The Enlightening Science Thread

[Kari]

A Majority of Americans Still Aren't Sure About the Big Bang

A majority of Americans don't believe in even the most fundamental discovery of 20th century physics, which 99.9 percent of members of the National Academies of Sciences do: that our universe began with an enormous explosion, the Big Bang.

51 percent of people in a new AP/GFK poll said they were "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that the statement "the universe began 13.8 billion years ago*with a big bang" was correct.*

Full article: A Majority of Americans Still Aren't Sure About the Big Bang - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

Poll the above article was based on: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/poll-big-bang-big-question-most-americans

 

[Britton30]

I just got a look at the International Space Station for the first time, AddRAM let me know it was overhead.
From about 9:26PM ET- 9:32PM when it went into clouds in the East.

 

[Anak]

A Majority of Americans Still Aren't Sure About the Big Bang

A majority of Americans don't believe in even the most fundamental discovery of 20th century physics, which 99.9 percent of members of the National Academies of Sciences do: that our universe began with an enormous explosion, the Big Bang.

51 percent of people in a new AP/GFK poll said they were "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that the statement "the universe began 13.8 billion years ago*with a big bang" was correct.*

Full article: A Majority of Americans Still Aren't Sure About the Big Bang - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

Poll the above article was based on: Poll: Big Bang a big question for most Americans

Kari,

There is nothing I can say in defense of the educational system here in the States. It has gone downhill over the years since I was a lad in school.

The article you cite is newsworthy, but I believe the majority of scientists that are despondent about the results are falling for the same "media hype trap" that is pervasive in all of the reporting on this poll, and in general of the reporting of any topic here in the States.

Besides the links you provided I searched for anything concerning the AP/GFK poll .pdf and concluded that each "Journalist" provided their own slant on the subject. If you take the time to read the PDF results of the poll you may find that the Associated Press and Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (GFK) constructed their poll to try and reveal what "Americans" think, but were woefully far from the actual mark.

How can

This poll is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,012 general population adults age 18 or older.

Source: Beginning of page 13 of the AP/GFK PDF

be representative of a country of 316,128,839 of which 241,838,561.835 are over 18years of age? Taking into consideration subtracting the 23.5% of under 18year old's. Source: USA QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau

That is one hell of a disparity!

If you look deeper into the demographics of the "poll" you can find an obvious bias (at least to me) that relates to a slanted search of what that population thinks, especially onward from DM12 on page 9 of the PDF.

Faith and Science can work together if one gives it a chance but starting from the Council of Nicaea and ending with Copernicus, Descartes, and the Age of Enlightenment, the Dark Ages ruined it for everyone.

My belief on your post?

The term "Big Bang" first thought up by Fred Hoyle and meant to ridicule any thoughts of Lemaître's and then expanded by Gamow's calculations of an expansion of Space-Time is just that, a weak attempt to bolster Hoyle's Steady-State theory.

The term is meant to describe an explosion, an unfortunate choice of words that Lemaître and Gamow had to use for lack of better terms back in the 1920's, back when they weren't mathematically sure or didn't know about String Theory, 'Branes or Dimensional Space.

But the calculations show that the beginning of the Universe didn't have a single starting point like an explosion. Even though its starting point was called a singularity it was all encompassing when it happened.:

I just got a look at the International Space Station for the first time, AddRAM let me know it was overhead.
From about 9:26PM ET- 9:32PM when it went into clouds in the East.

Gary, if you like I can show you how to customize a location/sighting finder for your area. Using Heavens Above. This is tonight's sighting co-ordinates for my area: Ground track

If you're sensitive to revealing your geolocation, we can start with a PM and instead of cluttering up you're PM box I can walk you through it here in Golden's thread.

 

[Kari]

Britton, that's cool. I have the ISS tracker app installed on Windows 8 and Windows Phone, it tells you every moment the exact location of the ISS. ISS Tracker app for Windows in the Windows Store

​

Anak, I only posted that because although a very small sample as you pointed out, the AP study is shocking when you first read it.

 

[Britton30]

Steve I agree with you about our education system, I have a neighbor who has a 3rd grade girl-who can't read! She should not be in the 3rd grade, but they pass her, and 1000's of others, on so they don't have the problem.

I don't want to digress too much...
I have a problem with astronomy and some of its calculations and predictions that I find hard to explain, but will try. I will first assume there was a "big bang" so everything should be equally dispersed throughout the universe, since it was flung out at, as they say, 99.9% of the speed of light. There should be a very large empty sphere of space somewhere and all other matter in sort of a thin (relatively) shell around this space.

The big bang afterglow may be the border of this inner sphere of emptiness, yet no one has proposed this I don't think. IT could be so large as to appear it's surrounding us much as the sky appears to stretch overhead. I would expect the afterglow to still be traveling at, or very close to 99.9% of light speed so the evidence we observe is not as distant but should, could, be much farther away.

If, in fact, they do see the afterglow I also would not expect to see any organized galaxies anywhere near it since it is theoretically a few millionths of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second after the bang occurred.
String theory could explain a lot of this but has some perpelxing parts which I find hard to fathom, such as 10 dimensions instead of the four, electro magnetic, weak force, strong force, and gravity.

http://zidbits.com/2011/03/a-laymans-explanation-for-string-theory/

There are other astro-physics problems I have but can't put into words. One has to do with the distances of some observable objects that are more than 5 billion light years distant. If Earth is 4 billion years old, why do we see so many other objects at that distance?

 

[Fantail]

Michigan man among 1st in US to get 'bionic eye'
I remember years ago a company came out with something of a prototype for this, bulky thing patient had to wear like night vision goggles.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Steve I agree with you about our education system, I have a neighbor who has a 3rd grade girl-who can't read! She should not be in the 3rd grade, but they pass her, and 1000's of others, on so they don't have the problem.

I don't want to digress too much...
I have a problem with astronomy and some of its calculations and predictions that I find hard to explain, but will try. I will first assume there was a "big bang" so everything should be equally dispersed throughout the universe, since it was flung out at, as they say, 99.9% of the speed of light. There should be a very large empty sphere of space somewhere and all other matter in sort of a thin (relatively) shell around this space.

The big bang afterglow may be the border of this inner sphere of emptiness, yet no one has proposed this I don't think. IT could be so large as to appear it's surrounding us much as the sky appears to stretch overhead. I would expect the afterglow to still be traveling at, or very close to 99.9% of light speed so the evidence we observe is not as distant but should, could, be much farther away.

If, in fact, they do see the afterglow I also would not expect to see any organized galaxies anywhere near it since it is theoretically a few millionths of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second after the bang occurred.
String theory could explain a lot of this but has some perpelxing parts which I find hard to fathom, such as 10 dimensions instead of the four, electro magnetic, weak force, strong force, and gravity.

http://zidbits.com/2011/03/a-laymans-explanation-for-string-theory/

There are other astro-physics problems I have but can't put into words. One has to do with the distances of some observable objects that are more than 5 billion light years distant. If Earth is 4 billion years old, why do we see so many other objects at that distance?

Well there are too many ifs and buts for me to even contemplate such a thing as the big bang while I do think the universe exists I think it is too incomprehensible for the whole universe to be created out of nothing when there has to be something even if it is pure energy which I am lead to believe everything eventually breaks down into.
The big bang for my mind is just an event that took place in this vicinity of the universe and I think we are being rather arrogant in thinking it is the be all and end all.
The other fact that we can see objects or sources of energy (light) so far away is only because in my mind again there is nothing to block it's path and in all reality that object or event may have long been gone and / or passed into another state.

 

[Britton30]

 

[Anak]

Kari,
I was dismayed when I read the article from Atlantic and that feeling was reinforced after I looked at the AP/GFK poll.
To the author's credit his was the only article that I read that said:

It is worth noting, however, that the way the question was framed gathers at least two possible different groups into the "not confident" bin: A) people who hold a different belief about the beginning of the universe and B) people who just don't know, and might have been scared off from saying they were "confident" in an answer.

Source: Fifth paragraph right below the AP/GFK chart.

I don't know how he came to that conclusion because it wasn't in the Article from AP/GFK describing the poll. He had to be reading between the lines.


Gary,
You raise some interesting thought problems that I will have to think about while I finish up outside chores. I have an explanation stored away in my library that might help to understand your last physics problem about age and distance, I'll see if I can dig it out and post back when I get some quiet time later this evening.


John,
Proponents of Membrane theory posit that our Universe came into being when the membranes of two separate Universes came together, created a (for lack of a better term) "blister" from one, the other or both. This "blister" is the beginning of our Universe. Depending on the circumstances one membrane could fold over on itself and create the "blister".

With this theory there would not be an event that took place in this vicinity of the Universe because there was no Universe until the "blister" was created.

The Membranes, possibly Gary's "afterglow" of two Universes.

Image Source: Superstrings and Quantum Gravity - The Physics of the Universe

 

[Anak]

Gary,

I'm not sure if this will help or make things worse for you to understand your conundrum of distance and age. What you have to try and accept is; There is no center to the Universe and as the Universe expands it is expanding at an ever faster rate.

What I'm about to explain isn't common knowledge and the only reason I can fathom for this is the Worlds population has enough problems trying to understand that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old and the Earth is 4.54 billion years old.

Your object that is 5 billion light years away doesn't imply that it took 5 billion light years for the light from this object to reach you.

As stated earlier, the Universe is expanding from its initial starting point. The light that it created in the first billion years has stretched over time and the light you see now has had to travel more than 5 times as far to reach you than when it was first created. Therefore, the total distance in light years (ly) as measured today is greater than the time it traveled as measured by a chronometer and multiplied by the speed of light. Because of this expansion cosmologist's have had to come up with new ways to measure distances, one is luminosity distance and the other is angular-diameter distance.

Using these formulas some of the most distant objects we can see in the observable universe are over 45 billion light years away even though the universe is only 13.7 billion years old.

In simpler terms:

The reason the size of the observable Universe is bigger than its age is because the Universe is expanding.

Let's take a galaxy just near the edge of our observable Universe. Let's say that 13 billion years ago it emitted the light which we're receiving today.

In the first few million years, that light traveled a distance which, back then, was a few million light years. No problem.

But the Universe is expanding, and that distance of a few million light years is, today, a few tens of million light years.

So the path that that light has taken has been stretching out after the light left, and so it has to be bigger than the amount of time the light took to travel.

Source: How can the universe be approximately 90 billion light years in diameter when the big bang happened only 13.8 billion years ago? : askscience

Maybe using the balloon analogy will help, but even here you must make certain assumptions.

When thinking about the balloon analogy you must remember that. . .

• The 2-dimensional surface of the balloon is analogous to the 3 dimensions of space.
• The 3-dimensional space in which the balloon is embedded is not analogous to any higher dimensional physical space.
• The centre of the balloon does not correspond to anything physical.
• The universe may be finite in size and growing like the surface of an expanding balloon, but it could also be infinite.
• Galaxies move apart like points on the expanding balloon, but the galaxies themselves do not expand because they are gravitationally bound.

Source: Where is the centre of the universe?

Your conundrum of distance and age is complicated by the expansion of Space-Time.

References:

• Astronomy Without A Telescope ? Our Inferred Universe

• What is the Universe Expanding Into?

• A new way to measure the expansion of the universe

• Questions - Relativity

• Where is the centre of the universe?

 

[Golden]

Good explanation Anak

 

[Layback Bear]

Some very good reading and way over my head.

My answer fits my brain and maybe some others also.

God made the Big Bang and has not revealed the how to and what fores to us humans.

We measure time and space with human instruments and come up with human speculations. No problem, we are humans and need things humans can contemplate on.

 

[Britton30]

Thanks Steve for all the (perplexing) references. One thing I can't agree with is their explanation of the speed of light (LS) and it's expanding. Say light left an object 5 billion years ago enroute to a telescope near you.

This light allegedly has to stay at a constant speed, 1xLS. We are not moving even close to LS so in 5 billion years I think we would move a relatively insignificant distance in relation to the light. Maybe instead of taking 5 billion year to reach our eyes it would take about 5 billion 100,000 years and the object would have moved an equal distance in the opposing direction.

I'm not an astro-physicist but it seems to me those who are, are off somewhat.

I also think the membrane theory of space does have some possibilities for explaining some things. I do believe there are extra-dimensional space we can't see or interact with.

Since I was a boy I've always wondered what is outside the observable universe, sure more universe, but any solid objects, gas, any forces like gravity? What was there before the big bang if it indeed happened? They say there was no time nor space before it.

We do need a theory that unifies all things, the very large, and the very small. Both adhere or entirely different laws of physics, or at least, as we see it.

"They" also propose LS in an absolute constant in the universe and is the absolute speed limit of any particle. I, of course disagree. I propose that if I was traveling at LS and shined a flashlight in the direction of my travel, I would see a beam of light shoot out. The same if the light is shone in the opposite direction. But this is impossible since they also theorize an object at the speed of light would expand to fill the entire universe. If that were true photons and electricity, radios wave too, would already fill it.

 

[Britton30]

They missed this one

Bus-Size Asteroid Buzzes Earth, Comes Closer Than the Moon

A small asteroid about the size of a city bus zipped by Earth at a range closer than the moon early Saturday (May 3), but posed no threat to our planet.
The newly discovered asteroid 2014 HL129 came within 186,000 miles (299,338 kilometers) of Earth when it made its closest approach on Saturday morning, which is close enough to pass between the planet and the orbit of the moon. The average distance between the Earth and moon is about 238,855 miles (384,400 km).
You can watch a video animation of asteroid 2014 HL129's orbit around the sun on Space.com. The asteroid is about 25 feet (7.6 meters) wide, according to NASA's Asteroid Watch project based at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. It made its closest approach to Earth at 4:13 a.m. EDT (0813 GMT).

More

 

[A Guy]

Scientists Confirm The Existence Of Element 117

The official Periodic Table of the Elements is one step closer to adding element 117 to its ranks. That’s thanks to an international team of scientists that was able to successfully create several atoms of element 117, which is currently known as Ununseptium until it’s given an official name.

Source

A Guy

 

[Anak]

A New Meteor Shower in May?

I'll look but my track record for these events is cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

May 6, 2014: The head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, Dr. Bill Cooke, often lets cameras do his sky watching for him. He and his colleagues operate a nationwide network of automated fireball observatories that capture anything that burns into Earth’s atmosphere.

On the morning of May 24th, however, he plans to go out in person.
"There could be a new meteor shower, and I want to see it with my own eyes," says Cooke.

The shower is the May Camelopardalids, caused by dust from periodic comet 209P/LINEAR. No one has ever seen it before, but this year the Camelopardalids could put on a display that rivals the well-known Perseids of August.

"Some forecasters have predicted more than 200 meteors per hour," says Cooke.
Auroras Underfoot (signup)

Comet 209P/LINEAR was discovered in February 2004 by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project, a cooperative effort of NASA, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, and the US Air Force. It is a relatively dim comet that dips inside the orbit of Earth once every five years as it loops around the sun.

Two years ago, meteor experts Esko Lyytinen of Finland and Peter Jenniskens at NASA Ames Research Center announced that Earth was due for an encounter with debris from Comet 209P/LINEAR. Streams of dust ejected by the comet mainly back in the 1800s would cross Earth's orbit on May 24, 2014. The result, they said, could be a significant meteor outburst.

Source: A New Meteor Shower in May? - NASA Science

Camelopardalids will be rising due North on the 24th at 2am edt.




#2

ISS HD Earth Viewing Experiment on USTREAM:

Also at: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

 

[Britton30]

I managed to see 2-3 Perseids earlier after standing out for an hour. I've had little luck with meteors too Steve.
ISS video is cool, you can see the two Soyuz capsules.

 

[Anak]

I believe it was the Geminids back in the second week of December, '013 that I had seen over a dozen plus a fireball in 2hours. That's not the most meteors I've seen per hour, but it was the first fireball in 45years of observing.

I've yet to see a full blown shower >600 per hour or like the 1833 Leonids something like 100,000 to 200,000 meteors an hour that's 25 to 50 meteors per second, that's not a shower, that's a storm! Wouldn't that be glorious! But, I won't get my hopes up and just wait for the clouds.


I tried to hot link the Ustream video here like we do with youtube's, but there is no number sequence to the link.

NOTE: (I added the dashes so the server wouldn't parse the link) http - :// - www.ustream.tv - / - channel/iss-hdev-payloadand


Maybe John would know, but no matter what combination I use, all I get is this:

Live Video streaming by Ustream

 

[derekimo]

Is that what you're looking for Steve?

I got that from the share links, and just used the numbers at the end between the
Live Video streaming by Ustream" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border: 0px none transparent;">
Live Video streaming by Ustream

 

[Anak]

Yes, that is what I was looking for, but where did you find the "share links"?

Found it! You have to click on the word Share (to the right) when it pops up after you hold your cursor to show the hidden Pause/Play bar, and click on the "chain" link icon, that copies the link to your clipboard and you can then grab the ID number from there.

Thanks Derek!