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JohnB

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Everything posted by JohnB

  1. James P. Hogan: "The Giants" Trilogy. A good solid story, it opens in 2027 with a body found on the moon. The body is Homo Sapiens but carbon dating puts his age at 50,000 years ago. Who was he and how did he get there? Alternative Histories by Harry Turtledove. His Invasion and Colonization series. An alien race invades at the height of WW 2. The interaction and characterizations are interesting. As there are a number of "central" characters, the writing style may seem too disjointed for some though. "The Anchient Future" Series from Australian Author Traci Harding. Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Historical/Philosophical. The only fiction series I've ever seen with a two page bibliography. Anything by Spider Robinson, but I'd open with "Callahan's Crosstime Saloon". For a political science type, Heinlein's original "Starship Troopers". No, not the bloody movie. I would also suggest H. Beam Piper, "Federation" Series. "Way Station" by Clifford D. Simak. Cheers.
  2. What if a person is so incompetent that all his actions have a negative effect on society? It would therefore follow that by doing nothing he is having a positive effect as society would not have to waste resources fixing up his mistakes. God I love Grecian logic.
  3. Martin, thaks for the explanations. I was assuming C as a speed limit. I'm not a Cosmologist, just a layman trying to a handle on the concepts involved. The 700 million year figure was quoted on news reports that made me look for the pic in the first place, so it could be wrong. The pic is from the Hubble site and very small. The one I d/loaded, at full size, would take about 15 monitors to view. 2401 x 3001 pixels, 495k .jpg file. Hudf_hst_big.jpg. I did find another copy on the net at http://www.fearme.com/img/imgview.cgi?file=&series=astro&page=0 it's the thirteenth one down on the lefthand column. I'll follow your links, I see I have a fair bit of reading ahead of me. Your explanation leads to further questions. ( As all good explanations do.) How do we arrive at the figure of deceleration of the expansion? Is it a function derived by comparing the redshift of nearer (newer) Galaxies to further (older) Galaxies? As there is no way to confirm the figure for deceleration, how do we know it's right?
  4. The recent pictures from the Hubble Deep Space Field got me wondering. They are from a time when the Universe was only 700 million years old, some 14 billion years ago. What I don't understand is this. At 700 mill years old, the maximum possible distance between the observed Galaxies and Earth is 1.4 bill LY. So if the Universe wasn't expanding, then the light would take 1.4 bill years to get here. The Universe is expanding of course, so, since the light has to travel further, then it takes longer to get here. 10 times as long. Now if we were at one "edge" of the Universe and the Galaxies at the other, moving away from each other either side of the "central" point, then both "edges" would need to moving at 45% C to "create" the required distance in the time available. That just doesn't seem right, so where am I going wrong?
  5. Hi, I"m John. *chorus* "Hello John". I found your forum by a link from a totally forgettable idiot (really I've forgotten who it was and you've since banned him anyway) on another forum and liked what I saw. I'm interested in most areas of science, so you'll probably see my stupid question all over the place. Mainly I'm interested in anomalies. I think that we learn more from them than from things that fit in perfectly. Unfortunately, the whole concept of anomalies seems to divide in most forums into two groups; Those who could conclude that aliens built Chephren's Pyramid by extrapolating the dimensions of a half eaten bun and those who are so ultra-conservative that any suggestion that orthodox theory may not be perfect brings them out with torches burning and loud cries of "Heresy". Neither of these groups could apparently have an intelligent conversation with a cucumber. Sorry if that sounds pompous, but if I'm wrong, I'd like to be told why rather than just being told I'm wrong and be expected to believe it. Don't worry, you don't have another Adam or ExtraSense on your hands. Just a curious individual.
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