Right Before Our Eyes (Pulsar started emitting powerful bursts of x-rays like a magnetar.)

ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 21 February 2008 | Phil Berardelli

[SunkenCiv]

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[Eaker]

Kinda hard to fit an entire star into a test tube...

Not if you have a really big test tube!

[blam]

Ahhh...my eyes!!

[SunkenCiv]

Aha... finally, retaliation for those Zowie pictures... ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1641966/posts?page=234#234

[RightWhale]

I love it when they are wrong.

How are they wrong?

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[RightWhale]

How are they wrong?

[AndyJackson]

I didn’t realize that by setting out to prove one’s explanation of an anomalous explanation by observing its effects was proper scientific conduct.

This is a very nebulous statement, and I am not sure exactly what you mean by "proper scientific conduct." To be clear science is about providing explanations of things that are observed. When the explanation is generalized to expand to multiple observations, instances, or circumstances then it becomes a "theory." The validity of the generalized explanation, i.e. theory, is predicated on its ability to explain a broad class of observations, and great weight is placed on a theory that predicts unexpected things that turn out to be true.

Thus, for instance theories of conservation of energy, entropy, the Maxwell equations, and so forth have become accepted theories. The phlogiston theory is no longer accepted as an adequate explanatory fit to observed phenomenon and therefore is discredited.

Anomolies are particularly valued in scientific practice because they provide the means to further validate a theory, modify a theory, restrict the domain of validity of a theory, develop a new theory for an entirely different phenomenon, or develop an expanded theory of greater validity than the original theory.

[grey_whiskers]

Hmm, the Chandrasekhar uncertainty principle?

[verum ago]

from reply #11:
I was merely being humorously (to some) cynical about the price tags on many scientific endeavors and pieces of equipment, and about theoretical science— that which consists only of theory and observation, as opposed to experimental science— that which can falsified directly via experiment and not by the happy coincidence of something doing something that contradicts theory while we happen to be observing it. Which isn't to say that theoretical science is not without logic or utility.

*sighs* I guess I deserve some admonishment anyway...

... (you can set those beebers from 'reproach' back to 'safe'— I'll surrender peaceably.)

[JasonC]

Half a planck...

(wink)

[JasonC]

The sun rotates, slower than the earth it degrees a day but then it is much larger. The axis of its roration is nearly perpendicular to the plane of the orbits of the major planets, but is "off" by about 7 degrees from perfectly vertical. The speed of the rotation varies with the latitude, being fastest at the equator and slower at the poles. (Remember the sun surface is gas, like an atmosphere, not solid). The rotational period is about 25 days at the equator and about 36 days at the poles.

[JasonC]

And when instead no gravitational waves are ever detected, despite the detectors getting more and more sensitive, what then?

When will the faith in the exactness of Einstein's gravity theory finally break down? I mean, if mere falsifying observations were enough, it would be dead as a doornail by now.

[JasonC]

“in” degrees per day - and “rotation” - darn typos, sorry for any confusion.

[ForGod'sSake]

You and kinoxi obviously have a deep-seated contempt for scientists (and even the process of science, perhaps.) Why? What drives it?

Hope you don't mind if I butt in here ;^)

Let me start by suggesting anyone NOT finding major problems wihtin the scientific community™ should actually declare their religion. Since scientology is taken, I offer as a suggestion, denialogy. That is, you accept on faith everything promulgated that protects their sacred cows or sacred cowboys. There is a bold new world out there for all disciplines of science -- with the exception of anything that could disturb the status quo. It would appear to the layman, simple minded people have obtained control of the flow of scientific information.

If you're truly interested in discovering why there are a few around that distrust much of mainstream science, just have a look at mainstream media. Their incessant spreading of cow manure has been exposed for most of the world to see; maybe it's time the same be done for the scientific community™.

The PICTURE THAT WON'T GO AWAY.

[ngc6656]

IF the sun rotates, is it "exactly" in phase with the Earth? And does the sun's axis of rotation coincide with the axis of the Earth's orbit?

The answer to both questions is no.

The Sun's sidereal period of rotation is 25.35 days; its synodic period -- the time for it to make a full rovolution plus the additional time required for it to "catch up" to compensate for Earth's rotation along its orbit around the Sun -- is 27.25 days.

The plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun, known as the "ecliptic," is the fundamental plane of reference in our solar system. On star maps it is shown as a line that marks the Sun's apparent path against the background of the stars during the course of a year. Earth's axis of rotation is inclined 23.75 degrees off a perpendicular to the ecliptic; the Sun's rotational axis is inclined 7.25 degrees off a perpendicular to the ecliptic.

[kinoxi]

How are they wrong?
If their models were correct this wouldn't be news.
"The bursts were completely unexpected," says astrophysicist and lead author Fotis Gavriil of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

[Fred Nerks]

Halton Arp: A Modern Day Galileo

Halton Arp is to the 21st century what Galileo was to the 17th. Both were respected scientists, popular leaders in their field. Both made observations which contradicted the accepted theories. Seventeenth century academics felt threatened by Galileo's observations and so, backed by ecclesiastical authority, they ordered him to stop looking. Twentieth century astronomers felt threatened by Arp's observations and so, backed by institutional authority, they ordered him to stop looking.

Both refused. Both published works geared to the non-specialist when specialists would no longer take note. Galileo's paper, "A Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World" , favored a heliocentric model of the solar system and undermined the accepted geocentric model. Arp's books, Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies, Seeing Red, and Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations, favor a steady-state model of the universe and undermine the accepted big bang model.

The Church responded by placing Galileo under house arrest: his peers would not even look through his telescope and the Church judged his books heretical. The modern astronomical community responded similarly to Arp. Observatory officials cancelled his telescope time and astronomical journals refused to publish his research...

LINK.

[RightWhale]

‘Unexpected’ is a fairly thin branch to decorate out like a righteous Christmas tree of anti-science rhetoric. Where did Galileo get off the track? Or if he didn’t, then where did Descartes fail to dig just a little deeper and miss paydirt?