The Onion's new response to the new CMB images:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/universe-older-wider-than-previously-thought,31776/
Pretty funny. My favorite response it the first one.
While studying for the midterm I realizes that the information about the universe not being uniform in all directions is not really new, it was just confirmed by the new study.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
New Map of the CMB
Just read this article from The Guardian (the British one not the Bay Area one):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/mar/21/planck-telescope-light-big-bang-universe
Pretty interesting stuff. They made some new discoveries. There's more dark matter in the universe than they thought and less dark energy. The most interesting stuff, however, is that the universe does not appear to be uniform in every direction. The article points out that this "rules out some versions of the expansion model but not all" but doesn't explain this further.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/mar/21/planck-telescope-light-big-bang-universe
Pretty interesting stuff. They made some new discoveries. There's more dark matter in the universe than they thought and less dark energy. The most interesting stuff, however, is that the universe does not appear to be uniform in every direction. The article points out that this "rules out some versions of the expansion model but not all" but doesn't explain this further.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The Love of Paradigms
The lesson today got me thinking about paradigm shifts. I've always been interested in the way scientific discoveries effect the way we think but recently I've come to realize that it's more important to look at how the way we think effects the discoveries we make.
As a religious studies major and someone very interested in biological evolution I've given a lot of thought to how the difficulty in accepting a non-human centric world has effected our sciences. It seems that no matter how much evidence we receive we still see ourselves as somehow different and above other species. We are constantly learning that other species have attributes we once thought where exclusive to humans which just seems to make us hold on tighter to few attributes that remain. This line of thought is present in most of the language used by environmentalists; we cannot "save the earth" because we're really not on the path to destroying it, we are simply on the path to making it uninhabitable for us.
This concept can be seen on a larger scale with the so called "anthropic principle" which as I understand it, states that the universe must work in such a way that life can exist since life does exist. This seems to me flawed thinking since life is really no more special than stars, space dust or radio waves. We simply believe it's special because we are it.
This has very little to do specifically with astronomy I suppose but it got me thinking about how much time and energy we lose by holding onto ideas we are comfortable with. In fact it seems that humankind is so unwilling to let go of previously held ideas "comfortable" isn't even the right word. These are ideas we are in love with.
As a religious studies major and someone very interested in biological evolution I've given a lot of thought to how the difficulty in accepting a non-human centric world has effected our sciences. It seems that no matter how much evidence we receive we still see ourselves as somehow different and above other species. We are constantly learning that other species have attributes we once thought where exclusive to humans which just seems to make us hold on tighter to few attributes that remain. This line of thought is present in most of the language used by environmentalists; we cannot "save the earth" because we're really not on the path to destroying it, we are simply on the path to making it uninhabitable for us.
This concept can be seen on a larger scale with the so called "anthropic principle" which as I understand it, states that the universe must work in such a way that life can exist since life does exist. This seems to me flawed thinking since life is really no more special than stars, space dust or radio waves. We simply believe it's special because we are it.
This has very little to do specifically with astronomy I suppose but it got me thinking about how much time and energy we lose by holding onto ideas we are comfortable with. In fact it seems that humankind is so unwilling to let go of previously held ideas "comfortable" isn't even the right word. These are ideas we are in love with.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Looking into Luminosity
From what I can tell from wikipedia, in astronomy luminosity is
"the amount of electromagnetic energy a body radiates per unit of time."
From this I gather that that during the dark age the matter in the universe was not emitting an electromagnetic energy. Since the energy must have already existed then it must not have been radiating. I'm still a little unsure exactly what that means.
Looking further into it I cam across this answer:
"most of the photons in the universe are interacting with electrons and protons in the photon–baryon fluid. The universe is opaque or "foggy" as a result. There is light but not light we could observe through telescopes."
Which I instantly recognized as something we where taught in class the day this question came up. Having now spent a little extra time with it I feel like I'm beginning to actually understand what went on.
"the amount of electromagnetic energy a body radiates per unit of time."
From this I gather that that during the dark age the matter in the universe was not emitting an electromagnetic energy. Since the energy must have already existed then it must not have been radiating. I'm still a little unsure exactly what that means.
Looking further into it I cam across this answer:
"most of the photons in the universe are interacting with electrons and protons in the photon–baryon fluid. The universe is opaque or "foggy" as a result. There is light but not light we could observe through telescopes."
Which I instantly recognized as something we where taught in class the day this question came up. Having now spent a little extra time with it I feel like I'm beginning to actually understand what went on.
Friday, March 1, 2013
What The Hell is a Magnet and What Makes Things Bright?
These two questions stuck in my mind after I left class the other day.
The first question occurred to me while I was thinking about electromagnetism. We'd just learned that most things aren't really effected by the electromagnetic force because the positive and negative forces inside them balance each other out and leave them electrically neutral. If this is so then how are magnets made? Obviously something is done to them to upset the balance but what? Do magnets occur naturally? If so where and how? Finally how do magnets work on metal that is still electrically neutral? Do they change the charge of the metal?
The second question came to me when I was thinking about the "Dark Age". If there was light in the universe by this point (assumably the same light that's in the universe now) then how come things where not visible. What is it beyond just light that make something illuminated? I've always assumed it was reflecting off things, if this is so then how solid does something have to to reflect light? What other qualities does it need?
The first question occurred to me while I was thinking about electromagnetism. We'd just learned that most things aren't really effected by the electromagnetic force because the positive and negative forces inside them balance each other out and leave them electrically neutral. If this is so then how are magnets made? Obviously something is done to them to upset the balance but what? Do magnets occur naturally? If so where and how? Finally how do magnets work on metal that is still electrically neutral? Do they change the charge of the metal?
The second question came to me when I was thinking about the "Dark Age". If there was light in the universe by this point (assumably the same light that's in the universe now) then how come things where not visible. What is it beyond just light that make something illuminated? I've always assumed it was reflecting off things, if this is so then how solid does something have to to reflect light? What other qualities does it need?
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