AgnosticWeb.com - Cosmology; forming early Earth findings

Cosmology; forming early Earth findings (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 00:23:48 +0000

Using Neon and its isotopes :

"The early formation of Earth was a relatively rapid process that trapped water and gases in the planet's mantle from the cloud of gas and dust surrounding the sun, according to researchers from the US.

***

"By examining the relative amounts of two neon isotopes, the researchers were able to distinguish between different sources of volatile chemicals in the planet’s interior. With each isotope being stable and non-radioactive, the amounts have been constant since formation and will remain so forever, say the researchers.

"The three most likely sources of the two neon isotopes – nebular gas, solar-wind-irradiated planetesimals and chondrite meteorites – are each predicted to have distinct ratios.

"The researchers took measurements from ocean-floor basalts formed when flows from deep within the Earth spilled out and cooled in the ocean, and compared them to measurements from solar wind particles, irradiated lunar soils, and meteorites.

"The ratios of Earth-bound neon in the deep basalts closely matched the values from the solar nebula, well above those for the “irradiated particles” or “late accretion” models. And this, says Williams, supports the model of Earth’s rapid early formation.

“'This is a clear indication that there is nebular neon in the deep mantle,” explains Williams.

"According to Williams, to absorb these vital compounds a planet needs to reach a size equivalent to Mars, or a little larger, before the solar nebula dissipates.

"Further measurements found differences in the neon isotope ratios between the deep mantle plumes and mid-ocean ridges which, according to the authors, is best explained by a component of volatile gases also being provided by chondrite meteorites during the main phase of accretion, after nebula gases had already been captured in the early stages."

Comment: Amazing research.

Cosmology; Axions are dark matter? (reply)

David Turell — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 01:08:55 +0000

Another candidate for dark matter. We've had gravitinos, WIMPS, and now Axions:- https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160107-arrow-of-time-axions/-"The theory of axions predicts, in a general way, that axions should be very light, very long-lived particles whose interactions with ordinary matter are very feeble. But to compare theory and experiment we need to be quantitative. And here we meet ambiguity, because existing theory does not fix the value of the axion's mass. If we know the axion's mass we can predict all its other properties. But the mass itself can vary over a wide range. (The same basic problem arose for the charmed quark, the Higgs particle, the top quark and several other others. Before each of those particles was discovered, theory predicted all of its properties except for the value of its mass.) It turns out that the strength of the axion's interactions is proportional to its mass. So as the assumed value for axion mass decreases, the axion becomes more elusive.-***-"The experimental search for axions continues on several fronts. Two of the most promising experiments are aimed at detecting the axion fluid. One of them, ADMX (Axion Dark Matter eXperiment) uses specially crafted, ultrasensitive antennas to convert background axions into electromagnetic pulses. The other, CASPEr (Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment) looks for tiny wiggles in the motion of nuclear spins, which would be induced by the axion fluid. Between them, these difficult experiments promise to cover almost the entire range of possible axion masses.-"Do axions exist? We still don't know for sure. Their existence would bring the story of time's reversible arrow to a dramatic, satisfying conclusion, and very possibly solve the riddle of the dark matter, to boot. The game is afoot."

Cosmology; Planck data now available (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 20:31:14 +0000

Stars appeared later than thought. No evidence of gravitational waves. Findings are consistent with inflation theory. No mention of multiverses:-http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31145520-http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7526-Peter Woit's comment:-"For about as long as I can remember, string theorists and multiverse fans have been pointing to Planck data as the test of their ideas. For cosmic strings, the last Planck data release had a paper ruling them out. I don't see a paper on this topic out or projected for the new data, it seems that this is now something not even worth looking for.-"We've also been hearing for years that Planck will test supposed evidence of bubble collisions indicating other universes, see for instance this article about this paper, where the article states that- "Data from the Planck telescope should resolve the question once and for all.-"I don't see anything in the new data even looking for this. Has it already been ruled out, without any publicity, or did the Planck people think it was something not worth even looking for?"-Basically no evidence for multiverses presented.

Cosmology; Why there is matter (reply)

David Turell — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:08:09 +0000

Matter and antimatter should have destroyed each other in the early universe, but matter survived because of a difference in meson decay:-http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/val-fitch-who-discovered-universe-to-be-out-of-balance-is-dead-at-91.html?emc=edit_th_20150211&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=60788861&_r=0-"In a couple of years they had their answer, and the results shook physics. In about 50 cases, the mesons decayed in a way that was forbidden if nature did not discriminate between matter and antimatter. As Dr. Cronin later explained it in an email, the mesons decayed about 0.3 percent faster into a configuration that included the antiparticle of an electron, called a positron, than they did into one that included an electron.-"But as Dr. Smith pointed out, there was no consensus about the universe at that time. It was only a year later, when radio astronomers discovered incontrovertible evidence that the universe had begun in a Big Bang, that the issue of how matter and antimatter survived mutual suicide became a burning issue.-"In 1967, Andrei Sakharov, the Russian dissident and physicist, put all the pieces together — including the kind of discrepancy that Dr. Fitch and Dr. Cronin had discovered — in a list of conditions that would allow matter to survive the Big Bang.-"Dr. Fitch spent the next decade following up on his famous experiment, and experiments at accelerators in California and Japan have documented the effect to high precision. To the disappointment of scientists, however, the amount of discrepancy so far discovered is not enough, by a factor of more than a billion, to explain the preponderance of matter in the universe today.- "Following Dr. Fitch and Dr. Cronin's lead, physicists and cosmologists are still searching for the right ingredient to put into Dr. Sakharov's formula.-“There has to be some really ingenious proposal for cosmic data,” Dr. Smith said."

Cosmology; Dark matter (reply)

David Turell — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 19:06:56 +0000

In our galaxy it is everywhere. We know it a little from inferences using gravitational activity.-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209113046.htm-"The existence of dark matter in the outer parts of the Milky Way is well established. But historically it has proven very difficult to establish the presence of dark matter in the innermost regions, where the Solar System is located. This is due to the difficulty of measuring the rotation of gas and stars with the needed precision from our own position in the Milky Way.-"“In our new study, we obtained for the first time a direct observational proof of the presence of dark matter in the innermost part of the Milky Way. We have created the most complete compilation so far of published measurements of the motion of gas and stars in the Milky Way, and compared the measured rotation speed with that expected under the assumption that only luminous matter exists in the Galaxy. The observed rotation cannot be explained unless large amounts of dark matter exist around us, and between us and the Galactic centre”, says Miguel Pato at the Department of Physics, Stockholm University.-"Dark matter is about five times more abundant than the matter that we are familiar with, made of atoms. Its existence in galaxies was robustly established in the 1970s with a variety of techniques, including the measurement of the rotation speed of gas and stars, which provides a way to effectively “weigh” the host galaxy and determine its total mass."

Cosmology; space the same everywhere (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 15:16:00 +0000

Does space get squeezed anywhere? The answer is no and important confirmation that the standard model is OK. It is n ice to have definite proofs than conjectures:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150128141653.htm-"The Standard Model of particle physics describes how all fundamental particles interact, and requires that all particles and fields be invariant under Lorentz transformations, and in particular that they behave the same no matter what direction they move.-"Häffner and his team conducted an experiment analogous to the Michelson-Morley experiment, but with electrons instead of photons of light. In a vacuum chamber he and his colleagues isolated two calcium ions, partially entangled them as in a quantum computer, and then monitored the electron energies in the ions as Earth rotated over 24 hours.-"If space were squeezed in one or more directions, the energy of the electrons would change with a 12-hour period. It didn't, showing that space is in fact isotropic to one part in a billion billion (1018), 100 times better than previous experiments involving electrons, and five times better than experiments like Michelson and Morley's that used light."

Cosmology; multiverses and drivel (reply)

David Turell — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:44:20 +0000

Peter Woit on the latest garbage about multiverses:

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3879

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4194

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:48:59 +0000

:P And the black hole has been observed?

Oh.. my mistake. We don't observe things directly in cosmology anymore. We observe other things that we don't understand and invent things to explain them. Isn't that what the Ancient Greeks did with thunder?

Only partially sarcastic here, though. All these articles and theories of Black Holes, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy are starting to sound a lot like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon.

The sound of laughter........

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:26:15 +0000

:P And the black hole has been observed?

Oh.. my mistake. We don't observe things directly in cosmology anymore. We observe other things that we don't understand and invent things to explain them. Isn't that what the Ancient Greeks did with thunder?

Only partially sarcastic here, though. All these articles and theories of Black Holes, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy are starting to sound a lot like Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon.

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 06:51:48 +0000

If the gas cloud is illuminated by the light of two quasars passing through it, doesn't that mean that the quasars are behind the cloud? If they are behind the cloud, then they formed earlier than the cloud? Am I correct in my understanding of that? And if so, why has the cloud remained 'pristine'?

Review the following in Wikipedia. Many quasars are very ancient. The cloud is pristine as described. Quasars emit light, but they are at the edge of black holes. Light but no other elements are leaving.

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:50:41 +0000

Actually, the more I think about it, the less this makes sense. They are saying that the quasars are backlighting the gasses, but in order for that to be true, they have to be backwards in time and space. By that I mean that, the quasars had to be formed and emitting light prior to the formation of the gas cloud, as well as being further away from earth spatially, in order for the light from the quasars to back light the gas cloud. Does that sound correct?

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:28:46 +0000

If the gas cloud is illuminated by the light of two quasars passing through it, doesn't that mean that the quasars are behind the cloud? If they are behind the cloud, then they formed earlier than the cloud? Am I correct in my understanding of that? And if so, why has the cloud remained 'pristine'?

Because of the contents of the cloud, or lack thereof in Big bang theory.

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

Balance_Maintained — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:10:37 +0000

If the gas cloud is illuminated by the light of two quasars passing through it, doesn't that mean that the quasars are behind the cloud? If they are behind the cloud, then they formed earlier than the cloud? Am I correct in my understanding of that? And if so, why has the cloud remained 'pristine'?

Cosmology; exact numbers universe (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:07:36 +0000

A new book for review, Cosmic Numbers:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204528204577010151124883294.html?KEYWORDS...

we are in a fine-tuned universe.

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:03:11 +0000

This article describes the clouds and finds they fit Big Bang theory:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/47769

Cosmology; ancient Big Bang gas clouds (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 02:04:11 +0000

This article describes the clouds and finds they fit Big Bang theory:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/47769

Cosmology; multiverses and drivel (reply)

David Turell — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:53:53 +0000

This is the most remarkable pile of junk I have ever read from a supposedly educated cosmologist. I guess 'drivel' is the best description. Unproven String theory has 10^500 solutions and inflation also has several solutions. Fairies at the bottom of the garden or grantsmanship? and Discover mag foists this stuff on an scientifically uneducated public.

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/oct/18-out-there-welcome-to-the-multiverse

Cosmology; oceans (reply)

David Turell — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:09:41 +0000

Water vapor in space is another source of oceans, brought here and to other planets by meteors and asteroids:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/clue-to-how-our-oceans-were-fille...

Cosmology; oceans (reply)

David Turell — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 01:04:29 +0000

This is a well known theory and quite plausible. > In one of Ken Macleod's science fiction stories the settlers on Mars, > if I remember right, somehow divert comets to revitalise the planet.-I guess I should read science ficition; I might learn more:>)

Cosmology; oceans (reply)

George Jelliss — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 21:02:54 +0000

This is a well known theory and quite plausible. In one of Ken Macleod's science fiction stories the settlers on Mars, if I remember right, somehow divert comets to revitalise the planet.