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From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

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Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#41

Post by jacquesm »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37
jacquesm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent point Robg, I take that back. Thanks for the insight, seriously. What I think is great about religion is its ability to inspire people to go over and beyond their normal view of the world and to use it as scaffolding to reach higher planes of thought or art. I think JS Bach is a great example of that, but there are plenty more, in just about all fields of human endeavor, including science. What gets me thou…

"a truly enlightened man", IMO Jesus was that man (and more) - but I know what response that will get here. The point is not that a great leader come forward but that we choose to follow and imitate the greatest goodness, wisdom, kindness, self-control and love that we encounter.

I'm fairly sure that if Jesus Christ would walk the earth today that he would not be one to make it very high in the ranks of the various churches in his name.

I don't doubt your word that he was an enlightened man but for some reason those tend to get wielded out at a pretty early stage, they'd upset too many holy applecarts.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#42

Post by Hexstream »

aerique wrote: post #15
fuzzmeister wrote: post #11

After thinking about it for quite some time, I've decided that, in my opinion, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is the most important picture ever taken. While many argue that non-repeatable and awe-inspiring human events should be the root of "the most important picture," the HUDF shows that no matter how significant those pictures might seem, they are absolutely nothing on the scale of what really exists out there. A gr…

> Thoughts? Why does it inspire fear?

Because there are far more terrorists than originally estimated, of course! And many more children to be thought of.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#43

Post by eru »

polos wrote: post #35
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How humbling. And this is where religion gets it all wrong, the claim that all that was made just for us is so totally off the wall that I find it hard to believe that religion is changing so slowly to reflect the reality as we know it today.

Religion does not say "made just for us"; religion says that the Universe is one of the examples of the infinite creativity of the Creator. BTW, new stars are 'born' continuously.

Depends on the religion.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#44

Post by eru »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #39
FiveFiftyOne wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terry Pratchett is correct. The man has created an imaginary universe, interlinked and interweaved across dozens of stories. His definitions on quantum and time are interesting and amusing at the same time. His frustration at the limitation of language with regard to these subjects too: "It is very difficult to explain quantum in a language designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is". Apologies for the OT…

If our language (I'm thinking English, I'd be interested to hear of variations) is for telling people where the ripe fruit is, how come we don't have specific [common] words for so-unripe-it-will-give-you-indigestion, not-quite-ripe, ripe-enough, still-needs-to-ripen and so-ripe-you-can't-pick-it - they'd be very useful in foraging situations? I guess /auf Deutsch/ they'd all just be compound words?

I could make some up in German. But that's not fundamentally different from placing adjectives in front of your words in English.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#45

Post by eru »

chrischen wrote: post #38
gjm11 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to state it, of course. But 1. While indeed we're likely not alone, I see no reason to think that the density of life in the universe is anything like as big as the density of life on earth. 2. What's technologically possible is clearly limited by the laws of nature, whatever they turn out to be. It could very well be that there simply is no way to travel faster than light, for instance. 3. I would be int…

Travelling faster than light may not be the only way of getting around though.

Measuring your own time, you can get across the Galaxy as fast as you want to --- if you have enough energy. Of course you always stay below c, but the distance seems to shrink.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#46

Post by mseebach »

MikeCapone wrote: post #40
robg wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you read Thomas Aquinas in the original? Or even Maimonides? There's a reason some minds stand the test of centuries, if not more. Those on the TV today are mere flickering quarks. Those whose names we still utter are galaxies of thought. I think it's a mistake to dismiss, out-of-hand, the thoughts that lie at the foundations of Western civilization. Religious organizations have always been run by humans. Yet th…

A lot of very smart people believed in the supernatural (especially before Darwin). That doesn't mean that there is any credible evidence to support the existence of the supernatural, though.

That's because you're looking for natural evidence to prove the supernatural. If such evidence existed, it wouldn't be supernatural.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#47

Post by pbhjpbhj »

DropkickM16 wrote: post #6
randomwalker wrote: post #4

Based on my (limited) understanding of cosmology, this is only the number of galaxies in the observable Universe . The number of galaxies "outside" this region is effectively unknowable. Could someone who knows better clarify?

I don't necessarily know any better, but I think that we can probably estimate the number of galaxies in the entire (observable and unobservable) universe given the assumptions that the composition of the universe is generally homogeneous and that the big bang theory is correct. If this is the case, we can calculate an approximate number of galaxies from the combination of observed galaxy density and the extrapolated…

I'm not sure if you could find any larger assumptions?

Perhaps baryonic assymetry is only a local feature creating completely different structures in the observable universe. Perhaps past expansion is far accelerated or the acceleration increase and decrease over time. Perhaps "c" is not a constant.

The work of Barrett et al. "Undermining the cosmological principle:[...]" shows that minimal fluctuations in CDM does not necessarily show isotropy and homogeneity.

Add to this that observable matter is postulated to be < 5% of the universe and we don't really have a handle on dark matter. We don't even know for sure how many dimensions there are ... we're pretty clueless really.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#48

Post by mseebach »

chrischen wrote: post #38
gjm11 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to state it, of course. But 1. While indeed we're likely not alone, I see no reason to think that the density of life in the universe is anything like as big as the density of life on earth. 2. What's technologically possible is clearly limited by the laws of nature, whatever they turn out to be. It could very well be that there simply is no way to travel faster than light, for instance. 3. I would be int…

Travelling faster than light may not be the only way of getting around though.

In "A Breif History of Time" Stephen Hawkins states that time travel isn't impossible. If you can travel in time, you can go faster than light -- in the sense that temporal relations (such as "faster") lose their absolute meaning. If I need to go 100 lightyears (and can travel at c), I'll transport myself back 100 years and hit start. To a by stander, I'd have gone there in zero time.

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#49

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jacquesm wrote: post #41
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a truly enlightened man", IMO Jesus was that man (and more) - but I know what response that will get here. The point is not that a great leader come forward but that we choose to follow and imitate the greatest goodness, wisdom, kindness, self-control and love that we encounter.

I'm fairly sure that if Jesus Christ would walk the earth today that he would not be one to make it very high in the ranks of the various churches in his name. I don't doubt your word that he was an enlightened man but for some reason those tend to get wielded out at a pretty early stage, they'd upset too many holy applecarts.

He wasn't exactly best friends with the sanhedrin (sp?, the powerful self-serving hypocritical religious leaders) in His day either; they turned him over to the Romans to be crucified after all. Upsetting holy applecarts was pretty much his thing ...

Re: From one photo, we know there are at least one hundred billion galaxies

#50

Post by fuzzmeister »

aerique wrote: post #15
fuzzmeister wrote: post #11

After thinking about it for quite some time, I've decided that, in my opinion, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is the most important picture ever taken. While many argue that non-repeatable and awe-inspiring human events should be the root of "the most important picture," the HUDF shows that no matter how significant those pictures might seem, they are absolutely nothing on the scale of what really exists out there. A gr…

> Thoughts? Why does it inspire fear?

Fear as in the flip-side of awe: the realization as to how insignificant you are, on some level.
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