universe.

Backtracking 2

Forgive the lack of post yesterday as well, more IRS stuff to be dealt with…I don’t understand all of the paper work I have to fill out…way back when you would just explain your situation to a judge and he would make a decision and that would be that…there was no box checking (there are no boxes for someone over 100 years old). Anyway back to our discussion. Interesting things that happened in the recent past include earth's origins 4.5 billion years ago and the sun forming around 5 billion years ago, but what I really want to focus on is the formation of stars and galaxies about 300 million years after the big bang. You know that whole ‘human are made out of stardust’ thing from the 70’s? Well, let me take a moment to explain that. Stars work by fusion, that is, they take small atoms like hydrogen and cram them together to form larger atoms like helium, and so on and so forth until they make things like carbon and iron and other elements. Then the stars blow up…well not all of them….but a substantial amount do. And when they blow up these elements get spread around the universe…get trapped in big rocks, sucked into other stars, expelled again, etc. then at some point they got trapped in a big rock that started rotating about a normal old star and there ya go: Earth! So yeah…the carbon we’re made out of and all the iron in the building you’re standing in was once created in a star! That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Backtracking 1

If you couldn’t tell, yesterday I went and talked to my cosmologist friend. It was rather ‘interesting.’ I learned quite a bit, and hopefully I shall continue to learn more. But to continue…we shall start with our timeline of the universe. But I think we shall go backwards…start with the present. So we have this universe. We can only see a small part of it (because of our horizon), and I’ve included a picture of what it looks like (it’s on a logarithmic scale). And if you download Google earth, it has a sky function and you can zoom in and see all the stars, it’s very fun. But anyway, when we take a catalog of the red shifts and the things we see it appears the things are moving away from us. But we already knew this from Hubble. But what we’ve found recently is that those things are moving away from us at faster and faster speeds. This is a bit strange cause you would think that after the big bang and inflation stuff would start slowing down. But what we are seeing now, with our infinitely advanced technology, is that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. And they are going really really fast. They are actually leaving our horizon. And you know what this means, this means they are going faster than the speed of light! Yep space, as we speak may be expanding faster than the speed of light and leaving our horizon and thus, our field of vision. This is the universe we have right now.

Inflation 8 / WHAAAAAAA?!

STOP THE PRESSES! Hold the phone! Take a step back! Ya know that whole thing about nothing going faster than the speed of light, yeah, well that’s not quite true! I know, crazy! Psycho! I’m in shock. But it turns out that space can exceed the speed of light. (For those of you who have no idea what is going on, general relativity states that nothing goes faster than the speed of light, and this is a very widely known and accepted principle, so that’s why I’m freaking out). General relativity dictates what goes on within space-time but it turns out it doesn’t dictate the expansion of space itself. So ya know how I was asking about why the horizon problem is solved by inflation well this is exactly why! Its cause space expanded outside our horizon (which is caused by light) and then it is slowly been coming back into our view (if we neglect the expansion of the universe, we’ll get to this later). Was this common knowledge? Did other people know this! Was I left alone in the dark on this (yes that was a stupid pun). I’m still in shock over this.

Why the IRS doesn't like me

You will have to forgive my sudden absence. It would appear that the IRS dislikes my birth date and I was summoned to ‘correct’ the ‘mistake.’ Even with my unyielding insistence on the truth of the date, they said I needed to change it or I would be sent to court. So I changed it. According to the government I was born in 1944 and am 65. It was quite an unpleasant weekend, but I made it through. And I have decided on something. I’m going to get help from an actual cosmologist on this inflation issue I am actually going to ask someone who knows what they are talking about it. Hopefully this will lend me a bit more information as to how and why inflation actually happened. And when I figure out the answer to those questions I will be sure to let you know. Until then I think it would be fruitful to move on to something else. I was thinking that we could explore the timeline of things a little better. We brushed over it to get a context for inflation but I think it merits a better exploration so this is what I shall be proceeding with. And for your viewing pleasure I have included a lol cat. Have a pleasant Sunday.

Inflation 7

Ok today we tackle the flatness problem, which is also solved by inflation (supposedly). It’s actually really, really simple when you take all the math out of it. Ed’s text has a considerable amount of math in it but I don’t know where it was derived from so I’m not gonna go there. But there is a simple explanation, and here it is. Inflation just stretches out the universe to its current flat state. It’s like if you have a balloon that got stuck behind the TV after the birthday party a month ago; ya know how it’s all wrinkly and bunchy. Well, if you take that balloon and somehow manage to untie it and blow it up some all the wrinkles will come out of it. This is what happened with the early universe. It may have been all wrinkly at the begging but then it got stretched in inflation and became flat again. That’s all there is to it (ok not really, there’s a lot of math but…we can worry about that later…maybe).

Inflation 6

So where were we with the inflation thing? Oh yes, so I in the last entry I explained how inflations fixes the horizon problem. And now we have an explanation for why it fixes the monopole problem. Oh I should explain where I am getting my information from, shouldn’t I? Well, right now, on inflation, I’m mainly pulling from two sources, the Wikipedia article on inflation, and a text book on cosmology by some guy named Edward Harrison. But anyway, back to the monopole problem. So, apparently, according to Edward, the monopoles do exist they are just really rare and hard to find. In fact, there should be about one of them or less per galaxy! But the way inflation fixes the problem is not settling well with me. I think I need to more fully understand the math associated with it, but here’s what I got so far. Ok so we have a bit super cooled vacuum right before inflation. And there are a lot of monopoles. A LOT of monopoles. But then inflation starts and the universe expands really fast and it shoots these monopoles really far apart. So they are a lot more dilute then they were. That’s about it. Yeah…it is still very unsettling to me that this would be the answer. If there were a lot of them then there would still be a lot of them they would just be spread out. I don’t get it. But if any of you do please enlighten us! Or even if you don’t understand please comment, just to say hi! Please! I’m begging you! PLEASE COMMENT!

God's Aside 2

So… say there is this God who created everything, implying he is responsible for the big bang. So he invented space, time, physics, energy, and all that stuff in one big shebang. As far as we can tell, there is a whole lot of structure and precision involved in this creation. And math! There is a lot of math. A lot of really complicated, beautiful math. And he invented it all. And human life…well, perhaps I shouldn’t get into that. Save that for another day. Yeah. Another day. But he made it all so that we could understand it. Or maybe not, maybe we don’t understand any of it. Perhaps all of physics is just flawed. I was reading a book a while back in which the author, Joao Magueijo, commented, "For all we know the universe is not homogeneous at all, but is a fractal. If this is true, burn this book, forget about Big Bang cosmology, and start crying convulsively." Well perhaps that is it. Perhaps this God is eons above our ability to comprehend and we are just grasping at all the wrong things. Perhaps. But perhaps not.

Inflation 5

So, to continue where we left off yesterday what happened with inflation was kind of strange. So at the beginning right before inflation began, let’s say the whole universe is the size of Wal-mart. When our universe begins we have someone in the food section, you are in the men’s wear, someone else in the garden section and someone in hardware. So like I explained yesterday we have this horizon that you can’t see outside of like in the first picture. Inside your view are 2 of the 3 other people. Then inflation starts and the universe start expanding. Space-time carries the people outside of your horizon when Wal-Mart is expanding like in picture 2 (you can't see the difference unless you click on the pictures). Then in picture 3 we see the people come back into view as the horizon expands. If you will recall this was the issue with the horizon and homogeneity problems. Our question before was, how come things that never had contact can have the same properties. Well the answer that arises from inflation is that they were in contact at one point in time, before inflation. Then after inflation the things that were in contact suddenly weren’t, and as the horizon expands those areas come back into view and like magic they have the same properties. Ha ha there’s no magic! It’s physics! But I still have some questions. The horizon is made by light and in inflation the universe has expands beyond the horizons that means the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light, which is totally against the laws of special relativity. But i don’t really know. Perhaps we shall see tomorrow??

Inflation 4

For all who care the skiing trip was wonderful. There was enough snow to hold me off till the end of November. Anyway, back to trying to understand inflation. Ok, so I think in order to understand why inflation works (no I still don’t know how it works), we need to take a moment to talk about the way the universe expands. So… you have space (which is a 3 dimensional lattice with stuff sitting in it, like in the 1st picture), and as it expands it sort-of stretches and pull the space time continuum along with it. And that’s why everything moves away from us. It’s not that we are at the center of the universe and everything is moving away from us. It’s just that we have everything being pulled away from us in all directions; the whole thing is being stretched. Now there is this thing about horizons and (if I have this all straight in my head) it goes like the picture illustrates. The red line represents our horizon, the part we can’t see outside of (look at the second picture). If the universe were to expand and our horizon didn’t then our field of vision would actually look smaller (like in third picture), and I think this is what happens in expansion. But I’m not sure how this helps. Perhaps I shall figure this out tomorrow.

Inflation 3

So where did we leave off? Oh yes, the grand unification epoch. I’m not really sure what this period does. I know there is a further splitting of the forces and there is a much better understanding of what should be happening during this period because we have theories of it. Here gravity and quantum mechanics separate so we can to the theoretical analysis of this period. It last from the between 10^-43 seconds and 10^-36 seconds after the big bang. Next we have the electroweak epoch which last from around 10^-36 seconds and 10^-12 seconds after the big bang and the inflationary epoch from 10^-36 seconds and 10^-32 seconds. The inflationary epoch is nested inside the electroweak epoch and only last for part of that time. Here we have more separation of forces and a continued cooling. The strong force separates from the others so now we have 3 forces; gravity, strong and the electroweak (hence the name). The inflationary part I already described (to the best of my ability). Latter in this phase, again part of inflation, partials form and mass is born into the universe. So yes, this is an extremely rough outline of the birth of the universe. And there will be more inflation to come! Also I highly doubt I will be posting tomorrow, do you remember that ski I wanted to go on, well, I got it! So I will be gone tomorrow and will most likely be very tired when I return so I shall see you all on Sunday.

Inflation 2

This time I actually did read about inflation, and it’s very very complicated. I’m beginning to think we are going to need more background in order to understand the theory. In particular I think we need a better understanding of the time line of things. So I looked for one on the internet and you know what, they didn’t have any good ones! So I tried to make my own. I kinda failed, but then my friend, an artist, helped me so now I have a very pretty timeline for you all. It is entirely based on Wikipedia’s interpretation of things. First comes the singularity, the initial moment of the big bang. This phase is extremely hazy and unknown due to its extraordinarily small size. It’s so small we don’t even know just how small it is! We really don’t know anything about it cause it has super ultra gravity and super ultra energies. The collisions inside CERN’s biggest collider don’t even come close to the energies at this point in the universe. Our current physics theories break down and all we are left with is mystery. Next comes the Planck epoch. It last from whenever the singularity ends to about 10^-43 seconds. This phase is also a great mystery. But we are a little closer to solving this one. We think that all of the fundamental forces where unified as one force. We also think that if we could get quantum mechanics and general relativity to go together (a most elusive task) then we would be able to understand the physics of this period. Next we have the grand unification epoch lasting from the end of the Planck epoch to 10^-36 seconds after the big bang. And it appears this entry is getting a tad long and shall have to be continued tomorrow!

God's Aside 1

Ya’ know how I said I would read more about inflation, well I didn’t. So instead I think I shall do something a bit rash a probably not very wise. I would like to take a moment to dwell on God, and his role in this whole thing. I mean, just think about it for a moment, yes the scientific method and Ockham’s razor are important and what not…but, just assume for a moment there really is a God of the christain/jewish/muslim type, you know omnipotent, omnipresent, and obviously the creator of the universe and so forth. Those that hold to the aforementioned religions groups represent over half the world’s population, and they all believe in the same sort of God. I should think taking a look at the implications of such would have some sort of merit. And yes, I am aware that it is a bit of philosophical undertaking…and while I’m not that keen on philosophers, and at the risk of eating my word and turning into my own worst enemy, I would like to take a look at it, in an extremely irreverent and sacrilegious way, of course. And I think I shall us my occasional aside to do that. That, and nobody comments. I feel as though if I say something super controversial you will comment! Not that I really like getting into arguments and I wouldn’t say something just to get a rise out of someone (ok, that’s not entirely ture). But anyway comment. I want to hear what’s on your mind.

Inflation 1

Yes! My ‘But wait’ series has been building up to something. There is a theory which solves some of the problems we’ve discussed here. It’s called inflationary theory and it was developed 1980. It was invented in order to address the monopole problem but it also, inadvertently addresses the flatness and horizon problems. The reader’s digest version goes like this. After the universe cooled down a little, but before the particles and anti-particles started to form, something weird happened with physics. Have you ever seen a very very still pond the morning after a frost? Well that pond is supercooled. Its actual temperature is below freezing but it hasn’t started to form ice yet. Well the same thing happened with the universe. It cooled to the point where it should have started ‘freezing’ or particles should have started forming but they didn’t. I don’t know why, but they didn’t. It just kept on cooling and settling. Then all at once with a big cosmic ripple the energy condensed into matter. You know the equation E=mc^2. Well that says that if for instance you put in 15 units of energy and convert it to mass you get in 15/c^2 units of mass. C stands for the speed of light, 300000000 or 3*10^8 meters per second. So 15 divided by that is a really small number, a really small number. So when the energy started forming into mass the energy in the universe stated to drop dramatically. But then something else happened. When particles are formed they like to go together, to form pair or triples and when they find a group they really like and want to settle into, they release energy. So there was this tidal wave of energy like in the picture, or at least that is what I got from my little bit of reading on the subject. And this fixes our problems…but I don’t know how yet…and I’m out of space today, so perhaps I will tackle this tomorrow.

but wait! part 5

Another problem that I had not previously known about was the monopole problem. When the physicists figured up all the aspects of the big bang using their theoretical calculations (the use something called the grand unification theory) they predicted something called a magnetic monopole. These monopoles are basically the particle that goes with magnets. You know how electrons and protons are the particles for the eclectic charge and so forth…(well actually it’s the quarks but that’s beside the point) well the monopoles are suppose to be the particle for magnets…but as you probably learned in high school magnets always come in pairs, they come with a north and south pole so you can’t have just one of them. What the theory says is that we there should have been a bunch of monopole particles (north poles) and anti-monopoles (south poles) that were created about the same time the matter and antimatter we talked about earlier was created. But we haven’t found any monopoles. There should be a much of them left, but none of them ever show up. I’m just reading about this issue for the first time so it’s all very new and unfamiliar to me. If anyone knows more about it, please feel free to comment and expound on what we have here.

but wait! part 4

So for this entry I would like to take a moment to ponder further on the topic of the antimatter problem. I did some reading today and found that there are a number of theories to explain the discrepancy. One of interest proposes that due to a very slight difference in matter from antimatter they decay at different rates, implying that most of the antimatter that was created in the big bang has since decayed and all we are left with is the normal matter. One of the most interesting parts of this theory is that people are currently in the process of testing it. At CERN in France/Switzerland they have built something called the Large Hadron Collider to investigate some of the most fundamental questions in particle physics. One of these questions is what happened to all the antimatter. What they plan to do is create beauty quarks (a rare and quickly decaying particle) and their antiparticle and watch them decay. If it seems that the antiparticle decays faster, this would be an indication of the former theory having merit. I intent to keep close tabs on the progress of the LHCb for further developments.

but wait! part 3

Another issue with the big bang has to do with what the universe is made of. So you know how I ran through the timeline of the big bang a couple entries ago. Well at that point where the energy cools down enough to start forming matter something strange seems to have happened. When energy like photons spontaneously transforms into matter (yes this does happen, a common way in which it happens can be found here) it produces an equal amount of matter and antimatter. So when all the energy of the early cooled down and formed matter it should have made equal numbers of matter and antimatter. It should be noted that when a piece of matter and antimatter collide the annihilate each other and turn back into the photon that produced them. So there are two possible things that could have happened. Either all of the matter and antimatter would have collided and annihilated or they would have separated and gone to different parts of the universe. But we have a slight problem. We haven’t found any of that antimatter. The only antimatter we ever see was produced recently, but cosmic collisions or pair production. We haven’t found any from the early universe. This is obviously strange and hard to explain. Personally I think we should be looking for it. Perhaps there is a natural separating force that spreads them apart when they are in large numbers or…I don’t something that drove them to the edge of space-time or something. Or perhaps they are in a different dimension…well, I guess that’s why they call it a mystery.

Aside

I thought i would grace you with a 'lolcat.'

but wait! part 2

One of the other most interesting problems with the big bang theory is entitled the flatness problem. Again this is one that I really don’t understand. The way I understand it is that there are these parameters that set the universe into motion. For an analogy let’s pretend the universe is a washing machine, and you are God. You put some clothes in (the energy that the big bang created) and turn the dial to some initial settings. Then you push the “go” button. (I love washing machines. They are an incredible invention! Oh and I adore dish washers. They get those dishes so clean!) But the settings on the universal pre-set dial are rather delicate. If you set the spin cycle to fast the universe would curve back on itself and if you set the spin cycle too slow it will become a circle. But if you set the spin cycle just right you get a flat universe. This setting on the spin cycle corresponds to a parameter called omega and I’m pretty sure it represents an energy density. But the value of omega has to be exactly 1, exactly. EXACTLY. No deviations. This is a bit odd. But I’m not sure why…or why this is important. I think I should read up on this a bit more.

but wait! part 1

But don’t get fooled by all this goodness and such! There are issues with the big bang theory. A good thing to do next would be perhaps to go through these issues one by one to take a closer look at what goes into the theory and what physics need to consider when trying to figure this out. The fist problem we can tackle is the horizon problem. If we look at the picture I’ve included you will see two main characters form xkcd (an extremely funny and nerdy comic). Hat guy is looking off into space in one directions and our main guy is looking off in the other. They see two different features of space. Now for the examples sake let’s say these two features are so far apart that the light from the galaxy on the right hasn’t reached the nebula on the left with the current age of the universe and vise versa. As you know from everyday experience for two things, like a very cold ice cube and a warm cup of cider, to have similar properties, like their temperature, they need to be in contact. It’s the same with these stellar objects. In order for one to have the same properties as the other they need to be in contact. Something, like light, needs to be exchanged between them in order for them to share the same properties. But here the light hasn’t had time travel that far and they still share those properties. We know that for sure because we are in between them and light has had time to make it to us. It’s like this across the universe. There are properties that the whole universe shares even thought the whole universe hasn’t had time to be “in contact” yet. At least that’s the way I understand it. But what I don’t understand is why this is a problem. Why couldn’t the universe have just been programmed with those parameters? Why does one thing have to be in contact with something else to have the same properties? For me this is the most mysterious cosmological problem and one I would like to study more in depth at some later date.

the underlying assumptions

Just a thought: does anyone else listen to Christmas music at this time of year. Perhaps I just miss the snow. I’ve been living in the United States for some time now and there aren’t any mountains in my region to go ski on and needless to say no snow right now. Bother. Anyway about the big bang, I figure we can start with the assumptions that are behind the theory. To quote Wikipedia, “The Big Bang theory depends on two major assumptions: the universality of physical laws, and the Cosmological Principle.” So let’s break this up. Basically, we assume that the universe holds to the laws of physics everywhere and that they don’t change anywhere or at any time. If this were not true then, for example, in the Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbor, Einstein’s theory of relativity wouldn’t work or Newton’s first law, F=ma, wouldn’t hold. As for the second on, the Cosmological principle states that universe as a whole is isotropic and homogonous. Homogonous means that stuff is uniformly spread throughout the universe. Obviously on our scale matter/energy isn’t uniformly distributed. But one a really really REALLY grand scale things are. The picture I’ve included shows a model of the grandest scale of the universe. It’s pretty homogonous, but I don’t know it doesn’t seem quite as homogonous as I would like it to be…you know to sleep well at night. Isotropic means basically the same thing. It just means that if you look one way you see the same thing as when you look another way. Which is fairly true as far as observations go. So it seems like a logical and sound assumption. But we know what assuming does.

The Big Bang

From there the rest is sort of history, at least rather more famous history. In 1964 the cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in a very old radio antae/horn thing. If you would like more details on that there is a very excellent documentary that I can’t recall the name of at the moment. Most likely it will come to me in the middle of the night in a flash of epiphany and I won’t be able to remember it when I wake up. But in the mean time I think I shall skip to the present, and give you my version of the big bang theory as I understand it. I may pick back up the more historical background later. But here is where I really want some correction. I probably don’t have a very accurate picture of the big bang. But here’s what I’ve got: So 15 or so billion years ago the universe had just exploded into existence. We don’t know what happened before the explosion or what caused it or what happened just after the explosion. But something exploded to create space, time and energy. This energy was very dense and…well, energetic. And as the energy spread out, it got less dense and…less energetic? I think. But anyway, it cooled off enough to form photons which were released, and this is what we see as the cosmic microwave background radiation. Then things cooled off more and began to clump into matter. This formed the particles we have today…aaaannnnndddd it went from there into the universe we see today. I think I will stop for here today. Perhaps I shall flesh out the details one by one at some later point.

Background 10

Let me make a correction. Hubble was not the first one to propose that the universe was expanding; he was the first one to see it. It was a few years until someone suggested the universe was actually expanding. The person who suggested that went on to suggest the big bang theory or as he described it, "the Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation." The most interesting part is who this person was. His name was Georges Lemaitre, a Belgium, and (get this) a Catholic priest! He was a priest. The man who first suggested the big bang theory was a priest! Is that not the most ironic thing you have ever heard? A priest. I’m still in a bit of shock over this. I mean, I’m sure he wasn’t aware or the time scale/heresy this involved. Was he? I haven’t been to any catholic establishment in quite some time (I’ve been thrown out of mass way too many times to risk it often), so I’m not quite up on doctrine, but I’m fairly sure they are not much for the whole “billions and billions of years” thing. How did this happen? Does anyone know? Cause I’m not seeing it.

Background 9

So anyway, back to Hubble. Yes so he discovered this wonderful new way to measure the distance of stars and things so what does he do? Of course, he applied it to the stars that he didn’t know the distance to. In particular he applied it to the Messier objects. You know what he found? He looked at their red shift and saw those blobs were moving away from us really fast, and, according to his new found discovery, this meant they were really really far away from us, much farther than any of the other stars. And they weren’t stars! So after we could see them in better detail and found that most of these objects where made up of hundreds and hundreds of stars. They were whole other neighborhoods of the universe, whole other Milky Ways. So we had found other galaxies. It was phenomenal; suddenly the universe was a much bigger place. Here is a picture of what we can see now. In the picture it looks like we are at the center of the universe, but that is not really true (as far as we know). It’s just that our visibility is limited, and we can only see so far away in any direction, that’s why it looks like a circle. There are different galaxies all over the place, ours is only one of many.

Aside

I asked a friend if there was any way I could see if people were visiting my blog. And they installed this nifty little counter thing, the one with the map of the world over there on the right. Yeah that one. It’s pretty cool. It lets me see where the people that visit the site are from. So I have some questions for you. First, who are you? The counter doesn’t tell me who you are or anything like that, but I am curious about those who would read this. Second, what do you think about God? I’ve spent a rather long time (far too long considering the average human’s life span) and I do believe I’ve come to some rather unorthodox conclusions about God and his relation to humans. But I would very much like to know what you think, in this new strange global community where I’m not sure if there is orthodoxy. Third, what do you think about physics? Do you think it is worthwhile? Have you studied it to any extent? Does the stuff I’m talking about here make sense? Or am I just some crazy old man teaching the birds? I just thought I’d ask. I am by nature a rather curious individual and I’m still not sure how this whole internet communication thing works.