Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Ralph Hansen — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:43:02 GMT

Wow!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Nick, Redmond, Washington — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:59:05 GMT

Science - it works, bitches!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Asglutt Hrndn, Hovd, Mongolia — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:51:37 GMT

Hrnvklz qkrlm ee ulanabbv irri xaxbpiu t rweqt! Fpinzr tomhd trbrsz fstl qsyyrt.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Joe Smith, Little Rock, Arkansas — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 02:38:08 GMT

You guys really dont have a clue. Observations at that distance are only a educated guess, because you will not be able to prove any of it. Keep reaching for the stars, someday we may get there. But until then i would not base any facts on this type of guess work.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 03:16:34 GMT

People should not be so quick to just accept all of this. First of all, an important thing to remember when discussing Einstein rings is that it's rare that enough normal matter is observed where it should be present. Einstein rings only make sense typically with an assumption of dark matter. There's typically just not enough mass to generate a lens without this mysterious added component, which is assumed to be hidden mass. In truth, we do not know what dark matter is and any theory that largely depends upon it being what we expect it to be is dubious, at best.

But what really bothers me here is the willingness to accept the object as an Einstein ring based upon its superficial appearance. There is an extraordinary contradiction between this eagerness to confirm conventional theory and the outright reluctance to do something similar with Halton Arp's works on quasars. You cannot have it both way. If you accept that this is an Einstein ring, then you should also take very seriously Halton Arp's allegations of high redshift quasars in front of or connected with low-redshift galaxies because it's the exact same reasoning process at work. Astrophysicists have argued ad infinitum that Arp's statistics are flawed, but there has been more than one study published on the topic over the past few years that have come out confirming that quasars appear to be correlated with the axes of spiral galaxies (where Arp claims that they are ejected from). This is no minor point either as it challenges the fundamental basis -- redshift -- for much of modern cosmology.

If I can make a suggestion to people in general who follow space news, we'd all be wise to strive to be more humble and open-minded when it comes to the space sciences. The popular astrophysical theories today are still just theories. We make observations all of the time that just don't add up with these theories on a weekly basis, which effectively means that these theories aren't doing very well in a predictive sense. Time and time again, scientists must resort to the concept of collisions in space to explain our observations. The thing is, space is supposed to be extremely sparse, and collisions should be accordingly very rare. If the sun was a speck of dust, the next nearest star would be four miles away! Astrophysicists still cannot explain why the solar wind continues to accelerate even as it passes the planets! This is a *very* big deal because the solar wind, taken as a whole, constitutes the largest structure in our solar system -- the heliospheric current sheet. In other words, we don't know how the largest structure in our solar system manages to organize itself.

What I recommend for people interested in the space sciences is that you LISTEN TO THE CRITICS. We've come to accept the role of critics in nearly everything in our lives. We *need* critics in order to observe a discussion. Otherwise, the discussion fades and we instead end up with a one-sided monologue. It's only when we listen to the critics and compare different cosmologies that our brains really kick in and start to *think* about the space sciences critically. Up until that point, we are merely memorizing and listening. Not thinking.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

joebob — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 03:19:59 GMT

huh, what's an einstein. I just play video games and watch mtv. who cares about this sciene stuff. what is it good for anyhows?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

David — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 04:15:48 GMT

That's right, Bitches!. The Unites States ... OF SPACE!!!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Clinton,Petaling Jaya,Selangor — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 08:05:09 GMT

I'm deeply fascinated by Astro-Physics..Particle physics and stuff...wow!!!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Ned — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 09:09:44 GMT

When science becomes sufficiently advanced, it is indistinguishable from magic. D00ds, keep up the good work; abra-frickin'-ka-dabra.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Jason, Orem, UT — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 11:57:04 GMT

It's this kind of discovery that makes me want to get a Doctorate of Mathematics... Jump on board!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Wraith Pasadena Texas — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:22:55 GMT

Dark Matter = Ether.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:39:09 GMT

Shouldn't they be able to look at the red-shift of spectra of each of the magnified galaxies? There should be a detectable difference in the red shifts to show the differences in distance.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Joseph Davila, El Paso, TX — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:53:03 GMT

This may show that gravity tends to reflect light. A black hole may, therefore, throw off light and not absorb it as currently believed.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Dean Mitchell Tikrit Iraq — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:35:46 GMT

Great story, it is exciting to think that we may expand our understanding of dark matter. Einstein would be elated if he were alive today.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

GPS Milwaukee, WI — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:11:55 GMT

Cool...I guess creationism is for those who can't handle the math...

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Nick — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:53:20 GMT

So not only are all three galaxies lined up but because we can see it from this angle so to is the Milky Way. That makes four at the least.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Dayahka — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:33:53 GMT

I suggest the author's contact the scientists at galaxy zoo for pictures of these single and double-ring galaxies. I've viewed only a few thousand out of their million pictures and have seen at least a dozen such pictures.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Timmy Two Moons Phoenix AZ — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 03:00:39 GMT

Hey Chris, give it a break. No one takes it as seriously as you do. Its a great picture of a double Einstein Ring. Have a beer and take a deep breath. Let go of your anger or an agent of the dark side you will become. And then you'll have to live on the Death Star Galaxy, and no one wants that!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Alan Boyle — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 03:00:45 GMT

You're right, Thomas ... they did get the redshifts, and that's how they came up with the distance estimates. The foreground galaxy was z=0.22 and the middle galaxy was z=0.61. They weren't able to nail down the redshift for the farthest galaxy, just because the spectroscopic readings were rather scant. But they used some modeling to come up with an estimate of z=2.6.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Bob Florence — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 04:30:57 GMT

Remember how many people tried unsuccessfully to build an aeroplane that would fly. Many were wrong, most ideas were doomed to failure, some were close to success. Only those who discarded the weak ideas and built on the strong succeeded. The same ideas apply today. We do not know what is happening exactly, but there must be many attempts to understand before the truth will be found. I welcome every serious observation and theory, it will all add up to produce a much better understanding of our universe.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Loren, SF Bay Area, CA — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 04:41:53 GMT

Stuff like this...is why we need to keep Hubble operational.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Robert Lype — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:26:28 GMT

Every time a story like this creates more inertest in me, I not ashamed to say I followed my fathers footsteps and work in the transportation field. At 46 years old I am learning more and more about science and love it. I love to read things like this so learn more and its just so rewarding. Last year I bought my first telescope and havent quit yet. Keep the stories coming so we can learn more.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 05:48:21 GMT

RE:

"Shouldn't they be able to look at the red-shift of spectra of each of the magnified galaxies? There should be a detectable difference in the red shifts to show the differences in distance."

The idea that redshift can *only* constitute distance is a blatant astrophysical *assumption* which is contradicted by the findings of Arp, which demonstrate that redshift can have an intrinsic component related to an object's age. What's especially intriguing is that Arp's finding is that these intrinsic redshifts are quantized into a sequence of discrete values (like a step function). The chances of this being accidentally observed by Arp numerous times are practically zero! Before you guys so willingly accept that what we're seeing is a lensed object, you should also consider that there is no lensing whatsoever, and in fact the filamentary circles are in fact filamentary plasmas that are relatively new to the universe, or that at least have some other redshift component. We see filamentary plasmas all of the time in space these days. The problem is that everybody is ignoring Arp's observations and just refuses to consider or even disprove his findings. Many of his images of spiral galaxies have high redshift quasars situated in front of them, or connected to them. We're told by the mainstream that these are "chance" observations -- that the quasar is shining through a hole in the galaxy. That's highly dubious when you see the actual imagery. I recommend that you read "Seeing Red".

RE:

"Hey Chris, give it a break. No one takes it as seriously as you do. Its a great picture of a double Einstein Ring. Have a beer and take a deep breath. Let go of your anger or an agent of the dark side you will become. And then you'll have to live on the Death Star Galaxy, and no one wants that!"

It's easy to not realize the importance of what's going on right now within the space sciences. There is a new competing cosmology now called the Plasma Universe. It's been a *highly* active year for the Plasma Universe point of view in 2007. For a review, visit http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=66b0jzyh. The problem with the Plasma Universe perspective has *nothing* to do with the ideas themselves. The ideas are based upon laboratory plasma work and were originated by some historic figures like Kristian Birkeland and Hannes Alfven. Plasma constitutes 99.999% of all visible matter in the universe. It is considered the "fourth state of matter" here on Earth, but in space it's the *dominant* state. Many advances have occurred within the plasma sciences over the last few decades that never quite trickled into astrophysics or public awareness. And many of the predictions offered by Birkeland 100 years ago are still being confirmed to this day, but with little fanfare. The public has been highly oblivious to this fact because -- I'm sorry to MSNBC (I love you guys!) -- but investigative journalism within the space sciences has been anything but stunning. The journalists are not digging deeper or challenging their preconceived notions. They're not taking an active role in the *evaluation* of what's being said to them, and they're refusing to take on a more objective stance when it comes to their reporting. The problem of the Plasma Universe point of view -- which requires no hidden matters to work quite well -- is purely a problem of awareness at this point. There is a need to quantify the theory too, but there's historical precedent for this sort of a situation (Faraday and Maxwell).

The gist is this: When we convince ourselves that astrophysical interpretations are infallible, we ignore *major* scientific advances in nearly every single discipline that would accompany the correct set of theories. In the plasma universe point of view, we can learn how to predict earthquakes; we learn how to defy gravity; we learn how to regenerate limbs or damaged organs; we learn how to finally understand all of the strange written and verbal stories that have been passed down for thousands of years; we start seeing reasonable explanations for how consciousness evolved in man; in the plasma universe, we'd figure out how to create a sustained fusion reaction; and we'd learn how to predict both the weather and the climate better. It would represent a total overhaul to the sciences. It *will* eventually lead to a scientific renaissance. I'm quite certain of this, and I challenge anybody who is skeptical to dig a little bit deeper. I'm not mad at people for not knowing about it. I can relate to the fact that people just don't have the time to even think about this stuff. But, we must *make* time collectively because it's going to change everything for our children and their grandchildren -- and the United States is quickly losing out on the opportunity to dominate this new paradigm change. Other countries that are less dogmatic in their research will latch onto these findings pretty soon, and it will represent a serious threat to the American economy in the long run if we just refuse to listen to the critics much longer. I predict that it's only a few more years before entire *countries* transform their university systems to train more people in laboratory plasma physics. Whichever country is best at doing this will have the dominant economy going into 2020. Our blind faith in a continued American hegemony is utter hubris at this point.

When people dismiss theories before they investigate them, they also throw away all of the scientific innovations that might accompany that paradigm change. It's sad to me that you are so willing to throw away things that you don't even know about. The medical benefits alone should convince anybody (and validation of the laboratory studies within "The Body Electric" continues on a monthly basis).

And why do we throw these things away? The reasons tend to be very frivolous. There is no conspiracy. People are just apathetic. It is nearly impossible to get people to read anything technical in any depth if they don't already agree with what they perceive the message to be. People are "pseudo-skeptical" (skepticism only towards "fringe" ideas). The thing is, when you look deeper into the space sciences, it becomes very clear that astrophysics has a lot of very serious (arguably dead-on-arrival) problems. People just aren't looking deep enough to formulate an educated opinion on the matter. People are refusing to challenge their belief systems and the science is selected and popularized based upon how well it confirms our pre-existing belief systems. Humans are quite adept at convincing themselves of things that are not quite true. The Big Bang Theory is one such example.

I sincerely hope that people who read this take it seriously. Our quality of lives could be so much better than it is. And all you have to do to help is to just READ WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING. A great starting place after that Thornhill article would be to read Don Scott's "The Electric Universe".

Sorry if this sounds a bit intense for people. But I'm not madman. I'm just one of the few who happened to pick up some books on the subject. The Plasma Universe perspective is *gaining* in support. Nearly 250,000 people have viewed the "Thunderbolts of the Gods" documentary, which lays out a brief summary of what's going on, and which can be viewed online for free. The video has been very popular.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Rich, Fort Lauderdale, FL — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:55:33 GMT

Didn't somebody just recently prove that "dark matter" doesn't exist? Also, I hear that scientists argue that there is not enough detectable mass in the universe so there must be a lot we can't see and they call it , again, "dark matter". We can barely measure our own weight accurately and these people think they are on to something. They apply an age to the universe...and a size. In my view, if you think there is dark matter, that the universe has an age and size, than you may want to go into a different industry. Get real already! There is no dark matter. It's called universal gravity and it is what keeps everthing glued together. As for the lens crap, who cares. These people are looking at something and saying it is just what Einstein predicted and we know there are 3 galaxys at different billions of light years apart. We can't even see Pluto and we only guess at what it consists of, but we got those galaxys that are billions of light years away all figured out. I mean, light bends in water, so what do you think the chances are that there is some water or ice in between us and the 3-11 billion light years span to those galaxies. Not only that, we are lucky to get a person perfectly on a point on the earth within a meter (roughly 3 feet) using GPS, but we can accurately judge the distance to something that far. I think most people take this stuff as fact when in fact it is just a rough theory and guessing at best.

What these scientist really need to be doing is creating a space craft that can travel at or better than light speed. Of course this may be impossible, but the faster we can go, the faster we can get there and do some real accurate research.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Carlton Lane, Kamuela, HI — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 13:19:19 GMT

A Few Notes to Some Critics
(1) Criticism without comparable amounts of supporting evidence may most likely be only that Shakespearean "sound and fury signifying nothing".
(2) Arp's stuff leads to our galaxy being at the the center of the universe. Scientists and non-scientists alike have been burned enough by this egocentric position. Just think of all the critics Copernicus had when he said that scientific observations showed the Earth moved around the Sun. Think, also, of all the critics of Einstein's Special Relativity Theory. Such critics are still around, but their ancient criticisms do not help much to advance ourthinking today.
Critics who are still advocating an "ETHER" approach rather than the Special Relativity solution are wasting everyone's time.
(3) Science is the place that welcomes well founded criticism and has the means to check such criticism. Falsifiability, which invites verifiable criticism, is the hallmark of science, but without the "verifiable" part such things are outside of scientific consideration.
(4) There are plenty of critics inside the scientific community that criticize proposed theories; but, once a verifiable criticism has been shown to be in error, such time and energy is then used for other verifiable criticisms. "Been there. Did that."
(5) Good astrophysicists know well of the weak points (valid criticisms) in their theoies and observations. This knowledge leads them to methods and theories to improve things. The acceleration in the expansion of our visible universe is strongly supported in the astrophysics community, today, but it can not, yet, claim to be as firm as the support for Einstein's Special or General Relativity with all the great amount of supporting evidence for both.
(6) Great, powerful scientific theories may be able to be improved upon, even superseded, but the facts of our universe uncovered by them are absolutes. Any theory or criticism that has the Sun in about a 93 million mile elliptical orbit going around a nearly stationary Earth conflicts with an absolute of our universe and is, therefore, not scientific. Science attempts to uncover the truths of our universe, not lies about it. Einstein's Relativity showed the limitations of Newton's theories, but Relativity did not undo the truths of our physical universe (scientfc facts?) that Newton's theories
uncovered, like the Earth going around the Sun in a closely elliptical orbit. The red-shift in (expansion of) our universe is on a par with the Earth going around the Sun; new. improved theories may further verify, even modify, but not erase, this fact of expansion. Please, let me say it another way; the expansion of our physical universe, the maximum speed of light being the top speed possible in our physical universe, etc. are absolutes (facts) of our phyical universe that will persist until the Sun starts orbiting the Earth in the way that the Earth currently orbits the Sun. Have fun with that possible non-scientific fact (absolute?), critics. It's not a scientific fact (absolute) because we can't verify that the red-shift, etc. would quit if the Sun, for some strange reason, scientific or otherwise, started orbiting the Earth, but the point may still be seen even if not agreed to by critics.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Roger, Grand Haven, MI — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:47:58 GMT

I agree with Joe Smith from Little Rock.
It's all just speculation..!!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 17:12:04 GMT

Chris Reeve: Arp makes broad claims about plasma that just aren't verified. For instance, there is a 'cold hydrogen" gas cloud 100's of LY's in size approaching our galaxy that is only visible in the radio spectrum. A spectrum that doesn't speak of "electric plasma" at all.

Also, you see him taking about the famous 1918 experiment with a South African solar eclipse to prove that a gravity field bends light exactly as Einstein predicted it would...do ya?

I have read enough of Arp to know that he makes broad claims about a paltry few "scientists". http://members.cox.net/dascott3/Interview.htm
Arp doesn't even do his own research because he can't. He is an engineer..not a scientist. Non of his extravagent claims are verifiable. Although I did see his picture of a quasar that was toward the outer region of a much closer galaxy and apparently in the foreground. The picture isn't what it appears to be, the quasar is so brilliant it is shining through the galaxy.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

John Doe, NYC — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:10:39 GMT

Re: Chris Reeve (CA)
Great story, now show me the money. What if Arp is wrong? What if Plasma Universe is the right solution but to the wrong problem? Basically, you are supporting ideas which themselves have doubters in the community (much as yourself of the mainstream viewpoints). And, you know what, critics can be wrong themselves -- gosh, Gigli was NOT worth a mere moment of my time, neither for humor nor anything else.

I'm sure Edwin Hubble disagrees with Arp -- and, ironically, a telescope with Hubble's name was probably used to gather evidence which Arp probably leverages today. However, additional discoveries have countered Arp's claims and he has refused to budge. He is destined to remain merely a critic.

Overall, the paragraphs of your comments are all mutually exclusive; they can be taken out of context and hold just as much water. Face it, the community is most apt to side with the majority opinion until overwhelming evidence changes that stance. Instead of ranting about the need for such evidence, uncover it yourself. Make the community a believer and support, not an enemy.

Re: Rich (FL)
Universal gravity, okay. But how does it really reach out? What substance (matter) acts as the long arms of gravity in outer space? On Earth, there is matter which causes friction (empty space is not really empty). Also, military-grade GPS has greater pin-point accuracy than consumer-allowed GPS technology; it is controlled by the government -- and with very good reason.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

M.Swartz, Kent, Ohio — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:35:07 GMT

This isn't anything new, It was already proven that gravity manipulates and bends light from the 1919 solar eclipse experiment.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

densell — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:35:36 GMT

just as a triangle has FINITE length sides but our
system of mathematics (radicals) can not define the END as finite, we have a long way to go to explain OUR Universe. I am sure in time (10,000 years from now???>) we may have a better clue about our Universe.

WE are HERE......... just a matter oh how and WHAT we are here FOR. As our forefathers (church and such) had missed clues and WRONG theories, we will one day GET IT RIGHT (I do hope)......

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Albert Einstein, Solar System, Earth — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:12:47 GMT

why study other planet if humans doesn't even know how to take care our own planet.....foolish humans! for the LAST 100 years of studying other planets did they get any solid evidence of possible planet who can support human needs? WAKE UP MORONS!!!!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:57:57 GMT

RE:

"Didn't somebody just recently prove that "dark matter" doesn't exist? Also, I hear that scientists argue that there is not enough detectable mass in the universe so there must be a lot we can't see and they call it , again, "dark matter". We can barely measure our own weight accurately and these people think they are on to something."

The universe largely consists of matter in the plasma state. We are protected here on Earth within the magnetosphere, but asteroids and planets are the only places in the universe where plasma is not the dominant state of matter. Why is this important? Because we know from laboratory experience that plasmas can exert force in the absence of any emissions whatsoever. It is called the "dark mode", and with the "glow" and "arc" modes, the dark mode represents one of the three primary operation modes of the universe's *fundamental state of matter*. It is nothing more than plasma that is not excited. That's it! In the laboratory, a plasma will respond to a charge density with both a luminosity and an electrical resistance. For whatever reason, astrophysicists have been reluctant to admit that electrical currents can exist within space on large scales and do things of importance; it appears to be a rich "tradition" to deny it. And this has led them to ignore the facts of what we've learned about plasmas within the laboratory: namely, that dark matter looks a whole heckofa lot like the "dark mode" for plasmas. This explanation for dark matter makes a lot of sense. In fact, Kristian Birkeland, the world's first laboratory astrophysicist, virtually predicted it 100 years ago when he stated:

"It seems to be a natural consequence of our point of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying ions of all kinds. We assume each stellar system in evolution throws off electric corpuscles into space. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to think that the greater part of the material masses in the universe is found not in the solar systems or nebulae, but in 'empty' space."

But if you go back into the history of science and look at exactly what happened, you see that Birkeland's findings contradicted the "beautiful" equations created by Sydney Chapman that modeled the Earth's aurora as a closed system (not including the Sun). It was considered back then to be impossible that "pencils" of charged particles could maintain their tight ray-like form over the huge distance from the Sun to the Earth. Now, fast-forward 100 years and astrophysicists will tend to agree that Birkeland was right on the scale of our solar system, and that Sydney Chapman was wrong (even though Chapman represented the establishment view at the time and Birkeland died a madman and alone, trying to prove his theories). But, what astrophysicists still refuse to accept is that electrical currents can exist on scales larger than our solar system. Time and time again, they keep on making the mistake of assuming that the electrical currents they are observing are closed systems and side-effects of other dominant processes. First, it was the Earth's lightning and the aurora. Now, it's the solar system and the heliospheric current sheet. Little has changed in this regard since the time of Chapman, except the scale of their denials. What's really going on is that the entire universe looks to be electrically connected. The Sun and it's heliosphere are connected to the galaxy and the galaxies are connected to one another. On even larger scales, filaments of galaxies can be observed.

To think that we humans can harness the power of electricity and yet nature must remain ignorant of it is pure hubris. Laboratory plasma physicists have discovered that plasmas naturally form themselves into wires, which can move charged particles over limitless distances. They are called Birkeland Currents. Some astrophysicists will call them "magnetic ropes" or "flux tubes", but that's mere semantics. All that matters is the big picture: that the universe knows how to transfer charged particles over great distances and that this flow of charged particles can exert force in the absence of any emissions whatsoever.

The Plasma Universe point of view is extraordinary and revolutionary because it follows from laboratory experience. Once you understand that plasmas naturally form wires in space, which can exert amazingly large forces over extraordinary distances, then the idea that an invisible matter may be lurking in space causing these forces becomes obsolete. Compared to Birkeland Currents, dark matter is inherently unscientific, persistently elusive and increasingly used as a convenient fudge factor in the mathematics used to justify the popular paradigm. It only takes one fudge factor to fill holes in a theory. The conventional theories though have two to choose from: dark energy *and* dark matter.

Science needs to return to the basics. People need to learn to become more humble about our surroundings and our knowledge base. The first step is to learn to accept uncertainty and respect self-doubt and our own fallibility. Our theories are made by us -- humans -- and all of our psychological imperfections can and do penetrate the seemingly impenetrable peer review system. We need to take a completely fresh look at space and ask astrophysicists why they refuse to quantify any theory other than the popular ones? They act as if they are delegates of the Big Bang Theory rather than representatives of humans trying to seek out a *useful* unified theory for our surroundings. We've witnessed enough problems with the conventional theories by now to seriously consider funding alternatives. It's time to start crafting some arguments for competitors so that we have some selection to choose from. Humans think best when they are contrasting and comparing. The Plasma Universe perspective badly needs to be turned into the Plasma Universe *Theory*, and there is likely some extraordinary child out there right now who in the spirit of James Maxwell will turn these ideas into equations. Hannes Alfven and Kristian Birkeland have left him or her with a great starting point to work from.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Jellis,Monroeville,Ohio — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:04:36 GMT

A REAL VELIKOVSKY(sp.)MOMENT, CHRIS.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Peter Pan — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:44:37 GMT

1. At this moment in time that image is most likely not even there anymore. The distance light has had to travel to "see" the image makes the objects incredibly older than our solar system.

2. It looks a lot like a diety sized condom?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Rommes, Wickenburg, AZ — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:18:54 GMT

Chris,
I can make a 'redshift' in sunlight using cherry Jello(R)or the pollution over LA. Two distinct, different methods at work. Arp's theories are intriguing, but even if he's right about mass generation it doesn't mean recession is invalid. It may well turn out the the science fiction writers were science fact writers before their time. Maybe there are wormholes connecting black holes to white ones. Arp explains a lot of observed variance from traditional cosmologic theory, if you look at it with your head tilted and one eye shut. It's most likely that the truth is between, and we (definitely read that as I) don't yet have the capacity to understand. I agree that Dr. Arp's theories should be investigated more thoroughly, with as much vigor as other theories. But you seem quite eager to throw out everything else. If I'm right, and the truth is in the middle, then you'd leave us just as badly off. And for the record, twin quazars are just as cool, and just as unlikely, as an Einstein ring.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Dal, London — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:19:03 GMT

I would have to agree with Chris.
The Electric Universe/Plasma Universe paradigm actually makes some sense to the open minded.
Even Eienstein himself admitted he was never happy with his own theories, yet modern scholars choose to ignore this fact.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Kris Jackson, North Grafton, MA — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 23:34:26 GMT

It would be interesting to see someone try to actually quantify how much our understanding of the universe (or multiverse!) has increased in the last fifty or so years. I remember when I was a kid, quasars had just been discovered and everyone was wondering what they were. Now we measure the diameter of exoplanets and determine how much dark energy is around us.
And yet, the best clue we have to why it's all here in the first place is either Genesis or the anthropic principle. The ancient Greek, Aristarchus, said, "The amount of knowledge we obtain will always be finite, while what we could know will always be infinite. Therefore, the ration of what we know to what we could know will always be infinitesimal."

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Mogaka J.O, Farmington hills MI — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 03:52:28 GMT

Thanks chris! -I thought I was the only one in the universe wo did not believe this Big Bang crap.While not trying to knock down all these aclaimed and truly intelligent scientists involved in the study of astrophysics I do ocassionally wonder where the dividing line between hard science and fiction stands.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Marcos Reyes, Michigan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:06:22 GMT

I dont get it, whats the point... oh wow something pretty in the sky, will it affect our daily life, will it matter in the long run? We will all live, we will all eventually die. Accept The Fact.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Ben Winter — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 04:12:59 GMT

Dear Alan:
Re: "The original signature . . . a mere 500 photons hidden among 500,000 other photons in the SDSS spectrum of the foreground galaxy," realizes the following estimate: off the top of my head and when we know the 13.6 eV photon is 1/3757th of electron mass; we consider: 500 photons are about 1/7>th electron mass, and 500,000 photons equal to 130> electrons (the 130 still only about 1/13th proton mass), still too small to observe as a recognizable entity. At slower speeds, we would realize a further reduction in photon mass. I would enquire into the 'how' of measurement for miniscule objects computed over such a vast distance--especially when such objects are so elusive when near at hand.
Keep up the good work,
Ben

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Topper, Socorro, New Mexico — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:37:44 GMT

Sweet lensing! It makes my heart beat leap out of my chest!

As an aside: I know Halton Arp, I worked with Halton Arp and I treasure the Peculiar Galaxy Catalogue. But sometimes having faith in your gut takes you the wrong direction. Halton has been fluffer nutters for 20 years and it is a shame that folks like Chris Reeve can't see past the charisma to see the bad math under Halton's hypothesis.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:48:41 GMT

RE:

"And for the record, twin quazars are just as cool, and just as unlikely, as an Einstein ring."

If quasars are located at their redshift distances, then they would oftentimes be "metaphysically" bright objects. That's not a strong starting point for the redshift-can-only-mean-distance arguments.

More generally, we can be less certain of things that are far away in either time or space. The thing is, the conventional theories assume an event that is as far away as they can imagine and then work their way closer to us. Hannes Alfven called this a "prophetic" approach to cosmology. The Plasma Universe, by contrast, is "actualistic" because it is based upon laboratory science and because it starts by observing our local environment, and then works its way outwards from there. I believe strongly that the actualistic approach will win over the next couple of decades. The plasma-based arguments for what we've been observing with comets, the Sun, our own planet and the remaining bodies are quite strong. Comparing cosmologies can be a lot like comparing apples and oranges. They make completely different *types* of arguments about completely different things. The thing is, the actualistic arguments can be made to be quite strong because these things are closer to us. We can see them quite well. We can see, for instance, that the supposed volcano, Prometheus, on Io is not a volcano at all with the probes we send there. This is far stronger than speculating and assuming our way to figuring out what objects that are really far away are.

---

I don't know if the people here know much about the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum, but if you are familiar with it, then you will certainly be very surprised to learn that the www.thunderbolts.info site unique visitor traffic in December was *double* BAUT's. And not only that, but those of us who have just been informed of the data were especially surprised by the following statistics:

"Quantcast includes a chart on the education levels of the "head of household," a significant indicator considering that a large majority of our visitors are the head of a household. Quantcast includes three categories: no college, college, and graduate work. BAUT shows a significantly higher percentage with NO COLLEGE than Thunderbolts. And Thunderbolts beats BAUT in both COLLEGE and GRADUATE SCHOOL. For Thunderbolts, the largest percentage of visitors have graduate work, and the percentage is almost 25 percent higher than is the case for BAUT."

This has occurred WITHOUT ONE SINGLE PRESS RELEASE OR SUPPORTIVE EDITORIAL IN A PRINTED PUBLICATION! This is nothing more than a tiny grassroots movement at this point. The number of people up until around six months ago who knew what the Electric Universe argued was certainly less than 5,000 people.

The BAUT Forum is supposed to be the bastion of conventional astrophysicists, and grad students appear to be paying *more* attention to the Electric Universe than conventional astrophysics. If you are smart, you guys will see it as the canary in the coal mine. And trust me, this is not a temporary spike. Organizations like MSNBC can refuse to run a story on this situation, but that's apparently not going to stop it from growing quite rapidly. I smell paradigm change, and it's going to be a very dramatic situation. The allegations being made are startlingly different from what is currently accepted within the discipline, and the switchover will touch every single scientific field. These grad students will surely be publishing papers over the next few years in support of the Plasma Universe, and this debate is going to go 100% nuclear.

Within that context, does it make sense to continue to ignore the claims? No, it does not. We should all attempt to understand the issues that will be debated, and the first step is to learn what these guys are saying. There's no way around it if our goal is to honestly identify the truth.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Buffantoo — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:10:02 GMT

What if there is nothing behind that galaxy, but water beetween ours and that?
Water also bends light.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

KGary — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 13:47:34 GMT

Here's a thought.... If light bends around an object (with heavy gravitational pull), then perhaps light does escape black holes. Its just distorted.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Not an astrophysicist, just a fan — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:40:21 GMT

Okay...really... throw away the copies of "what the bleep do we know!?" and start being rational. Einstien wasn't happy with his theories, cause he hadn't completed his work on a unified theory. Arp is as interesting as star trek fanfiction. Just because somebody throws convention on its head does not mean that particular somebody is right.. I.E. Copernicus was not the only scientist with new ideas that died "alone and mad." In fact it was probably due to the fact that there were a thousand other idiots throwing around inane ideas effectively crying wolf and drowing out any kind of truth. Every theory has holes, including your precious Arp; the difference being is that hard science actually attempts to explain the holes rather than simply ignoring them. The simple fact of the matter is that hard science is hard work and there isn't nor will there be in our or our great great grandchildrens lifetime, a unified theory. Furthermore, I believe (but not sure) it was Newton who said, "If I see any farther, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants." Science is built, not divined, even or especially, an engineer should be able to understand that.

Anyway...stick to Hawking, stick to Einstien, read the journals, and let the astrophysicists do the astrophysics.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

D Rasmussen, Morganton, NC — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:48:24 GMT

Pure nonsense!
Twenty-five years ago, I figured out VERY EASILY how to "go faster than light", but, because I don't have a "whole string of college degrees", no one of the so-called "experts" will allow me to publish my info, it's like "How DARE you say something different from the "known" science!" Even though my info is rock-solid, WHY won't the "experts" accept it???? I challenge them to look at my info, with any reporters present, to publicly examine my info!!!! respond to me at: rho@hci.net
Thankyou!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Bo McIlvain, Malvern, Pa — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:43:23 GMT

As someone who studied physics and astrophysics many years ago, I have some sympathy with Chris because the vast majority of the public has no idea how many "simplifying" assumptions go into much of what is quoted as scientific gospel. It wasn't so long ago that one of those "simplifying" assumptions was that there was only one type of Cepheid variable star, but it turned out there wasn't and the size of the universe grew suddenly by a factor of two. Many of today's cosmological arguments are largely based on even weaker arguments about "standard" luminosity objects, and need to be taken with a grain or two of salt. Further, the electromagentic force is almost always dismissed as a cosmological actor, for dubious reasons. It would take very little net charge in all those supergiant black holes to equal all the dark matter's alleged contributions. For that matter, only a small neutrino rest mass would do the same thing.

We should always keep a firm distinction in mind between sciences where controlled experiments can be conducted and those where they can not. Controlled experimentation earned those sciences their reputations, and sadly the others are frittering it away.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Edward DePouli, Saddle Brook, NJ — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:45:58 GMT

I'm just glad to see people responding to the article. Differences of opinions always lead to further thought AND most thought processes if taken seriously lead to improved understanding.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

RANDY LAS VEGAS NEVADA — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:52:33 GMT

I HAVE KIND OF A DUMB QUESTION.IF LIGHT HAS ANUFF MASS TO BE DISTORTED OR AFFECTED BY GRAVITY WOULD IT NOT ALSO HAVE ANUFF MASS TO BE SLOWED DOWN AFTER TRAVELING THE VASTNESS OF SPACE FOR MILLIONS OR BILLIONS OF YEARS? WOULD'NT THAT AFFECT THE COMMON THEORIES OF HOW WE CALCULATE THE DISTANCE OF ALMOST EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

slana, middle of nowhere, USA — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:48:48 GMT

Is it possible that the antimatter that is produced by the ejecta of neutron starts and other mass being gobbled up and shot out by black holes are then amplified to produce more antimatter than the mass that was used to create it (could this be what is happening). If so, is antimatter the so called "dark matter"? Multiply this by all the blackholes that produce this effect in the universe. Would this add up to the misssing mass that the term dark matter was used to explain? It has also been suggested that antimatter can coexist with matter, such as at the heart of the Milky way without destroying each other quickly.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Diggity! — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:14:27 GMT

Wow! Hope they are right!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

guy s newell, niles, mi — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:59:32 GMT

I would be much more interested in a discussion of some way to verify (or deny) string theory. There must be some macro-world effect that could only be explained by string theory.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Wayne, Alamogordo, NM — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:20:23 GMT

"Cool...I guess creationism is for those who can't handle the math..."

To believe we are created just means that we have hope for something after our short time on earth. Nothing more. Math (as we currently understand it and use it) is just a tool. The search for knowledge is something that either was created in us or we accidentally acquired. If it was created in us, then we are destined to use it for the betterment of our world. That's not the case if it's just some by-product of natural selection. So which viewpoint really fits with scientific progression? The best thing (scientifically speaking) about being a creationist is that I can have my cake and eat it too! Alan, great article; and, it's blogs like yours that keep us all on our toes and thinking about all the wonderful things our life on this earth has to offer. And to all you people out there with the negative karma, come on, lighten up. We just made a new discovery. Let's celebrate.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

david tucson az — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:04:33 GMT

hello,there is an interesting point about the lensing which may lack a needed equation,which has to be about the distance light travels in accordance with the gravity and its strength or why does the light not travel at 32/ft/sec,as would any other object? also would this lead to a paralaxx of the distant galaxies due to the dark matter present there in?yes this is somewhat an interesting article but presents a huge number, of the matter present in the universe, although undisclosed. yes this is interesting and thankyou all

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Bernard, Maricopa Az. — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:19:47 GMT

I do not believe so...this could be just a ripple effect of light from this close object.
And pulsars can be an object quickly revolving around a bright star.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Armonta Jones, Brookhaven,MS — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:21:32 GMT

Hey,that was a really cool discovery that ya'll made.I really understand the law of Einstein.Sceince is really cool if you like it.I think ya'll need to try juct a little bit harder tho, if you found this then you can find somethin else.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Mr. Adams - Science Teacher, Phoenix AZ — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 22:39:00 GMT

:) “this Big Bang crap”....who came up with that? Oh ya, Jesuit Priest Lemaître shared that one with Earth. Hmmm....sounds like another story I read somewhere...anyway, check him out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre

Chris and others! How awesome is this discussion! This is what science is all about! The discoveries, the debates, the theories, and why not, the beer drinking! Stargazing party at my house tonight, Skyy and Redbull Plasmabombs for everyone!
P.S. Thanks, looking in the plasma model, what fun

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Intolerant of the Intolerant, Los Angeles, CA — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:27:30 GMT

"I dont get it, whats the point... oh wow something pretty in the sky, will it affect our daily life, will it matter in the long run? We will all live, we will all eventually die. Accept The Fact. " - Marcos Reyes, Michigan

i say to you, and to all those who post irrelevant, and almost ignorant, comments - if you don't care, then why bother reading the article or posting any comments? If it's not your cup o' tea, then why are you here? intelligent people are trying to have intelligent discussions about the article or topics otherwise relating to it.

if you don't get it, pick up a book or two or few hundred.

cheers to the neverending quest of all knowledge.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Frank Glover Rochester, NY — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:09:40 GMT

"1. At this moment in time that image is most likely not even there anymore. The distance light has had to travel to "see" the image makes the objects incredibly older than our solar system."

Does that make the physics behind its existence (current or former) any less worthy of knowing?

Gravity bends light, even today, even here. It's been observed during solar eclpses. (just not in the form of an Einstein Ring) Or does the fact that those events, when observed, are invariably over 8 minutes old, render them irrelevant?

(Of course, some say that certain physical constants themselves may have changed sightly over time...and it will also take observations of the deep universe to confirm or refute those ideas.)

Old does not equal irrelevant. Ask any archeologist or palentologist.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Ron Graham — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 01:56:38 GMT

Its all just pretty pictures boys and in the big picture means absolutely nothing. All this money spent staring at the stars and dreaming, when no one alive will ever visit Mars, much less anything out there beyond Mars. No one alive will have even a great great great grandchild who will either, and in all likelyhood the reign of man will last perhaps another century or two before we pollute ourselves to death, or worse. How about we start spending all that brain power and all those millions that we now waste dreaming on making sure kids have shoes, coats and food, and old people have medicine, and decent housing when they retire and become infirm? How about we spend some of that money ensuring everyone can get decent medical care in this country, and use some of that brain power to discover better and cleaner fuel sources. Pondering the stars is fine, but pandering them is obscene...

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:02:43 GMT

RE:

"(2) Arp's stuff leads to our galaxy being at the the center of the universe."

We should not try to evaluate Arp's observations or the Plasma Universe point of view through the lens of conventional theories. This is nonsense. The Plasma Universe perspective demands that it be considered with a clean slate of assumptions. I'm not quite sure how you arrived at this conclusion here, but it's erroneous. There are no such ramifications of Arp's findings, and if there were, you can be sure that I would dismiss Arp just as you are. Before you allow yourself to so easily jump to conclusions that appear to falsify his findings, you should first consider that his observations might not be "chance" observations. We have to allow for ideas to possibly be true before we attempt to disprove them. Otherwise, our skepticism stops being a philosophy and becomes just a prop for conventional wisdom.

RE:

"Arp makes broad claims about plasma that just aren't verified. For instance, there is a 'cold hydrogen" gas cloud 100's of LY's in size approaching our galaxy that is only visible in the radio spectrum. A spectrum that doesn't speak of "electric plasma" at all."

Electric currents surely can generate radio waves. And plasmas in the laboratory generate electric currents with no problem.

Your assumption that filamentary space plasmas can only be fluid-like jets of matter ignores the fact that (1) the jets are not gases, but rather plasma -- which can respond to electrodynamic forces within the laboratory, and (2) some of the jets are highly collimated over many thousands of light years. And again, we know from the laboratory that electrical currents are always accompanied by helical magnetic fields around them (Maxwell's Equations demand as much), which can account for this extreme collimation. The point is that what one person *assumes* represents a fluid-like "jet" of material, another person can just as legitimately infer is an electrodynamic filamentary plasma just like the ones we see in novelty plasma globes.

Plasmas do not *have* to behave electrodynamically, and this is where the field of magnetohydrodynamics becomes involved, but it's important to note that there are conditions for the assumption that plasmas in space can be modeled as fluids. Quasi-neutrality, for instance, is the assumption that for a given volume of space, the overall charge balance can be assumed to be zero. Quasi-neutrality is an important assumption within astrophysics today -- and yet, it is still just an *assumption*. And one could say that over the history of science, the quasi-neutral box has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. Wise people will dig deeper into the issue and identify the trend.

RE:

"Also, you [don't?] see him taking about the famous 1918 experiment with a South African solar eclipse to prove that a gravity field bends light exactly as Einstein predicted it would...do ya?"

And this is where I must plead with you to DIG DEEPER. If you do, you may be shocked to learn that the 1919 eclipse that made Einstein famous was in fact a fraud. Eddington apparently selectively withheld some of the photographic plates that did not bode well for Relativity. This has become an accepted fact within the scientific community by now. Although there are several high profile instances of fraud related to proofs for Relativity, we must dig deeper and not just assume that a few bad apples represent a faulty paradigm. There's plenty of other evidence to be considered in the debate.

The important thing to realize is the big picture: this image of the Einstein ring is no "proof" for anything because it is hardly selective. There are multiple interpretations for the image and data associated with it. And that's that!

RE:

"Arp doesn't even do his own research because he can't. He is an engineer..not a scientist. Non of his extravagent claims are verifiable. Although I did see his picture of a quasar that was toward the outer region of a much closer galaxy and apparently in the foreground. The picture isn't what it appears to be, the quasar is so brilliant it is shining through the galaxy."

Halton Arp is a rather famous astronomer. He has an atlas of peculiar galaxies, and many of those galaxies are referred to by their Arp number within the astrophysical community.

Arp's theories were rejected by Chandrasekar (sp?), who happened to be the one peer-reviewing his work. Chandraseskar helped to define black hole theory. It should come as no huge surprise then that he was unhappy with Arp's findings. The real question is: why was Chandrasekar allowed to even peer-review Arp's paper? Isn't there such a thing as conflict-of-interest within the astrophysical community? It seems rather blatant to me.

As for the quasar that's supposedly shining through a galaxy, this is by no means a settled matter. It is not so clear-cut that Arp deserves the unfortunate treatment that he has received (he lost his telescope time!). You act as if we *know* that this is the case. In fact, x-ray and radio imagery generally confirms the existence of bridges between these objects that are supposedly separated by billions of light years.

RE:

"However, additional discoveries have countered Arp's claims and he has refused to budge. He is destined to remain merely a critic."

Actually, I've seen two different studies that confirm his statistics. I would be wary of looking up Halton Arp on wikipedia, by the way. I'm not sure if that's what you're doing, but Wikipedia represents conventional wisdom, and nothing else.

RE:

"Face it, the community is most apt to side with the majority opinion until overwhelming evidence changes that stance. Instead of ranting about the need for such evidence, uncover it yourself. Make the community a believer and support, not an enemy."

There is a *vast* amount of evidence that supports the Plasma Universe point of view already. *VAST*, and far beyond what you realize. It doesn't seem that way to you because you and others are making a subconscious decision to not read about it. People do not read technical materials that they disagree with, and you typically know whether or not it's fringe before you pick it up or spend money on it. It is a major problem with our culture. We were supposed to be a culture of innovation, and we've somehow convinced ourselves out of the need for dramatic innovation *before* we developed a real theory of everything. What is it about understanding just 5% of the universe that gives you so much confidence that we're right? I ask myself this question every day.

But, the thing is, science is not like a democracy. We don't vote on reality, and you will find no answers by appealing to authority because the Plasma Universe point of view has been backed by some of the most famous scientists in history (Kristian Birkeland and Hannes Alfven being the two big names). Anthony Peratt, whose resume makes all of us look like we're in grade school, also supports these concepts. But, what you're not realizing is that the Plasma Universe perspective is eminently understandable. You can purchase a copy of "The Electric Sky" by Don Scott, and you will probably understand the large majority of it even as a layperson. You do not *have* to appeal to authority. It is purely your *choice* to do so. You could also just pick up the book and learn what it is.

---

Let me show you guys something else. This image of the supposed double Einstein ring is so fuzzy that I find it amazing that people consider it to be proof of much of anything. Look at these pictures ...

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/1995/02/image/a/

If we zoomed into the Double Ring, would we in fact find something similar to the Cartwheel Galaxy? That seems like a very legitimate question to me, and in an ideal world, we would be more cautious before creating press releases declaring that we've found more proof for Relativity.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

jj windsor ontario — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:35:41 GMT

beam me up scotty no intelligent life here

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Charles J. Slavis Jr. — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:18:57 GMT

Looking for the beginning or the end of eternity from the middle is an endeavor of conjecture with unlimited possibilities. We can't even trace the big bang back to a starting point. God doesn't throw dice. God plays billiards. Everything is changing. If you don't agree with me, just wait. In time even I will change.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Lunar.Scion — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:43:07 GMT

How beautiful. Even if we can't know precisely what it is, I think we should all sit back and appreciate how breathtaking the universe is and how little we actually know compared to what we think we know...

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

David Pritchard, Madrid, Spain — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:27:00 GMT

It always amuses me to hear that relativity is "just a theory" (just like evolution is "just a theory"), implying that beyond theory is "fact" or "truth". Actually, all science consists of theories, and theories can never be proven, only falsified. It is true that scientists often blur these definitions in the public mind, by presenting the current consensus as "truth". That does science no favours in the long run.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Huggins, WPB, FLA — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:33:17 GMT

The subject matter of this article and most of the responses is so far above the head of 99.999% of Americans or humans really, that an open public discussion like this is almost moot. Most of the responders surely must realize that they are in a debate among themselves, a group of half a dozen maybe?
A couple of simple points were made though that really sum it all up: scientists have today's space scientists have formulated complex theories which are based upon assumption after assumption. Theories built upon assumption supported by speculation. what a waste of brainpower.
And: Say that we had answers for alomost all of sciences space questions, would that even come close to giving us the answer to life's most important questions? I dare say not.
We humans should concentrate our mindpower more to philosophy. We probably have the answers to all of the universe's riddles locked in our brains right now but just can't access them. A full understanding of our soul and mind and spirit would open all the doors to the universe. We would not need Mars missions or radio telescopes.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

REXFORD TRAVIS JAMES — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:44:41 GMT

The more you search the Universe the more you'll see the handy work of the one greater than you or i...Almighty God...KEEP SEARCHIG..He will blow your minds with His Creation.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

omnific — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 11:24:22 GMT

what if we we find the end of the universe and look outside of it and discover that the universe is just a grain of sand on a distant giant beach

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Brian Wilsterman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:34:33 GMT

I enjoy the open discussions on current theories and this forum only enforces how important peer review is. Like Galileo, whose scientific ideas where ahead of his time and not considered valid, even blasphemous and heretic by the church, truth still prevailed centuries later. New theories replace old ones, radical ideas and physical laws become accepted. In other words, the truth always prevails as we learn more about our physical universe. So don’t worry Chris, soon your belief on the plasma universe will be the new accepted explanation.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

mike, anchorage, ak — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:46:41 GMT

Randy
Light doesn't have mass. The reason light can't escape a black hole is because the black hole is so massive it bends the path of light into an infinite circle.

Chris
Gravity is a weak force that can act over very long distances. The electrostatic force is a stronger force, but does not act over very long distances. In fact, the electrostatic force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two charged objects. This is why electrostatic forces can't have much effect on the interactions of distant celestial systems, and gravity can. Write back to m_y_k_e@hotmail.com

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

The Quiet One, AZ — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:01:00 GMT

Great article, interesting. Chris, I have no idea what you were typing about but your use of big words is hot!
I love the undiscovered territory! Keep reaching!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Zeph. Tucson, AZ — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:15:33 GMT

Science "Critics" are good for the overall advancement of our understanding, that much is correct. And new ideas or theories are always cropping up and either being substantiated in time or forgotten about, this is just the natural evolution of Science.

That being said, a public forum (IE: the front page article on a new discovery with an internet board of both educated and non educated individuals) is NOT the place to write page after page of criticism of a scientific idea or theory. I'm not attacking your stance Chris, only the place where you choose to stand for it. Provide information and links so people can look for themselves and learn more if interested, but realize that there are a lot of people who will not choose to learn more, and are looking for any excuse to say "science is wrong and bad" and will use the educated sounding arguments of others to back their claims, without furthering their own knowledge or anyone else's.

Remember that having both knowledge and the freedom to share it comes with great responsibility. A casual observer will look at this story and wonder how people can know such things, and hopefully be inspired to learn a little about the scientific process and maybe one out of a thousand viewers will go on to actively contribute to our understanding later on. This feeling should be publicly nurtured and allow the seed of curiosity to be sown, because the scientific method as a whole is NOT wrong, even if everything we think we know about the universe may be in error, the only way we will know one way or another is with science. With imagination, testing and observation.

There are others in the public that have little faith in that process, and try to spread their poisonous beliefs, and roll their eyes at science when theories compete, rather than delight that we live in a universe where multiple ideas can exist until one is tested to be more accurate than another, as well as the gray areas between. If you really want to recruit believers in a new theory, don't fish blindly, instead inspire the readers to learn more themselves, then take your real debate to even a moderately more advanced forum where people who are already versed in the sciences can critique or support your ideas. try www.physicsforums.com or other sites where you can enter an advanced debate.

Don't attack science news in public, as we are in such short supply as it is. Read back through these pages at the people who are making comments that we shouldn't be spending money on science. These people are not nutjobs, they are real people with valid concerns, and these people vote.

Why don't we who are visionary to the possibility of science debate with THEM why they should change their way of thinking? Or would we rather see more budget cuts, more politics, and science news pushed further into the margins? Please, everyone use your knowledge and your voice responsibly.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Robin Briggs, Wshington DC — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:30:47 GMT

Randy, Light is a particle and a wave. It wcan be viewed in both forms. Light travels at a constant speed in the vacume of space, and no matter how fast you travel, light always travels at the same speed. It does not conform to the same rules as say a bullet. Even though light a photon has a "mass" per say, it acts like a wave as well which does not follow the same rules as normal matter. Relative, at any position, light always travels at 186,000 Miles/Sec.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

clifford smith watertown wis — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:32:14 GMT

i like reading these types of articles, i guess to make my blood boil. i think all the scientific study is to satisfy peoples curiosity. it doesnt prove or do anything,period. it doesnt feed the hungry or provide medicine to the sick. if scientists are so smart how come they cant figure those things out first. oh yeah their looking at stars. i think its a waste of time, money , energy, and resources. fix what needs fixing here first then go there.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

The Dude — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:58:06 GMT

...and God is still behind all of it.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Duane Nelson — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:08:53 GMT

I think dark matter is where the spirit world lives.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

oxMexo, small town, Oregon — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:58:17 GMT

What makes me sad, is that scientists, promote their THEORIES as fact. Scientists really have no way to prove what they say, it is all guessing, on what othes have guessed (That is the deffinition of a theory). These scientists truely need to be ashamed of themselves, as THEY know that what they say CAN'T be proven, and YOU scientists in fact are lying to people. Another sad observation is, who funds these research projects? How much money is going into them, while we here on earth have billions of people starving, our children not getting the education they need, what about saving earth from global warming, and what about our elderly, even you scientists are going to be one someday. Why not use the monies wasted on galaxies billions of light years away, and help those here on earth now, and leave the heavens to God and the angels. Course, if you read the book of John in the New Testament of the Bible, and meet Jesus, then someday you WILL BE IN those heavens you waste your time and money on, because that's the only way you are going to truely see it and get there. Wouldn't you agree, that this earth and the people who live on it now and in the future need you, and would benefit more from your intelligence, than some universe so far away it matters not. Come back from the far, far away galaxies, to our world, and become part of the real world, and help where it is needed most.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Frank Gerlach, Boise, Idaho — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:59:55 GMT

I apparently got into the middle of the arguement. Will someone please take the time and effort to state what the opposing views of this argument are. It would make it a lot easier to find out what side I'm on. LOL

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:21:18 GMT

Chris Reeve: You by and large are guilty of making extravagent claims with no real references. Lets see some of these studies you are secretly privy to. And I was wrong about Arp. I meant Don Scott the electrical engineer who in fact is not a scientist.

http://www.cv.nrao.edu/course/astr534/Tour.html check out the "gecko" image of radio emissions around Jupiter along with that whole article. I sure don't see any fantastic flux tubes connecting from elsewhere.

The biggest hole is their claim is that the sun is powered by electric currents from the galaxy and not hydrogen fusion. They don't even have a real explanation as to why gravity (due to the suns mass) isn't the confining feature that allows fusion. They have no explanation for super novea or why red giants exist. They obviously don't believe in "ionizing radiation". They believe that "the laboratory" alone is enough "proof" for their claims about the WHOLE UNIVERSE !! They secretly want to bring GOD into this mess at some point too I imagine!

Oh, where are your references for the Arthur Eddington experiment on gravity and bending of light? This I got to see since you have dug so much deeper than most! At best the electric universe is subject of sci-fi I imagine.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

James West, Denver CO — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:26:24 GMT

wow, some folks really know some of this science stuff. can they do an oil change though? guage a spark plug? find the fuel filter on their contour?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Agnostic Atheist Darwinism Physics Religion — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:29:21 GMT

This is obviously a real phenomenon. It’s hard to believe that some people don’t want to accept the obvious because of religion or society or a lack of intelligence.
If a black hole can consume all light and the sun can bend light from Venus (which has been proven) Then why is it so hard to believe that a galaxy can bend light? Most galaxies have a black hole’s at the center and they are far more massive then the sun.
Gravity is just a space time warp so anything light, mass, electro magnet force or time will be affected by it. Light does not have mass it is just affected by gravity kind of like looking at a penny in a pond then placing an object that floats but will warp the view of the penny. Space has to be a medium or our pace shuttles would not be able to navigate in space. And just like any other medium it is affected by gravity. This in it self suggest the dark matter therory. Just because Einstein could not figure out the unified theory does not mean that his theory of general relativity is wrong.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Chris Reeve, San Francisco, CA — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:37:36 GMT

RE:

"Okay...really... throw away the copies of "what the bleep do we know!?" and start being rational. Einstien wasn't happy with his theories, cause he hadn't completed his work on a unified theory. Arp is as interesting as star trek fanfiction. Just because somebody throws convention on its head does not mean that particular somebody is right.. "

Many of you guys appear to be missing the point. It is Halton Arp's *observations* that are interesting. Sure, he tried to explain them too. But, be aware that a big part of what you guys are arguing over is *observations*. We should tread very carefully when we decide to reject such things and substitute them with theories based upon invisible matters. If ever there was a defnition of pseudo-science, that's pretty much it.

RE:

"I.E. Copernicus was not the only scientist with new ideas that died "alone and mad." In fact it was probably due to the fact that there were a thousand other idiots throwing around inane ideas effectively crying wolf and drowing out any kind of truth. Every theory has holes, including your precious Arp; the difference being is that hard science actually attempts to explain the holes rather than simply ignoring them."

Actually, this is not quite true. What of the solar wind's continued acceleration, even as it passes the planets? Ignored. No credible explanation offered.

What of the fact that both the Stardust and Deep Impact Cometary Missions dramatically contradicted conventional cometary theory? Why did the Deep Impact impactor generate *two* flashes at the time of impact? Ignored!

What of the fact that the Sun's atmosphere is 100x hotter than the Sun's surface? Astrophysicists try to argue for a concept called magnetic reconnection. The thing is, there's no reason why magnetic reconnection cannot be verified within the laboratory. After a few decades now of postulating its existence, have they done so? NO! Ignored.

Have you seen this ball lightning study? ... http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0101/0101089.pdf. These guys observed firsthand elemental transmutation within a super-simple ball lightning experiment. Did the astrophysicists care? Not in the slightest.

Have you seen this study on absolute dating? ... http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/time.html. These guys demonstrated that nuclear decay rates can be affected by the cycles of the stars, the Sun and the Moon. Did anybody pay attention and consider that dates may not be as reliable as we imagine? Not at all.

Only ten years ago, it was believed that upper atmosphere lightning was akin to UFO's. Since then, the phenomenon has been observed and photographed numerous times. The problem is that lightning is supposed to be the result of a closed electrical system between the ground and the storm clouds. Lightning leading into space suggests that the Earth is actually trading electrical charge with space. Has lightning theory been modified? Not at all. Have conventional scientists started considering that the Earth may acquire and trade electrical charges with foreign bodies during encounters? Never once!

We can see some very unusual craters on the Moon -- namely Tycho and Aristarchus -- whose "debris fields" are not debris fields at all. They have either no meaningful depth or represent excavations. Did that cause anybody within conventional circles to re-think how those craters were formed? Nope.

Where are the explanations from hard science? They simply do not exist. Like I've said, everything will seem quite nice and tidy if you don't dig deeper. Science is most threatened not by that which can be demonstrated to be untrue -- but rather by that which appears to be true, but actually is not.

RE:

"The simple fact of the matter is that hard science is hard work and there isn't nor will there be in our or our great great grandchildrens lifetime, a unified theory."

Did your parents ever tell you that you could not be something when you grew up? Didn't think so. So, why are you telling your children the same thing?

RE:

"Anyway...stick to Hawking, stick to Einstien, read the journals, and let the astrophysicists do the astrophysics."

Yikes! Hawking's theories are largely discounted, even within conventional circles now!!! If you only read what's popular in science, you are around ten or twenty years behind the curve!

We've been letting the astrophysicists do the astrophysics for many decades now. We've poured amazing amounts of money into their programs and they've yet to generate theories that are predictively useful. We are seeing no decrease in the number of expressions of surprise; in fact, if you're paying attention, you'll see that the surprise is growing all of the time! They get away with it by postulating stories that sound like science fiction novels. Space stories are typically published on the basis of how absurd they sound ... Wandering black holes that could destroy us, the universe expanding until it's no longer observable, or multiple dimensions that could unlock the key to our inability to understand our surroundings. People, this is fun stuff to think about, but where does it get us? I'm telling you that laboratory plasma physicists have had great successes duplicating many of the features we observe of space phenomenon. Are you going to believe people who play with beautiful equations all day like Sydney Chapman did? Or, are you going to believe the guys in lab coats who have the ability to tell you which equations are real?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Marty Maher, S. Cal — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:16:54 GMT

Chris must be an alien, (a mean this as a compliment) perhaps the real manifestation of Spock...
How could anyone have such a commanding control of any topic, and the patience of a saint to boost...
The discussion / debate is great.
As to those who wonder why we "waste" time on these sorts of topics, I doubt we will continue to be able to cloth and feed the 6+ billion souls on this planet if we revert to pre-industrial technology. I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but as with any sort of this type of scientific research and exploration, "spin off" technology is always created that helps with our day to day existence...

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Bob C., Philadelphia, PA — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:52:19 GMT

This picture could be an infinite number of things. I find it kind of disturbing that we can take a picture millions if not billions of light years away and come to the conclusion right away, "It has to be a double Einstein Ring."

For all we know this could be a naturally occuring phenomenon that happens very often. This "Double Einstein ring" could really be anything. Whether explained by the Plasma Universe or the theory of relativity.

Anything can be explained, remember that, but until we can actually travel that distance and figure out actually whats going on, let's not be hasty and lable it a "Double Einstein Ring."

People have been coming up with theories for thousands of years, explaining, and labeling. You know the world was once the Center of the Universe. Why? Because it was popular. But it was wrong.

Einstein had to be one of the smartest men ever to live. That dosn't mean he was right about everything. And like Chris said, this type of thinking, with popular science, is taking us no where. Read the facts, and ask yourself, "Does this make sense?" Be objective.

I'm not agreeing with Chris. I'm not agreeing with Einstein. I'm saying that if we are going to travel our solar system or even beyond, sometimes we need to accept what makes more sense. Something like Dark Matter that cannot be proven or something that can.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Neil Haverstick — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:12:03 GMT

I sure love astronomy, but it's mostly guesswork. And figure in the human ego factor, and a great deal of what "scientists" are telling us about the Universe may not be true at all. What makes Einstein such a hero to me is his ability to see things differently than most other people did at his time...in science and art, it is almost always people like that who make the big leaps in knowledge.
As Mr E. said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Quite true; do your homework, and come to your own conclusions; maybe you'll be closer to correct than some Harvard dude with a PhD, but no imagination...Stick Man

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Michael Ferguson, Madison Heights, Va — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:05:01 GMT

I truly feel sorry for the small minded bible belt people who don't understand the significance of anything outside of their church. It's blatantly obvious that observations in the universe are critical in explaining how we got where we are today ( cosmologically speaking)

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Michael Ferguson, Madison Heights, Va — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:06:08 GMT

BTW, Chris definitely has some good ideas himself. He helped clear up some questions I've been having about the dark energy/matter theories.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Juanita Rutledge, Waterford,MI — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:09:14 GMT

The most exciting aspect of these kinds of discoveries is how far we keep coming. Our minds are so magnificent. One idea sparks ten related ideas and exponentially we endup orbiting that farthest galaxy taking snapshots with our Dark-enery powered optical implants. Please, mesmerize me!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Bob Henry, White Plains, NY — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:26:03 GMT

densell wrote:
"just as a triangle has FINITE length sides but our
system of mathematics (radicals) can not define the END as finite, we have a long way to go to explain OUR Universe...."

You seem to have some mathematical misconceptions. Sounds like you are confused about irrational numbers. Try the "math forum" pages at Drexel University.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:11:28 GMT

Michael Ferguson...surely you aren't that gullible..are you? Chris Reeve et.al. is a prime example of what happens to many when the educational system has failed them and delusions about what "they" would like the universe to be .. or IS, results.

So Chris, how do you explain the fact , as graciously mentioned by Mike of Anchorage, that the electrostatic force does not act over infinite distance...just google it and you will see the graphs. Gravity tends to infinity...electic forces do not.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Zeke, Atwater CA — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:24:05 GMT

What if we learned everything and were able to realize all these topics only existed to try to seperate us from what is truly most important of all, ourselfs as individuals and the steps taken by each to show our appreciation for what we have, and most of all not causing pain with deception and lies.

When's the last time you did something nice for another? and why did that person need you to do that for them rather than do if for themselves?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Lee, Tacoma, WA — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:50:26 GMT

RANDY IN LAS VEGAS -

It's not a matter of light having mass that allows it to become distorted. It's about light traveling across the "fabric of space" which allows it to appear distorted around objects with heavy gravitational pull.

A 2-dimensional example might go something like this: Stretch out a large sheet of paper and place a marble somewhere on the surface to represent the earth. Then place a softball somewhere else on the paper to represent the sun. The weight of the softball will distort the sheet enough to draw the marble towards it, symbolizing gravity.

In space, the same thing happens 3-dimensionally. The gravitational pull of a massive object distorts the space around it. While it has no mass, light particles still follow the fabric of space, even when it has been distorted by gravitational pull. Theoretically, light travels at a constant rate and never varies. So while it might be pulled from its path, it never slows.

The dark matter theory is partially based on the amount of gravitational pull needed to distort light. The amount of visible matter in the galaxies pictured in the article is not enough to distort the light to the extent shown in the image. 50 - 60% of additional dark matter could be one explanation.

There are scientists who dispute Einstein's theory that the speed of light is constant, however. A quick Google search brings up a ton of stuff on the subject.

I know my explanation is very basic, and I'm sure almost everyone else out there can do a better job, but I hope it helps to answer your question.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Rommes, Wickenburg, AZ — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:38:22 GMT

KGary: An interesting point about light escaping black holes. If there is a unified theory then all matter, motion, heat, gravity, magnetism, strong force, etc. are just expressions of energy. Photons, as now accepted, are both matter and wave, or at least exhibit characteristics of both. What is incredible, and parallel to Arp (at least in my view), is that some unknown, junior, who cares what he has to say scientist named Bose had a theory but couldn’t get published by the mainstream. He sent his paper to Einstein who developed it into the theoretical existence of matter in a new state. This new state is called Bose-Einstein Condensate and has now been achieved in the lab. Common elements are super-cooled to the point that they stop behaving like particles and begin behaving like waves. That’s really simplified, btw. This suggests, to me, that all matter has wave properties, but these are generally overshadowed by more prominent properties. Think weak forces hear. Every bit of matter around you has an incredible weak force that has no measureable effect on any of the matter around you. Electric force (chemical) is far more prominent on a scale like your desk or computer or coffee and makes weak force not even worthy of a footnote. Or how about gravity. The suggestion that every particle also has a (miniscule) wave component turns a lot of conventional physics on it’s ear, but half a dozen or so elements have been transformed to BEC. This, apparently happens when the matter is still in a form recognizable as atomic. In a black hole, by theory, matter has been stripped of this structure and instead of a grid of atoms being super-cooled to BEC and exhibiting wave characteristics we get the stuff of atoms packed into a tighter grid, with even less room to act like particles. What does this expression of energy behave like? Is it effected by gravity in a conventional sense or does is slide unimpeded along lines of gravitational flux effected dramatically, instead by weak force, which would be ‘astronomical’ in this kind of configuration. Some kind of wave, that only exists in these extreme conditions, may be able to escape the gravity well and then, elsewhere, convert back to more standard matter. Some wild theory that will never be tested in a lab, unless we can find a way to create a gravity well capable of sucking in this entire star system but for the laboratory safeguards. If it is possible then Arp’s matter factories might be the springs that these wells feed.

I equated Bose and Arp. I think both are visionary but lack the finesse to explain the theories their observations lead them to. That’s not to run either down, that kind of finesse is certainly rare, as is the kind of creative thinking that they both obviously possess.

Chris: You quoted me but I didn’t get why. It looks most like you just want to be contradicted. My point with the Jello is that there are different ways to get the same effect. Generation leading to redshift is just as legitimate as distance/speed-directional shift. I support the idea of generation. Cool wasn’t cold and old, it was “Wow!!” I can understand how you could get to be nothing but defensive, I’ve read the string of stupid/ignorant posts, here and in similar locations. I usually don’t waste the time to post but did here because I am intrigued by you and your thought process. I could do without the cultishness of your defenses of Arp, though. I also can’t see how you have the time to reply so often and at such depth. I also don’t see why you take the time to respond to some of the people you do. Do you really think you’re going to teach them anything. (Not to be insulting to most out there, but this material generally takes years of study to develop the idea that you really don’t know enough to “get it” so a few minutes on the keyboard will be about as effective as a monologue to the wall. The wall receives no benefit, even though the material was great.) Some people will simply never appreciate anything about the picture except that it’s pretty.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Wayne, Alamogordo, NM — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:27:53 GMT

Michael, please don't call people names, only small minded people do that. Those of us who choose to believe in something besides ourselves do so with hope and faith. We look at space and see the wonder and splendor there. What's wrong with that?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:59:23 GMT

The following are page by page accounts of Eddingtons famous result of the bending of starlight in the suns' gravity field. Read for yourselves.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000034.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000035.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000036.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000037.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000038.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000039.000.html

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/2001ASPC..252...21C/0000040.000.html

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Shawn merritt — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 21:30:58 GMT

remember lack of knowledge does not equal lack of intellengce. sometimes you need outsiders to look in. very successful people have invented wondrous things. so think of this - we are no more than a corpuscle, red cell, or even a single strand in the dna of a living being. what if. happy new year to all

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:00:06 GMT

Wayne , NM.."Those of us who choose to believe in something besides ourselves do so with hope and faith. We look at space and see the wonder and splendor there. What's wrong with that?"

Plenty! Hope and faith is not reality. Read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and you will definitely understand why I say that. But, maybe you are to ingrained in your "hope and faith" that reading such and enlightening book isn't going to happen.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

TheFallibleFiend, LORTON, VA — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:21:09 GMT

You can't judge the credibility of an argument from the number of views a thread gets in a science forum. That's insane. In the science fora I frequent, it's often the stupidest things that get the most views.

The vast majority of people are never going to get the education required to evaluate and compare contrasting theories in science. Many experts can't do it unless it's in a sub-sub field with which they are acquainted. Does this mean that people can't accept ANY theories unless they have listened to and carefully evaluated EVERY SINGLE competing idea that alleges to be a theory?

The best thing an interested party can do is this: try to understand what the actual dominant theories are in science as best you can. The salient distinction between legitimate gadflies and crackpots is this: the gadflies tend to actually understand the theories they are supplanting. If you find a critic of standard science who shows a clear understanding of the thing he is criticizing, then the critic is worth listening to in more detail (if you have the time). Otherwise, you could waste a good deal of time trying to understand something that isn't worth knowing.

Amusing articles:
http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html#power
http://www.tim-thompson.com/electric-sun.html#hypothesis

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:57:46 GMT

Thanks Fallible. It is still a wonder and mystery to me why "electric universe" types exist at all given that they have been educated with the same physics as anyone else. Could it be ...money?? Attract the unsuspecting and ignorant to "buy their books?".

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tex Hanlon — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:23:38 GMT

It's like the media, send money and I will tell stories all day

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Wayne, Alamogordo, NM — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 19:59:42 GMT

Thomas, I find your use of the word "enlightened" to be intrigueing. Enlightened is a word many people use to express their realization that they are not here by accident. Enlightenment is used by various religions throughout the world to describe a level of consciousness and understanding to strive for. You are the one who is deluded and has no concept or reference to judge someone who chooses to have hope in their life. I truly pity people who have no hope because then this life is just a mindless drudgery of pain until they die. You keep believing what you want to believe. I'll keep believing what I want to believe.

As far as Dawkins goes, I could care less about what he believes. If you are a disciple of his, then keep preaching his gospel if that's important to you. My faith lies in a place you can't comprehend.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Orion D,Washington, D.C — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:55:59 GMT

There's no way they are all perfectly lined up. Not even close. The furthest system was in it's observed location in space 11 Billion years ago, the middle system intercepted the light from the first 5 billion years later, bent it then passed it along. Then, 3 billion years later the closest system moved in the way and bent it again. Now 3 billion year after that we're viewing the end result.
This isn't like having several planets in our solar system line up.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Thomas Ashby, Calgary — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 00:15:43 GMT

Wayne..exactly, you can't comprehend. A God is incomprehensible to the point of impossible. Just take a lot more time and immerse yourself in Darwin (or Dawkins for that matter), and you could become enlightened to the comprehensible. Don't waste your good time.

People like you profess "mindless drudgery of pain until they die" or some other malais as an irrational perception that is the only alternative in life if you don't believe in God in any way shape or form. Sorry to disappoint, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Don't be so easily offended.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Delmar Fairchild, Barron, WI — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 01:44:24 GMT

In another article Dark matter is described as being the skeleton of the Galaxies or upon which the galaxies form. They state that according to Einstein's theory they saw light bending around the dark matter from Galaxies 2.6 Billion years ago.

The only problem people may have with all this is the Universe is expanding outward or away from somewhere. We are looking at a snapshot of what the area looked like 2.6 Billion years ago or 6 Billion or 11 Billion years ago as is in this case with the Double Einstein Rings. What will these same areas look like in another 2.6 Billion years when the light they are producing today catches up with us - if we are still here? They may not even be visible due to the expansion of the Universe or from their normal decay. (Will they even exist anymore?) What can we really deduce from seeing this snap shot that happened so far in the past? It is fun to speculate, but does it really do anything for us? Can we really gain knowledge from knowing what happened 11 Billion years ago or earlier when the Universe was supposed to have been created? What will we really gain from this?

Look at an old photo of your grandparents or parents in my case. Most of them are skinny, short, dark, live in uninsulated homes, sickly looking, own two pairs of pants and a couple dresses, maybe no shoes, etc. etc. etc.
What does that tell you of modern man if you haven't seen modern man to compare with?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Carlton Lane, Kamuela, Hawaii — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:55:57 GMT

RANDY OF LAS VEGAS AND OTHERS,
IF ONE MOVES AT CLOSE TO THE THE SPEED OF LIGHT RELATIVE TO SOMETHING (SAY THE EARTH), ELAPSED TIME COMES CLOSE TO STOPPING AND DISTANCES SHRINK CLOSE TO ZERO (AT THE MAXIMUM SPEED OF LIGHT BOTH AE ZERO). WE CAN'T IMAGINE THIS BECAUSE WE HAVE NEVER MOVED AT CLOSE TO LIGHT SPEEDS. THIS TRUTH OF OUR UNIVERSE (FROM EINSTEIN'S SPECIAL RELATIVITY) IS WHAT MAKES NUCLEAR POWER POSSIBLE AND OUR ABILITY TO EXPLOIT IT. NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS WOULD NOT WORK IF WE COULD MOVE AT THE MAXIMUM SPEED OF LIGHT. THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH (FACT) IN OUR UNIVERSE THAT LIGHT HAS A FINITE SPEED CAUSES ALL THESE STRANGE RESULTS OF EINSEIN'S SPECIAL RELATIVITY. IF LIGHT HAD INFINITE SPEED (WHICH IS WHAT HUMANS THOUGHT FOR MANY AGES), THESE CURIOUS EFFECTS WOULD NOT APPEAR AND WE WOULDN'T HAVE NUCLEAR ENERGY ETC.. OF COURSE, IF LIGHT HAD INFINITE SPEED, WHICH IT DOES NOT, (TAKES LIGHT ABOUT 8 MINUTES TO GET TO US ON EARTH FROM THE SUN, FOR EXAMPLE), THEN WE WOULD NOT HAVE THE PROBLEM OF ARGUING WITH THOSE WHO WANTED TO GO FASTER, :-)
IT SEEMS THAT HAVING NUCLEAR ENERGY AROUND IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEING ABLE TO AVOID SILLY ARGUMENTS, UNLESS ONE FEELS THAT HAVING OUR NUCLEAR PIOWERED SUN TO MAKE OUR LIFE POSSIBLE IS OF LITTLE IMPORTANCE.
FINALLY, IF THE SPEED OF LIGHT WERE INFINITE, THEN THERE WOULD BE NO RED SHIFT AND THE EXPANSION OF OUR UNIVERSE WOULD NOT BE A SUBJECT FOR DEBATE, BUT WE WOULD, ALSO, NEVER BE ABLE TO SCIENTIFICALLY UNCOVER THE HISTORY OF OUR UNIVERSE AND OUR PLACE IN IT. MOST ANYTONE'S STORY WOULD BE AS GOOD AS ANY OTHER WITH NO WAY TO UNCOVER WHICH WAS SOMETHING IN CLOSE ACCORD WITH WHAT THE TRUTH OF OUR UNIVERSE IS.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Not yet an astrophysicist, StP, MN — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:53:20 GMT

All this cross-talk has expanded my universe of space-time knowledge & whetted my curiosity. Thanks,guys!

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Rommes, Wickenburg, AZ — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:44:10 GMT

Carlton, this is just for fun, I'd love to read a little explanation on this, what has the speed of light got to do with nuclear reactions. Most of what happens in a sustained, controlled nuclear reaction, and I certainly hope these are the ones you think we benefit from, happens at speeds far slower than light. So much slower that a reference to light speed induces a chuckle. Nuclear reactions would still work relatively the same if light were half, or twice, the speed it is. Our being stationary on earth or moving at supersonic speed would have a negligable effect on the reaction. Can you explain the importance of light's finite speed, or ours -- as I am having trouble discerning what your point is -- ralative to nuclear reactions as opposed to the equally practical my getting a cup of coffee in the morning? Also, the wind seems to have a maximum speed, yet we can go faster than the wind's max speed. This is a fact that was probably inconceivable to men in a big boat with oars in their hands. But we've come a long way scientifically since then. Those men knew tornado force winds, and didn't know a material to make oars from that wouldn't break from the resistance when trying to stroke hard enough to get that kind of speed. They may have understood cavitation well enough to suppose that if they had the right oar and a way to stroke the oar fast enough they still couldn't attain a speed faster than tornado winds. And if they used a sail they would be pushed by the wind and ...
Do you discount the possibility of exceeding light speed merely because it hasn't been done yet? If that's the logic then you can't possibly read this post because you never have before. Well, perhaps that goes to far, but you can scale it back until it works. Think frames. Walking south on a northbound train, that sort of thing. You can measure your "forward" progress even though you're really moving backwards. The muzzle velocity of a shot fired in the direction of travel on the same train. The ballistics of the shot in the frame of the train vs. in the frame of the track. The ballistics are "normal" to an observer on the train, interestingly, the same as the speed of light is still "normal" to the traveller at near light speed. As long as you can't get your mind around another frame lot's of stuff is impossible. Being impossible doesn't mean it can't happen, though. At one time 4 was divisible by 2 but 5 wasn't. Then I learned fractions. Just because you're riding this train don't assume that there isn't some other frame out there that allows for different possibilities. Finding out how to operate in those frames, if they exist, will require some exploritory minds. Not the minds of men who said our blood would curdle if we moved faster than 30 mph relative.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Carlton Lane, Kamuela, Hawaii — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:31:54 GMT

WHY CHRIS REEVE AND ARP WILL FIND FEW EARS IN THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITYhy
In physics, for example, beginning "with a clean slate" (ala Cris Reeve, not at all sure Arp would agree with Chris here) is unscientific because all the past successful theories (like Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory) of physicists are not to be ignored and may provide important guidance. Further, any new theory must not contradict the observed facts of our universe and needs to be reducible, to the old tested theories under conditions that the proposed theory provides. Ideas and opnions are fun; but, to gain acceptance in the physics community they must show how they can predict, with proper restrictions, the evidence that is in and predicted by old theories.
For examples, at sufficiently large quantum numbers, quantum theory approaches the old classical theory and, at sufficiently small speeds, Special Relativity reduces to the classical (old) dynamics of Newton (we don't need Special Relativity for any of the speeds we encounter in our, current, daily living; we use Newtn). This under-suitable-restrictions-reducible-to-accepted-theories condition is critical for acceptance in the physics community because of all the existing evidence supporting the old theories. Had Einstein's Relativities not shown this "reducible" ability, they would have been WRONG (contradicted discovered facts of our universe) and rightfully rejected (or given little credence). The most passionate rejectors of Einstien's Special Relativity based their rejection on what they claimed were contradictions of observed facts of our universe. It took a long time for some of the passionate rejectors to be able to see that they, themselves, were guilty of introducing the contradiction, not Special Relativity or Einstein.
Arp's offerings have failed these crucial=for-acceptance conditions of the physics community and, therefore, Arp finds few (if any) bonafide physicists in his corner.
Without space expansion, strong, experimental evidence shows that we would have to be at the center of the observable universe. Without the Doppler (red) shift, we would be in a static universe and, please let me add, would be severly handicapped in discovering its facts. This space expansion of our universe provides observers of the observable universe, anywhere, with an equal opportunity (no one has the advantage of being at the center) for discovering its truths. Arp's theory has trouble avoiding a static universe (an error Einstein fell into early on but removed later). Until this "hole"is plugged by Arp's theory, if pluggable, physicists are going to stay with Einstein and his fantastic new (then and still) cosequences. With few, substantial consequences, physics would have stayed with Newton. Arp's theories has not demonstrated these last things. String theory has similar problems of no extensive observable consequences, but string theory has a reasonable potential that Arp's theory does not. Therefore, string theory is not as likely to be a waste of our time for now, although many may feel that way and it my turn out to have been that. Arp, already appears to be that by not already providing ample evidence.
Again, to gain acceptance, a new theory has to show how it predicts (is in agreement with, under stated conditons) the confirmed results (facts) of accepted theories and goes on to many important new facts as well. Had Arp's theories done this or even been seen as having a good chance to do so, having been around for some time now, the established, physics community would be cheering him, maybe even more than Einstein. I don't hear the cheers yet or any Nobel Prizes, but keep hoping, if you wish, Chris. My concern is with raising false hopes in less likely productive areas and I hope you agree that false hopes are not as good as possibly realizable hopes (and more worthy of our time and energy?).

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Carlton Lane, Kamuela, Hawaii — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:00:57 GMT

RANDY and OTHERS
The "tired photon" (photon being slowed down on long trip to us) is not tenable in the presence of Special Relativity. For example, we say that it takes about 8 minutes for light (photons) to get to us on Earth from the Sun. The photon "says" it takes no time at all from my point of view. Special Relativity (which has to be correct in this matter if our universe is to be self-consistent) shows that the trip time from Earth to Sun
gets ever closer to zero the closer our spaceship's speed gets to the maximum speed of light. We say it takes photons (light) billions of years to get to us from the far reaches of our universe, but the photon "says" it takes no time at all from my point of view. In a sense, photons, from their point of view, are everywhere in our universe at once (some religious feel that in saying "Let there be light." their God said "let there be me." because they know that their God is everywhere in our universe at once and is not bound by time or space limitations). For photons there is no distance or time. We say the Andromeda Galaxy is about 2 million light years away from us and it would, therefore, take us well over 2 million years to get there if we moved at normal, spaceship speeds of today; but, if we could move at spaceship speeds sufficiently close to the maximum speed of light, we could get there in only hours (seconds if close enough to the maximum speed of light). Photons, which move at the speed of light, take zero time by "their clocks" to get there. The Andromedians in Andromeda would age over 2 million years while we (or photons) were enroute, but we would age only a few hours (photons zero aging) or years if moved at a speed somewhat slower. This is the TWIN PARADOX of Special Relativity, which has been experimentally verified by flying very accurate clocks across the country (the flown clocks recorded less time than clocks at both sides of the country at rest on the ground). Besides, nuclear energy would not be possible if these facts were not truths of our physical universe. Soooooo, we could visit very distant galaxies in one lifetime if we could get spaceships to speeds sufficiently close to the maximum speed of light, but we will never be able get enough energy to reach such speeds; Special Relativity and the amount of availale energy in our physical universe prohibit it. Special Relativity (our physical universe) prohibits any object that has weight, when at rest, from reaching the maximum speed of light. Photons would have zero weight if at rest, but photons cease to exist in the physical universe if at rest; they always are moving if we detect them in our physicl universe. Any theory that shows the contrary (shows that we can move at the maximum speed of light) would also, to be self-consistent (not self- contradictory) have to show that nuclear energy is not possible. The great evidence that nuclear energy exists (is possible) is powerful evidence that Special Relativity is correct for our universe. Remember, without nuclear energy our Sun can't warm us. A theory that contradicts Special Relativity's prohibition of our moving at the maxium speed of light would also show that nuclear energy is impossible. Our physical universe "says" that nuclear energy is possible; therefore, it is impossible for us to attain the maximu speed of light. Our physical universe does NOT say that nuclear energy is imossible; therefore, we can move in it at the maximum speed of light.
Finally, Randy, if "dust were doing it" there would be "slowing or tiring" coming across our very "DUSTY" galaxy and no such comparable red-shifts exist.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Terry, Calgary, Canada — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:29:54 GMT

So about Albert Einstein for a second.We understand that Einstein's daughter ,Lieserl Einstein died very young,or did she. You have to know what Albert knew and who.The thing is that there most likely is a double Einstein circle.The gravity and electromagnetic field react with constant change in outer space and on earth right in front of you.Like the example of the cat in the box, whether it is alive or dead.That is an example you have to decide on, yes or no.This double Einstein is most likely happening in our galaxy , and you have to know your stuff to get through this type of advancing progressive thinking wrether it is the bending of gravity and light in galaxies,the cat in the box,and Lieserl Einstein dead or alive.You have to decide whether your thought is an alive thought or dead thought, I like the alive thinking myself, WOW do you see the differance?

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

TheFallibleFiend, LORTON, VA — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:21:49 GMT

The "Enlightenment" occurred after the "Dark Ages" and was marked by a significant decrease in religiosity and increase in individualism and human rights.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Carlton Lane, Kamuela, Hawaii — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:18:10 GMT

To Tim Rommes and others from Carlton Lane. Nuclear reactions happen because E = mc² where "c" is the maximum speed of light. That's what the speed of light has to do with nuclear reactions.
Tim, most, if not all of your other ideas are based on or show incorrect ideas about physics, like seeming to not know about E=mc².

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Rommes, Wickenburg, AZ — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:18:56 GMT

To Carlton Lane: Actually, all of my ideas have to do with Einstein's theories. Just with an open mind and a tilted look. According to Einstein's theories faster than light travel is possible. You do have to keep frames in mind, travel faster than light in your frame is impossible. I've read some of your other posts so I don't expect you to get that. If you'd like me to explain it to you let me know here and I'll give you a call. Get plenty of rest and set aside several hours because we'll be getting into some serious physics.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Rommes, Wickenburg, AZ — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 14:00:35 GMT

Carlton, I have a little more time now. E=mc2 describes how much energy is produced by the conversion of matter. c is, as you have stated, the maximum speed of light (in a vacuum) and not the speed of light through air, water, ice, jello, etc. In a reactor core, where useful energy is produced by nuclear processes, the speed of light is not c. The question is still, what has c got to do with nuclear reactions. Nuclear reactions would still happen at c/2 or 2c. They happen because of an amount of energy being absorbed by an atom that is prone to nuclear decay. In as much as photons are involved in this process it is because of the amount of energy they impart. If light were infinitely, instead of just extremely, fast and still imparted the same amount of energy then the reactions would still take place, just a little sooner. At distances in the core the time saved by being infinitely fast instead of incredibly fast is so minute as to be irrelevant given the time it takes the atoms to decay after being struck by the photon and the fact that a great deal of the reactivity in the core is non-photonic. So, if light were instant and c was just a conversion factor that was experimentally derived and not based on the actual speed of instant light E would still = mc2. c just wouldn't be "the maximum speed of light" it would only be a conversion factor, kind of like the one you use to convert liters to quarts, except we'd use it to convert mass to energy.
Now, what other ideas don't make sense to you? I'd be happy to do a little write up to bring you up to speed.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Carlton Lane, Kamuela, Hawaii — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:08:20 GMT

Tim Rommes,
Try looking at how Einstein's Special Relativity arrives at E = mc². "c" has to be the maximum speed of light (found in and from Maxwell's electromagnetic stuff). If "c" were infinite, as you hypothesize, then infinitesimal mass ("m") conversion would produce infinite energy ("E"). If the speed of light ("c") were infinite, then all electromagenetic stuff would have infinite speed and light, heat, etc. from our Sun and all suns and galaxies would take no time to get to us. There would be no Doppler shifts. We would not be able to know how far distant galaxies are from us etc. etc.. All this last stuff is really irrelevant to the main point, specifically, you need to see how Eiunstein's Special Relativity arrives at E = mc² to help keep you from going astray.
Faster than the maximum speed of light travel is shown to be IMPOSSIBLE in ANY inertial frame of our universe by Einstein's Special Relativity if the traveller has rest mass. Even With ZERO rest mass (the rest mass photons would have if could exist at rest) a speed greater then the maximum speed of light does not arise. A self-contradictory universe would result if this speed limit of Special Relativity could be exceeded. Such a self-contradictory universe would not allow human life to come into existence or discover its wonders. The usual example of the difficulties (self-contradictions) is that of being able to go back in time and kill your, say, grandmother or grandfather, but much greater and more important (universal) self-contradictions also arise. In our universe time(moving) = time(rest) multiplied by the square root of 1 - v²/c², as found by Special Relativity AND length(moving) = length(rest) multiplied by the same square root. If "v" (the speed of mover) equals "c" (the maximum speed of light), then the length shrinks to ZERO and the "mover" pops out of the observable (scientific) universe. Also, mass(moving) = mass(rest) divided by the same square root; so, if "v" equals "c" we get a division by ZERO; hence, the moving mass goes INFINITE and, in our universe you can't accelerate (increase speed) of an infinite mass without an infinite force (all the matter in our observable universe, M, (which is large BUT finite) being converted to energy by E = Mc² could not supply enough energy to make the acceleration to change from "c" to something greater than "c", as a matter of fact it would take this infinie energy to even reach "c" for even the smallest non-zero rest mass.
In nuclear reactions energy absorption (loss) is not important, but energy production is. Was this a typographical error or am I reading wrongly? Trivial when compared to great error I am trying to help you correct. In our physical universe, "c" has a FINITE value (for many ages humans thought it was infinite). Eventually we found it to be FINITE and nuclear energy became available to us. Again, looking at the mathematical derivation of E = mc² in Special Relativity should help you to see more clearly.
Incidentally, the Kinetic Energy (energy of motion) in Special Relativity is given by K.E. = m(moving)c² - m(rest)c², where m(moving) = m(rest) divided by the square root, above, and reduces to the Newtonian, prerelativstic (1/2)mv² if "v" is sufficiently small compared to "c". The way Einstein's Special Relativity comes into agreemnet with all the Newtonian experimentally verified stuff if the speeds involved are sufficiently small compared to "c" is something rightly (because so much experimental verification is on record) required of any new theory that comes along before it stands a chance of eventual acceptance (there are other requirements as well).
Hope you can get some help from this reply.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Tim Rommes, Wickenburg, AZ — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:43:55 GMT

Carlton,
Firstly, I don’t hypothesize that c is infinite. Secondly, it’s not that you read it wrongly, it appears to be that you don’t understand what you’re reading. Please don’t take that as a dis. It’s nuclear physics not 5th grade math. And this point is nuclear physics, not relativity. Fission happens all by itself, without any help from us. This is natural decay. The amount of heat produced by natural decay is generally too small to be useful. To produce useable amounts of energy we have to help nature. To induce a sustained nuclear reaction atoms of fissionable material have to be bombarded with either particles or photons. For a fission to occur the amount of energy absorbed has to be at a specific level. This is not 10 or more. This is 10 – 11.5 or 16 – 17 or 23 – 23.5 kind of specific. So a fissionable atom may be bombarded hundreds of thousands of times without fissioning. Think of this like cracking an egg. If you want to make eggs over easy you tap the egg on the edge of the counter. If you just barely brush the counter the egg doesn’t crack, if you slam the egg into the counter like you were throwing a knockout punch egg explodes all over the room and the yolk gets broken, so much for over easy. Too little or too much energy and you can’t get over easy eggs. Too little or too much energy and you can’t get nuclear fission. So I’m not talking about absorption as “loss” I’m talking about it as the catalyst (which is not really the correct term, for many reasons, but it conveys the idea you seem to be missing) that causes the fission. The speed of light in a reactor core is not c. The speed of light in a reactor core is relatively irrelevant. No matter what the actual speed of light in the core, even if that were sub-sonic, the fission would take place if the energy were correct. The actual, non c, speed of light in the core only addresses the time it takes to deliver the photon from source to target. That time being small, and it’s effect on the reaction being small. If you doubled the actual speed of light in the core then this component of what’s going on would halve. If the time it took a photon to reach the target atom was 90% of the time of the reaction then this would be significant. As it is it’s quite a small time component, and photonic involvement doesn’t account for a large proportion of the sustained reaction anyway. If a reaction time averages 100,000 time units now and light were instantaneous it would bring the average reaction time down to, let’s say, 996,000 time units due to the effect of reducing photon travel time to zero. If the actual speed of light in the core was 1000 m/s the average reaction time would go to maybe 115,000 time units (wild estimates only). Either way the reaction would still be sustainable by making the same routine adjustments made now anyway. After all that, and thinking about how pertinent this is not to relativity I started wondering where this came from. A small remark you made about how without c we wouldn’t have nuclear reactions. From your last reply I see some of the problem (not really a problem, just a figure of speech) is that you don’t have a firm grasp on what goes on for the reaction, but do know that c is in the equation. Here’s the bottom line. C is completely unimportant in making a nuclear reaction. Once a nuclear reaction happens c lets us know how much energy was produced from mass. As I alluded to before, it only acts as a conversion factor.
Now to address the more fun aspects of your last reply, those things of relativity that you mostly understand but can’t seem to grasp the significance of.
No FTL in an inertial frame. Correct. So what. Change frames. Look up Alcumbierre (sp?), try warp drive and look for a name like that. The trick is to have an object at rest in an inertial frame and move the frame FTL. Those problems you’re familiar with only apply to the matter in it’s frame, not to the frame itself. The matter being at rest, all is well within the frame, and Einstein is happy.
Infinite energy to accelerate even the smallest mass. Correct, if you’re using a rocket. Don’t use a rocket. Check the material for Alcumbierre, this would involve the as yet non-existent negative energy matter.
I don’t think the self-contradictory universe problem is mathematics, this one’s philosophy. Someone didn’t think it should be okay to travel back in time. That’s more of an ethics question than a physics one.
The two major problems I see are, and the first probably leads to the second:
1 You’re stuck in a very Newtonian state of mind. You don’t seem to have much comprehension of farther from practical (now) aspects of relativity.
2 You have no idea as to the meaning of what I’m talking about.
I’m still willing to call. Explanations are easier in a more immediate setting. All I need is “Call me.” Otherwise I won’t invade on your privacy, and your inner notions on theoretical physics can remain protected.
BTW, can you direct me to any good photos of the comet that exploded a few motnhs ago? I saw it with binocs but I don’t have the capability to get any pics where you can make it out. This was another cool event.

Double bull's-eye for Einstein

Billions, Rockville, MD — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:26:38 GMT

Randy, Newton's theory of gravity describes objects acting on each other, as you describe. In the theory of relativity, objects don't act on each other nor on light's "mass". Einstein's theory of general relativity describes massive objects curving space. Light follows what it thinks is a straight line.Light still "thinks" it's going in a straight line past an object that is curving space, just like someone traveling between Los Angeles and New York thinks that they are going in a straight line when in fact they are following the curvature of the earth.

But check this, I talked with an astronomer who looked at 1918 eclipse plates that purported to be the first successful test of General Relativity--I recollect that he was speaking of the 1918 eclipse (but I could be wrong). The astronomer described to me how astronomers pencil circles around the stars of interest. As he gazed at the plates, he was astounded to discover that there were no circles marking any stars. He looked closer and saw that the plates hadn't been exposed long enough to bring out the star images. As he expressed it, too many reputations hinged on the experiment. It's something of a footnote now, because the experiment has been repeated "successfully" many times since with increasing levels of precision. I put quotes around successfully, because Observational astronomy, particularly when peering through the Earth's atmosphere, is a tricky business, and takes a great deal of preparation, experience, skill and patience to arrive at sufficiently precise results.