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"Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe


Nyrath

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http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/dark-flow-discovered-at-edge-of-the-universe-hundreds-of-millions-of-stars-racing-toward-an-cosmic-h.html

 

"You have no idea how big that is. This is giant on a scale where it's not just that we can't see what's doing it; it's that the entire makeup of the universe as we understand it can't be right if this is happening."

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Wow. The things we don't know just seem to continue to grow. Something like this that can turn everything we think we know about the universe on its head; that's pretty cool.

 

"The More I see the less I know" - Say Hey (Song Title)

 

"The More I Know the more I realize I don't know" – Albert Einstein (attrib)

 

"I know only that I do not know." – Socrates

 

If we think we really know something, we are more the likely to be deluded. And the world turns over on someone (and everyone) every twenty four hours.:D

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Wow. The things we don't know just seem to continue to grow. Something like this that can turn everything we think we know about the universe on its head; that's pretty cool.

 

Which is why I don't understand the backlash when someone suggests FTL without Time Travel or whatever. Even though we see tons of evidence that we don't know everything about the universe, some people get really agitated by any "imaginary future" that doesn't match up to current physics.

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/08/dark-flow-discovered-at-edge-of-the-universe-hundreds-of-millions-of-stars-racing-toward-an-cosmic-h.html

 

"You have no idea how big that is. This is giant on a scale where it's not just that we can't see what's doing it; it's that the entire makeup of the universe as we understand it can't be right if this is happening."

 

They seemed pretty quick to discount a Black Hole as the cause.

 

Wouldn't it be possible for a small* pre-inflationary black hole to cause the accelerations?

 

*(small enough to evaporate post-inflationary period, leaving constant motion in the direction where the Black Hole used to be).

 

:think:

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

I think the thought was that a black hole would pull at an "uneven" rate across the "expanse" that is the effected area, probably seen in current models of black holes we can see.

 

I am far from a person who would actually know, being really bad at math and all, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What?

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Call me perverse, but I love it whenever humanity's collective intellectual arrogance gets punctured. :D I remember reading comments from a noted physicist a few years back, to the effect that we were on the verge of discovering a complete model for how the universe functions. It astonishes me that some people would believe our finite perceptions and imaginations are anywhere close to understanding infinity. OTOH as this article points out, every new discovery like this brings us a little closer.

 

Sadly, it didn't take long for the subsequent comments on the article to begin wrangling over faith and the existence of God. :( I wish science and faith weren't so often seen as opposed to each other. What can bring you closer to God than contemplating the wonders of the universe?

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Call me perverse, but I love it whenever humanity's collective intellectual arrogance gets punctured. :D I remember reading comments from a noted physicist a few years back, to the effect that we were on the verge of discovering a complete model for how the universe functions. It astonishes me that some people would believe our finite perceptions and imaginations are anywhere close to understanding infinity. OTOH as this article points out, every new discovery like this brings us a little closer.

 

Sadly, it didn't take long for the subsequent comments on the article to begin wrangling over faith and the existence of God. :( I wish science and faith weren't so often seen as opposed to each other. What can bring you closer to God than contemplating the wonders of the universe?

 

Hey, it's obvious proof of the existence of Azathoth.

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Which is why I don't understand the backlash when someone suggests FTL without Time Travel or whatever. Even though we see tons of evidence that we don't know everything about the universe' date=' some people get really agitated by any "imaginary future" that doesn't match up to current physics.[/quote']

 

 

Completely repped for truth IMO.

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

I am reminded of the time when arc structures in galaxy clusters were discovered in the mid-1980s, when large CCD imaging devices were becoming widely available, before the arcs were realized to be the result of gravitational lensing. If you interpreted the lensed image as a single object, then it was a very narrow structure of uniform color ... at the time, instruments were not good enough to get spectra of them ... which was impossibly long and in an impossible shape (a segment of a circular arc). Greatly confusing and clearly impossible ... until the gravitational lensing phenomenon was suggested.

 

I have no suggestion for what this flow is, but it is something that was entirely unobservable before WMAP. I would certainly hope something new and not understood would appear in such a first-time situation! I expect that there'll be an explanation settled upon that doesn't involve refutation of important "known physics", though.

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Ask Galileo Galilei.

 

You do know, his troubles had less to do with the theories he stated, and more to do with the incredibly arrogant and insulting way he went about it? Really, if there'd been an internet during the Renaissance, Galileo would have been a a major-league troll.

 

For a surprisingly accurate depiction of the whole Galileo mess, there's a book in the Eric Flint 1634 series that covers it at length.

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Which is why I don't understand the backlash when someone suggests FTL without Time Travel or whatever. Even though we see tons of evidence that we don't know everything about the universe' date=' some people get really agitated by any "imaginary future" that doesn't match up to current physics.[/quote']

Because current physics is the only touch stone we have.

 

Or would you like an imaginary future where starships had to be constructed out of cotton candy and could only achieve FTL if fueled by burning alive blue Smurfs. And you could only run your drive for no longer than five seconds or you'd smash into the granite wall with all the glow-in-the-dark stars painted on it that fooled astronomers for the last two thousand years. The ships would do spacial combat with specially trained teams of voodoo priests sticking pins into ship-shaped dolls.

 

People do not seem to understand that removing any current physics preventing one from recreating Star Wars will not be limited to just allowing that. Pull that thread out of current physics and the entire thing unravels, and nothing will prevent cotton-candy starships.

 

Put it this way: you will suddenly be playing Calvin ball.

http://www.smomashup.com/category/seo/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes#Calvinball

 

As a caveat, again I reiterate that suppressing inconvenient bits of physics is perfectly OK when making a Star Hero campaign. The problem comes when people start thinking it could happen in reality.

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Re: "Dark Flow" Discovered at Edge of the Universe

 

Or would you like an imaginary future where starships had to be constructed out of cotton candy and could only achieve FTL if fueled by burning alive blue Smurfs. And you could only run your drive for no longer than five seconds or you'd smash into the granite wall with all the glow-in-the-dark stars painted on it that fooled astronomers for the last two thousand years. The ships would do spacial combat with specially trained teams of voodoo priests sticking pins into ship-shaped dolls.

 

I so want to play in that game. Cotton Candy starships sounds like something from the Beatle's Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds.

 

How often do you have to put another smurf on the fire, and how far will one smurf take you?

 

:D

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