Jiggerj

Fine, I clicked on the + for you and imat because you are making me think. You remember the movie with the kids in the classroom and Ben Stein saying, "Anyone, anyone?" Do you remember the looks on their faces? Well, THAT'S how I look right now. lol So, slipping into a time machine and going back to the 1600's, I don't know how far away Jupiter is, and I'm trying to figure out the speed of light. I DO know that one of the moons of Jupiter appears ahead of schedule when the earth is closest, and behind schedule when furthest away. Let's say there's a 15 minute difference. Now we have this from Wiki: "Rømer estimated that light would take about 22 minutes to travel a distance equal to the diameter of Earth's orbit around the Sun:" If Romer doesn't know the speed of light at this point, then how in thee hell could he possibly estimate that???? Ehh, forget it. I'm getting whacked by toises and pieds and stuff that I just won't absorb. It's been fun though. Thanks guys.

Oh I wish we had met under different circumstances, but I must inform you that I am with Child Protective Services. Your seven billion children are being placed in foster homes as we speak. Don't worry though, I'm sure your children will be returned to you once you answer a few simple questions; questions, I'm sure, that are the result of a few silly misunderstandings. You didn't really drown everyone except Noah's family in that flood, did you? We've heard reports that you turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt just for turning around. Is this true? Also, and I'm sure this is completely false because it makes no sense at all, but I have to ask: Did you let it be known that you would forgive us our sins if we nailed your son, Jesus, to a cross and murdered him? Ha! It's so far out there that you don't have to answer. On the one hand you caused a great flood to kill everyone off because they were sinners, but then you conspired with mankind to kill your son. Ehhh, it's just crazy. Right?

Heck if I know. Every night I look at our own moon and I haven't a clue how to measure its size or distance. Best I can do is put my hand up and block the moon from my sight, so I'd say it's about an arm's length away. But this STILL wouldn't give them the size and distance of Jupiter. Would it?

Not being argumentative, YT, but I have to ask: What if people just want to come here and chat while tossing around ideas? Do we really need to do our homework (use the search engine) in order to post anything? I guess what I'm asking is, is this a chat forum first, or a science forum first? There is a section on religion, so it can't be all about big brains hammering out complex equations to one another. I enjoy the chats here, but I'm no big brain. <-- Does that disqualify me from posting anything?

Yeah, I know, but it's entertained me and I'm really bored. Would you expect the religious to deny that a state of perfection cannot exist? That would be denying that a biblical god exists. God????

It's like the idea of a heaven. The religious believe it is paradise. Well, according to the bible, Satan and his followers didn't think so. They rebelled and were thrown out. If there can be discontentment of any kind in heaven, if there can be war in heaven, then it's not paradise.

Well, if you're far off, then I'm off the grid with this: If time is weaved into the fabric of the universe, how come Einstein found no need to insert time into E=MC2 ? Doesn't it take energy to bend space-time? Doesn't Mass bend space-time? Doesn't it take energy for me to make any sense here? Wouldn't a better illustration be a ball that is weighted and bouyant just enough to float under water? Wait a minute! With some kind of fancy-shmancy camera would we be able to see the water curving around the ball? If not, why not?

Ick! Thank god I'm not perfect. I need my pain!

What does that mean? What energy source will the body use? Suppose there is only one of these perfect, intelligent entities. How does a lone perfect being keep from getting bored or lonely? Wouldn't the presence of intelligence in any form suffer the torment of lonliness? What would an all-knowing being think about if it already knows everything?

It is possible that every religious person that ever lived, or ever will live, can tell you that their God is perfect in every way. Can we discuss just what 'Perfect' means, and if it's even possible for any intelligent entity to live in a state of perfection? What makes this even more difficult is that the catholic bible informs us that God made man in his own image. So, how does a perfect being exist perfectly within a humanoid form?

LOL I don't see where he said he had a reason. Which, again, is fine. lol That's okay, ncook. Everyone thinks their idea is a good one (I like mine, too! lol) Some minds that are greater than ours have come up with ideas like, the universe is a hologram, or that the universe was created by two branes touching. For me, an infinite universe has always existed simply because a 'State of Absolute Nothing' cannot exist. Occam's Razor: the simplest explanation will be the most plausible until evidence is presented to prove it false.

Yeah, I can't explain the break in light as a galaxy moves through time, but the alternative is kind of scary. If we see the galaxies only as they were billions or millions of years ago, and cannot also see them as they were a million years ago, or a thousand years ago, or a hundred years ago, then those galaxies are so far away now that the stars we see are no longer there. We may be able to look up at the night sky and see how things were a long time ago, but in reality (right now) there is nothing out there to see but our own galaxy with nothing but utter darkness beyond it. <-- I don't like that thought.

I thought of that, but we're talking billions of years for light to travel to earth. Plus, in just one field of images we see galaxies with distances of billions of years. You use three balls as an example. What about the rear lights on a speeding car, where I can see the lights when the car is right in front of me, then a thousand feet away, then a mile away. Same car, same lights, different times.

From: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080404201105.htm "observations allow astronomers to look back in time over 10 billion years, producing images of galaxies in the Universe's infancy." Been struggling with this idea for a while now. With the help of the Hubble's deep field images, if we can see a galaxy as it was, say, five billion years ago, and since we know that galaxies aren't stationary, then is it possible that we are also seeing that same galaxy in a different location as it was seven billion years ago, and/or three billion years ago? If not, WHY not?

I'm watching a documentary called, 'E=MC2'. with Hitoshi Murayama. In it he shows a pie chart displaying the mass deficit of the universe. What I don't understand is one piece of this pie chart shows how stars make up .5% of the universe, with no mention at all about the matter that makes up all of the planets. Here is the list on the pie chart: Stars 0.5% Atoms 4.4% Neutrinos 0.1% Dark Matter 24% Dark Energy 73% Now, if the mass of the planets were included in this chart, wouldn't this inclusion balance things out a bit better? Believe me, I'm no Einstein so I'm probably going to sound like an idiot, but I'm still curious. So, this is what I did in my head: I added together the percentage of stars, atoms, and neutrinos. This came to 5%. Then, using our sloar system as a base I added 5% for the matter in each planet (pluto included). That is 9 x 5% = 45%, plus the 5% for our sun so it's now 50%. I could add another 5% for all the material in the Kuiper Belt, but the fifty percent is close enough. Does my (admittedly uninformed) rationalization make any sense at all? I wonder if the 4.4% of atoms is referring to all of the non-star materials (just doesnt' seem right considering the universe is full of hydrogen atoms)?

First off, if there is life on earth then there is no reason why life can't occur on at least one of the trillions of planets in the universe. Now, you find the existence of a perfect being to be logical, and I find it to be one of the major contradictions in the catholic bible. If man was made in a god's image, then exactly what does this perfect god look like? Does he have hair that needs to be cut? Does he have a body that needs food? If this perfect god is made of flesh and blood, can you imagine such perfection needing to use the bathroom? If he is not made of flesh and blood, then is he pure energy? If so, then he can't have eyes like ours, a nose, mouth and ears like ours, skin and internal organs like ours. How can we be made in his image then? Wonder if any deeeeep thought has ever gone into nailing down exactly what is meant by the word 'Perfect'?

Everytime I try to wrap my head around space-time illustrations someone drops a heavy ball on a stretched out blanket, and then rolls a smaller ball onto the curve in the blanket made by the big ball. This would be fine if all the universe were flat as a sheet with all the mass floating on top of it. But, isn't everything in the universe completely submerged in the universe? If so, how can the ball on the blanket serve as a valid example of space-time?

Thanks for all of your answers. I asked this same question at work and someone came up with measuring the known distance of something on earth, then using that distance while accounting for the amount of magnification used to see Jupiter. I HATE the fact that there were people WAY WAY back then that are smarter than me now!

In the 1670's, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer figured out the speed of light by knowing the distance from earth to Jupiter. How could he or anyone else back then figure out the distance of any of the planets?

Good point. I also have a problem with the word 'Universe' when used by physicists. Is it just the space that is considered the observable universe, or does it also include what may lie beyond it?

When considering how the universe began many will comment on how something cannot be created from nothing. So, an important question would be, What is nothing? Could there ever have been a "State of Absolute Nothing"? I don't think so. http://4everuniverse.yolasite.com/

This morning I was outside where the light of the sun hit my eyeglasses at an angle that showed round, dried water spots. What struck me as odd is how the particles of dust and dirt were so evenly dispersed throughout the water spot. Then I remembered watching a documentary on the universe where a physicist asked, "Why are the objects in the universe so evenly dispersed?' Is there some connection between the two (dried water spots and the universe)? I mean, are there similar laws involved on how things get dispersed through space and some kind of liquid?

Seeing as I have no background in prime numbers I'm sure I'll come across as an idiot, but that's okay with me as long as I learn something new. Anyway, I don't understand this search for the highest prime number. If a prime number is divisible by only itself and the number 1, then doesn't the following example describe the highest prime number? If you started writing the number nine at the very beginning of time, and then at the very end of time you placed a 7 on the end of those nines, wouldn't that be the largest prime number? 999-infinity-7