Physics & Math Revised !

[maxg]

Islander,

"I have to ask about your y and z vectors for time. In my experience, time only moves forward, although I can visualize it going backwards. So far, though, I'm unable to visualize time going sideways or up and down. It seems like a novel concept."

That isn't exactly where I was going. Mathis argues that distance and time are really related items - he defines time by movement - change in distance.

As distance, or location, is expressed as a combination of x, y and z therefore time can similarly be expressed like this. Just as for distance a single - or even 2 of the 3 co-ordinates are not enough to always know where a given moving object is - you need all 3 - this applies similarly to time.

Imagine a vector (speed with direction - constalnt speed for ease). If I know the start point a combination of x,y and z will tell me both where the object travelling along that vector is and when - according to my time frame.

Paul,

You are way beyond me in all of this. Thanks for the clarification on C and C' - you are correct of course, but, this does raise a number of anomalies, not the least of which is the effect on the theory of relativity as spotted by Mathis.

The speed of light in a vacuum (contiguous space) is constant. The problem is that space itself doesn't actually seem to be that contiguous. We know, for example, that light appears to bend in heavy gravity. Distant stars appear in the wrong location because a high mass, or high gravity body is in the path. We say that therefore gravity has bent the light. I think this is wholy wrong. I am now going to try to explain why - god help us all!!!

My little theory is that light is actually totally unaffected by gravity - but the universe (or space/time) is affected. Therefore gravity introduces a kink in space-time that is illustrated by the apparent bending of light which is impossible.

Gravity affects mass. Light has no mass. Therefore gravity cannot affect light.

Conversely gravity affects space/time. If I am in a high gravity field and walking in what appears to me to be a straight line it might not appear to be straight to an observer outside of the graivtational pull. It would appear to be a curve. This is not exactly the same affect, however, as for light.

Here's the nub. Light speed = zero time. To the photon, therefore, arrival at any destination is instantaneous and therefore any distance is the same as any other. As Mathis argues that time and distance are merely different ways of expressing the same thing it follows that for the photon distance is also zero.

Light, in transit, is therefore outside of space/time. It is only when it is observed that it re-enters space/time. It is therefore immune to any attribute of space/time including gravity, electromagnetic, etc. etc.

If space/time is being bent by gravity and light is not then to an observer struck within space time it is the light that appears to bend.

Now we have a number of problems. We see distant objects as they were millions of years ago when light began its journey. The light photons have not aged - but we have. Further, the universe is radically different at time of observation from the one it left. If we are to believe the big bang theory or some variant of it then space time is expanding. Nearer stars may have come and gone in the time it took for the light to arrive - resulting in enormous potential for non-contiguous space between us, the observers and the distant event. With no fixed point with which to measure the expansions and other anomalies we have no idea even if expansion is a even effect. It could be that the universe expands, for example, in sudden jumps- just as plate tectonics result in a sudden earthquake. If the universe expands thus does the kilometer that we use to measure the speed of light.

I have no idea what that means - other than that C' might actually be applicable after all and might not equal C - if we had an absolute scale to measure against, simply because light in transit is outside of the universe until observed.

[Gilbert]

"Light speed = zero time."

I don't think so.

[stan krajewski]

This guy (Mathis) is smart enough so that none of us here could really argue with him. However, that doesn't make him right. I think I'll stick with Einstein over Mathis.

I googled away but and couldn't find any backup for what this guy is claiming whatsoever. If anyone does find that he has any credibility, please post a reference here.

Mathis does not disbeleive in relativity, he has only presented fundamental errors in the way it has been worked for the last hundred years. By the way, if you are looking for a possible credible evidence of a problem with present relativity, look at the Pioneer anomoly reported by the JPL and NASA. It is this very divergence of the spacecraft's position from those calculated using present relativity that got Mathis started into analyzing all this stuff in the first place.

It took me less than a minute to find the link below:

http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/pioneer_anomaly/update_20070328.html

Garbage in, garbage out?

As I stated before, the quest for the true nature of the universe may be unobtainable. In this journey we can choose faith (no negative connotation intended) or science. If we choose science then we must patiently wait for scientifically documented proof (references if you like). Otherwise what we have here is faith.

[pauln]

Well,... the standard view is that while light does not have mass, it is subject to gravitational acceleration because gravity acts on light's energy, which has an equivalent mass, from the old e equals m c squared formula. This is used to solve the problem of the light beam in an accelerating elevator - the beam will bend toward the floor. Since Einstein proposed that the accelerating elevator was equivalent to an elevator at rest over a gravitational source, an explanation was required to bend the light in this case too.

There is a problem with making gravity equivalent to acceleration in this elevator thought experiment. If you accelerate an elevator and drop two objects they will fall to the floor in two almost parallel lines, but not quite because the two objects will attract each other slightly as they fall and accelerate very slightly toward each other. On the other hand, if you do the same experiment in a gravity environment, the two objects will accelerate toward each other even faster. This is because in addition to their mutual attraction, they are both falling to a central point which is the source of the gravitational pull. Same reason that some of the tallest suspension bridge towers are a few inches further apart at the top than at the bottom. What this means is that if you can measure carefully enough you can determine whether you are being accelered in space or resting over a gravitational mass.

There are other problems with gravity. Two objects in two different altitudes of orbit will orbit at different speeds - the higher more slowly, the lower faster. If you tie these two objects together with a string the lower one will pull forward and the higher on will pull back. Yet, the moon's close and far sides don't do this. If they did the moon would experience a constant torque that would increase it's rate of spin - but the moon's spin relative to the Earth is zero, keeping it's same face to us all the time.

Einsteins view was that a body in orbit is not pressured by a gravitational force but is only traveling what it thinks is a straight line on a curved space. If mass curves space, this does not make it simpler. One then needs to insert additional steps and actors to have the presence of mass exerting a force to curve the space. Also, if mass is curving space, does the presence of the mass through time and the constant curvature of space mean that the space is trying to fight back the curvature - so the result is the steady balance we see? In other words, if a mass appears and curves space, what happens to the curve after the mass diappears? Why would the curved space snap back to flat, how does it know what flat is? Without additional forces and their origins to account for, why would not the curved space remain curved after the mass was gone? The oldest classical physic begins with the idea that things at rest or in motion stay so until acted upon by a force.

The fact that the theories are looking for curved space but find the universe flat, are looking for gravitons but have found none, expect not to find barred spiral galaxies but do and cannot explain their shape gravitationaly, cannot explain the velocities of globular cluster components gravitationaly, and many other anomolies with current theory; all this is indicating that gravity is not conceptually understood yet. The news of the late 90's is that the far extents of the universe are increasing their acceleration away from us - big surprize and major problem for gravitational theory.

It all goes back to Newton. The equation that describes gravitational attraction does not have a term for "t" (for time). It is indifferent to time and time has no part in the formulation of the attraction. Newton's gravity equation acts as if gravitation is instantaneous across any distance. When relativity arose, this became a problem... it has not been resolved. Even today when celestial calculations are performed, they are done using Newton's equation as if the speed of gravity was infinite, then relativity adjustments are calculated to reposition the expected locations.

Since the proposed mediator for the gravitational force (the graviton) has not been found, the measurement of gravity's speed is inconclusive. One clue is the comparison of the attactive force of gravity and the line of sight of light. Light from the Sun takes over nine minutes to reach the Earth, so the image in the sky overhead is where the Sun was nine minutes ago - the actual position of the Sun is ahead of where you see the Sun. If gravity traveled at light speed the pull of the Sun on the Earth would align with the delayed image of the Sun you see in the sky - but it DOES NOT! The gravitational pull lines up with the actual position of the Sun ahead of where we see it in the sky - as if the transit delay was zero. This is call "aberation" and is a big theoretical issue.

One wonders what would happen if a bunch of physicists began questioning audio thinking in one of their journals... Sound and Audio Revised !

[maxg]

Paul,

I got a response:

Max, there is no c'. By postulate and experience

both, c is always c. It is a constant. Therefore the

other variables must change to make c stay the same.

Your other comments are valid, concerning time and

distance. I have no problem with your reversal.

THese papers are not easy and cannot be made easy.

You have to read them several times I think. It helps

to read them all, since your answers may be in other

papers. Read all the ones concerning Relativity, at

least. Be sure to read the ones where I fight with

other people, because there some of these sticking

points are really aired out. gal.html is one of

these, I think, at the end, where I argue with the

editors of APL about the galilean transformation.

Also the link at the end of long.html, where I argue

with some famous mathematicians.

Miles"

Very nice of him - I have written and thanked him and also mentioned this discussion - so who knows - he may pop in himself and comment.

With regards to your last response I do know about the light / mass explanations but they always seemed something of a fudge to me. The concept of the graviton - which must have reasons for existing as a logical deduction has also appeared to me to be far more problematic than merely viewing gravity as a distortion in space/time. The logical extension of that is that a Black hole is actually a tear in space/time (so much for the universe being a closed system - it appears to leak like a sieve).

If gravity is merely a distortion of space time then one would expect its effects to be - to all intents and purposes - instantaneous and not related to time - in other words gravity behaves like mass - or not a force as such - more of a physical property.

It was this that lead me to surmise that light, in transit, is therefore outside of the universe (ageless, massless etc.). The universe deforms - the path of light does not - we are in the universe - therefore light appears to bend to us under certain circumstances.

All probably barking mad - but it is just a thought process - and that is the main fun with this stuff....

[JJkizak]

The Harvard light experiments by the lady scientist are online and they are astounding if true. She has stopped light in a "mass of matter", moved the mass, then started the light up again. This is kool.

JJK

[masterxela]

physics is the shit, currently in year 2 of engineering physics

[Islander]

There are other problems with gravity. Two objects in two different altitudes of orbit will orbit at different speeds - the higher more slowly, the lower faster. If you tie these two objects together with a string the lower one will pull forward and the higher on will pull back. Yet, the moon's close and far sides don't do this. If they did the moon would experience a constant torque that would increase it's rate of spin - but the moon's spin relative to the Earth is zero, keeping it's same face to us all the time.

Einsteins view was that a body in orbit is not pressured by a gravitational force but is only traveling what it thinks is a straight line on a curved space. If mass curves space, this does not make it simpler. One then needs to insert additional steps and actors to have the presence of mass exerting a force to curve the space. Also, if mass is curving space, does the presence of the mass through time and the constant curvature of space mean that the space is trying to fight back the curvature - so the result is the steady balance we see? In other words, if a mass appears and curves space, what happens to the curve after the mass diappears? Why would the curved space snap back to flat, how does it know what flat is? Without additional forces and their origins to account for, why would not the curved space remain curved after the mass was gone? The oldest classical physic begins with the idea that things at rest or in motion stay so until acted upon by a force.

The fact that the theories are looking for curved space but find the universe flat, are looking for gravitons but have found none, expect not to find barred spiral galaxies but do and cannot explain their shape gravitationaly, cannot explain the velocities of globular cluster components gravitationaly, and many other anomolies with current theory; all this is indicating that gravity is not conceptually understood yet. The news of the late 90's is that the far extents of the universe are increasing their acceleration away from us - big surprize and major problem for gravitational theory.

First, gravity doesn't behave like a string in all instances. Gravity does not speed up the Moon's rotation, it slows the rotation of both the Moon and the Earth. The Moon has become tidally locked to the Earth, like many large satellites in the Solar System have become locked to the larger object they orbit. Wikipedia explains it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

Second, you bring up a really good question about space's "memory". Could it be that space has an underlying structure, like a crystal lattice, for example? Does space have hysteresis, or does flat space represent a lower energy state than curved space? One would think that if space remained curved once it had become curved, then over the course of time since the universe was formed, the warping/curving due to the number of massive objects and the distances they have travelled would be evident in many locations no longer occupied by massive objects. Astronomical measurements would be difficult to calculate, since straight lines would be hard to find. However, there is so much more space than there is matter that it could be that permanently curved space is not that obvious to observers with our current level of technology.

At any rate, the question of whether curved space rebounds to its flat state after being curved strikes me as one of those fundamental questions, like Einstein's first ponderings about the speed of light, that could lead science in a new direction, since it questions a basic assumption.

Third, you're right that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is a mystery. "Dark energy" has been proposed as an anti-gravity force that causes the rate of expansion to differ from calculated rates, but even that does not appear to behave consistently over time. Another puzzle to solve.

[Islander]

With regards to your last response I do know about the light / mass explanations but they always seemed something of a fudge to me. The concept of the graviton - which must have reasons for existing as a logical deduction has also appeared to me to be far more problematic than merely viewing gravity as a distortion in space/time. The logical extension of that is that a Black hole is actually a tear in space/time (so much for the universe being a closed system - it appears to leak like a sieve).

If gravity is merely a distortion of space time then one would expect its effects to be - to all intents and purposes - instantaneous and not related to time - in other words gravity behaves like mass - or not a force as such - more of a physical property.

It was this that lead me to surmise that light, in transit, is therefore outside of the universe (ageless, massless etc.). The universe deforms - the path of light does not - we are in the universe - therefore light appears to bend to us under certain circumstances.

Now we have a number of problems. We see distant objects as they were millions of years ago when light began its journey. The light photons have not aged - but we have. Further, the universe is radically different at time of observation from the one it left. If we are to believe the big bang theory or some variant of it then space time is expanding. Nearer stars may have come and gone in the time it took for the light to arrive - resulting in enormous potential for non-contiguous space between us, the observers and the distant event. With no fixed point with which to measure the expansions and other anomalies we have no idea even if expansion is a even effect. It could be that the universe expands, for example, in sudden jumps- just as plate tectonics result in a sudden earthquake. If the universe expands thus does the kilometer that we use to measure the speed of light.

Max, that's great that Miles took the time to read your message and respond to it. It's always best to get your info first-hand.

So if gravity is a distortion in space/time and a black hole is a tear in space/time, does space/time have a limited and possibly measurable tensile strength? If gravity exceeds a certain value over a certain area, does it cause a tear or puncture? Does space leak out through the tear? Where does it leak to?

Gravity is by far the weakest of the four basic forces, much weaker than magnetism, for example. One suggestion that has been made is that gravity actually exists in another dimension, and only some of it leaks or soaks through to "our" dimension/universe, so most of gravity's force is not apparent to us.

As for light, I'd counter-surmise that it does exist in the universe, it's just that we slow creatures can't relate to the light-speed lifestyle of photons. Yes, they're very different from all the other particles we eat/breath/walk on/deal with, but that does not make them alien to our universe.

Finally, with regards to the expansion of the universe, I've read a little bit on this and it seems to occur on very large scales, possibly between galaxies, so our rulers and kilometers are not getting longer, the other galaxies are just moving away from us.

[Islander]

The Harvard light experiments by the lady scientist are online and they are astounding if true. She has stopped light in a "mass of matter", moved the mass, then started the light up again. This is kool.

JJK

Those experiments were very interesting. The team was able to slow down light to 38 miles per hour! Slowing down light by passing it through an Einstein-Bose condensate, which was a very dense mass, seemed logical enough. The part that makes me wonder is that the light beam returned to its normal in-air or in-vacuum speed as soon as it left the condensate cloud. What force was able to accelerate those photons to lightspeed almost instantaneously? Sure, they were always travelling at whatever lightspeed was in the medium they were travelling through, so that makes sense, but didn't the photons lose energy when they were slowed down?

[Islander]

"Light speed = zero time."

I don't think so.

Time slows as an object approaches the speed of light. If the object (only photons, as far as we know) is actually travelling at the speed of light, it senses no passage of time at all. To an observer the photon takes time to travel a certain distance, but the photon does not experience that time. Max is perfectly correct.

[maxg]

Islander,

Just to be clear the whole gravity as a distortion of space/time is my idea - although Miles might share it for all I know.

Universal expansion should be broken down into parts. It is clear that in the immediate aftermath of the big-bang (or equivalent theory) there is a period of expansion of the universe beyond that of mere drifting apart of galaxies. This is the period that mass is actually formed, atoms expanding out from their nucleii etc. Under that form of expansion a kilometer as such would grow. Whether this is still happening is arguable.

Further the harvard light experiments highlight (sorry) another problem. Light, apparently does not accelerate or decelerate. On exiting the medium it therefore should instantaneously be at normal light speed. I suppose that you argue that travelling through the condensate cloud used the same energy at 38 mph as light travelling through a vacuum uses at 300,000 klm/s. If the energy is constant and light has no mass there is no energy exchange when changing the speed so the speed change is instant - no forces involved.

[Islander]

Islander,

Just to be clear the whole gravity as a distortion of space/time is my idea - although Miles might share it for all I know.

Universal expansion should be broken down into parts. It is clear that in the immediate aftermath of the big-bang (or equivalent theory) there is a period of expansion of the universe beyond that of mere drifting apart of galaxies. This is the period that mass is actually formed, atoms expanding out from their nucleii etc. Under that form of expansion a kilometer as such would grow. Whether this is still happening is arguable.

Further the harvard light experiments highlight (sorry) another problem. Light, apparently does not accelerate or decelerate. On exiting the medium it therefore should instantaneously be at normal light speed. I suppose that you argue that travelling through the condensate cloud used the same energy at 38 mph as light travelling through a vacuum uses at 300,000 klm/s. If the energy is constant and light has no mass there is no energy exchange when changing the speed so the speed change is instant - no forces involved.

Hmm, I thought Einstein was the first to postulate distorted space/time. Is your distortion different? You are joking, right?.

In the early stages of the universe, expansion occurred due to the extreme (near infinite) pressure in the "cosmic egg", but as the pressure dropped, it was assumed to continue due to momentum of all the masses (assuming it could be described as mass at that point). When it started to accelerate at a certain stage, without any apparent reason, that was when dark energy was suggested (sounds almost supernatural). The question could be, "Was the early universe expanding into existing space, or was that universe all the space there was, so the space expanded with all the mass?" I was referring to the present time, when expansion on a local scale, like we'd measure on Earth, is either not happening or is not measurable. So I think we agree on that point.

Thanks for bringing me up to speed (sorry) on light. So it appears that light is not like normal objects. It's always light, travelling at lightspeed, in whatever medium it's travelling through. That makes sense. It's tempting to think of photons in terms of things we're more familiar with, that act in ways we experience every day. For instance, due to contraction of length near lightspeed, photons (travelling at lightspeed) have zero length. As we can imagine, any vehicle with a wheelbase of zero could turn on a dime, or even on a coin of infinitesimal or zero value and size, making mirrors and reflection possible and practical. How's that for hillbilly physics?

[maxg]

Oh my god - did I really write that? What was I thinking?

OK - what I meant to say was the whole light outside the universe until it is perceived thing is mine and that in fact, therefore, gravity's distortion is purely applied to the matter of the universe and not light - therefore light appears to bend because everything relative to it bends.

In other words - gravity bends space/time but not light. That was it - I think.

As for the hillbilly physics - whatever helps you to visualize it. Problem is - everytime I think about light I come to the conclusion that it violates too many of the rules of physics to exist.

[Islander]

Problem is - everytime I think about light I come to the conclusion that it violates too many of the rules of physics to exist.

Even weirder, there was a long period of time when light didn't exist. Cardas makes refererence to it in one of their ads, not that a speaker cable ad is a source of higher knowledge, just adding an audio element to the discussion.

The hillbilly physics wasn't for me, it was for the benefit of any hillbilly forum members who might be following this.

As for the light existing outside the universe idea, it's interesting and I can't say you're wrong. I already said that gravity may exist outside this dimension. Time will tell, on both counts. Or maybe not...

[stan krajewski]

Problem is - everytime I think about light I come to the conclusion that it violates too many of the rules of physics to exist.

Even weirder, there was a long period of time when light didn't exist. Cardas makes refererence to it in one of their ads, not that a speaker cable ad is a source of higher knowledge, just adding an audio element to the discussion.

The hillbilly physics wasn't for me, it was for the benefit of any hillbilly forum members who might be following this.

As for the light existing outside the universe idea, it's interesting and I can't say you're wrong. I already said that gravity may exist outside this dimension. Time will tell, on both counts. Or maybe not...

To all my fellow hillbilly physicists:

This illustrates perfectly why proof (as difficult and elusive as it might be in this case) is so critical.

I

[maxg]

Just as a heads up I mentioned this thread to Miles himself and it is possible he will pop-in to give an opinion or 2. From his reply I would regard it as doubtful - but possible - and it would be kinda cool to have the man himself on here.

BTW - who did the gravity paper? F=Gm1m2/r^2 is not the formula for gravity afterall - it is the resultant formula of the action of EM and gravity and has, therefore, no time component.

Quite blew my brain that one - and I still haven't got it quite. Apparently what we thought was gravity is really a huge part of the unifying theory.

My head hurts!!

[pauln]

I few more things to mention... hurting heads notwithstanding.

I think light always travels at the same speed as in a vacuum (let's call this speed LV), and when it appears to take longer to pass through a medium you have to look carefully. Any meduim is mostly full of empty space (vacuum) and the light will travel at LV between atoms of the medium. Some photons may be absorbed by some electrons in some of these atoms and those electrons will assume a higher energy "orbit" level. A little later, these electrons will emmit a photon and the electron will drop back down to a lower energy level. I think the reason that light appears to slow down in passing through a medium may be explained by this. It is like taking a road trip; you always cruise at 72 MPH except when you stop to gas up, eat, or use the facilites. On a long trip your overall measured speed will be less than 72 MPH, even though that is how fast your car was going while driving it.

Now let me take this opportunity to put down some thoughts on cosmology. I have never liked the big bang theory... it has many problems:

The proposed initial singularity begs the question of it's origen, and thereby the origen of not just matter and energy but the origen of space and time.

What made it pop? This is an initial conditions problem... which by definition is not privy to determination.

It seems almost mystical to try to reconcile the big bang expansion with the observed universe's flatness observation (universe is neither hyperspherical nor hyperbolic, but dead flat (the ratio of energy density to critical density is 1 plus or minus 10 raised to the negative 60th power.)) To imagine how small that difference is, 10 raised to the positive 60th power is about how many protons there are in the entire universe. The current method of reconciliation is the inflationary theory whereby the entire early universe underwent an expansion by a factor of 10 raised to the 50th power during the very short period from 10 raised to the negative 35th power seconds after creation to 10 raised to the negative 30th power seconds after creation (a very very short period of time - 10 raised to the negative 28th power of a second; which is one trillionth of a one trilionth of a onehundred thousanth of a second). This was adopted to solve the flatness problem as well as the observed very large scale even distribution of matter and energy in the universe (even density to one part in 100,000) as evidenced by the comic background radiation, and an explanation of the cosmic background radiation itself.

I have alway much prefered the steady state theory of Hoyle. This solves the initial singularity problem since there isn't one to begin with - there is no begining and this solves the initial conditions problem as well. The theory predicts a flat universe with a large scale even distribution of matter and energy. The theory only requires two fundamental assumptions to work:

Matter/energy must be created all the time everywhere - this would be a natural attribute of the universe. Not much needs to be created; only the equivalent of a single hydrogen atom per year for a volume of space about the size of the Earth (this is so little that it may never be measured). Since particles are assumed in the standard model to be constantly created and destroyed in all space all the time at a very low level of size because of fluxuations in energy at the Planck level, the idea is not bizarre. There just needs to be a slight net addition as time goes on.

The second fundamental assumption for steady state is that gravity needs to be slightly modified to include a repulsive feature at very large scales to account of overall universal expansion. This is actually not a new idea either; Einstein assumed it in his original works before the general expansion of the universe was known. He called the cosmological constant and disgarded it when expansion was observed. Now days some are looking to see if maybe the cosmological constant should be put back into service in these equations. One of the predictions of the steady state theory is that at large scales the rate of expansion will be observed to be accelerating - this was observed in the late 90's and is a problem for the big bang to explain.

I suspect that the whole thing about dark matter is a major goof up in current theory. It is being assumed that the deviations from expected gravitational dynamics are being caused by unseen extra matter... the real issue should be rephrased as not a problem with extra matter but a problem with too much gravity. Think about this for a minute... I mentioned before that particles are created and destroyed at a low space level all the time everywhere. Let's say a pair of these particles comes into existence for a moment and then they combine and destroy themselves (they are created in opposite pairs of particle and antiparticle so the energy accounting stays flat over time). While these two particles exist, both will behave gravitationaly, being attracted by other masses in the universe and attracting those same other masses. So gravity is created. Then the particles are destroyed and the source of their gravity is gone, but as this is happening everywhere all the time, the virtual particles are adding to the overall gravity in the universe. Since they come about from fluxuations in the energy of space, it might be the case that their creation (and subsequent destruction) may be more likely in a part of space where there is already something energetic going on... like a galaxy, globular cluster or other large massive presence (these are the places where the extra mass seems to be hiding). This would tend to make the extra gravity seem to be coming from where there is already a gravity source, but perhaps making it appear that there is too much. This would make it look like there was some quantity of unseen mass to account for.

Hoyle's other major contributions to cosmology are discovering the processes for nucleosynthesis of elements in stars, introducing the anthropic principle of why physical laws seem to be designed to operate in the universe so that we can be here to wonder about it, and an abiotic theory of petroleum (that oil is not old dead dinosaurs and vegetable matter but a constituent of the mantle under the Earth's crust, whereby the Earth's crust is fractured by meteor impacts, and the oil oozes up into the crust layers). This is very interesting because about three years ago Russia put down an extremely deep well based on this idea. They got oil, and since then they have put down 4000 more - and they are not talking about it. NASA also beleives they have seen evidence of this idea observing data from some of the moons in the outer solar system... where there were no dinosaurs or vegetable matter.

Well now my head is really hurting... I think I'll just gaze at this beautiful galaxy for a while...

M31 The Andromeda Galaxy, the closest big one to us.

[Islander]

Andromeda - the only galaxy visible to the naked eye. Other than the Milky Way, of course.

It will be visible in the East-North-East sky tonight.

B. Kliban's take on the speed of light: