Cosmology Curiosity

Science as a matter of faith?

A recent New York Times article by Paul Davies stirred the hornet's nest. Some excerpts --

"SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term "doubting Thomas" well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.

"... [S]cience has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn't be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed.

"... Clearly, then, both religion and science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of something outside the universe, like an unexplained God or an unexplained set of physical laws, maybe even a huge ensemble of unseen universes, too. For that reason, both monotheistic religion and orthodox science fail to provide a complete account of physical existence.

"... In other words, the laws should have an explanation from within the universe and not involve appealing to an external agency. The specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research. But until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus."

More on the subject in the next post/s.

Paul Davies is both a respected physicist-cosmologist and science popularizer.

[Image: Galileo before the Holy Office, from Wikimedia Commons]

cosmology

Of films and physics

Sound and fires in space, Earth-like gravity in all planets ...

Such is usually how the laws of physics are bent by Hollywood.

More from io9.com's Bad Movie Physics: A Report Card:

"Space epics almost always play fast and loose with science, treating the laws of physics like suggestions. Sound in space, unprotected bodies splatting in vacuum, and alien planets that all look just like Calabasas. But some movies dismember Newton and Einstein with way more gusto than others. We rated 18 movies based on how many laws of physics they mangled, and here's our report card."

Click here to view the entire 'report card'. Therefrom, find out why Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff were found faithful to science, while Star Wars would be on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog has a similar list (with a more colorful discussion).

Are the laws of physics meant to be observed to the letter in film-making?

It all depends on the context. Non-fiction and historical fiction should stick to the rules, while all others should be allowed leeway.

So in the case of the latter some form of "agnosticism" can be a good thing. As in ignorance is bliss ...

[Image above is from the movie's poster. It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for identification and/or critical commentary qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.]

Priest-cosmologist wins $1.6m Templeton Prize

Michael (Michał) Heller, a Polish cosmologist and Catholic priest who has spent his life studying the origin and cause of the universe, has won the 2008 Templeton Prize.

The $1.6 million Templeton Prize is the world's largest annual monetary award given to an individual. The previous years' awardees can be found here.

From Templetonprize.org --

"Heller, 72, Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow, toiled for years beneath the stifling strictures of the Soviet era. He has become a compelling figure in the realms of physics and cosmology, theology, and philosophy...

"In a statement prepared for the news conference, Heller described his position as follows:

'Various processes in the universe can be displayed as a succession of states in such a way that the preceding state is a cause of the succeeding one... (and) there is always a dynamical law prescribing how one state should generate another state. But dynamical laws are expressed in the form of mathematical equations, and if we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about a cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the Great Blueprint of God's thinking the universe, the question on ultimate causality...: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes.'"

Michał Kazimierz Heller was born on March 12, 1936 in Tarnow, Poland, one of five children in a deeply religious family devoted to intellectual interests.

[Image: Templetonprize.org]

Related post: John D. Barrow wins the 2006 Templeton Prize

Technorati Tags: cosmologist, cosmology, Michael Heller, Templeton, Templeton Prize

Diffraction spikes

Ever wondered what those spikes of light are in photos of stars taken through large telescopes?

No, they are not due to poetic license as used by astronomers when they apply colors to those originally-black and white images. Please see the earlier post, "Photoshop universe" for some background on the subject.

From Galaxyzoo.org -- "The spikes of light happen because the star’s light bends around the four support beams that hold up the telescope’s mirror. They aren’t really part of the star."

More properly, they are called diffraction spikes.

From Wikipedia -- "Diffraction spikes are lines radiating from bright light sources in reflecting telescope images. They are a kind of lens flare artifact due to light diffracting around the support vanes of the secondary mirror. Refracting telescopes and their photographic images do not have the same problem. Although diffraction spikes can obscure parts of a photograph and are undesired in professional contexts, some amateur astronomers like the visual effect they give to bright stars - the "Star of Bethlehem" appearance - and even modify their refractors to exhibit the same effect, or to assist with focusing when using a Charge-coupled device."

[Image: NASA]

Related post: "Photoshop universe"

diffraction spike, lens flare, reflecting telescope, refracting telescope

CMBR Dipole: Speeding Through the Universe

Consider the above image as the Milky Way's speeding ticket through the universe.

From NASA's March 9, 2008 Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD):

"Our Earth is not at rest. The Earth moves around the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy orbits in the Local Group of Galaxies. The Local Group falls toward the Virgo Cluster of Galaxies. But these speeds are less than the speed that all of these objects together move relative to the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR). In the above all-sky map from the COBE satellite, radiation in the Earth's direction of motion appears blueshifted and hence hotter, while radiation on the opposite side of the sky is redshifted and colder. The map indicates that the Local Group moves at about 600 kilometers per second relative to this primordial radiation. This high speed was initially unexpected and its magnitude is still unexplained. Why are we moving so fast? What is out there?"

Some may ask, wouldn't that imply that there's an absolute frame of reference, in contradiction with the theory of special relativity? From an article from Astronomy at University of British Columbia:

"The theory of special relativity is based on the principle that there are no preferred reference frames. In other words, the whole of Einstein's theory rests on the assumption that physics works the same irrespective of what speed and direction you have. So the fact that there is a frame of reference in which there is no motion through the CMB [or CBMR] would appear to violate special relativity!

"However, the crucial assumption of Einstein's theory is not that there are no special frames, but that there are no special frames where the laws of physics are different. There clearly is a frame where the CMB is at rest, and so this is, in some sense, the rest frame of the Universe. But for doing any physics experiment, any other frame is as good as this one. So the only difference is that in the CMB rest frame you measure no velocity with respect to the CMB photons, but that does not imply any fundamental difference in the laws of physics."

Please see also the earlier posts, Earth's speed around the universe and How fast are you moving when you are sitting still?

[Image: NASA]

CMB, CMBR, CMBR dipole, Earth speed, Virgo Cluster

Relaxed state = breakthrough ideas

Great ideas come when one is at ease.

The famous surrealist painter, Salvador Dali [1904-1989], had come up with a way to remember what he saw in those moments. Legend has it that Dali will deprive himself of days of sleep, sit on a chair with a spoon in his hand, and after the clang of the spoon had waked him up, he'd start painting what he saw.

And who will not forget Archimedes' [287-212 BC] discovery of the principle of buoyancy while on a bath tub. Or August Kekulé's [1829-1896] discovery of the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a reverie of a snake seizing its own tail. And everybody knows the story of Newton and the apple and Einstein's lazy days at the Swiss patent office.

If one has the flexibility, one can try what the industrial designer Philippe Starck does. All of his creative work are done when he's on holiday three months in a year.

[Images: Dali's 'The Temptation of St. Anthony' and 'The Persistence of Memory'.]

Archimedes, benzene, creativity, Dali, Salvador Dali

"Wanted: Einstein Jr"

Newton's 300-year old gravitation theory is an excellent model such that it is good enough for NASA up to now.

And Einstein's general relativity theory comes in only when there is a need for extreme accuracy, or when dealing with gravitation for very massive objects.

But it looks like the status quo may need to be revisited once again.

In 1990 the spacecraft Galileo sped up by 4 mm per second too many, after undergoing the classic slingshot maneuver.

The Economist in an article, Wanted: Einstein Jr continues:

"Altogether, John Anderson and his colleagues analysed six slingshots involving five different spacecraft. Their paper on the matter is about to be published in Physical Review Letters. Crucially for the idea that there really is a systematic flaw in the laws of physics as they are understood today, their data can be described by a simple formula. It is therefore possible to predict what should happen on future occasions.

"That is what Dr Anderson and his team have now done. They have worked out the exact amount of extra speed that should be observed when they analyse the data from a slingshot last November, which involved a craft called Rosetta. If their prediction is correct, it will confirm that the phenomenon is real and that their formula is capturing its essence. Although the cause would remain unknown, a likely explanation is that something in the laws of gravity needs radical revision ...

"Dr Anderson himself points out that several features of the Pioneer anomalies and the slingshot anomalies suggest they may have a common explanation. Both, for example, involve small objects. By contrast, the data on which Newton and Einstein built their theories were from stars, planets and moons. In addition, the spacecraft in question are all travelling in types of orbit not usually seen in natural systems. Not for them the closed ellipses of Mercury and the other planets; at the whim of their masters in Pasadena they are following much more unusual hyperbolic curves.

"What it all means is not yet clear. Perhaps there is some overlooked explanation within the laws of physics. But Le Verrier [1811-1877] thought that must be so for his discovery, too. He and later astronomers spent decades looking for the missing planet within the orbit of Mercury which, they were convinced, explained what was going on. They even gave it a name: Vulcan. But it wasn't there.

"There is a good chance that modern physics is in a similar situation. It would be nice, therefore, to believe that somewhere, the contemporary equivalent of a bored patent clerk is thinking about the problem, and that when he has thought hard enough, a new reality will emerge."

Incidentally, our "bored patent clerk" may not have been as bored as we thought him to be.

[Images by: Nova and Norbert Bartel]

Related post: Einstein's advice to aspiring scientists

Einstein, Galileo spacecraft, gravitation, John Anderson, Le Verrier, Newton, Norbert Bartel, Pioneer spacecraft, relativity, Vulcan

Welcome, new commenters!

Glad to have you on board, Sirhemlock, Unclesharkey, Xiaoyu, Dr. Alfred Bennun, Andrea, Debamboozler, Jeff Mitchell, Ian Kemmish, James Redford, Jerry Thornton, Rob MacRiner, M. Simon, Ken, Douglas, Peter, Clement, syk0saje, et al.

Thank you (and to the other regular commenters as well of course) for making the discussion even more interesting.

We are all certainly trying to do better than Calvin and Hobbes above.

And Sirhemlock, we browsed through your website/s and they are quite an interesting read.

Hope to hear more from all of you soon.

See also: Calvin and Hobbes on Pascal's wager

Calvin and Hobbes, Cosmology Curiosity

[Off-topic] Distractions

There were two things that kept me up at night lately.

The first would be my work-related presentation preparations, and the last two weeks were especially heavy. The second would be my new toy, an iPhone. I'm not quite sure actually which one took up more of my time.

The fun way to maximize iPhone's potentials would be to run the phone's built-in installer called, well Installer. Some of the apps worth installing:

Search - an indispensable utility

Websearch - start your web-based search (Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, etc.) from here

DropCopy - easily send files to another phone or computer

Books - an application from where you can launch the Bible, literary classics, etc.

TuneWiki - supplies lyrics of the track playing, karaoke style

weDict - a must install; after installing weDict, fill her up with various dictionaries, thesauri, the CIA Fact Book, concise version of Brittanica, language dictionaries, etc.

More iPhone and iPod utilities are reviewed in this Lifehacker article.

Tips on using the iPhone can be seen here, here, and here.

Apple, iPhone