Thunderbolts of the Gods - a different look at the universe

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  • Ericpwp

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    I had always been interested in cosmology and science in general. I would go to the planetarium in Chicago as a kid for weekend classes. A few years ago I watched an internet stream of the Berkeley Astronomy 101 lectures taught by famed supernova hunter Alex Filippenko. It was pretty encompassing of the modern theories and views. The History Channel then ran “The Universe”, staring all of the big names in astrophysics (including INGO’s favorite Neil deGrasse Tyson), trying to bring the theories into your living room.

    My problem was when they would start talking about dark matter and the like. It sounded like there was a hole in some equation, and they just needed something to fill it. My gut always told me they were full of something. Static electricity always seemed more plausible without having to reference some kind of mysterious antimatter. Why can’t the quantum universe and the relative universe get along? Einstein even went to his deathbed trying to plug holes in his theories. That said I am not a scientist or anything like that. I’m just an informational hobbyist with a natural curiosity of the workings of the universe.

    My Dad told me one day to watch this video out of the blue. It spoke to me. They basically call out the modern theories as balderdash, likening the Filippenkos and Tysons to brainwashed funding mouthpieces. They are trying to turn science on its head. Will it gain the speed to catch on, or will this view be squashed by the big money?

    It's a hour long video that just scratches the surface, but IMO, definitely worth the watch. You EE guys should like it.

    [video=youtube;5AUA7XS0TvA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AUA7XS0TvA[/video]
     

    indykid

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    Very interesting, thanks for posting!

    I spent a lot of time myself at the Hayden Planetarium in NYC growing up. I was thrilled by and for my father when he told me the part he would play in the design and construction of what became known as the Hubble Space Telescope. And due to what happened with the primary mirror of Hubble, and my father's relationship with NASA, he was charged with making sure the mirrors on the Chandra X-ray Telescope were as perfect as man could make them before NASA would accept them. Truth being, it was NASA that refused to let my father test the Hubble mirror, a test which would have found it's flaw before launch.

    As long as we keep an open mind, we can learn more and more about this amazing universe. Looking back, it is sad how closed mind people have been, and looking at some astronomers today, how closed minded they still are.

    Very interesting video, and one very quick hour!
     

    Ericpwp

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    That's really cool! Those mirrors are super precision modern works of awesomeness. Thanks for sharing! Do me a favor and tell your Dad how cool he is for me.


    My Dad was more interested in the parallels in the mythology then the astrophysics, but he knew that would be the part I liked. I don't think he had any idea that it was just the counter point to the mainstream school of thought that I was looking for. I was really surprised with how much it rocked the foundation.

    Thanks for watching it.
     

    T.Lex

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    Very interested, in a hobbyist kind of way, in the same things. Had a subscription to Discover Magazine in junior high and high school, all while getting Bs in Science. :)

    Read Fingerprints of the Gods and Chariots of the Gods, and appreciate how those kinds of books bring together different disciplines.

    Haven't watched the vids, but looking forward to it.

    ETA:
    Looks like this is their site.
    http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/
     

    Ericpwp

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    I heard an interview on Coast to Coast one night with the author of Chariots of the Gods. It sounded really interesting. Thanks for reminding me of it!

    That is their site, I meant to link it, thanks.

    Share your thought on the vids when you get a chance.
     

    Ericpwp

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    Here is an interesting one I watched last night. It talks about the creation of the geological formations on mars. It is part 2 of 3 in a series. Part one was heavy into decoding mythology. It was kind of a hard pill to swallow (for me at least).
    [video=youtube;tRV1e5_tB6Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRV1e5_tB6Y[/video]
     

    david890

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    My problem was when they would start talking about dark matter and the like. It sounded like there was a hole in some equation, and they just needed something to fill it. My gut always told me they were full of something. Static electricity always seemed more plausible without having to reference some kind of mysterious antimatter. Why can’t the quantum universe and the relative universe get along?

    That is one of the fundamental questions of physics right now! There IS a hole in the equations; more correctly, quantum mechanics and relativity cannot be reconciled at this time.

    "Dark matter" isn't necessarily a "mysterious antimatter". There's no doubt that it's mysterious, but it's "dark" only in the sense that we can only (at this time) detect the effects of the "stuff" (whatever it may be), not the "stuff" itself. We see the universe expanding, when most scientists expected to see the galaxies slowing down (or stopped). Furthermore, all of the observable matter in the universe lacks the mass to hold everything together, so there has to be additional mass that we can't see to help explain what we do see.

    It may take another Einstein before we get a satisfactory explanation. Someone who could not only envision the warping of space and time by a massive object, but then provide the mathematics that proves it! We may simply lack the mathematical tools needed to fill in those holes!

    Regardless, it's an interesting time to be in physics and astronomy!!
     

    Ericpwp

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    Did you watch the first video? They are trying to fill the hole, and say that gravity is not playing the role the Einsteinians believe it is.
     

    Leadeye

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    We only infer the existence of dark matter by the effects that we observe. We base that on our observations that gravity, caused by mass warps space time. There is also the possibility that space time can be warped all on it's own without the affects of mass.:)
     

    T.Lex

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    Dark Matter May Be More Complex Than Physicists Thought | WIRED

    While dark matter has a gravitational tug, it doesn’t interact with normal matter—the stuff that makes up you and me—in a very intense way. It doesn’t shine. It’s invisible. It’s transparent. It doesn’t glow when it gets hot.
    ...
    I actually started working on this several years later when I began seeing papers from the particle physics community exploring these ideas. My initial reaction was, that couldn’t be true, because I had this prejudice that things work so well with collisionless dark matter.

    Interesting stuff.
     

    Ericpwp

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    If the model does not fit, you must acquit!

    You don't want to change the model too much, you might lose the funding.

    Thanks for posting.

    Electromagnetic force ignored again.
     

    T.Lex

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    Math is hard. :)

    Hubble clocks faster cosmic expansion - BBC News

    Some 2,400 cepheids in 19 nearby galaxies were used in the survey, and these helped calibrate roughly 300 Type 1a supernovae, whose particular properties enabled the team to probe a slightly deeper volume of space.
    The work gives a number for the Hubble Constant of 73.24 kilometres per second per megaparsec (a megaparsec is 3.26 million light-years). Or put another way - the expansion increases by 73.24km/second for every 3.26 million light-years we look further out into space.
    ...

    But there is another way to determine the constant, and that is to look at the expansion shortly after the Big Bang and to use what we know about the contents and the physics at work in the Universe to predict a modern value of the expansion.
    This has been done using data acquired by the Planck space telescope, which earlier this decade made the most detailed ever observations of the oldest light in the Universe.
    Its Hubble Constant value was 66.53km/s per megaparsec.
    The disagreement with Dr Riess's number is more than just a minor inconvenience. When using the Hubble Constant to calculate the time from the Big Bang, the offset equates to a difference of a few hundred million years in the near-14-billion-year age of the Universe.
    The STScI scientist says the resolution is likely to be found in a better understanding of the "dark" components of the cosmos.
    These include the unseen matter in galaxies (dark matter), and the vacuum energy (dark energy) postulated to be driving an acceleration in the expansion.
    The gap could also be plugged by the existence of another, but hitherto undetected, particle.

    The more we measure, the less we know. :)
     

    Ericpwp

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    The more we measure, the less we know. :)

    Especially when you think you know the answer before you do the problem.

    "To be honest, with this latest measurement we've really gone beyond what we might call 'tension'; we're missing something in our understanding of the cosmos," the Nobel Laureate told BBC News.
    Now we're getting somewhere.
     

    BugI02

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    Math is hard. :)

    Hubble clocks faster cosmic expansion - BBC News

    The more we measure, the less we know. :)

    Peeps already working on it. Google Dark Energy Survey. There are several competing theories for what is causing the effects attributed to 'dark energy' and variabilities found and carefully characterized will help determine which direction will be most promising for further research.


    Don't forget that if dark energy truly is a force in opposition to gravity, and it can be generated and controlled as a localized anti-gravity, that's your flying car right there. No need to generate lift, just propulsion :)
     

    Ericpwp

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    :):

    I was just thinking of this thread. I watched Chariots of the Gods on Amazon the other day. The 60's/70's crazy music was just nuts. Having not read the book... The content was cool, and being able to see the examples was helpful.
     
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