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Keyword: universe

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  • Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress

    11/06/2009 9:39:16 AM PST · by GodGunsGuts · 70 replies · 986+ views
    Why Evolutionary-Based Science Is A Menace To Scientific Research, Discovery, and Progress Evolutionary-based research always begins with the inaccurate and unscientific presupposition that the Theory of Evolution, i.e. the Big Bang, the spontaneous generation of life, and common descent, is true. Due to this systemic problem, scientific discovery and progress is severely hampered, not to mention the hundreds of millions of research dollars that are squandered every year. In a time in which almost ANY alternative thought is given a platform, the evolution industry is silencing dissenting scientific evidence, even when it’s from fellow evolutionists! See the growing list of...
  • Huge Galaxy Cluster Hints at Universe's Skeleton

    11/03/2009 9:19:57 AM PST · by NormsRevenge · 12 replies · 576+ views
    Space.com ^ | 11/3/09
    A gigantic, previously unknown set of galaxies has been found in the distant universe, shedding light on the underlying skeleton of the cosmos. "Matter is not distributed uniformly in the universe," said Masayuki Tanaka, an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) who helped discover the galactic assemblage. "In our cosmic vicinity, stars form in galaxies and galaxies usually form groups and clusters of galaxies." But those collections of matter are just small potatoes compared to larger structures long-theorized to exist. "The most widely accepted cosmological theories predict that matter also clumps on a larger scale in the so-called 'cosmic...
  • Stargate Unniverse musings.

    10/30/2009 10:02:22 PM PDT · by DGHoodini · 15 replies · 521+ views
    SG Universe show | 10/31/09 | DGHoodini
    Is it just me, or is anyioone else getting the feeling like the next new characters we'll be seeing on the show, will be Yorgi and his sheep? (extra points if you get the reference.)
  • Non-Gravitational Fifth Force? Research Could Change Most Widely Held Scientific Theories...

    10/28/2009 1:26:53 AM PDT · by bogusname · 25 replies · 744+ views
    BCN ^ | Oct 28, 2009 | Teresa Neumann
    He [Jesus] is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." -Col. 1:17 REPORTER'S NOTE: Though I'm taking a stab in the dark (excuse the pun) with interpreting this article, one thing is certain: these scientists seem to ascribe cognizant, rational attributes to an invisible "force" that is "ruling over" dark matter in the universe. I'll let you read the article and come to your own conclusions! -Teresa Neumann, BCN. Science Daily reports that an international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could...
  • Giant Backward Ring Found Around Saturn

    10/08/2009 9:54:25 AM PDT · by GodGunsGuts · 27 replies · 1,683+ views
    CEH ^ | October 7, 2009
    Oct 7, 2009 — Saturn has a newly-discovered ring to add to its decor – the largest of all. It’s so big, it makes Saturn look like a speck in the middle of it. The ring, located at the orbit of the small outer moon Phoebe, is inclined 27 degrees and revolves backwards around Saturn. This was announced today by...
  • Reminder: Stargate Universe

    09/30/2009 10:27:55 PM PDT · by DGHoodini · 8 replies · 432+ views
    Online Guide | DGHodini
    Just a reminder for Stargate fans: SyFy Channel will premier 'Stargate Universe' on this Friday, Oct 2nd, at 9pm EDT, followed by an immediate rebroadcast at 12am Oct 3rd.
  • The Non-Expanding Universe

    09/07/2009 9:40:54 AM PDT · by BGHater · 22 replies · 970+ views
    FQXi ^ | 25 Aug 2009 | Kate Becker
    Time doesn’t exist. The universe isn’t really expanding. And if you want a theory of quantum gravity, look to the man who inspired Einstein, says Julian Barbour. For someone who believes time doesn’t exist, Julian Barbour sure has a head for dates. He remembers exactly when he started to have doubts about time: It was October 18, 1963, and he was reading the newspaper. He spotted an article about the physicist Paul Dirac and his quest for a theory of quantum gravity—a theory linking Einstein’s ideas about gravity to the clashing doctrine of quantum mechanics. Today, Barbour is on that...
  • Is Earth AGAIN The Center of The Universe?

    09/03/2009 8:13:40 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 44 replies · 1,178+ views
    Christian Post ^ | 9/3/2009 | Allen J. Epling
    I came across a news item in the USA Today website, dated August 18, that got my attention. It concerns "Dark Energy", the mysterious force that seems to be speeding up the expansion of the universe, that no one can find or explain. Two scientists say is doesn't exist now because of a "mathematical solution they have produced, that suggests it is a natural result of the Big Bang. Part of the article is reproduced here. "What's the answer? It doesn't exist, suggest mathematicians Blake Temple and Joel Smoller, in a study released Monday by the Proceedings of the National...
  • Miss Universe national costume event in the Bahamas (Photos)

    08/11/2009 6:37:35 AM PDT · by C19fan · 24 replies · 2,171+ views
    Daily Telegraph ^ | August 11, 2009 | By Staff
    Miss Canada Mariana Valente Contestants from 84 countries have come together in the Bahamas to compete for the title of Miss Universe
  • How to map the multiverse (We don’t need to prove fine tuning. It’s just there)

    07/14/2009 6:09:21 PM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 24 replies · 756+ views
    New Scientist ^ | 5/4/2009 | Anil Ananthaswamy
    BRIAN GREENE spent a good part of the last decade extolling the virtues of string theory. He dreamed that one day it would provide physicists with a theory of everything that would describe our universe - ours and ours alone. His bestselling book The Elegant Universe eloquently captured the quest for this ultimate theory. "But the fly in the ointment was that string theory allowed for, in principle, many universes," says Greene, who is a theoretical physicist at Columbia University in New York. In other words, string theory seems equally capable of describing universes very different from ours. Greene hoped...
  • The self-made universe (Paul Davis tries to explain the fine-tuned universe without God)

    06/20/2009 10:04:17 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 49 replies · 1,341+ views
    MSNBC ^ | 6/20/2009
    Why does the universe seem so fine-tuned for the emergence of life – including intelligent life capable of asking that “why” question? Believers simply say that God did it, while scientists are trying to come up with complicated extradimensional multiverse theories to explain our lucky break. Theoretical physicist Paul Davies takes a completely different tack in a new book titled "Cosmic Jackpot." He argues that the cosmos has made itself the way it is, stretching backward in time to the very beginning to focus in on “bio-friendliness.” Davies admits that the idea has theological overtones - but that's nothing new...
  • Discovering a more precise age of the universe

    06/13/2009 12:04:51 PM PDT · by OldNavyVet · 37 replies · 916+ views
    Los Angeles Times ^ | June 13, 2009 | John Johnson Jr.
    Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, and two colleagues were named this month as recipients of the $500,000 Gruber Prize, one of the world's top awards in the field of cosmology. The Freedman team's work helped scientists to arrive at the currently accepted age of the universe: 13.7 billion years.
  • 'We Are Definitely not Alone in the Universe'

    06/12/2009 11:21:09 AM PDT · by Schnucki · 80 replies · 1,817+ views
    Der Spiegel (Germany) ^ | June 12, 2009
    Mankind has been searching for intelligent life in the universe for decades. One of the leaders of that search is Frank Drake. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he said that daytime television might be the aliens' first taste of life on earth. That, he says, "is scary." SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Drake, after searching for decades, no extraterrestrial signal has yet been found. Are we alone in the universe? Drake: We are definitely not alone. At the same time, I think it will be very hard to find the extraterrestrials. If they are only slightly more advanced than we are,...
  • Math theories may hold clues to origin, future of life in universe

    06/09/2009 10:01:50 AM PDT · by ckilmer · 33 replies · 904+ views
    physorg ^ | June 9th, 2009
    Math theories may hold clues to origin, future of life in universe June 9th, 2009 How did we get here and where are we headed? These are some of life's biggest questions. To get the answers, one Kansas State University professor is doing the math. Louis Crane, K-State professor of mathematics, is studying new theories about why the universe is the way it is. He has a grant from the Foundational Questions Institute to study new approaches to the quantum theory of gravity, his primary research area as both a mathematician and a physicist. Crane hopes to uncover implications of...
  • Science

    05/10/2009 9:17:22 PM PDT · by stolinsky · 1 replies · 257+ views
    www.stolinsky.com ^ | 05-11-09 | stolinsky
    Will we be exploring the planets and stars that our ancestors gazed at in wonder? Will we be fulfilling our destiny, which I believe is to come as close as we can − with our imperfect minds − to understanding God’s creation? Or will we remain on Earth, our feet stuck in the mud, held back by our constant struggle against barbarians who want to take us all back to the Dark Ages?
  • Darwin--Unwittingly a "Creationist"

    04/19/2009 8:00:09 AM PDT · by GodGunsGuts · 25 replies · 672+ views
    Answers Magazine ^ | Jason Lisle, Ph.D.
    Evolutionists often attempt to use observational science—arguments from biology, paleontology, geology, or even astronomy—to support their belief. But the really interesting thing is that they base all their arguments on principles that ultimately come from biblical creation! As strange as it may sound, evolutionists must unwittingly assume that creation is true in order to argue against it. That means that Darwin was (in a sense) a “creationist.” All evolutionists must borrow the principles of biblical creation in order to do science (even though they would deny this). Here is why...
  • A Darwinist Religious Experience Described

    04/13/2009 8:35:28 AM PDT · by GodGunsGuts · 8 replies · 622+ views
    CEH ^ | April 11, 2009
    A Darwinist Religious Experience Described April 11, 2009 — As millions of Jews just completed Passover, and as millions of Christians gather to celebrate Easter, a Darwinist reporter was experiencing “existential vertigo” – a sweeping sense of dizziness as her imagination zoomed in and out of the implications of her faith. It may be the closest thing that a secular materialist can call a religious experience. And religious experience is an accurate description: it was the outworking of an all-encompassing world view, with ultimate causes, ultimate destinies, moral imperatives, and heavy doses of faith. Amanda Gefter (see her previous attack...
  • One Hundred Billion Trillion Habitable Planets

    02/17/2009 12:15:35 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 53 replies · 836+ views
    Alan Boss, whose new book The Crowded Universe will soon be on my shelves (and reviewed here), has driven the extrasolar planet story to the top of the news with a single statement. Speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Chicago, Boss (Carnegie Institution, Washington) said that the number of Earth-like planets in the universe might be the same as the number of stars, a figure he pegged at one hundred billion trillion. A universe teeming with life? Inevitably. The Telegraph quoted Boss on the matter in an early report on his presentation: “If...
  • A talk with Mario Livio ("Is reality, in some fundamental way, mathematics?")

    02/08/2009 12:09:12 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 9 replies · 450+ views
    Boston.com ^ | 2/8/09 | Carolyn Y. Johnson
    Is mathematics the language of the universe?MARIO LIVIO IS an astrophysicist, a man whose work and worldview are inextricably intertwined with mathematics. Like most scientists, he depends on math and an underlying faith in its incredible power to explain the universe. But over the years, he has been nagged by a bewildering thought. Scientific progress, in everything from economics to neurobiology to physics, depends on math's ability. But what is math? Why should its abstract concepts be so uncannily good at explaining reality? The question may seem irrelevant. As long as math works, why not just go with it? But...
  • Our world may be a giant hologram

    01/18/2009 4:47:55 PM PST · by Crimson Elephant · 52 replies · 2,001+ views
    New Scientist ^ | January 15th, 2009 | Marcus Chown
    DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres. For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not...
  • And They Think Some of Us Are Weird

    12/04/2008 5:02:31 AM PST · by PurpleMountains · 24 replies · 750+ views
    From Sea to Shining Sea ^ | 12/4/08 | Purple Mountains
    A priceless scene appears in the movie, “Expelled”, when Ben Stein asks the leading proponent of Darwinism and atheism, Richard Dawkins, how life began. After sputtering for a few moments, Dawkins offers the thought that some advanced creature from outer space may have seeded life on earth, exposing the fact that Darwinists, who have an answer for everything, have no answer for this most basic question. Now that we know that every key relationship in the universe is based on six numbers (see note 1), that these relationships are crucial to life, and that there would be no life and...
  • Pope says no to chaos, points to God as author of universe

    10/31/2008 1:46:20 PM PDT · by NYer · 9 replies · 381+ views
    CNA ^ | October 31, 2008
    Vatican City, Oct 31, 2008 / 12:56 pm (CNA).- On Friday, the first of a four day meeting held by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the topic of evolution, Pope Benedict drew a hard line against those who say that God did not create the universe. Pope Benedict’s 15 minute-long speech to the academics was packed with theological reflection and insight into the issues that the scientific and academic communities must grapple with to come to a fuller understanding of the universe. The Holy Father began his talk by pointing out that both Pius XII and John Paul II...
  • Mapping the universe at 30 Terabytes a night

    10/04/2008 12:32:15 PM PDT · by Ernest_at_the_Beach · 11 replies · 554+ views
    Register ^ | 3rd October 2008 19:15 GMT | Matt Stephens •
    Jeff Kantor, on building and managing a 150 Petabyte databaseInterview It makes for one heck of a project mission statement. Explore the nature of dark matter, chart the Solar System in exhaustive detail, discover and analyze rare objects such as neutron stars and black hole binaries, and map out the structure of the Galaxy. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) is, in the words of Jeff Kantor, LSST data management project manager, "a proposed ground-based 6.7 meter effective diameter (8.4 meter primary mirror), 10 square-degree-field telescope that will provide digital imaging of faint astronomical objects across the entire sky, night...
  • New findings reveal that the shape of the Universe is a Dodecahedron based on Phi

    09/28/2008 12:26:40 PM PDT · by LibWhacker · 52 replies · 1,216+ views
    The standard model of cosmology predicts that the universe is infinite and flat. However, cosmologists in France and the US are now suggesting that space could be finite and shaped like a dodecahedron instead. They claim that a universe with the same shape as the twelve-sided polygon can explain measurements of the cosmic microwave background – the radiation left over from the big bang – that spaces with more mundane shapes cannot.Power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Data from WMAP have extended the accuracy of the spectrum far beyond what was known from earlier measurements. This plot...
  • The Multiverse: Big Bangs Without End

    09/23/2008 3:14:32 PM PDT · by LibWhacker · 43 replies · 420+ views
    Sky and Telescope ^ | 9/18/08 | Dan Falk
    Three different trends in physics each suggest that our universe is just one of many.We usually think of the universe as being “everything there is.” But many astronomers and physicists now suspect that the universe we observe is just a small part of an unbelievably larger and richer cosmic structure, often called the “multiverse.” This mind-bending notion – that our universe may be just one of many, perhaps an infinite number, of real, physical universes – was front and center at a three-day conference entitled "A Debate in Cosmology — The Multiverse," held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics...
  • Monster galactic cluster seen in deep Universe: European agency

    08/25/2008 3:56:31 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 15 replies · 188+ views
    AFP on Yahoo ^ | 8/25/08 | AFP
    PARIS (AFP) – An orbiting observatory has spotted a massive cluster of galaxies in deep space that can only be explained by the exotic phenomenon known as dark energy, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Monday. Spotted in a scan by ESA's orbiting X-ray telescope XMM-Newton, the cluster's mass is about 1,000 times that of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, it said. The huge cluster, known by its catalogue number of 2XMM J083026+524133, lies 7.7 billion light years from Earth and helps confirm the existence of dark energy, the agency said. Under this hypothesis, most of the Universe...
  • Deïsm, Agnosticism, and Atheism

    07/10/2008 4:42:12 AM PDT · by Apollo 13 · 12 replies · 119+ views
    July 10, 2008 | Apollo 13
    Hi folks - I myself often battled innerly with how I stand in things religious. I studied the Bible in its entirety very carefully, and did a lot of other reading (e.g. about the ancient Greek and Roman view on religion). I do have respect for people who take the agnostic stance - if you don't have gone through religious experiences, and your conscience tells you so, then it is absolutely respectable to say: 'I don't know' (the great philosopher Imanuel Kant, himself a devout religious man, wrote this almost literally). My own view on this topic: I have great...
  • Is Ice a Catalyst for Life Throughout the Universe?

    06/23/2008 1:33:10 PM PDT · by LibWhacker · 12 replies · 118+ views
    Daily Galaxy ^ | 6/23/08
    Ancient_antarctic_microbes_2_2 The unusual properties of frozen water may have been the ticket that made life possible. Over the decades, several notable scientists have began to suspect that life on Earth did not evolve in a warm primordial soup, but in ice—at temperatures that few living things can now tolerate. The very laws of chemistry may have actually favored ice, says Jeffrey Bada, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. “We’ve been arguing for a long time,” he says, “that cold conditions make much more sense, chemically, than warm conditions.” If Bada and others are correct, it would...
  • Dark, Perhaps Forever (Is the theory of everything unattainable?)

    06/04/2008 11:07:19 AM PDT · by LibWhacker · 88 replies · 144+ views
    New York Times ^ | 6/3/08 | Dennis Overbye
    BALTIMORE — Mario Livio tossed his car keys in the air. They rose ever more slowly, paused, shining, at the top of their arc, and then in accordance with everything our Galilean ape brains have ever learned to expect, crashed back down into his hand. That was the whole problem, explained Dr. Livio, a theorist at the Space Telescope Science Institute here on the Johns Hopkins campus. A decade ago, astronomers discovered that what is true for your car keys is not true for the galaxies. Having been impelled apart by the force of the Big Bang, the galaxies, in...
  • Earth’s Universe Grandeur

    04/05/2008 7:42:31 PM PDT · by Revski · 2 replies · 281+ views
    YouTube Video (o7jimmy) ^ | 4/508 | Revski
    This is a video of some of earth’s universe grandeur. The song is, God Is So Good, sung by children. The pictures and images were taken by Hubble telescope and the last image is called the Cat’s Eye Nebula.
  • Dark Understanding of Matter

    03/25/2008 4:53:00 AM PDT · by Renfield · 3 replies · 164+ views
    Thunderbolts.info ^ | 3-25-08 | Stephen Smith
    Images from the Hubble Space Telescope have revealed a so-called "ring of dark matter" circling a galaxy cluster. Does dark matter exist? Or is electricity a better explanation for the structure of the universe? {Galaxy Cluster CL0024+17 with an overlay showing a supposed dark matter ring. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. J. Jee and H. Ford et al. (Johns Hopkins University)} In a recent announcement, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) reported the discovery of something in deep space that seems to confirm previously inferred observations of "dark matter." Although "dark matter" cannot be seen or detected by instruments, its...
  • Star explodes halfway across universe (NASA's Swift detects star's GRB; reached Earth early Wed.)

    03/21/2008 4:07:07 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 82 replies · 1,035+ views
    AP on Yahoo ^ | 3/21/08 | Seth Borenstein - ap
    WASHINGTON - The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye. The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light years away, its light finally reaching Earth early Wednesday. The gamma rays were detected by NASA's Swift satellite at 2:12 a.m. "We'd never seen one before so bright and at such a distance," NASA's Neil Gehrels said. It was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. However, NASA...
  • History Channel - The Universe - Before the Big Bang

    02/25/2008 1:30:39 PM PST · by backtothestreets · 113 replies · 1,123+ views
    February 25, 2008 | Chuck Plante - aka backtothestreets
    Heads up! Tomorrow night (February 26, 2008 at 9:00 PM), the History Channel will air a new segment of their Universe series that could be very interesting. It will try to address what was before the Big Bang. This is a subject I don't see anyway of discussing without raising religious beliefs.
  • NASA to launch Beatles tune ’Across the Universe’

    02/01/2008 3:26:34 PM PST · by Samwise · 53 replies · 174+ views
    Herald Tribune ^ | February 1, 2008 | Associated Press
    The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way. NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star. This first-ever beaming of a radio song by the space agency directly into deep space is nostalgia-driven. It celebrates the 40th anniversary of the song, the 45th anniversary of NASA's Deep Space Network, which communicates with its distant probes, and the 50th anniversary of NASA. "Send my love to the aliens," Paul McCartney told NASA through a Beatles historian. "All the best, Paul." The song, written by McCartney...
  • Perfectly Aligned Galaxies Found For The First Time

    01/11/2008 6:29:35 PM PST · by blam · 18 replies · 110+ views
    National Geographic News ^ | 1-11-2008 | John Roach
    Perfectly Aligned Galaxies Found For the First Time John Roach for National Geographic NewsJanuary 11, 2008 Astronomers have found three galaxies in a never before seen perfect alignment—a discovery that may help scientists better understand the mysterious dark matter and dark energy believed to dominate the universe. The three galaxies are like beads on a string, one directly behind the other, scientists announced yesterday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. This makes the massive galaxy closest to Earth appear nestled in a pair of circular halos known as Einstein rings. The phenomenon occurs because the...
  • Mysterious Explosion Detected In The Distant Past, Halfway Back To Big Bang

    01/09/2008 1:58:38 PM PST · by blam · 29 replies · 40+ views
    Science Daily ^ | 1-8-2008 | NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
    Mysterious Explosion Detected In The Distant Past, Halfway Back To Big BangNobody knows how the short gamma-ray burst GRB 070714B was triggered, but a leading possibility is the in-spiral and merger of two neutron stars, depicted in this artist rendition. (Credit: NASA/Dana Berry) ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — Using the powerful one-two combo of NASA’s Swift satellite and the Gemini Observatory, astronomers have detected a mysterious type of cosmic explosion farther back in time than ever before. The explosion, known as a short gamma-ray burst (GRB), took place 7.4 billion years ago, more than halfway back to the Big Bang....
  • The void: Imprint of another universe?

    11/27/2007 8:06:25 PM PST · by TigerLikesRooster · 101 replies · 416+ views
    New Scientist ^ | 11/24/07 | Marcus Chown
    The void: Imprint of another universe? 24 November 2007 Marcus Chown Magazine issue 2631 IN AUGUST, radio astronomers announced that they had found an enormous hole in the universe. Nearly a billion light years across, the void lies in the constellation Eridanus and has far fewer stars, gas and galaxies than usual. It is bigger than anyone imagined possible and is beyond the present understanding of cosmology. What could cause such a gaping hole? One team of physicists has a breathtaking explanation: "It is the unmistakable imprint of another universe beyond the edge of our own," says Laura Mersini-Houghton of...
  • Mankind 'shortening the universe's life'

    11/25/2007 6:19:48 AM PST · by redrunner · 61 replies · 161+ views
    Telegraph (UK) ^ | 11/21/2007 | Roger Highfield
    Mankind 'shortening the universe's life' By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 21/11/2007 Forget about the threat that mankind poses to the Earth: our activities may be shortening the life of the universe too. The startling claim is made by a pair of American cosmologists investigating the consequences for the cosmos of quantum theory, the most successful theory we have. Over the past few years, cosmologists have taken this powerful theory of what happens at the level of subatomic particles and tried to extend it to understand the universe, since it began in the subatomic realm during the...
  • Have we sealed the universe's fate by looking at it?

    11/21/2007 10:55:16 AM PST · by crazyshrink · 97 replies · 72+ views
    EurekAlert ^ | 21-Nov-2007 | Lawrence Krauss
    HAVE we hastened the demise of the universe by looking at it? That’s the startling question posed by a pair of physicists, who suggest that we may have accidentally nudged the universe closer to its death by observing dark energy, which is thought to be speeding up cosmic expansion. Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and colleague James Dent suggest that by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the universe to revert to a state similar to early in its history, when it was more likely to end. “Incredible as it seems, our...
  • In 'Dark Energy,' Cosmic Humility (Mysterious Force Expanding Universe Ever Faster)

    09/23/2007 7:07:18 AM PDT · by PJ-Comix · 40 replies · 280+ views
    Newsweek ^ | October 1, 2007 | Sharon Begley
    To the ancients, exploding stars were bad news. To astronomer Adam Riess, poring over data from a telescope in Chile, it looked like supernovas were still cursed. He and his colleagues were measuring the brightness and distance of supernovas in order to figure out the little matter of whether the universe would end in fire or in ice. Would it halt its expansion and collapse back on itself in a gnab gib (that's the reverse of the big bang, and passes for humor among astronomers) or expand forever, its light and warmth fading into eternal cold and darkness? But when...
  • Astronomers puzzled by cosmic black hole (patches in the universe where nobody's home)

    08/23/2007 7:36:01 PM PDT · by NormsRevenge · 63 replies · 1,370+ views
    AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/23/07 | Seth Borenstein - ap
    WASHINGTON - Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday. Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody's home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years...
  • A Two-Time Universe? Physicist Explores How Second Dimension of Time Could Unify Physics Laws

    05/16/2007 1:43:42 PM PDT · by LibWhacker · 80 replies · 1,836+ views
    PhysOrg.com | USC College ^ | 5/17/07 | Tom Siegfried
    For a long time, Itzhak Bars has been studying time. More than a decade ago, the USC College physicist began pondering the role time plays in the basic laws of physics — the equations describing matter, gravity and the other forces of nature.Those laws are exquisitely accurate. Einstein mastered gravity with his theory of general relativity, and the equations of quantum theory capture every nuance of matter and other forces, from the attractive power of magnets to the subatomic glue that holds an atom’s nucleus together. But the laws can’t be complete. Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum theory don’t...
  • Ancient Star Nearly as Old as the Universe

    05/11/2007 8:09:45 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 39 replies · 1,258+ views
    www.space.com ^ | 05/10/2007 | Ker Than
    Long before our solar system formed and even before the Milky Way assumed its final spiral shape, a star slightly smaller than the Sun blazed into life in our galaxy, formed from the newly scattered remains of the first stars in the universe. Employing techniques similar to those used to date archeological remains here on Earth, scientists have learned that a metal-poor star in our Milky Way called HE 1523 is 13.2 billion years old-just slightly younger than 13.7 billion year age of the universe. Our solar system is estimated to be only about 4.6 billion years old. The findings...
  • Dressing to kill not a good look [MISS Mexico is redesigning her Miss Universe pageant dress]

    04/18/2007 12:49:14 PM PDT · by bedolido · 16 replies · 483+ views
    news.com.au ^ | April 19, 2007 12:00am | staff writer
    MISS Mexico is redesigning her Miss Universe pageant dress - because it is too violent. The floor-length dress, belted by bullets and including sketches of hangings and firing squads from Mexico's 1920s Catholic uprising, during which tens of thousands died, has outraged Mexicans.
  • Is this the fabric of the universe?

    03/19/2007 8:34:38 PM PDT · by LibWhacker · 84 replies · 2,504+ views
    Telegraph ^ | 3/19/07 | Roger Highfield
    Roger Highfield describes a heroic mathematical enterprise that could lay bare the fundamentals of the cosmosMathematicians have successfully scaled their equivalent of Mount Everest. Today they unveil the answer to a problem that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan. At the most basic level, the calculation is an arcane investigation of symmetry – in this case of an object that is 57 dimensional, rather than the usual three dimensional ones that we are familiar with. Although this object was first discovered in the 19th century. there is evidence that it could contain...
  • Renowned Cosmologist Draws Sold-Out Crowd (Stephen Hawking)

    03/14/2007 9:15:46 PM PDT · by dayglored · 108 replies · 2,706+ views
    The Daily Californian ^ | March 14, 2007 | Andrea Lu
    Last night, nearly 3,000 people received a mini lesson on the origin of the universe from perhaps the world’s most famous cosmologist, Stephen Hawking. Hawking spoke to a packed audience in Zellerbach Hall about how Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity and quantum theory explained the creation of the universe. ... His lecture, which touched upon subjects such as black holes and spacetime, was peppered with quips that drew laughs from the audience. “If one believed that the universe had a beginning, the obvious question was, what happened before the beginning,” Hawking said. “What was God doing before He made...
  • A Parallel Muslim Universe (Germany)

    02/20/2007 4:38:19 PM PST · by Nachum · 9 replies · 606+ views
    spiegel.de ^ | February 20, 2007 | Andrea Brandt and Cordula Meyer
    Germany's Muslim population is becoming more religious and more conservative. Islamic associations are fostering the trend, particularly through their work with the young -- accelerating the drift towards a parallel Muslim society. A member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Berlin. It's the silence that visitors notice first. No children's laughter, no chatter, no pop music. A Protestant minister familiar with the noise level in children's homes describes the atmosphere as "very spooky." This Friday, at the end of Ramadan, it is especially hushed in the green house on Hochfeldstrasse in Duisburg, a city near Düsseldorf. Quietly, the boys remove...
  • Puny Humans, Geocentrism, and ET

    02/10/2007 6:16:45 AM PST · by NYer · 5 replies · 366+ views
    Catholic Exchange ^ | February 6, 2007 | Mark Shea
    Our place in the cosmos has been a source of fascination since the first human looked up at the splendor of the night sky.  Every culture has reacted to the spectacle of the heavens with various sorts of religious awe.  Babylonians watched the stars for omens, as did the Chinese.  Petroglyphs in North America record novas.  Greek gods are bound up with the constellations.  Vanished cultures erected immense monuments like Stonehenge with an eye on the movements of the heavens.  Egypt was rocked by a religious reform movement led by Akhenaten, who worshiped one god: the Sun.The sense of wonder...
  • Eavesdropping on the Universe [An improved method of searching for ET]

    01/10/2007 2:00:27 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 10 replies · 522+ views
    PhysOrg ^ | 1/8/07
    Astronomers have proposed an improved method of searching for intelligent extraterrestrial life using instruments like one now under construction in Australia. The Low Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) of the Mileura Wide-Field Array (MWA), a facility for radio astronomy, theoretically could detect Earth-like civilizations around any of the 1,000 nearest stars. "Soon, we may be eavesdropping on signals from Galactic civilizations," says theorist Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "This is the first time in history that humans will be capable of finding a civilization like ours among the stars." Loeb will present his findings on Wednesday, January 10,...
  • Build Your Own Universe

    11/29/2006 4:19:47 PM PST · by LibWhacker · 85 replies · 1,466+ views
    NPR ^ | 11/27/06 | Robert Krulwich
    Is this a joke? No, say a bunch of physicists. One day, it may be possible for a person to create a universe! This is not going to happen tomorrow. Not even close. But according to Columbia University physics professor Brian Greene, it is theoretically not impossible (which is his way of saying the possibilities are not zero) that one day, a person could build a universe. The very idea is so startling it's hard to know what this means. Think about it this way: One day (far off, no doubt), it may be possible to go into a laboratory...