The Left Coaster: Comment on Open Thread

Comments: Open Thread - Dark Energy Edition

Typo alert: I think you mean 9 _billion_ years.

Posted by Mark Barton at November 18, 2006 01:33 AM

Dear President Bush: Whoever is behind the Virusbursters Smitfraud type malware that takes up residence on your taskbar looking like a Microsystems "Critical System Errors!" balloon, but when clicked on brings up their ad for spyware removal must be declared enemy combatants and hauled off to Gitmo. They are no better than a terrorist posing as an Iraqi policeman.

This act of public service when added to your "no call list", should cancel out some of your less than brilliant "legacy" decisions.

PS. Anyone know how to get rid of this slimeball install without submitting to corporate extortion or contacting Einstein from the beyond?

Posted by TIKI AL at November 18, 2006 03:22 AM

a man who almost decapitates two people out of rage..is guilty ..but set free because of racism in this county..and then is allowed to write a book about what if he did do it... and make millions ...something is very very wrong with the picture..kinda gives me the creeps..where is the justce for fred goldman and nicoles family..his kids..seems like there should be some stopgaps in our society for animals beyond winning a civil suit that is a joke..justice is not just a word

Posted by dennis at November 18, 2006 04:35 AM

Has the Bush administration and its neoconservative lunatics started looking at dark energyfor military application?

After all, antimatter -- the most powerful substance in the universe and what's needed for propulsion if humanity is serious about interplanetary travel, is funding ways to manufacture antimatter for bombs.

Bush and his ilk can't leave soon enough if you ask me. All they think about is ways to destroy life, not make the human condition better.

Posted by Christopher at November 18, 2006 04:47 AM

For an enlightened discussion of black holes read the theories of plasma cosmologists and electric universe astronomers at www.thunderbolts.info.

Posted by Don Quixote at November 18, 2006 05:20 AM

Gee Mary, when I first read the title, Open Thread-Dark Energy...I thought you were going to be writing about a new egregious revelation having to do with the Cheney Administration and His secret Energy task force.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised that the post and links had to do with the Hubble Telescope and scientific research.

Posted by emal at November 18, 2006 05:48 AM

Too bad that Bush intends to use the Hubble to spy on Americans. Maybe he can us it to find the WMDs!

Posted by Cookie Monster at November 18, 2006 05:58 AM

Is Jimmy Baker negotiating with the Terr-err, I mean Syrians? Or is he just catching up with some of his Baker Botts Law Firm clients?

Posted by emal at November 18, 2006 06:29 AM

emal,

That picture of Cheney and Baker together is truly frightening. They look like ghouls reanimated via necromancy.

Posted by Christopher at November 18, 2006 06:56 AM

Mary, thank you for this story; how'd you know I already had that photo on my desktop? I am pleased they're going to try to repair Hubble, it would be such a waste to abandon it.

Posted by iamcoyote at November 18, 2006 07:11 AM

we've slumped into the gutter so low that now we are negotiating with the syrians..i'll say this the administation has finally foud a common denominator..a mirror of themselves..with whom to conspire....it says a lot to where we have come to and the mess we've created...we need to stop trying to recreate the middle east to meet our shameful corporate objectives..keep paying them for their oil..let them know israel will be defended..in no uncertain terms..find some solution there..and leave fundamentalist islam alone...i believe all they want is to be left alone...this all started because of our intrusion onto what they considered holy land...for us it's about oil..for them it's about their god..we cannot and will not ever triumph there....we believe in a separation of church and state (at least the sanest amongst us do ) they don't..it will never change..

Posted by dennis at November 18, 2006 07:12 AM

The advances in cosmology because of Hubble are beyond belief.

And the worthless turd Bush thought is was just fine not to try and repair it---instead, on to Mars! He is the Col. Klink of presidents, he can't make a single correct judgement, not even by chance.

Posted by euzoius at November 18, 2006 07:19 AM

Ooo, my fave subject! i wonder if u ever go to .3quarksdaily or cosmicvariance.com.

They have been furthering my neural cogitation for years and this has been one of our most dynamic topics of late...

it does get thick occassionally but if you are interested in the more edgimathic aspects it's great fun! don't lets start on the newest hadron flavour changes data yet.

Math is just a Branch of physics anyway...

Posted by missVolare at November 18, 2006 07:23 AM

That picture of Cheney and Baker together is truly frightening.

I thought it was going to be a new "Star Wars" chapter, with a two-headed Darth figure on our hands!! How scary!

I'll never forget that line from the movie, "Enemy of the State" (paraphrase): "For every Hubble Space Telescope the U.S. Goverment has over 100 of them facing earth looking down on us!"

Posted by Seven of Six at November 18, 2006 07:44 AM

i agree that picture is quite spooky..the man who orchestrated a stolen election..and the man who orchestated an illegal war..all for oil...chilling men of greed and arrogance truly without empathy for anything or anybody..rare birds indeed..

Posted by dennis at November 18, 2006 08:38 AM

Thanks for a change of subject. I happen to love astrophysics.

OJ? Man, let it go...Can anyone tell me how many murders were committed in America the day Nicole and Ron were killed? I didn't think so. This obsession with celebrity is getting a little crazy.

BTW..Tom is getting married in Spain today, but, Bin Ladden wasn't invited. Hmmm?
If Bin Ladden blew up Tom's wedding...would you care? Would you write to your congressman and demand that Bin Ladden be found and killed?
Did he leave a glove...footprints?

Let's worry about our soldiers, the living, in Iraq and how to get them home safe.

Posted by Domino49 at November 18, 2006 09:57 AM

Though a layperson, I had the pleasure last week of attending a colloquium at MIT by one of the world's leading Dark Energy theorists, Prof. C. Wetterich of Heidelberg. His lecture was lucid enough that I believe I can clarify a bit what these observations have and have not achieved.

The existence of dark energy, a homogeneous field not subject (as regular matter and dark matter are) to gravity, has not been in doubt for some time. The issue has been, whether the field is dynamic, with its value changing over time (what's called "quintessence"), or whether it is static, in which case no adjustment has to be made to Einstein's theory, since his "cosmological constant" would then really be a constant.

These latest observations show that the dark energy field has indeed been at least roughly constant back to nine billion years ago. The stock of Einstein's original formulation is therefore strongly raised, and the stock of quintessence depressed. That's a major result. But of course it doesn't quite prove that the "constant" didn't change over the 3 billion years before that. As usual in cosmology, the story ends with a "stay tuned."

Posted by nicteis at November 18, 2006 07:04 PM

nicteis, thank you for providing your insight and knowledge you got from Prof. Wetterich. Your explanation was better than any of the articles I read about this study and certainly explains what astrophysicists are trying to discern with their studies. How wonderful.

Posted by Mary at November 18, 2006 11:54 PM