Science

The Big Bang Hang-Up

I saw an article this morning about a new telescope that is supposed to aid in our understanding of the “Big Bang” theory. You can read it here.

As an official scientific community armchair quarterback, I can honestly wonder to myself out loud “who gives a rat’s ass?” Our focus shouldn’t be on something that you are never going to solve in your lifetime. As a scientist, I think your focus should be on the here and now.

You are never going to understand the origins of something that you are completely removed from. The example I would use is someone who decides that he wants to clear a bunch of land on his farm. Cows are displaced. Will they ever know why? No. No they will not.

Why? You ask. Let’s assume for a moment that the cow has a mind of its own and can think rationally. Some dude in the next state over who happens to own the farm decided one day that he wanted to clear that particular patch of land. Is the reasoning cow ever going to know why he was displaced? Probably not.

The cow isn’t even near the source of information that might tell him why he was moved.

In the case of the “Big Bang” theory, we aren’t anywhere near anything that could help us figure out that level of detail. We would need to collect samples from other regions of the universe and so forth. We can’t do that.

January 6, 2021 by Blah Blah Blah Science

Relativity and Why Einstein is Wrong

I’m not going to write about the entire theory of relativity but I do want to touch on a concept that I believe Einstein got wrong. The concept is reality versus perception.

If I jump into a rocket ship and I speed away from the Earth at light speed until I reach the edge of the solar system and then I turn around and come back my watch might read that exactly 5 days have passed for me.

According to Einstein, someone on Earth would be older when you return to Earth than you are. Bullshit. Time moves at the same speed for me as it has for the person stuck on Earth. You cannot change that. Einstein would have you believe that it is true but that isn’t what we’re looking at. What Einstein observed was perception. There is a perception that time moves differently than it really does.

If you want to see an excellent example of this, watch any of the Apple screensavers that hover above a city or a landscape where you see something moving below. It is moving so very slowly, isn’t it? Well, not really. The cars are doing anywhere from 30 mph to 60 mph. They just LOOK like they are moving slower but the reality is something different. This is an excellent example of my concept.

This is why I don’t agree with Einstein’s theory. I have always had a hard time figuring out how so many people can believe the same nonsense. The theory itself should make any sane person shake their head.

I’ll add one more thought to this quick article. Have you ever heard the argument about synchronizing watches? You synchronize two watches and send one of them up to the ISS. When you bring them back together, you’ll see that the Earth watch is behind the ISS watch in time.

Does that prove Einstein’s theory?

No. What it proves is something we already know which is that electricity moves differently in microgravity than it does at 1G. This would be the same for a physical mechanical watch. The gearing would move much differently in space than on Earth. Time isn’t changing but our perceptions are.

That is why I don’t agree with his theory. You may not agree and that is ok.

We won’t really have great answers to this for millennia anyway when we can finally get out into space and explore instead of armchair quarterbacking the universe.

January 5, 2021 by Science

Unique prediction of ‘modified gravity’ challenges dark matter theory

I can get behind this one.

Unique prediction of ‘modified gravity’ challenges dark matter theory:

Here is the current theory…

So, dark matter proponents theorize that most of the known universe is actually made of material that doesn’t interact with light, making it invisible and undetectable— but that this material accounts for much of the gravitational pull among galaxies. It has been the prevailing theory for nearly 50 years.

Here is the alternate theory which I happen to believe because I think it is more plausible. I don’t think the answer to an unsolved question is to “make shit up” which is what the dark matter theory is.

Instead of attributing the excess gravitational pull to an unseen, undetectable dark matter, MOND suggests that gravity at low accelerations is stronger than would be predicted by a pure Newtonian understanding.

In addition, MOND made a bold prediction: the internal motions of an object in the cosmos should not only depend on the mass of the object itself, but also the gravitational pull from all other masses in the universe—called “the external field effect” (EFE).

Milgrom said the findings, if robustly confirmed, would be “the smoking gun proving that galaxies are governed by modified dynamics rather than obeying the laws of Newton and of general relativity.”

December 17, 2020 by Science

Noise Pollution – Its a Thing

The sheer number of cars that pass my house on a daily basis is staggering. Most of them are relatively quiet but a bunch of them are downright loud.

Whether the noise is the engine or the loud music playing in the car the decibel meter gets pegged.

I have a problem with this when that noise makes it into my house. I don’t have single pane glass windows. I have triple pane windows and the noise still gets in. There was a car that passed by this morning with music so loud, you’d swear I was playing it myself inside my house.

NPR and WITF have an article about this very thing.

When I was 16, noisy cars were cool. Now that I am older, noisy cars make me dream of a personal EMP gun that you can aim at a vehicle and well, it dies. Something like this but bigger.

August 11, 2020 by Science Sh*t Mike Says

Germany Banning Single Use Plastics

I happen to agree with Germany on this one.

BERLIN — Germany is banning the sale of single-use plastic straws, cotton buds and food containers, bringing it in line with a European Union directive intended to reduce the amount of plastic garbage that pollutes the environment.

The Cabinet agreed Wednesday to end the sale of plastics including single-use cutlery, plates, stirring sticks and balloon holders, as well as polystyrene cups and boxes by July 3, 2021.

Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the move was part of an effort to move away from “throw-away culture.” Up to 20% of garbage collected in parks and other public places consists of single-use plastic, mainly polystyrene containers.

I’m not sure if it the fact that I am getting older but this kind of thing makes sense to me. We’ve become extremely lazy as a culture and by doing so, we are ruining the planet. Instead of simply washing your utencils, we buy plastic forks and knives and then throw them into the Earth.

I bought a camping tool that acts like fork, spoon, and knife along with a few other uses and I try to use it when I can. I can always do better and I like that Germany is taking this type of thing seriously.

I don’t think the US will be that strict about this type of thing for a long time to come.

August 3, 2020 by Science

R.I.P. Grant Imahara

Unbelievably saddened by this.

The universe lost a great one.

July 14, 2020 by Science

Why Aliens Won’t Visit Us

This is a pretty cool article about a subject I most certainly have an opinion on. My idea about this is simple. If alien life can grow to the point that they are traveling among the stars, they have probably gotten to a point where they’ve killed themselves off. I don’t believe we’ll ever see interstellar life that isn’t in fossilized form. By the time we can travel the stars (assuming we haven’t killed ourselves by then) alien civilizations have probably risen and fallen. Use Star Wars as an example. The story takes place a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. I’ll add, and then they all died.

This article isn’t quite as grim as that.

As Berezin explains, this doesn’t necessarily mean a highly developed extra-terrestrial civilisation would consciously wipe out other lifeforms – but perhaps “they simply won’t notice, the same way a construction crew demolishes an anthill to build real estate because they lack incentive to protect it”.

ScienceAlert

June 7, 2020 by Science

Currently Reading

Rebel World

Rebel World

Series:Undying Mercenaries, Book 22

Author: B.V. Larson