Blue Fire

The fact of the matter is that we have never observed the complete evolution of a star or galaxy. Thus we cannot know with 100 percent certainty what that process is. But, there are sooooo many stars in varying stages of development, and there are soooooo many galaxies in varying stages of development, and therefore we have had soooooooooooo many observations that we are pretty darned sure about what the whole story is. Sooooo sure that most astronomers are willing to accept it as fact. Even a child who has not witnessed the entire life cycle of a tree and who has not been educated about it either can look at a forest and be pretty darned sure that he sees seedlings, saplings, young trees, old trees and dead trees - after, of course he has seen a bunch of them in a bunch of forests.

Perhaps a visit to Wikipedia will help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_redshift The key concept here is that the Hubble constant is not really constant. If I understand your question correctly (and there's no guarantee of that since you say I didn't answer your question with my previous post), then the variation of the Hubble constant over time and the Hubble sphere increasing or decreasing over time seems to have it covered. If I still don't understand your question, then I'm afraid I'll have to give up and admit defeat.

Indeed we know Mars had water, and we know it still does have water at least in ice form and probably water vapor (as ice sublimates to vapor), but I'm wondering where you got your information that Mars had More water per ratio than Earth? I did a quick search on this and came up with only vague guestimates and speculation with no definite claim to how much water Mars had in the past. I'd be interested in any further info you could point me to.

My understanding is that gravitational fields ARE curved spacetime. Mass curves spacetime. Using the phrase "gravitational fields" is just another way of referencing curved spacetime. Spacetime curvature is the result of Mass. So, spacetime curvature and gravitational field are essentially the same thing. Gravity is often referred to as a "force". But this isn't strictly true according to Einstien - there is no "force" between the Earth and the Sun, for example. The Sun has lot of mass and thus curves the spacetime around it. Earth is revolving around the Sun because it is following a "straight" line in curved space. Travel in a straight line around the the Earth and you will find that you are actually traveling in a curve around the curved surface/space of the surface of the Earth. So, light definitely is affected by a gravitational field - this has been confirmed by observation many, many times. But that gravitational field is simply the curvature of spacetime that massive bodies cause. Light from distant galaxies (or near ones) or light from any source no matter how far away (or how close) travels in as straight a line as possible in curved spacetime. The light from a street lamp travels to your eyes in a slight (VERY slight, insignificant really) curve because it is following the curved spacetime that Earth itself causes. The speed of light never changes in a uniform medium. In the empty expanding spacetime between distant galaxies, the speed of light never varies. Of course, if the space it is traveling through is expanding, then it will take longer to get through it only because it has farther to travel. Also of course, there will indeed be a red shift in this case.

I would submit that often routing and air traffic control would have a big impact. Flights in the U.S. often do not fly the exact same route to and from destinations in order to avoid airspace conflicts according to air traffic control. Thus, one direction may indeed take longer because the airplane is traveling a slightly different and longer route that you may not notice as a passenger.

How is light time dilated by gravity? My understanding is that a photon always travels at c regardless of one's frame of reference - anyone in any reference frame will always measure the speed of light to be c, if the light isn't impeded by some medium (see below). A photon passing close to a black hole is not slowed down - it's path will be severely bent according to the curvature of space caused by the extreme gravity of the black hole but it's velocity won't change. Light will, of course, slow down inside some medium it is passing through (like glass) but that is because the individual photons are getting absorbed and re-emitted continually. Is my understanding flawed?

Unless, of course, you are a photon, in which case you would be moving entirely through space and not through time. It may be helpful to note that everything moves through spacetime at c. Of course, for most things, movement consists of some movement through space and some movement through time - sort of like traveling northeast in a car. Some part of your motion is north and some part is east. And some things like light travel due east (assuming east is space) with no motion north (time).

I knew some people that had a grand scheme, a big picture, and an ultimate plan. They believed that everyone and thing around them were part of it all. Alas, they are all dead now and their plans didn't pan out in the end. Sorry, couldn't resist it. Seriously though, any grand scheme would seem to require a grand schemer in whom (or what) I don't happen to believe.

Just a note about being able to tell the difference between gravity and acceleration: assuming (from the OP) Yes! That is, if you had extremely sensitive/accurate measuring tools in the box with you. If you drop two balls, one from each of your outstretched arms, then you would find that each ball would drop toward the center of the Earth and thus trace out intersecting paths, if you were sitting on Earth. If you were simply undergoing acceleration (as in a rocket), the balls would drop exactly parallel to each other. Granted that, on Earth, the non-parallel drop of the balls would be very difficult to measure, but still detectable in theory.

I'd say that would be highly unlikely since remains of multiple individuals were found of widely varying ages at the time of death, each consistent with the diminutive size range of these people. And, now this from SciAm Observations: From this it would seem that the "doubts" are still in favor of the "Hobbits".

National Geographic Channel is running a special on the discovery of Homo floresiensis right now as I write. I think it has been on before and that I've seen it before, but there's always something ya miss the first time around.

I used to have a thing against titles like Dr. in a college setting. I was an older student when I returned to college for an advanced degree, and I noticed that some instructors would introduce themselves to their class by writing "Dr. so-and-so" on the blackboard and then proceed to address their students by first names. The first time one of those instructors did that to me, I politely corrected him with "Ah... that's Mr. Me, please." After that we got on quite well on a first name basis for everyone. I then tried an experiment at 2 different highschools for which I subsequently did substitute teaching. In school A, I followed school policy in insisting on a "Mr." in front of my name. In school B, I asked the students to call me by my first name. I found the students in school B more difficult to control at first, but in the long run, I had even more control of and respect from the school B students because it apparently was a more personal affront to me (from the student's point of view) to misbehave and/or disrespect me. I was able to be much more effective as a teacher/leader when it was all personal instead of the formal air inherent in the use of titles at school A. Just my 2 cents.

I don't think all the evidence is in quite yet - there will surely be more excavations and finds to argue over. Note that the "new finds" that the OP mentions were found on a different island. And, the article at NewScientist also presents opinions that cast doubt on those casting doubt that Homo floresiensis is a new species of human. I'm sure the debate will continue in earnest in scientific circles to get at the truth even as media reports continue to hype all hints of controversy on such a unique subject as "hobbits."

I used to think that time was merely the speed at which the mind thinks. But I'm better now.

Ranting can be cathartic! And sometimes, when you look back at that ranting, it can inspire a useful perspective. It may be that you are here, in this forum and in college, for a similar reason that I'm here: as Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." So, I examine it. And I find that thinking for myself is worth it, even if I don't find the answers as I'd like them to be. And, I've learned that I'd rather be miserable with the truth than blissful with ignorance. But that's just me.

Just a slight correction, since you mentioned Einstein and that gravity is a force of attraction. Einstein theories actually blew that notion (that gravity is a force of attraction) away many decades ago. Accordingly, contrary to Dictionary.com, gravity is Not a force of attraction. Gravity is the effect that mass has on spacetime. Mass Warps space and time (spacetime) - the greater the mass, the greater the warping of space time. Envision a cannonball sitting on a trampoline. The cannonball "warps" the fabric of the trampoline like the Sun warps the fabric of spacetime. Now flick a marble toward the cannonball from the side of the trampoline. Picture the marble "falling" into the depression (warping) that the cannonball makes on the surface of the trampoline. The marbles dips into the depression and rolls around and around the cannonball. As you can see, it does this not because of any attraction between the cannonball and the marble but rather because the marble is simply following a "straight line" on the curved surface of the trampoline. Thus the Earth is simply moving through the curved space around the sun - there is no force of attraction keeping the Earth in orbit around the sun.

The universe is expanding because space itself is expanding. In general, galaxies are moving away from one another because the space between them is expanding - they are not moving Through space, they are simply moving with the expansion of space. This is similar to the way pennies that are pasted onto a balloon will move away from each other as the balloon gets bigger and bigger. The pennies aren't moving across the surface of the balloon, they are just moving as a result of the expansion of the balloon's surface. If you can imagine that the surface of the balloon Is the universe, then you can see that the surface isn't expanding Into anything - the surface is all there is. Now try to translate this into thinking about a hypersphere (4D, excluding time) expanding. That might help to understand the theory. At the time of the Big Bang (meant to be an inclusive term of inflation theory), there was no space, no time - they were created and continued to expand, and this was all there was to our universe. Of course it is possible that our universe expanded and continues to expand into something "else" but that something else would not be our universe as we understand it now.

After some more research, I found this at Sky & Telescope: According to NASA [http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/OH/Danjon.html]: [bold above is mine]I would have rated this eclipse at about L=3.5 because I saw mostly orange and just a tinge of blue on the Moon's edge just after totality began. I can only think that the atmospheric properties/effects directly between an observer (like moisture content, density, etc.) and the Moon do indeed have significant impact on what different observers see, With or WithOut equipment, though I have yet to see any specific explanation in print anywhere yet. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. On the other hand, it appears to be a valid phenomenon since (from NASA site):

I've also read that you might see some turquoise color at the edges of the moon just before and after totality in a lunar eclipse. I thought I could make out just a tinge of turquoise myself. This is supposed to be due to the light reaching the moon through the Earth's ozone layer which tends to absorb red but allows blue to pass more easily.

I've noted discrepancies in reported brightness and color of the eclipse between observers at various locations. For example, some say the Moon was brighter than previous eclipses and some say it was darker. The Sky & Telescope website reports that it was brighter and has a comparison pic of last year's eclipse and this one. Their pic of this year's eclipse pretty closely matched what I saw. Is it possible that the viewing location would account for widely varying observation reports of a total lunar eclipse? I can, of course, imagine the effects of light pollution, cloud cover, etc., but even those folks who say they had dark skies and no cloud cover disagree over brightness and color.

That shot of the Moon dipping behind a peak is indeed inspiring! I got to see the vast majority of the eclipse (some clouds for a while), but alas I didn't get any pictures. So I appreciate everyone else's efforts. I never get tired of lunar eclipses, and I've see a few in my time. I don't understand why everyone doesn't get into them, but I have several friends who just never bother keeping track of these things and don't look up. I couldn't detect the turquoise band with my naked eyes, but my 12x binoculars did the trick.