When you put things in perspective...we know absolutly nothing, nada.
But of course humans dont really want to believe that....know it alls that we are.
By the way, I love that show!
Posted by Parallax at January 20, 2008 11:09 AMI don't have any opinions about the dKos MilSpec stencil font, but the Big Bang is a crock -- little more than an Astro Physics version of Creationism.
My comments, from a Tristero post at Digbys --
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/cause-and-effect-perhaps-by-tristero.html
Many Americans remain ignorant about much of science, the board said. Many are unable to answer correctly when asked whether Earth moves around the Sun (it does).
They are not noticeably more ignorant than people in other developed countries except on two subjects, evolution and the Big Bang. Although these ideas are organizing principles underlying modern biology and physics, many Americans do not accept them.
This actually gives me hope -- the Theory of Evolution is as proven as a scientific theory can be; the only major unanswered theoretical questions are whether evolution is steady and constant, or generally slow with periods of rapid change. (I believe the latter is more accurate.)
On the other hand, The Big Bang Theory is every bit a load of pseudo scientific crap as Adam-and-Eve-rode-Dinosaurs Creationist BS. Well, maybe not quite that bad -- but the BBT scientific community is every bit as much invested in their own private creationist theory, and every bit as intolerant of dissent as the Church was of Galileo.
Example -- the CfA2 Great Wall of Galaxies was discovered in 1989; the Sloan Great Wall was discovered in 2003, and is nearly three times longer than the Great Wall of galaxies. The structure of the the Great Wall is incompatible with the BBT -- it has been estimated that it would take from 100 billion to 150 billion years for this structure to form. In a 16 billion year young BBT universe, that does not compute.
The Cult of the Big Bang
http://home.pacbell.net/skeptica/thecult.html
Paul Marmet links
http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/QUASARS/Quasars.html
http://www.newtonphysics.on.ca/
The BBT was accepted and all other theories rejected after the discovery of the 3K microwave background radiation, even though the BBT prediction was incorrect (5K) and there are other explanations for the 3K MBR. With all of this, the BBT Inflation Theory is totally dependent on the Doppler Effect interpretation of the Hubble Red Shift. Neither Einstein nor Hubble ever endorsed that, except as theory -- that hasn't stopped the High Priests of the BBT to say that Hubble "proved" the theory in the 1920s.
At any rate, this is a big sore point for me -- that most Americans reject the BBT gives me hope, just as I am encouraged that most Americans reject the opinions of the MSM asshats, and support the Democrats despite the collective wisdom of the Village Elders.
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Posted by -ck- at January 20, 2008 11:10 AMAlthough I am competing with ck's marginal view of science, not to mention that of paradox. . .
-- and even though, lke ck, I am clueless what the heck the dailykos font has to do with anything --
let me nonetheless lay out for our readers what the state of present-day scientific study of the universe has for a theory.
All the galaxies we can see, with only a couple (out of billions) of exceptions, are moving away from us. The universe is expanding.
The rotation speed of those galaxies we can measure, and in this case there appears to be no exceptions at all, is much faster than the visible stars can account for. So a large fraction of the galxies is a galactic corona, or cloud, composed of so-called 'dark matter' which does not interact except gravitationally with other kinds of matter. If it were just the rotary speeds of galaxies which led to this hypthesis it would be pretty far-out; but globular clusters in our own Milky Way Galaxy show the same sort of behavior. Again, no exceptions.
Finally, when we look carefully for a measure of deceleration of the expansion of the universe, by finding very distant supernovae and seeing how fast they're going away from us, we come to the surprising conclusion that the universal expansion is not decelerating at all. The expansion is accelerating instead.
So, to present in numbers the present view:
Something like 3 to 4 percent of the matter-energy of the universe is visible matter. Stars, planets, people.
Ten times as much -- say, 30 percent -- of the matter-energy of the universe is invisible dark matter. Maybe we will soon know more about it than we do now, but . . . as it is, we don't know what it is.
Then -- and this is the part that paradox appears to have been unaware of -- sixty to seventy percent of the matter-energy of the universe is the so-called dark energy pushing the universe apart faster and faster. The nature of this phenomenon is unknown because we just discovered it : the guy who was at the forefront, Saul Perlmutter, ought to win the Nobel Prize for it soon.
And if my use of matter-energy as a category confuses you, I apologize. The adoption of Einstein's Theory of Relativity made it standard to equate matter and energy following the formula E = mc (squared).
Posted by mmeo at January 20, 2008 11:58 AMmmeo wrote --
All the galaxies we can see, with only a couple (out of billions) of exceptions, are moving away from us. The universe is expanding.
I beg to differ -- we do not see an expanding universe; we see a progressively greater red shift of cosmic light from galaxies that have a progressively smaller magnitude. This is the Hubble Red Shift, which leads to the Hubble Constant equation, which correlates magnitude and red shift with time/age/distance.
The expanding universe theory is dependent on the Doppler Effect interpretation of the Hubble Red Shift. If the Hubble Red Shift is caused by any phenomena other than doppler effect, the BBT collapses. I've read that something like 50% of astronomers no longer support the BBT, because astronomical observations are not compatible with it.
I personally favor the theory of a Universe of infinite size and infinite age. Until the discovery of the 3K MBR, there was support for both theories -- steady-state / tired-light universe of infinite age, and the BBT finite universe 16 billion years old.
I agree with the theory that the 3K MBR is not the remnant of the BB, but is the accumulated energy and matter in empty space, and suspect that it is closely associated with the true cause of the Hubble Red Shift. 3K is 3 degrees Kelvin, which is the tempurature of empty space -- 3 degrees (2.8 degrees actually) above absolute zero.
The most prominent dissenters from the BBT work in the field of plasma physics, and I believe the non inflationary cause of the Hubble Red Shift is negatively charged plasma field in deep space, that slowly drains photons of energy -- Planck's Constant clearly demonstrates that any photon that loses energy for any reason, will display red shift.
In a universe of infinite size and infinite age, there is no need for 90% of the gravitational mass to be invisible dark energy and dark matter. While the theoretical proofs of the BBT become more and more elaborate, they will always be theories -- unlike the Theory of Evolution, there is no way the BBT theories can ever be proven -- except with additional theories.
At any rate, I suggest people keep an open mind on the subject, and read the dissenting theories and astronomical evidence before dismissing them.
Posted by -ck- at January 20, 2008 01:38 PMI noticed the KOS emblem militarism in a recently posted ad for t-shirts on the site. I made a mental note not to buy any more t-shirts for awhile.
I believe you are right about the embedded militarism of American society. I think of it as comparable to the 'white man's burden' ideology prevalent at the height of the British Empire. For me, at the heart of it lies narcissism.
I suggest you emigrate to a saner milieu. This is not going away anytime soon. Elections are just momentary disturbances in this kind of force. It takes a sound drubbing to wring it out of a social system. Decades of anti-triumphalism seem to be required before humility re-emerges. It must have taken a hundred years to rid the UK of the mentality behind the 'imperial grandeur' influences and as we have seen in the behavior of the evil Tony Blair, some aspects of deadly noblesse oblige survive to this day. Conceit is hard to rectify.
Posted by at January 20, 2008 06:29 PMWell, Markos has always been clear on his military veteran status and the pride he takes in it. That he uses militaristic "stencil" font doesn't disturb this old anti-militarist. The military process is a thoroughly transforming regimen inflicted on young people when they are very impressionable.
I know many veterans and they remain highly concerned with military matters and mindsets for their entire lives. What we should be worrying about is the concept that military service is somehow noble and praiseworthy. It MAY be a necessary evil in a dark world, but it has always struck me a similar to cult inculcation and should never be worshiped as admirable and prerequisite for high public office. Let Kos be Kos. He can pick whatever fonts he wants for his website.
Posted by DeminNewJ at January 20, 2008 08:09 PMWoo-Hoo! Just one more year! Good riddance to George W Bush
The new occupant of the Oval Office can but hope today's dislike for America is directed at a leader, not at a country. That may well be, but one thing is for sure. Never again will the US occupy that extraordinary position of supremacy – military, moral and economic – that it held in the interlude between the demise of Communism and the attacks of September 2001.To the 44th President falls the task of explaining that truth to the country, as well as dealing with the concrete day-to-day problems left by George Bush. Indeed, one wonders, why would anyone want the job?
I know many veterans and they remain highly concerned with military matters and mindsets for their entire lives.
DeminNewJ, Having served, and currently a disabled Veteran... I would much rather have my health back and be able to forget about serving.