Hubble - 11.3 day exposure... - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

01/05/2006 12:11:37 PM · #26

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by cpurser:
physics don't agree with Big Bang...

Physics doesn't seem to have a problem with black holes (also a singularity). Our understanding of physics may not be complete (or completely accurate), but that doesn't mean the origin of the universe doesn't follow physical laws. If anything, common sense says it SHOULD.

Originally posted by cpurser:
that's why there is dark matter, dark energy, inflation, etc, to try to force it to work. Even though, no matter how hard they try, can't see or detect dark matter or energy.

Inflation is an observation- we CAN see that galaxies are moving away from a central point. If we could see dark matter, it wouldn't be dark!

Inflation theory tries to explain why the background radiation is so smooth and uniform - Big Bang says it can't be. Dark Matter tries to explain the graviational weirdness of galaxies.

Not only can't they 'see' the dark matter, they can't detect it either.

-Chad

JayWalk

Canon EOS-6D

01/05/2006 12:14:00 PM · #27

Nice picture, but in my opinion: DNMC!

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/05/2006 12:17:32 PM · #28

Points for Scalvert: Big bang and inflation theory together are some of the best theories we have in regard to being able to make predictions which have born out over time.

Points for cpurser: Inflation and dark matter may very well be the ether or flogiston (too lazy to look up if that's the right term) of our time. You gotta admit the possibility Shannon. They certainly seem to have similar characteristics (unmeasurable, unseeable, etc.)

01/05/2006 12:19:04 PM · #29

Originally posted by cpurser:

Inflation theory tries to explain why the background radiation is so smooth and uniform - Big Bang says it can't be.

Actually, the opposite is true. The discovery of uniform background radiation was heralded as the first real proof of the Big Bang.

01/05/2006 12:21:41 PM · #30

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

They certainly seem to have similar characteristics (unmeasurable, unseeable, etc.)

Take a lump of coal into a cave. Just because it's dark, does it not exist?

robs

Canon EOS R6 Mk II

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

01/05/2006 12:24:04 PM · #31

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

I think what cpurser may be alluding to is that it's beyond our comprehension or anything even remotely in our experience to think that that amount of mass could be squeezed into a point smaller than we could see. Come on, valid or not, that'd be kooky talk in our everyday lives...

Sure but commonsense is not that common, it's misleading due to inbuild biases and is subjective in the end. There are a lot of things that should not work but do - hummingbirds flying e.t.c. The more science decovers, the stranger things become - as they say fact is stranger than fiction. The fact they get stranger means we don't really understand.

I doubt anybody would say the big bang is the final word on what happened (string theory, multiverses e.t.c. are all pretty strange too) but I can accept it as one of the best current theories.

In uni, I saw some of the maths underpinning gravity and I would LIE if I said I understand it - when falling though, I believe it exists for whatever reason as the ground gets bigger quickly :-)

BobsterLobster

Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro

01/05/2006 12:29:40 PM · #32

Originally posted by cpurser:

Originally posted by BobsterLobster:
People who study astrophysics believe it... they're more likely to know what they're talking about than someone who has an unfounded opinion.

So some people tell you that all the mass in the universe was once contained in the space of a dot, and you accept it just because people more educated than you tell you its true. What do YOU think?

And who says my opinion is unfounded?

I'm not trying to start an argument - just spark some free-thinking.

-Chad

More educated than me? I'm very well educated. Just not in astrophysics.

cpurser

Canon EOS-5D

Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 Zuiko Digital Zoom

01/05/2006 12:31:46 PM · #33

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by cpurser:
Inflation theory tries to explain why the background radiation is so smooth and uniform - Big Bang says it can't be.

Actually, the opposite is true. The discovery of uniform background radiation was heralded as the first real proof of the Big Bang.

From Wikipedia:

Inflation resolves several problems in the Big Bang cosmology that were pointed out in the 1970s. Among these are the observed flatness of the universe (the flatness problem), its extraordinary homogeneity on large (non-causally-connected) scales (the horizon problem), and its lack of any observed topological defects (the monopole problem), predicted by many Grand Unified Theories.

-Chad

MQuinn

Olympus OM-D E-M1

01/05/2006 12:34:01 PM · #34

I just wonder how many Billion years back we are looking at in that photo.

srdanz

Canon EOS-5D Mark IV

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

01/05/2006 12:55:08 PM · #35

Originally posted by MQuinn:

I just wonder how many Billion years back we are looking at in that photo.

An interesting observation!
Those galaxies, if they still exist, are sure not there any more. And probably they no longer exist in that form.

One of the wonders of this universe, to be able see today what existed long time ago in the past.

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/05/2006 12:58:01 PM · #36

Originally posted by robs:

Sure but commonsense is not that common, it's misleading due to inbuild biases and is subjective in the end. There are a lot of things that should not work but do - hummingbirds flying e.t.c.

I think you mean bumblebees, which, a popular urban legend says, scientists had "proven" should not be able to fly.

I want to say it was Bohr who famously quipped, "anybody who thinks they understand quantum physics doesn't."

robs

Canon EOS R6 Mk II

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

01/05/2006 01:01:27 PM · #37

Originally posted by srdanz:

....One of the wonders of this universe, to be able see today what existed long time ago in the past.

and one of the curses is to NOT be able to see what is there today. What we see is a mixture of various states of what has been and (in group shots like this) has never existed at a single point in time....

Sorry a little metaphysical for this early in the day...

_eug

Nikon D50

01/05/2006 01:03:42 PM · #38

Originally posted by Telehubbie:

Wow, very impressive! A lot of noise on that full-size image though. They must be using a Nikon in that 'scope. :-)

That's not noise. Those are stars. Oh you're refering to the NASA image...

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

01/05/2006 01:11:44 PM · #39

Originally posted by scalvert:

From Wikipedia:

Two of the greatest successes of the big bang are its prediction of the exactly thermal spectrum and detailed prediction of the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background.

David.C

01/05/2006 01:12:21 PM · #40

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
They certainly seem to have similar characteristics (unmeasurable, unseeable, etc.)

Take a lump of coal into a cave. Just because it's dark, does it not exist?

Sure it still exists -- but just because you can't see the coal doesn't mean it can't still be measured. Put some calipers to it, hit yourself in the head with it -- it can be experienced. But when they start talking about things that can not be measured at all, can not be experienced -- they are no longer talking about science, but philosophy.

The big bang is one of those things, it can not be measured -- everything we know about physics breaks down long before it gets compressed anywhere near a point. It is philosophy, created to explain an inconsistancy. The extremes of what is being researched are always full of theories, but these about to little more than idle thinking. But when those theories (still unproven) are taken as fact, it stops being science and becomes religion.

The ultimate test of science has always been, and will always be, the lab.

David

DrAchoo

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5

01/05/2006 01:19:07 PM · #41

I'm betting that none of us have a degree in physics. 98% of the knowledge on this thread is coming from Hawking, Lederman, Greene, or Wikipedia... :)

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

01/05/2006 01:21:16 PM · #42

Originally posted by David.C:

Originally posted by scalvert:
Take a lump of coal into a cave. Just because it's dark, does it not exist?

Sure it still exists -- but just because you can't see the coal doesn't mean it can't still be measured.

Put the lump of coal in deep space away from any stars. Now how are you going to measure it? The stars are just tiny candles illuminating a fraction of this room we call the universe. We know there are other things in the room, but we can only infer their presence from gravitational effects on the things we CAN see. That is dark matter, and it's far from philosophical.

doctornick

Apple iPhone 13 Pro

01/05/2006 01:30:11 PM · #43

Originally posted by Telehubbie:

Wow, very impressive! A lot of noise on that full-size image though. They must be using a Nikon in that 'scope. :-)

I ran the full size tiff through Noise Ninja...no more noise...Although I might have lost a few dozen galaxies...but who's counting!

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

01/05/2006 01:33:13 PM · #44

Originally posted by doctornick:

I ran the full size tiff through Noise Ninja...no more noise...Although I might have lost a few dozen galaxies...but who's counting!

I think at least one of those specks is a Romulan ship. ;-)

David.C

01/05/2006 01:57:17 PM · #45

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by David.C:

Originally posted by scalvert:
Take a lump of coal into a cave. Just because it's dark, does it not exist?

Sure it still exists -- but just because you can't see the coal doesn't mean it can't still be measured.

Put the lump of coal in deep space away from any stars. Now how are you going to measure it? The stars are just tiny candles illuminating a fraction of this room we call the universe. We know there are other things in the room, but we can only infer their presence from gravitational effects on the things we CAN see. That is dark matter, and it's far from philosophical.

Ah, but that is the point I was making -- we don't know that there is anything else there. Their presence is not the only thing that was inferred -- their very existence was as well. Inferred because thier existence was required by a theory created from data gathered from one set of observations (and any observations made from this single point in space are a part of that one set of observations). The scale of things we are discussing is much too large to consider any theories about it as anything other than idle speculation until such a time as we are able to take observations from a significantly different perspective -- were significant is within the order of magnitude of the data being discussed (the universe) and not our day to day existence.

I'm not argueing the existence of not of the big bang, black mass or anything else -- I'm simply stating that the data the theories are based on is from a far too limited set of observations to infer anything meaningful from them.

Let me put it another way. If you stood on a street corner and look down the street -- but instead of seeing thing as they are now, you saw further and further into the past the further away you looked. For the sake of arguement, say that every 10 feet you look away from where you are you see what happened a year ago. What could you say about how the street exists today? ... about how it existed a year ago? ... or at any other specific point in time? Not much. All you would be seeing are snapshot, moments in time taken out of context -- and worse yet, all placed within a new context together.

We can know a great deal about what is near us -- but the further out we go, the less about us it becomes. The further out we look the more inaccuracies are introduced, and introduced faster and faster the further we look.

David

Message edited by author 2006-01-05 13:58:07.

Peleng 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye MC In M42 Mount

01/05/2006 02:15:44 PM · #46

Originally posted by David.C:

...we don't know that there is anything else there. Their presence is not the only thing that was inferred -- their very existence was as well. Inferred because thier existence was required by a theory

Uh... no. The existence of dark matter is inferred from observations of its gravitational effect on visible matter. We know there is a big, dark planet near a star because of a wobble in the host star's orbit, or we know there is a black hole at a certain location because the speed of orbiting matter is too fast to hold together without a high-mass object present in a very small space at the center. This is Newtownian physics, not some new theory.

Matthew

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

01/05/2006 02:23:50 PM · #47

These telescopes should be capable of looking back much further than ever before

//www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,69578,00.html

The detailed predictions of background radiation variation produced in big bang theory were very good evidence of the scientific method working: they were predicted, and when instrumentation became sufficiently precise, measured and the measurements reflected the theory. An awful lot can be deduced from these still measurable "shockwaves" reverberating around the universe from that initial period. It is strong evidence for the theory being accurate.

Message edited by author 2006-01-05 14:24:02.

Skyarcher

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM

01/05/2006 02:32:11 PM · #48

Getting back to the original post, after wading through all the other stuff... I've always liked that image, that's why there is a print on my wall. ;)

If you would like to see just a small, itty bitty, tiny portion of why we are just a blip in the cosmic... then here you go. :)

Secret Worlds - The Universe Within - Powers of 10

That is URL that we give all new members of our club. Lest they think we 'Earth' is a big part of the universe. :D