So over the past few days I have been listening to a podcast called Astronomy Cast. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who even remotely finds science interesting. Within every single show I swear your mind is blown by the so simple logic you never thought about. I want to talk about one of those now, the size and age of the universe, and how they know they are NOT infinite.
I guess to start the first thoughts that the universe has not always been here, and that it doesn't go on forever was first thought of way back in 1823. I don't remember the guys name, but it's in the podcast. And what is his logic for this. Simple, there is darkness in the night sky.
Before we go into that, I have to set up a situation. Imagine we are standing here on earth and somebody flips God's switch that turns on and off light. It was probably an accident. But assume there is complete darkness. For the smarter readers who are saying this is wrong cause the light still would be coming from distance stars, let's just pretend there never was light.
So now we decide to turn the light back on in the universe. Since light travels at a finite speed, not everything would show up at once. The first thing we would see is the moon. Since it's about 7 light seconds away, we would see it in about 7 seconds. After eight minutes we would see the sun. (I realize you can't really see the moon without the sunlight reflecting off, but again just go with it). I want to reiterate the speed of light is fast, but still finite. That means it takes some time for light to get from one point to another.
We would have to wait 4.2 years before we would see any stars in the sky. (Alpha Centari is 4.2 light years away) With the speed of light being finite though, we are not seeing Alpha Centari at the present time, how it is at the moment. We are really seeing how it was 4.2 years ago.
So the light we see from the sun shows the sun as it was in the past, 8 minutes ago. If the moon were to explode, even if we were just staring at the moon, we wouldn't know until seven seconds after it happened.
After Alpha Centari, stars would pop up over the years, and this is were I come back to the first point. more and more stars would pop up taking up more of the darkness. If the universe has been around before the big bang, and went on forever, the night sky would just be lit up, opaque like a fluorescent bulb. All the light would be here.
That really only shows one or the other, finite age or finite size. What logic tells us with the big bang, which was thought of in the 1920's was that both are actually finite. The Astronomy Cast goes into tons of detail about all of this, but the cool thing is the reason the universe seems infinite. We obviously can't see the edge. We can't see all the way back to a star 13.7 +/- .2 billion years ago. This is because at a point during the expansion, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. So even with the most powerful telescope ever we could only see to the light's end, and not into the darkness of the universe.
I guess if you want a good way to look at the universe, it's a sphere. The big band would have sent energy in all directions at the same speed. So to imagine being in a soccer ball or something. If you were in the inside you could see until the inside part of the ball, then there is some thickness, and finally the outer edge. This soccer ball is also still expanding and our galaxy is moving further away from ALL other galaxies. A mental image for this is a bunch of raisins in raisin bread. As the dough rises all the raisins slowly move apart from each other.
I know it was a long post, but the things were a little mind blowing, and I thought they might be fun for some of you to think about.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Modern Day Romeo and Juliet. Oh the Romance
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=455400&in_page_id=1879
So here is the article and news story of the day. It's a great article about two lovers in Pakistan. You would be doing yourself a favor to read it. As a warning though. There are some pretty fuzzy, but graphic images.
I'm not going to even give a summary because there is to much in it. The only comment I wanted to say was, after reading it, I didn't get the same feeling of love and hopeless romantics as you would if you read Romeo and Juliet. All it really does is make you a little sick to your stomach to see what still happens in the world, that most people thought only happened in the Bible.
If you want to know the reason most sensible atheists are not fans of religion, not just yours, not just muslims. This article had a religion I'd never heard of. A seventeen year old girl, just for falling in love with a different religion. Frowned upon here, and stoned to death still in other parts of the world. For her family's honour. Sick.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=455400&in_page_id=1879
So here is the article and news story of the day. It's a great article about two lovers in Pakistan. You would be doing yourself a favor to read it. As a warning though. There are some pretty fuzzy, but graphic images.
I'm not going to even give a summary because there is to much in it. The only comment I wanted to say was, after reading it, I didn't get the same feeling of love and hopeless romantics as you would if you read Romeo and Juliet. All it really does is make you a little sick to your stomach to see what still happens in the world, that most people thought only happened in the Bible.
If you want to know the reason most sensible atheists are not fans of religion, not just yours, not just muslims. This article had a religion I'd never heard of. A seventeen year old girl, just for falling in love with a different religion. Frowned upon here, and stoned to death still in other parts of the world. For her family's honour. Sick.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=455400&in_page_id=1879
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
A Question on Morals
I just read an article about morals, and it reminded me of a psychology survey I took as part of an experiment. I never saw the results, but if there was anyone reading this who would know how to hake a survey and help me get it online I'd love to try it myself. Many of you have probably heard the "trolley dilemma". Maybe not. Here it is.
You have to use your imagination for this one. Let's pretend we are in sunny San Fransisco. Very hilly that San Fran. Now imagine the trolley tracks. Thats kinda like a bus and a train combined. There is a switch right next to you that will choose which side of the fork in the tracks the trolley will go on. So trolley tracks that fork into two directions at the bottom of this hill. This will change, but for now its what we start with.
The first test will be easy, but as we go your choices should get harder.
1) A trolley comes over the hill and loses it's brakes. On the one fork there are five people. If you flip the switch, you can change tracks so it doesn't hit anyone. Which would you choose.
2) The trolley again comes over the hill. This time you have to choose left or right. On the right stands 5 people, and on the left only one person. Which side do you choose now.
3) Same situation as before, but on the right is homeless person/ugly, on the other side an obviously upstanding citizen who has the looks of (insert hot actor here).
4) Now a stranger on the right, and on the left a family member, or friend.
The Scene in your head had to change now, the fork isn't there any more. There is a bridge over the road though. Sitting on the side of the bridge is a very large man. Big enough to stop the train.
5) The trolley is heading down the hill at five people. If you push the unsuspecting man off of the the bridge you could save the five. But would you.
This is the complex one.
6) The fork is back, a three way fork this time, middle, right, and left. The bridge is still above, and the large man is still there. The trolley flies over the hill out of control. Your best friend/brother/mom is on the right, five strangers in the middle, one stranger on the left. You can choose a side, or push the man off the bridge.
According to the survey I took, they said most people tend to choose kill the one stranger as opposed to five, but most will not kill family, or the bystander on the bridge, because he was completely uninvolved. I would suspect that if there was a button that would kill the 20 or so people on the trolley and save the five and one strangers, we would push that. I don't know though. I'd love help with a survey, or a site to make a free one.
One thing most neuroscientists agree on is that most people do argue with themselves while taking this. I know when I took it, even though it was fake, you feel a bit of guilt. William Saletan of Slate Magazine says, "If you often feel as though two parts of your brain are fighting it out, that's because, in fact, they are." People tend to see the brain as a single organ, when in reality, Saletan writes, it's actually "an assembly of modules that sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete." This is believed by many neurologists to be the true meaning of morality.
This could be a useful tool, but anything any the wrong hands can be very scary. Theoretically medicines that affect the mind; such as medicine for migraines, ADD, depression, and et cetra, could be used to "turn off" parts off the brain that contradict the bad. For example you could "turn off" the "Don't Kill" section of the brain. (Ultimate Military Brainwashing) I realize that is super vague and there is probably more than one section that would need shutting down, but hopefully you get the idea.
So hopefully this one was a bit fun, an interacting, thought-provoking post. And if you learn anything, it's not to walk by yourself in San Fransisco, and try to befriend everyone.
You have to use your imagination for this one. Let's pretend we are in sunny San Fransisco. Very hilly that San Fran. Now imagine the trolley tracks. Thats kinda like a bus and a train combined. There is a switch right next to you that will choose which side of the fork in the tracks the trolley will go on. So trolley tracks that fork into two directions at the bottom of this hill. This will change, but for now its what we start with.
The first test will be easy, but as we go your choices should get harder.
1) A trolley comes over the hill and loses it's brakes. On the one fork there are five people. If you flip the switch, you can change tracks so it doesn't hit anyone. Which would you choose.
2) The trolley again comes over the hill. This time you have to choose left or right. On the right stands 5 people, and on the left only one person. Which side do you choose now.
3) Same situation as before, but on the right is homeless person/ugly, on the other side an obviously upstanding citizen who has the looks of (insert hot actor here).
4) Now a stranger on the right, and on the left a family member, or friend.
The Scene in your head had to change now, the fork isn't there any more. There is a bridge over the road though. Sitting on the side of the bridge is a very large man. Big enough to stop the train.
5) The trolley is heading down the hill at five people. If you push the unsuspecting man off of the the bridge you could save the five. But would you.
This is the complex one.
6) The fork is back, a three way fork this time, middle, right, and left. The bridge is still above, and the large man is still there. The trolley flies over the hill out of control. Your best friend/brother/mom is on the right, five strangers in the middle, one stranger on the left. You can choose a side, or push the man off the bridge.
According to the survey I took, they said most people tend to choose kill the one stranger as opposed to five, but most will not kill family, or the bystander on the bridge, because he was completely uninvolved. I would suspect that if there was a button that would kill the 20 or so people on the trolley and save the five and one strangers, we would push that. I don't know though. I'd love help with a survey, or a site to make a free one.
One thing most neuroscientists agree on is that most people do argue with themselves while taking this. I know when I took it, even though it was fake, you feel a bit of guilt. William Saletan of Slate Magazine says, "If you often feel as though two parts of your brain are fighting it out, that's because, in fact, they are." People tend to see the brain as a single organ, when in reality, Saletan writes, it's actually "an assembly of modules that sometimes cooperate and sometimes compete." This is believed by many neurologists to be the true meaning of morality.
This could be a useful tool, but anything any the wrong hands can be very scary. Theoretically medicines that affect the mind; such as medicine for migraines, ADD, depression, and et cetra, could be used to "turn off" parts off the brain that contradict the bad. For example you could "turn off" the "Don't Kill" section of the brain. (Ultimate Military Brainwashing) I realize that is super vague and there is probably more than one section that would need shutting down, but hopefully you get the idea.
So hopefully this one was a bit fun, an interacting, thought-provoking post. And if you learn anything, it's not to walk by yourself in San Fransisco, and try to befriend everyone.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Plastic Blood
As I was looking on digg.com the other day I found this article. The article summed up though basically says that we now have a substitute for blood in case of an emergency. When I saw this I was excited to see it, but disappointed that someone stole another one of my great ideas. How it works is really quite simple. It is made up of little plastic molecules that will imitate blood's function, which of course is to deliver oxygen. The way blood does this is by attracting an Oxygen molecule to it with iron. The hemoglobin in the blood, which makes up 97% of the dry matter of the cell contains iron. This iron attracts the oxygen molecule. The same way the oxygen from water gets on your bike chain and makes it rusty.
What this 'plastic' blood is made out of is plastic molecules with an iron atom at its core acting like hemoglobin. Pretty slick those idea stealing scientists. Since this is plastic is is also cheap to produce and easy to store and transport. It would be possible to store these in an ambulance or for the armed forces.
It will be first on display in London May 22nd. Hopefully it goes well and if it works well, it doesn't take long before it can be used to start saving lives.
What this 'plastic' blood is made out of is plastic molecules with an iron atom at its core acting like hemoglobin. Pretty slick those idea stealing scientists. Since this is plastic is is also cheap to produce and easy to store and transport. It would be possible to store these in an ambulance or for the armed forces.
It will be first on display in London May 22nd. Hopefully it goes well and if it works well, it doesn't take long before it can be used to start saving lives.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Beauty Without God
I had a response to my last post about the beauty of the world, and how not having a God makes them any less amazing. When you look at some astounding like the Grand Canyon and say, "God is quite the artist." If you look at it without God and say, "Wow, that is amazing how nature can create something so beautiful and grand as the Grand Canyon." Just because we know it was years of erosion that created the grand canyon, doesn't make it any less of a marvel.
In Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins, which is a book I would suggest reading if you want to know more, He uses the rainbow as an example. If you see a rainbow and say God put it there, you only think of the rainbow. Since we have learned how a rainbow works and why they appear, it is even more brilliant to see. Millions of droplets of water refracting light, and sending one very small strip of the color spectrum to our eye. Another droplet above that sends another, and above that another. Next to those even more. Millions of times. As the rain drops fall they send a different wavelength our eyes perceive as a different color. So you don't see one rainbow, you are actually seeing millions of rainbows. If you have someone standing next to you, they are seeing a completely different set of millions of rainbows, because they are looking from a different angle.
The life outside that you see just from staring out your windows. The more you know about it, and the more science tell us, the more amazing it is too. Looking out my window now I can see, grass, a couple trees, some rocks, and a squirrel searching for nuts. I could see those and say God put those there. I know they came from seeds that people more than likely planted. But thinking of the millions upon millions of cells working together to keep the tree alive is amazing. Hundreds of thousands of generations of slight changes and adaptation. The wonder that it has happened is mind-blowing. The photosynthesis process and just understanding what goes on in plants makes looking at any tree creates just a respect to how everything came to be.
Just because science isn't supernatural, doesn't make it any less wondrous. Natures wonder and beauty is the reason people become scientists. We may not look at anything and wonder who made it, but it is the same feeling of not knowing, when you think how does it work. Beauty is not lost without God, if anything God just ruins it by covering the wonder.
In Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins, which is a book I would suggest reading if you want to know more, He uses the rainbow as an example. If you see a rainbow and say God put it there, you only think of the rainbow. Since we have learned how a rainbow works and why they appear, it is even more brilliant to see. Millions of droplets of water refracting light, and sending one very small strip of the color spectrum to our eye. Another droplet above that sends another, and above that another. Next to those even more. Millions of times. As the rain drops fall they send a different wavelength our eyes perceive as a different color. So you don't see one rainbow, you are actually seeing millions of rainbows. If you have someone standing next to you, they are seeing a completely different set of millions of rainbows, because they are looking from a different angle.
The life outside that you see just from staring out your windows. The more you know about it, and the more science tell us, the more amazing it is too. Looking out my window now I can see, grass, a couple trees, some rocks, and a squirrel searching for nuts. I could see those and say God put those there. I know they came from seeds that people more than likely planted. But thinking of the millions upon millions of cells working together to keep the tree alive is amazing. Hundreds of thousands of generations of slight changes and adaptation. The wonder that it has happened is mind-blowing. The photosynthesis process and just understanding what goes on in plants makes looking at any tree creates just a respect to how everything came to be.
Just because science isn't supernatural, doesn't make it any less wondrous. Natures wonder and beauty is the reason people become scientists. We may not look at anything and wonder who made it, but it is the same feeling of not knowing, when you think how does it work. Beauty is not lost without God, if anything God just ruins it by covering the wonder.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Kirk Cameron and his Scientific Proof of God
I don't know how many of you watched the debate on Nightline the other night. Kirk Cameron (the kid from Growing Pains) and his partner Ray Comfort claimed to be able to prove scientifically without using faith or the Bible, that God existed. They called a couple people from the Rational Response Squad(RRS), Brian and Kelly.
After about a week long wait for the program to air, the editing on the air was done terribly. They cut during points, and before any question could be answered. If you go to ABCnews.com and watch the online videos you see more, but not all of it.
Getting to the debate though, Ray Comfort started, and spoke for a while. He held up a can of Coke, and said that the can of Coke was proof there was someone who created it. Then a painting, and said since there is a painting, there is proof that someone painted it. He mentioned if you see a building, there is proof that someone built it. This argument seems unshakable. There is one big problem though. Here is what you are saying.
"If something exists, there must be a creator. Since the world and the universe exists, there must be a creator"
Here is the giant whole in your logic, the painter created the painting. What created the painter? God created the painter. What created God? Super God created God.
If painting, then painter.
If painter, then God.
If God, then some kind of more complex super God.
I already know the rebuttal for that thinking. God is outside of time. God is infinite. Time is just something made up by the human mind, and time happened all at once, but God is outside of it. Time is no different than the other three dimensions of the universe. Yes is is just of the mind, not only in humans but all animals have some sense of time. There is nothing wrong with saying that time began at the big bang. Creationist constantly ask what happened before that. Trying to ascertain what happened "before" time began is like trying to find out what is north of the North Pole.
The argument of time though is just a distraction from the original question, whether within or outside of time, God exist. and what did we learn from your own logic. If God exist then what created him, and then what created that?
The other second point Ray made was the ten commandments and human morality. He basically just preached gospel and said since it was gospel it was just given to be true. There went his without the Bible try. He also said since human were the only animals with morals, it shows that God favors us, and created us in His image. He failed to do his research on this also. Studies have been done on other animals to show that other animals have morals too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?ex=1332043200&en=84f902d5855a9173&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I would highly suggest the article above, I don't feel like explaining it. It's filled with several examples.
The third point he tried to make was when you decide to turn yourself over to God and just accept him, you just know He's there. As soon as I call this a mental disorder I will lose the rest of you that haven't stopped reading already. A person who has Schizophrenia also truly believes there are really voices, or really other people. A person doing drugs believe in the hallucinations that they see. We have a word for that, delusional. Of course once you allow the delusion that there is a God to get in your head, you believe it. That's how the brain works.
The debate finishes off at least for side God by trying to scare people into believing by using hell. Scary stuff that hell. I was disappointed by both sides a little bit. The RRS made some mistakes, but not nearly as much as Ray. I don't really know where Kirk went, just showed some silly pictures to show he didn't understand evolution.
After about a week long wait for the program to air, the editing on the air was done terribly. They cut during points, and before any question could be answered. If you go to ABCnews.com and watch the online videos you see more, but not all of it.
Getting to the debate though, Ray Comfort started, and spoke for a while. He held up a can of Coke, and said that the can of Coke was proof there was someone who created it. Then a painting, and said since there is a painting, there is proof that someone painted it. He mentioned if you see a building, there is proof that someone built it. This argument seems unshakable. There is one big problem though. Here is what you are saying.
"If something exists, there must be a creator. Since the world and the universe exists, there must be a creator"
Here is the giant whole in your logic, the painter created the painting. What created the painter? God created the painter. What created God? Super God created God.
If painting, then painter.
If painter, then God.
If God, then some kind of more complex super God.
I already know the rebuttal for that thinking. God is outside of time. God is infinite. Time is just something made up by the human mind, and time happened all at once, but God is outside of it. Time is no different than the other three dimensions of the universe. Yes is is just of the mind, not only in humans but all animals have some sense of time. There is nothing wrong with saying that time began at the big bang. Creationist constantly ask what happened before that. Trying to ascertain what happened "before" time began is like trying to find out what is north of the North Pole.
The argument of time though is just a distraction from the original question, whether within or outside of time, God exist. and what did we learn from your own logic. If God exist then what created him, and then what created that?
The other second point Ray made was the ten commandments and human morality. He basically just preached gospel and said since it was gospel it was just given to be true. There went his without the Bible try. He also said since human were the only animals with morals, it shows that God favors us, and created us in His image. He failed to do his research on this also. Studies have been done on other animals to show that other animals have morals too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html?ex=1332043200&en=84f902d5855a9173&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I would highly suggest the article above, I don't feel like explaining it. It's filled with several examples.
The third point he tried to make was when you decide to turn yourself over to God and just accept him, you just know He's there. As soon as I call this a mental disorder I will lose the rest of you that haven't stopped reading already. A person who has Schizophrenia also truly believes there are really voices, or really other people. A person doing drugs believe in the hallucinations that they see. We have a word for that, delusional. Of course once you allow the delusion that there is a God to get in your head, you believe it. That's how the brain works.
The debate finishes off at least for side God by trying to scare people into believing by using hell. Scary stuff that hell. I was disappointed by both sides a little bit. The RRS made some mistakes, but not nearly as much as Ray. I don't really know where Kirk went, just showed some silly pictures to show he didn't understand evolution.
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