Science Frontiers
The Unusual & Unexplained

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About Science Frontiers

Science Frontiers is the bimonthly newsletter providing digests of reports that describe scientific anomalies; that is, those observations and facts that challenge prevailing scientific paradigms. Over 2000 Science Frontiers digests have been published since 1976.

These 2,000+ digests represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The Sourcebook Project, which publishes Science Frontiers, also publishes the Catalog of Anomalies, which delves far more deeply into anomalistics and now extends to sixteen volumes, and covers dozens of disciplines.

Over 14,000 volumes of science journals, including all issues of Nature and Science have been examined for reports on anomalies. In this context, the newsletter Science Frontiers is the appetizer and the Catalog of Anomalies is the main course.


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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 81: May-Jun 1992 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects That's the way the universe bounces What follows is a chain of ideas (perhaps "speculations" is a better word) that was recently unleashed by L. Smolin in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity (9 :173). At stake here is the very nature of Nature herself. We begin with the notion of anthropic cosmology, in which the physical constants of the universe are identified as having just the "right" values to allow the existence of stars, planets, carbon compounds, and the other ingredients of human life. (Just why this state of affairs prevails is a question rarely addressed!) Adherents of anthropic cosmology hold that our "human-friendly" universe is just one of many universes populating a larger metauniverse. These "other" universes are thought to have different values of the fundamental physical constants (viz., the mass of the proton) and, in consequence, wildly different forms of life. In nonhuman universes, there could even be entities for which our word "life" is inadequate. The second idea is that of an oscillating universe. In this concept, universes expand just so far and then collapse back into the "singularities" (i .e ., black holes) from which they arose. Then, Phoenix-like, they bounce back and reexpand into new universes -- ones with slightly different physical constants. These rebounding universes are in a sense ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects When Different Universes Rub Together Over the past few years, more than one theorist has proposed that our universe coexists with at least one, perhaps many, other universes. Said universes are constituted of particles possessing properties so different from own own that we cannot normally discern the reality of these other "existences." In other words, astronomers cannot visually see the stars of these "shadow universes, nor do our detectors of electricity and magnetism acknowledge them. Normally, the subatomic "shadow" particles do not interact with our own particles either. Then, why even bother to contemplate shadow universes? Well, physicists say that none of their laws prohibits the existence of these other universes, and that's reason enough to search for a "looking-glass" entrance of some sort. Just suppose that the particles of one of these shadow universes do possess mass (or whatever shadow physicists call it). Some speculate that this shadow mass could be the "missing mass" that cosmologists have been looking for and can't find. Cosmologists need something palpable out there to explain the puzzling dynamics of galaxies and other phenomena. Some physicists in our universe have conceived of a situation where our universe may "rub together" with a shadow universe. [Honestly!] During such less-than-cataclysmic encounters, some of the electric charge on our-world particles could be "scraped off" and transferred to shadow ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 48: Nov-Dec 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Deflationary Universe One of our major astronomical targets in Science Frontiers has been the cosmological redshift; that is, the assumption that an object's redshift is entirely a Doppler effect and, when coupled to the expanding universe concept, is proportional to distance. Well, we don't have any more contradicting data (of which there is plenty), but we do have: (1 ) A new theory which shows how noncosmological redshifts can occur; and (2 ) Laboratory demonstrations of "spectral noninvariance" that show how a non-Doppler component can be added to light's redshift. The physicist behind this new research is E. Wolf, at the University of Rochester. His theoretical work was re-ported in the March 3l, 1986, issue of Physical Review Letters. There he showed how quasars and so-called "superluminary" astronomical sources might emit light with a spectrum that evolves as it travels through space. Scientists have always assumed that once light left its source its spectrum remained unchanged. But Wolf shows how spectral changes are "sort of coded into the light due to correlations in the source." Meanwhile, two of Wolf's colleagues have backed up his theory in the lab. The consequences of Wolf's work would in effect shrink the universe, because objects would not be as far away as we now calculate from their redshifts. The size of the universe might contract ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Did the universe have a beginning?" Abstract. The big bang theory postulates that the entire universe originated in a cosmic explosion about 15 billion years ago. Such an idea had no serious constituency until Edwin Hubble discovered the redshift of galaxy light in the 1920s, which seemed to imply an expanding universe. However, our ability to test cosmological theories has vastly improved with modern telescopes covering all wavelengths, some of them in orbit. Despite widespread acceptance of the big bang theory as a working model for interpreting new findings, not a single important prediction of the theory has yet been confirmed, and substantial evidence has accumulated against it. Here, we examine the evidence for the most fundamental postulate of the big bang, the expansion of the universe. We conclude that the evidence does not support the theory, and that it is time to stop patching up the theory to keep it viable, and to consider fundamentally new working models for the origin and nature of the universe in better agreement with the observations." This paper's author, T. Van Flandern, dismisses quickly two pillars of the Big Bang; i.e ., its supposed predictions of the cosmic microwave background and the abundances of light elements in the universe: "The big bang made no quantitative prediction that the "background" radiation would have a temperature of 3 degrees Kelvin (in fact its initial prediction was 30 degrees Kelvin); whereas Eddington ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 117: May-June 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Accelerating Universe Many laymen are uncomfortable with the idea that the entire universe originated at an infinitesimal point and is now expanding away from this cosmic navel. Many astronomers are equally disturbed by the recent discovery that all these fleeing stars and galaxies are not being reined in by the force of gravity. In fact, observations of distant supernovas indicate that this exodus of matter is actually speeding up. Some universal repulsive force, it seems, is operating on very large scales of distance. From an unknown somewhere energy is being added to all constituents of the cosmos. The universe is more than a cloud of debris flying away from the Big Bang's Ground Zero. Somewhere, perhaps beyond the ken of our primitive instruments, is a fount of energy of which we know nothing. All this is a serious challenge to our understanding of space, time, and matter. Cosmologists are now appealing to quantum mechanical "shimmers," to "X -matter," and to a property called "quintessence." (Glanz, James; "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force," Science, 279:651, 1998. Also: Glanz, James; "Astronomers See a Cosmic Antigravity Force at Work," Science, 279:1298, 1998.) Comment. When theorists toss around terms like "X -matter" and "quintessence," you can be sure that the basic laws of the universe ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The End Of The Old-Model Universe That cosmology is in flux is apparent in the following sentence found in Nature: " The standard ideas of the 1980s about the shape and history of the Universe have now been abandoned -- and cosmologists are now taking seriously the possibility that the Universe is pervaded by some sort of vacuum energy, whose origin is not at all understood." Does this mean that the Big Bang, the mainstay of the astronomy we were taught in school, is now being cast aside? After all, the Big Bang does model fairly well three important observations: The apparent expansion of the universe; The 3 K microwave background; and The abundances of the light nuclei. But try as they may, cosmologists have not been able to coax the Big Bang model to explain the large-scale lumpiness and structure of the galaxies and galaxy clusters. One problem with the Big Bang is that it has too many free parameters -- too much theoretical slack. Many cosmologists are now looking for a better model. This better model, to use the words of P. Coles, should be more "exciting" and "stranger," something "perhaps not even based on General Relativity." (Coles, Peter; "The End of the Old Model Universe," Nature, 393:741, 1998.) Questions. Isn't cosmology already already "strange" enough? Since when ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 97: Jan-Feb 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How can some stars be older than the universe itself?The answer is, of course, if the astronomers' clocks keep bad time. On one hand, stellar age theory assures us that stars in the globular clusters that pervade the universe were born about 15 billion years ago. On the other hand, new measurements of the distance to the Virgo cluster of galaxies are equally adamant that these objects are much closer than thought -- so close that, assuming the standard Big Bang model and the resultant expanding universe, the age of the universe may be as small as 8 billion years! In other words, the universe is younger than some of the stars in it; an obvious and painful dilemma for astronomy. How will this conflict between the two dominant astronomical paradigms play out? Many are betting that the Big Bang theory will require a major over-haul. Or more, as suggested in the next item. (Jacoby, George H.; "The Universe in Crisis," Nature, 371:741, 1994. Travis, John; "Hubble War Moves to High Ground," Science, 266:539, 1994.) Comment. A clever resolution of the above age problem would be for the ancient globular cluster stars to be left-overs or interlopers from an older universe. The globular clusters are anomalous in several other ways. See: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. Ordering information here ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 104: Mar-Apr 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Men Like Gods With the theft of the title from one of H.G . Wells' novels, we attend to an article that appeared in the London Times last summer. The article was based upon a paper written for the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society by Prof. E. Harrison. If, said Harrison, some properties of the universe had been just a tad different, our universe would be barren of stars, light, and of course life itself. He mentions such properties as the strength of gravity, the charge on the electron, and the speed of light. Why, he and many others have mused, are these critical properties so precisely adjusted so as to permit the existence of life -- and us? Harrison lists three answers: oThis is the way God wanted it to be. Further inquiry is unnecessary. oIf the universe were constructed any other way, we wouldn't be here to ask such silly, anthropomorphic questions! Some find this "anthropic principle" to be no answer at all. oOur universe was actually created and its properties fine-tuned by nonsupernatural entities of superior intelligence living in another universe. [These beings apparently get a kick out of manufacturing other universes, or perhaps it's a religious imperative for them!] Before you crumple up this issue of SF and hurl it at very high energy into a wastebasket, consider these two paragraphs from the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 138: NOV-DEC 2001 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The 8 Greatest Mysteries of Cosmology Such is the title of a lengthy article in the June 2001 issue of Astronomy. It is always dangerous to employ superlatives; "greatest" is particularly hazardous. Anyway, it is useful to review what mainstream astronomers consider to be their major unsolved problems. Naturally, we shall add a few that we think should have been on the list. How multidimensional is the universe? For example, gravitons, which are believed to exist in a fifth dimension, are supposed to transmit gravitational force. This dimension is barely separated from our well-known four. The thin barrier separating us from the graviton universe seems to leak a bit therebyallowing gravity, the weakest of all our universe's forces, to exist. Sounds pretty far-out, but not as bizarre as string theory which requires many more dimensions! How did the universe begin? The cosmic microwave background is much too smooth. If it was smoothed out by a sudden expansion of the universe (so-called "inflation"), what caused the inflation? Why does matter fill the universe? in other words, where is all the antimatter that we think must have been created in equal amounts? (This equality is a human philosophical requirement. The universe can do anything it wants!) How did galaxies form? What is cold dark matter? This "substance" seems to be filaments threading the surfaces of cosmic ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Old Galaxy In A Young Part Of The Universe As the Hubble Space Telscope has probed ever farther toward the supposed edge of the universe, it has discerned. as expected, many youthful-looking galaxies. Since such deep-viewing telescopes are thought to be looking far back into time as well as space, youthful galaxies are not only expected but demanded by the Big-Bang/expanding universe theory. Unfortunately for theory, these telescopes have also identified a handful of apparently very old galaxies cavorting amidst the youthful ones! "The problem, if conventional cosmological models are correct, is that galaxies that old and that far away simply should not be there. The observation tightens the thumbscrews on the Einstein-de Sitter cosmological model, and offers evidence that at least some galaxies formed at very early epochs, within a billion years after the Big Bang." (Kennicutt, Robert C., Jr.; "An Old Galaxy in a Young Universe," Nature, 381:555, 1996) Comment. A similar age discrepancy has been claimed for some galaxies that seem to harbor stars older than the universe itself! (SF#97) Reference. The subject of galaxy distribution is covered in Chapter AWO in the Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For a description of the book, visit here . From Science Frontiers #107, SEP-OCT 1996 . 1996-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Is a singularity worse than a spinning cosmos?Whence the untold billions of stars and galaxies that brighten our night skies? From a "singularity," that's where -- from an infinitely small point in space. The Big Bang hypothesis requires this abandonment of common sense. Both mathematicians and cosmologists instinctively hate singularities. The latter have been trying to exorcise theirs for years. Recently, S. Carneiro, a Brazilian physicist, proposed a way to get rid of this natal singularity but retain the expanding universe. First, he assumes that the universe has been around for an indefinitely (infinitely?) long time, thereby eliminating the problem of origin. Furthermore, this universe was rotating. About 11 billion years ago this spinning universe was transformed into the expanding universe we see today via that clever cosmologists' ploy called a "vacuum phase transition." Carneiro shows how the rotation of the universe-as-a -whole was converted into overall expansion in a paper submitted to the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity . But even if all of Carneiro's equations check out, angular momentum still had to be conserved somehow during the phase transition. Simple! The angular momentum of the universe-as-a -whole was transferred to the spins of all the individual planets, stars, and galaxies. In fact, the angular momentum of each astronomical entity, according to Carneiro, is proportional to its (mass ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 67: Jan-Feb 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Astronomers up against the "great wall"" For more than a decade now, astronomers have been haunted by a sense that the universe is controlled by forces they don't understand. And now comes a striking confirmation: 'The Great Wall.'" The Great Wall is the largest known structure in the universe at present, having superceded sundry superclusters and clusters of superclusters. The Wall is a "thin" (15 million-light-year) sheet of galaxies 500 million light years long by 200 wide; and it may extend even farther. It is emplaced some 200-300 million light years from earth. It helps outline contiguaous parts of vast "bubbles" of nearly empty space. Both the Wall and the adjacent voids are just too large for current theories to deal with. All popular theories have great difficulties in accounting for such large inhomogeneities. To illustrate an important observable -- the 2.7 K cosmic background radiation -- which is usually described as the afterglow of the Big Bang, ar gues for a very smooth, uniform distribution of galaxies. Great Walls are definitely anomalous. M.J . Geller, codiscoverer of the Great Wall with J.P . Huchra, remarked: "My view is that there is something fundamentally wrong in our approach to understanding such large-scale structure -- some key piece of the puzzle that we're missing." (Waldrop, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Reciprocal System Avoids Taint Of Reductionism "Some of the readers of my latest book, The Neglected Facts of Science, are apparently interpreting the conclusions of this work as indicating that the Reciprocal System of theory leads to a strict mechanistic view of the universe, in which there is no room for religious or other non-material elements. This is not correct. On the contrary, the clarifica-tion of the nature of space and time in this theoretical development removes the obstacles that have hitherto prevented science from conceding the existence of anything outside the boundaries of the physical realm. "In conventional science, space and time constitute a framework, or setting, within which the entire universe is contained. On the basis of this viewpoint, everything that exists, in a real sense, exists in space and in time. Scientists believe that the whole of this real universe is now within their field of observation, and they see no indication of anything non-physical. It follows that anyone who accepts the findings of conventional science at their face value cannot accept the claims of religion, or any other non-material system of thought. This is the origin of the long-standing antagonism between science and religion, a conflict which most scientists find it necessary to evade by keeping their religious beliefs separate from their scientific beliefs. "In the Reciprocal System, on the other hand, space and time are contents of the universe, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 116: Mar-Apr 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ten Strikes Against The Big Bang T. Van Flandern, editor of the Meta Re search Bulletin, has compiled a list of Big-Bang problems -- and it is not a short list. Can the Big-Bang paradigm be that shaky? Like Evolution and Relativity, the Big Bang is usually paraded as a proven, undeniable fact. It isn't . Static-universe models fit the data better than expanding-universe models. The microwave "background" makes more sense as the limiting temperature of space heated by starlight than as the remnant of a fireball. Element-abundance predictions using the Big Bang require too many adjustable parameters to make them work. The universe has too much largescale structure (interspersed "walls" and voids) to form in a time as short as 10-20 billion years. The average luminosity of quasars must decrease in just the right way so that their mean apparent brightness is the same at all redshifts, which is exceedingly unlikely. The ages of globular clusters appear older than the universe. The local streaming motions of galaxies are too high for a finite universe that is supposed to be everywhere uniform. Invisible dark matter of an unknown but non-baryonic nature must be the dominant ingredient of the entire universe. The most distant galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field show insufficient evidence of evolution, with some of them apparently having higher redshifts (z = 6-7 ) than ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 40: Jul-Aug 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Genetic code not universal!Most current textbooks pronounce that the genetic code is not only universal to life but that it must. Alterations in the code, the reasoning goes, would garble genetic messages. Such dogma, however, is based on another dogma, which states that all life on earth derives from a single ancestral line in which the genetic code is fixed and has always been fixed -- a "frozen" accident hit upon "by chance" on the primitive earth. Recently, though, small deviations from the code have turned up in ciliated protozoons and mycoplasmas, much to everyone's surprise. (Scott, Andrew; "Genetic Code Is Not So Universal," New Scientist, p. 2l, April 11, 1985.) Comment. No major deviations from the standard genetic code have been found; but then no one has really looked, because everyone knew the code was universal. It would be quite a shock if terrestrial life were found to have several genetic foundations and as many schemes of evolution. From Science Frontiers #40, JUL-AUG 1985 . 1985-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 2,000,000,000 BC: THE EPOCH OF QUASARS Quasars are remarkable astronomical objects. Discovered only 30 years ago, they are the most luminous entities in the universe. Supposedly powered by a black hole, each quasar emits hundreds of times more energy than all the billions of stars in the Milky Way. Just how a quasar works is surmise. What we now know from two surveys by two different groups of astronomers is that most quasars have redshifts between 2 and 3. In the theoretical framework of the expanding universe, redshifts are proportional to recessional velocity, distance from the observer, and age. From the redshifts, it seems that the quasar epoch spanned the period 1.9 -3 .0 billion years, based on an age of 15 billion years for the universe. Assuming the accuracy of this scenario, cosmologists now have to explain why quasars were born and flourished in such a narrow time slot. Did something fundamental change in the universe between 1.9 and 3.0 billion years ago? (Kaiser, Jocelyn; "Epoch of Quasars," Science, 269:637, 1995. Wilford, John Noble; "New Survey of Sky Finds Most Quasars are Equally Ancient," New York Times, August 8, 1995, Cr. J. Covey) Comments. Anomalists cannot fail to remark that the above discussion hinges upon four concepts: black holes, an expanding universe, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 54: Nov-Dec 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Fractals, fractals everywhere Anyone who follows the popular scientific literature knows that fractals are now "in." Commonly employed to "explain" patterns in nature, fractals are, from a simplistic viewpoint, mathematical ways to predict the development of a growing structure, be it a crystalline mass, a plant, or the universe-as-a -whole. Yes, the universe-as-a -whole, the clouds of stars and clusters of galaxies, may be mimicked by cellular automata (i .e ., fractals). Imagine the universe as a cubical lattice, and start in one corner, adding one layer of cubes after another. Galaxy distribution could be simulated by using a rule telling us which of the added cubical cells had galaxies in them and which did not. "The rule actually used supposes that the question whether each point in a newly added layer will (or will not) be occupied by a galaxy is mostly determined by the occupancy of the five nearest neighbors in the previous layer, but for good measure, there is a random variable to introduce an element of white noise to the system. To make the process a little more interesting, the determination whether a new site is occupied depends on whether a number characteristic of that site, and calculated by simple arithmetic from the corresponding number for the five nearest neighbors in the preceeding layer, exceeds an arbitrarily chosen number." Comparing this ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 6: February 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Has the universe's missing mass been found?In the above item, an article from Mosaic was quoted to the effect that 90% of the universe is "unseen." In pursuit of this missing mass, a U.S . team of astronomers has now detected previously unseen halos around several spiral galaxies. The halo luminosities are comparable to the brighter imbedded disks when integrated over a large area surrounding the galaxies. The halo masses, however, as inferred from the galaxies' rotation curves far exceed the masses of the bright spiral cores. The big question is "What are the dim but massive halos composed of?" They might consist of small, faint stars or nonluminous matter of some sort. The researchers had to conclude, though, that the halos are galactic components of "totally unknown nature." (Anonymous; "Has the Universe's Missing Mass Been Found?" New Scientist, 80:174, 1978.) From Science Frontiers #6 , February 1979 . 1979-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nine-tenths of the universe is unseen In a rather lengthy article on the disturbing discoveries of modern astronomy, Ivan King is quoted as follows: "The most serious problem in extragalactic astronomy today is the notorious 'missing mass.' There are rich clusters of galaxies where it is quite clear that the total gravitating mass is about ten times what we can account for in the conventional masses of the individual galaxies... "The other missing mass problem shows up in the outer parts of spiral galaxies, where the rotational curves have clearly never heard of Kepler... The rotation curves say there is a large amount of mass out there, [but] it emits no light by which we can study its nature. "The missing mass problem is extremely disquieting...We are talking about 90 percent of the mass of the universe, present but not speaking. Can we really claim to know anything about the nature of the universe if we don't know the properties, or even the nature, of 90 percent of its material?" (Anonymous; "The Extragalactic Ferment," Mosaic, 9:18, May/June 1978.) From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 8: Fall 1979 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Due to a fortunate coincidence you can read about a fortunate coincidence There are embedded in the fabric of our universe a number of curious coincidences among the so-called physical constants. Two amusing examples are: The size of a planet is roughly the geometric mean of the size of the universe and the size of the atom; and The mass of man is the geometric mean of the mass of a planet and the mass of the proton. Less hilarious is the observation that the age of the universe is of the order of the quotient of the electron time scale and the gravitational fine structure constant; and that only at the present time are physical conditions in the universe favorable to the existence of life-as-we-know-it! The surprising number of coincidences that have been identified suggests that we exist and are aware of the universe around us only when certain coincidences prevail among physical constants. Is "now" a magic moment in the history of the universe during which we have "happened" as a natural coincidence of blindly drifting physical constants, or did some metaphysical force tune the universe specially for us? This long, rather mathematical article is redolent with metaphysics and mystery. (Carr, B.J ., and Rees, M.J .; "The Anthropic Principle and the Structure of the Physical World," Nature, 278:605, 1979.) Comment. One might speculate that at other ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 28: Jul-Aug 1983 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The better, bigger big bang Astronomers are ever more discomfitted by the Big Bang hypothesis for the creation of the universe. The reasons are several: The observed universe is extremely homogeneous, even though theory says that distant parts of the universe could never have been causally connected; No satisfactory explanation exists for the density fluctuations that had to occur for galaxies to be formed; and The universe seems to be flat, not curved, and the Big Bang does not explain why. Paul Steinhardt and Andreas Al-brecht, at the University of Pennsylvania, have developed a radically different Big Bang -- a two-stage one, with hot and super-cooled states. The three objections listed above are neatly disposed of in the new version, but at the cost of a radically new view of the cosmos. The "new" universe is about 10100 times as big as the 12 billion light years assigned to the cozy universe we used to know -- and it is presumably correspondingly older. This means that the portion of the cosmos we see is only a negligible fraction of the whole -- a fraction that just happens to be homogeneous. Somewhere, way out beyond the farthest quasar, things could be -- well -- different! (Anonymous; "A Bigger, Better Big Bang," Astronomy, 11:62, February 1983.) Reference. Our Catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos brims with ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Big Bang As An Illusion That the universe began with the Big Bang is now so ingrained in our thinking that we almost never search for plausible alternatives. Perhaps the Big Bang is just a facade that diverts us from theories that better explain the observed characteristics of the universe. A trio of American and British astron omers (B .J . Carr, J.R . Bond, W.D . Arnett) are exploring the possibility that the cosmos began with a generation of very massive stars rather than the debris of the Big Bang. These huge stars would have had masses 100 or so times that of the sun. By virtue of the much higher pressures and temperatures at their cores, they would have burnt up their fuel inventories much faster than sun-sized stars. Thus they would have burnt themselves out long ago, probably surviving as black holes. Such an ancient generation of massive stars can explain four puzzling features of the universe: (1 ) The amount and character of the background microwave radiation. (2 ) The identity of the "missing mass" needed to hold the universe together (i .e ., the relict black holes). (3 ) The primordial abundance of helium. (4 ) The near-absence of heavy elements in the universe. Although the success of this hypothesis is far from total, it might help wean us away from the Big Bang. (Maddox, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 110: Mar-Apr 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Crystalline Universe Cosmologists think in the large. Billions of stars are nothing to them. The megaparsec (3 ,528,000 light years) is but a hop, skip, and jump. A pressing question for these cosmologists searching for the really big picture is whether there is any order in the distribution of galaxies, galactic clusters, and superclusters. The scale of organization of the universe is of critical importance because it is a measure of state of the cosmos when hydrogen atoms first condensed from the seething sea of ions following the Big Bang. The prevailing expectation has been that galactic clusters and superclusters should be distributed at random; that is, no order prevails at that scale. Recent redshift measurements, however, hint more and more forcefully that the huge superclusters of galaxies are almost as neatly arranged as the atoms in a crystal. A recent paper in Nature by J. Einasto et al puts a number on the spacing of the superclusters: "Here, using a new compilation of available data on galaxy clusters, we present evidence for a quasi-regular three-dimensional network of rich superclusters and voids, with the regions of high density separated by "120 Mpc [megaparsecs]. If this reflects the distribution of all matter (luminous and dark), then there must exist some hitherto unknown process that produces regular structure on large scales." (Einasto, J., et al; "A 120 ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 37: Jan-Feb 1985 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects What does it all mean?W.G . Pollard, a distinguished physicist, has written a very philosophical, almost mystical article on the nature of the cosmos. Let us begin with his abstract: "There are several hints in physics of a domain of external reality transcendent to three-dimensional space and time. This paper calls attention to several of these intimations of a real world beyond the natural order. Examples are the complex state functions in configuration space of quantum mechanics, the singularity at the birth of the universe, the anthropic principle, the role of chance in evolution, and the unaccountable fruit fulness of mathematics for physics. None of these examples touch on the existence or activity of God, but they do suggest that external reality may be much richer than the natural world which it is the task of physics to describe." Pollard then elaborates: Example 1. Quantum mechanics, a mathematical formulation of reality, has been extraordinarily successful in describing and predicting many things in the microscopic world. Pollard notes that quantum mechanics contains no hint of God per se and possesses no numinous quality, but its great complexity and multidimensionality provide evidence for "the reality of the transcendent order in which the natural universe is embedded." Example 2. The singularity at the beginning of the universe. Science is at a loss to explain creation and what happened before. (Pollard assumes that creation occurred like most scientists.) ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 34: Jul-Aug 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Does string hold the universe together?Cosmological speculation is getting more and more bizarre. Astronomers are now postulating a kind of cosmic 'string' that is very, very thin (10-30cm), enormously massive (1022 grams per centimeter), and very taut (1042 dynes tension). This string exists only in closed loops of infinite strands. Such string in loop form could have seeded galaxies and even black holes of solar mass. But these are not the major reasons why astronomers like the string hypothesis. It turns out that this bizarre string can tie the universe together gravitationally; that is, provide the long-sought 'missing mass.' The so-called 'missing-mass problem' is two-fold: Astronomers cannot see, with eye and instrument, enough mass to keep the universe from expanding indefinitely. If the kinetic energy of cosmic expansion is to be balanced by gravitational potential energy (an apparent philosophical imperative), we have so far identified only 15% of the required mass. (2 ) On a smaller scale, galaxies in large galactic clusters are moving too fast. They should have flown apart long ago, but some unseen 'stuff' holds them together. Is it cosmic string? (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "New Light on Dark Matter? Science, 224:971, 1984.) Comment. Since cosmic string weighs about 2 x 1015 tons per ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 88: Jul-Aug 1993 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects There never was a "crater"!Humans favor tales with beginnings and endings, perhaps because we are mortal ourselves. The universe must, we suspect, have been created either naturally or supernaturally, and it will end either according to the Laws of Thermodynamics or by fiat on Judgment Day! Some scientists, though, see other possibilities. In 1948, F. Hoyle, H. Bondi, and T. Gold proposed that the universe had no beginning and was, therefore, infinitely old. Originally, they hypothesized that, as the universe expanded, new matter was continuously created, and thus the density of matter stayed about constant in time. This Steady State Universe was kicked around for a while but ultimately consigned to the cosmological wastebasket. Now, the idea is being revived as the prevailing Big Bang Universe runs into problems, which have been documented perhaps too thoroughly in past issues of SF. The revised steady state model has jettisoned the idea of continuous creation in favor of many discrete "creation events," which will doubtless be called "little bangs." They also fill space with small metallic needles which absorb microwaves and reemit the uniform microwave background. The new theory needs more work, but Hoyle and his colleagues write in the June 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal: "This paper is not intended to give a finished view of cosmology. It is intended rather to open the door to a new view ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 109: Jan-Feb 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Too Much Order In The Early Cosmos Astronomers are becoming accustomed to the idea that many nearby galaxies are concentrated in spherical shells separated from one another by about 400 million light years. This onion-skin geometry is inferred from the fact that galactic red shifts cluster around specific values; that is, they are quantized. Since red shifts are held to be proportional to distance in the expanding universe paradigm: Voila! We have shells! This evidence of nearby cosmic order does not seriously disturb cosmologists, because in the nearby galaxies we are seeing that portion of the universe that is billions of years old. In other words, nearby there has been enough time for some degree of order to have evolved out of the primordial chaos of the Big Bang. Now though, "deep" surveys of galaxies, looking much farther back in time, still show clustered red shifts -- not the expected increasing chaos required by theory. Although the surveys are incomplete, astronomers are discomfited by this early lumpiness. Their theories say that there was not enough time for galaxies to organize themselves into sheets, shells, and skeins. If further "deep" probings of the cosmos confirm this redshift clustering, we may need a new evolutionary scenario. Good bye Big Bang and expanding universe! (Vogel, Gretchen; "Goodness, Gracious, Great Walls Afar," Science, 274:343, 1996. Vergano, D.; "New ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Universal Urge To Join Up Take a mouse cell and place it in contact with a human cell. The two separating membranes will dissove and the cell contents will mix. The once-independent and widely different cell nuclei will fuse, forming a single hybrid cell with a common membrane. Even more astonishing, this totally new biological entity will often divide and produce an endless line of the new hybrid. As might be expected, some hybrids do not remain true and revert to one or the other of the original species. Although cell fusion has been observed only under laboratory conditions, it seems to represent a near-universal cell phenomenon that might be realized rarely under natural conditions. The implications for the history of life are far-reaching. For example, the mitochondria in human cells that help our bodies use oxygen to obtain energy may well be descendants of bacteria that once fused with primitive cells. The same may be true for the chloroplasts in plant cells. (Thomas, Lewis; "Cell Fusion: Does It Represent a Universal Urge to 'Join Up'?" Science Digest, 86:52, December 1979.) Comment. Natural cell fusion might make large evolutionary steps possible and be much faster than endless small genetic changes. Are we all composite creatures? From Science Frontiers #10, Spring 1980 . 1980-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Nether Universe Of Life Bacteria well-adapted to high temperatures have been brought up from oil wells thousands of miles apart. All indications are that these bacteria are indigenous to the wells; that is, not introduced by the drilling fluids. What is most interesting is the fact that these bacteria are all closely related despite their remoteness from each other. They not only look and behave alike, but they also share 98.2 % of their 16S ribosomal RNA sequences. M. Magot asks what an anomalist would ask. "For example, where are these bacteria from? How did they succeed in colonizing these habitats?...Are these microorganisms directly descended from bacteria that were trapped during the formation of the oil, or accompanied its migration through tens to hundreds of millions of years? Did they arrive in the oil field later as a consequence of aquifer activity? What is their mode of maintenance and development in their environment?" (Magot, Michel; "Similar Bacteria in Remote Oil Fields," Nature, 379:681, 1996) Comment. Bacteria have also been extracted from mineral-charged fluids circulating in drill holes over 12 kilo meters deep and also in deep aquifers. There must be an unexplored universe of life thriving not only beneath our feet but also - quite possibly - beneath the forbidding surface of Mars. Reference. Examples of life thriving at great depths in the earth may be found ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 35: Sep-Oct 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Different Way Of Looking At The Universe Here is an excellent survey of American archeoastronomy from Canadian medicine wheels to Mesoamerican aligned structures. To the anomalist, the most interesting part of Aveni's review paper is found in his comments about the world view of the Precolumbian Americans, particularly the Maya. That the Maya were acute astronomers is beyond question. They had even developed a correction scheme to keep Venus' 584-day canonical cycle on track with its true synodic period of 583.92 days. Their predictions of the position of Venus were accurate to 2 hours in 481 years! Not bad for a civilization that did not seem to have any conception that the planets revolved around the sun. The Maya, in fact, did not seem to care what made heavenly bodies move; they only wished to predict their appearance accurately. Instead of developing celestial mechanics based on gravitation and laws of motion, as we have done, they were content with numerical algorithms; that is, ways of computing a desired result. Their astonishingly accurate predictions of Venus, solar eclipses, and other astronomical phenomena evolved from cycles of numbers advancing each day like interlocking gear teeth. These algorithms gave them no insight into cause and effect, but they got the right answers. They needed no physical laws, just patterns of numbers. It was a different way of comprehending and dealing with the universe. (Aveni, Anthony F.; " ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Lumps, clumps, and jumps "Astronomers have already discovered lumps, motion and structure never suspected in a universe once considered smooth and expanding uniformly in all directions. Two researchers now say the universe is even lumpier, has faster relative motion and shows larger structures than previously believed." N. Bahcall and R. Soneira have been studying the structures and motions of superclusters of galaxies. Each supercluster consists of clusters of clusters of galaxies and contains upwards of hundreds of billions of stars. (Obvious-ly, these are not inconsequential entities!) By analyzing the redshifts of galaxies, Bahcall and Soneira have found that the universe is much more dynamic and inhomogeneous than expected. (1 ) The clusters of galaxies are larger and more extensive. Superclusters can be 500 million light years across -- about 1% of the known universe (2 ) Relative motions within the clusters are as high as 2,000 kilometers per second more than one can account for using gravitational attraction alone. (Kleist; T.; "Lumps, Clumps and Jumps in the Universe," Science News, 130:7 , 1986.) Comment. Before swallowing whole such grand sketches of the cosmos, one should always examine the assumptions. Here, redshifts are assumed to be measures of velocity, which if an expanding universe is assumed, can be converted into distances. Local Group of galaxies, including the Milky Way. and nearby superclusters ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 118: Jul-Aug 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Day The Laws Of Physics Changed Well, maybe there weren't such things as "days" as we now know them back when the universe was very young. In fact, "time" then might have been different from "time" now. This sounds like so much physics-speak; but, seriously, during the birth pangs of the universe, there seems to have been what cosmologists call a "phase change," a mysterious moment when the laws of physics suddenly became more complex. You can reasonably ask: "How can supposedly immutable physical laws change?" The answer seems to be that anything can happen when something is being made from nothing! This apparent plasticity in the laws governing the cosmos is suggested by observations of how galaxies in the early universe were distributed. The standard theory for the origin of the universe predicts that clumps of galaxies of all sizes were created early on. This is not what a survey by S. Sarkar et al, at the University of Oxford, found. A split second after the Big Bang, galaxies were organized in structures about 300-million light years across. The standard model of particle physics cannot account for this preferred size. The theorists' recourse is a phase change, a point in time when the warp and woof of the universe changed; that is, change the rules until they fit. (Chown, Marcus; "In the ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 50: Mar-Apr 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mysterious Bright Arcs May Be The Largest Objects In The Universe Several brilliant bluish arcs, some 300,000 light years long, were unexpectedly discovered during a survey of galactic clusters. R. Lynds, of Kitt Peak National Observatory, estimates that the arcs are as luminous as 100 billion suns. The nice circularity of the arcs is perplexing; and it is stated that nothing like them has been reported before. The arcs might be incandescent gas, but many astronomers opt instead for swaths of bright young stars. Spectroscopic tests will decide this point. It has been difficult to conceive of an origin for the arcs. Are they blast waves or the results of tidal action between galaxies? No one knows, for all suggestions seem flawed. Something out there not only manipulates stupendous amounts of mass and energy but also does it with a draftsman's compass. (Anderson, Ian; "Astronomers Spot the Biggest Objects in the Universe," New Scientist, p. 23, January 15, 1987.) Comment. In the interest of accuracy, it should be noted that some superclusters of galaxies are larger than the arcs. Also, some similar phenomena are described in our Catalog volume Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos, viz., the stacked, interleaved arcs of stars around elliptical galaxies (AWO5) and ring galaxies without significant nuclei (AWO6). To order the catalog volume just mentioned, visit: here . A ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 15: Spring 1981 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects "TIRED LIGHT" THEORY REVIVED The Expanding Universe Theory depends to a large degree upon the correctness of Hubble's Law; viz., the redshifts of distant objects are directly proportional to their distances from earth. Unfortunately for the Expanding Universe, some redshift measurements indicate a quadratic rather than linear relationship between redshift and distance. I.E . Segal's chronometric theory of the cosmos, however, does predict a quadratic relationship. In Segal's theory redshifts are due to the gravitational slowing of light rather than any gereral expansion of the universe. Even if most astrophysicists are finally persuaded that the quadratic relationship is real, they will be loath to abandon the philosophically appealing Expanding Universe. Not only is the Expanding Universe consistent with Relativity but it states unequivocally that the earth (and man) does not occupy a preferred place in the universe. (Hanes, David A.; "Is the Universe Expanding?" Nature, 289:745, 1981.) Comment. A geocentric theory would intimate a supernatural force favoring humanity. From Science Frontiers #15, Spring 1981 . 1981-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 69: May-Jun 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Megawalls Across The Cosmos "The universe is crossed by at least 13 vast 'walls' of galaxies, separated by about 420 million light years, according to a team of British and American researchers. The walls seem to be spaced in a very regular way that current theories of the origin of the universe cannot explain." "Walls" of galaxies emerge when galaxy separation distance is plotted against the number of galaxies possessing specific separation distances. (128 million parsecs = 420 million light years). The astronomers have collected observations of galaxy redshifts along a linear "borehole" through the universe 7 billion light years long centered on the earth. If the redshifts are assumed to be measures of distance (as mainstream thinking demands), one gets the clumping effect seen in the accompanying illustration. (Henbest, Nigel; "Galaxies Form 'Megawalls' across Space," New Scientist, p. 37, March 19, 1990.) Comment. Not mentioned in the above article are the papers by W.G . Tifft on quantized redshifts. (See SF#50, for example.) It will be interesting to learn if "boreholes" pointed in other directions will encounter the same megawalls. If they do, the earth will be enclosed by shells of galaxies, much as some elliptical galaxies are surrounded by shells of stars. Wouldn't it be hilarious if the earth were at the center of these concentric ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 122: Mar-Apr 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Ghost Galaxies "Small ghost galaxies, devoid of stars but harboring dense clumps of invisible matter, may outnumber the entire population of luminous galaxies in the universe." If ghost galaxies contain no stars at all, how do we know they are there? By extrapolation! In recent years, astronomers have been able to detect dwarf galaxies lit by just a few luminous stars. These faint, miniscule galaxies are kept from flying apart by the gravitational pull of invisible dark matter. In fact, the density of dark matter in dwarf galaxies is a hundred times that in our bright, normal-size Milky Way. Further, the more dwarfish and dimmer a galaxy, the denser its dark matter and the more of them there are in the universe. Now for the promised extrapolation. J. Kormendy and K.C . Freeman take things one step further, concluding that the universe is flooded with sub-dwarf galaxies that are thick with dark matter, and without enough luminous stars for us to see them in our telescopes. These ghost galaxies are only 1/10,000 as massive as the bright galaxies like the Milky Way but much more common. (Cowen, R.; "Tiny Galaxies Have Hearts of Darkness," Science News, 155:38, 1999.) Comments. If the universe if awash in ghost galaxies, why don't we bump into them occasionally? Maybe we have! Another ...
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37. It
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 105: May-Jun 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects It "IT would mean abandoning a great deal of present research." (M . Disney, galaxy specialist, University of Wales) "I 'm not being dogmatic and saying IT cannot happen, but if it does, it's a real shocker." (J . Peebles, cosmologist, Princeton University)" Emphasis added above and for good reason. Yes, IT is resurgent again and after a remission of only a single issue. We are referring to those pesky quantized redshifts that won't go away. Now, a new study of them, by B. Napier and B. Guthrie, has appeared in Astronomy and Astrophysics . These astronomers had collected the redshifts for 97 spiral galaxies, measured and remeasured by various observatories, and had found in them a strong quantization in the power spectrum. (See figure.) So unbelievable was this phenomenon that, when they first submitted their paper to Astronomy and Astrophysics , a referee asked them to repeat their analysis with another set of galaxies. This, Napier and Guthrie did with 117 other galaxies. The same 37.5 -kilometers/second figure thrust itself out of the data; and their paper was accepted. It seems. therefore, that a lot of galaxies, maybe all of them, are receding from our telescopes at velocities separated by 37.5 kilometers/second, rather than in a continuous range of velocities. Unless Napier ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 47: Sep-Oct 1986 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 1986: "TIRED LIGHT" REVIVED AGAIN Back in 1929, F. Zwicky proposed that the redshifts astronomers observed in the spectra of celestial objects might not be due to universal expansion but rather to "tired light." In other words, the wavelengths of the photons entering our telescopes are redshifted because they have lost energy through interactions with matter en route to earth. The "tired light" theory was eclipsed by the esthetically appealing concepts of the Big Bang and Expanding Universe. But not everyone has forgotten Zwicky's tired light. P. LaViolette has: ". .. compared the tired light cosmology to the standard model of an expanding universe on four different observational tests and has found that on each one the tired-light hypothesis was superior. The differences between the rival cosmologies are most apparent at large redshifts, however, and it is in this region that observations are most difficult to make." (Anonymous; "New Study Questions Expanding Universe," Astronomy, 14:64, August 1986.) Gratuitous comment. In all three of the foregoing items, observations are challenging fundamental astronomical hypotheses: the Big Bang, the Expanding Universe, redshifts as cosmological yardstocks, etc. With more and more such data accumulating all the time, the strains in the key girders of astronomical thought are beginning to show. Of course, most astronomers will vehemently deny this assertion. Those who care to read the biological ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 53: Sep-Oct 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Has the second law been repealed?" From the largest to the smallest scales, the universe is evolving. Matter, in the form of galaxies, is undergoing a colossal expansion. Gas, condensed into stars, is radiating thermonuclear energy out across an infall of matter, drawn by gravity. The simplest of chemical reactions and the most complex of biological activities are occurring on the surface of the earth in a state far from equilibrium; they are heated by the sun and cooled by the vacuum of space. This pervasive cosmic imbalance is the driving force in producing an environment conducive to the formation of structure and complexity." This sweeping statement seems to apply to the entire universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, however, insists that, on the average, for the entire universe, the above paragraph cannot be true. The article introduced by this unqualified assertion about the evolution of the universe is really about self-organizing chemical reactions. We classify it under biology because the authors imply that some biological phenomena are self-organizing. The famous Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction is used as the prime example of chemical self-organization. First, one takes a shallow dish filled with a solution of bromate ions in a highly acidic medium. Here's what happens: "A dish, thinly spread with a lightly colored liquid, sits quietly for a moment after its preparation. The liquid is then suddenly swept by a spontaneous ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 32: Mar-Apr 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Even Larger Ocean Of Life Fred Hoyle has written another book, The Intelligent Universe; A New View of Creation and Evolution. The subject matter is irresistible and, to make things more interesting, New Scientist has published a scathing review of it, castigating Hoyle for his doubts about evolution and terming his approach "dispicable." (My! How conventional people hate unconventional people!) In this new book, Hoyle goes far beyond his previous thesis, which in essence declared that from statistical considerations life could not have arisen and evolved on earth. Rather, life had to come from outer space, probably in the form of bacteria and viruses. Evolution was and is dependent upon new information arriving from outer space on tiny bits of life. Hoyle now greatly extends his theory: "But where did a knowledge of amino acid chains of enzymes come from? To use a geological analogy, the knowledge came from the cosmological equivalent of a previous era, from a previously existing creature if you like, a creature that was not carbon-based, one that was permitted by an environment that existed long ago. So information is handed on in a Universe where the lower symmetries of physics -- and characteristics of particles and atoms -- are slowly changing, forcing the manner of storage of the information to change also in such a way as to match the physics. It is this process that is responsible for our present ...
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... : Biological Anomalies: Humans III 1993: Biological Anomalies: Humans II 1992: Biological Anomalies: Humans I 1991: Inner Earth: A Search for Anomalies (Geological) 1990: Neglected Geological Anomalies 1989: Anomalies in Geology: Physical, Chemical, Biological 1988: Carolina Bays, Mima Mounds, Submarine Canyons (Geological) 1987: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos 1986: The Sun and Solar System Debris 1985: The Moon and the Planets 1984: Rare Halos, Mirages, Anomalous Rainbows (Geophysics) 1983: Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds (Geophysics) 1983: Tornados, Dark days, Anomalous Precipitation (Geophysics) 1982: Lightning, Auroras, Nocturnal Lights (Geophysics) 1982: Unfathomed Mind 1981: Incredible life (Biology) 1980: Unknown Earth (Geological) 1979: Mysterious Universe (Astronomy) 1978: Ancient Man (Archeology) 1977: Handbook of Unusual Natural Phenonema Sourcebook Series 1978: Strange Planet E2 1977: Strange Universe A1 1976: Strange Artifact M2 1976: Strange Minds P1 1976: Strange Life B1 1975: Strange Planet E1 1975: Strange Universe A1 1974: Strange Artifact M1 1974: Strange Phenomena G2 1974: Strange Phenomena G1 Home Page The Sourcebook Project (Catalog of Anomalies)Oct 2021 Sorry, all publications are now out of print To acquire copies, it is recommended that you visit addall.com (and search for author = William Corliss) The Sourcebooks, Handbooks and Catalogs are compiled from 40,000 articles from the scientific literature, the results of a 25-year search through more than 12,000 volumes of scientific journals, ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 71: Sep-Oct 1990 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects ASTRONOMERS COPE WITH BOTH CHAOS AND TOO MUCH ORDER IN THE UNIVERSE The solar system . The recent advent and fast rise in popularity of chaos theory is destroying some favorite, long-sworn-to notions of astronomers. One in particular is solar-system stability. Could any of the planets pop out of their orbits and embark upon wild and unpredictable trajectories? "We can't rule it out," stated J. Wisdom, an MIT planetary scientist. (Freedman, David H.; "Gravity's Revenge," Discover, 11:54, May 1990.) Comment. Well, OK, there is a tiny theoretical chance that such an event might occur in the future, but it certainly never happened in the past. To admit such a possibility would open that Pandora's Box of vigorously suppressed catastrophic scenarios. Reference. More information on solarsystem instability may be found in ABB1 in the catalog: The Sun and Solar System Debris. Ordering details here . The universe as-a -whole . The disovery of the Great Wall of galaxies (SF#67) and the regular clumping of galactic matter (SF#69) has greatly surprised astronomers, who have been emphasizing how uniformly distributed galactic matter should -- according to theory, at least. Now, D.C . Koo, at the University of California at Santa Cruz, says, "The regularity is just mind- ...
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... Frontiers ONLINE No. 132: NOV-DEC 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Theories that are Hard to Believe Explain Things We Cannot See That "something" we cannot see is that astronomical fudge factor called "dark matter". Astronomers are sure it exists because its presence, though unseen, explains two anomalies: The high circular velocity of the stars and gas in the outer reaches of galaxies. Circular velocities should decrease with distance from the galactic center, just as planet velocities do in the solar system. They don't , so some gravitational force from some unseen mass must counterbalancing centrifugal force (mark that this is presumptious! The "force" need not be gravity.) Observations suggesting that galaxies formed when the universe was less than a billion years old. The gravitational pull of the visible mass is inadequate to cause this clumping so quickly in the history of the universe. Many candidates have been proposed to play the dark-matter role. One of the more popular possibilities is that vast sea of neutrinos pervading the cosmos -- if they really do display just a hint of mass. Two other candidates now on the table are so bizarre that we marvel at the ingenuity of the theorists. One involves exceedingly large particles, the other unbelievably tiny clumps of particles. At the "giant" end of the size spectrum are galaxy-size particles weighing only 10-24 as much as an electron, which is itself by no means large. It would be hard to experimentally distinguish such ethereal particles ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 75: May-Jun 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Of iron whiskers and particles that increase mass with age!Two pillars of the Big Bang hypothesis are: (1 ) Redshifts of galaxies support the notion of an expanding universe; and (2 ) The background microwave radiation can be interpreted as the dying embers of the Big Bang itself. Proponents of the Big Bang feel secure atop these pillars. But should they? A few Big-Bang skeptics, who have survived considerable establishment pressure, see growing cracks in those pillars. J. Narlikar identified two such cracks and, best of all, offered exciting remedies: (1 ) The redshift relationship, which works well with galaxies, falls apart when applied to quasars (see graphs); and (2 ) The background microwave radiation is much too smooth to come from the lumpy universe we observe. Narlikar opines as follows: Plot of red shift versus galaxy faintness supports the proposition that red shift is proportional to distance The same plot for quasars produces a scatter of points, suggesting that here red shifts have nothing to do with distance. "Given these problems, it is not a sound strategy to put all of our cosmic eggs in one big-bang basket. Rather, we should explore other possibilities. Thirty years ago, there was a more open debate on alternative theories, which made valuable contributions to our undersanding of cosmology. For a healthy growth of the subject, the big bang hypothesis needs competition from other ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 23: Sep-Oct 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Cosmic Whirl From the analysis of position angles and polarizations of some radio stars, it seems that the entire cosmos is rotating with an angular velocity of about 10-13 radians per year. The Big Bang scenario allows for uniform, universal expansion but certainly no general rotation. P. Birch, the author of this article, puts his finger on the problem in his abstract: "This would have drastic cosmological consequences, since it would violate Mach's principle and the widely held assumption of large-scale isotropy." (Birch, P., "Is the Universe Rotating?" Nature, 298:45l, 1982.) Comment. Since Birch's indicators of rotation are positive in one half of the sky and negative in the other, are we really seeing an entire universe rotating about the earth (and humankind) as a center? What an anti-Copernican thought; we are the focus of everything after all! Reference. Other evidence for universal rotation may be found at ATB4 in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. This Catalog volume is described here . From Science Frontiers #23, SEP-OCT 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 55: Jan-Feb 1988 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects An Astronomical Paradox Just a few years ago, most astronomers would have predicted that, as they examined larger and larger volumes of the universe, they would find more and more homogeneity. The Big Bang Theory predicts this; and it is seconded by the isotropy of the microwave background radiation. The mapping of the universe, however, has actually turned up all manner of galactic clusters, superclusters, and great skeins of superclusters strung across the heavens. Instead of a puree of matter, there is more and more structure the farther we peer into space. R.B . Tully, at the University of Ha waii, now charts a billion-light-year structure that he calls the Pisces-Cetus complex. This aggregation of galaxies includes us (the Milky Way), our Local Supercluster, and many neighboring superclusters. In actuality, the PiscesCetus complex is not a continuous structure. Rather, it is defined by a plane -- one containing a host of superclusters as well as voids. The problem posed for theorists is that they can suggest no way in which such a far flung manifestation of order could have evolved in the time available since the Big Bang. (Waldrop, M. Mitchell; "The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe Gets Larger-- Maybe," Science, 238:804, 1987.) From Science Frontiers #55, JAN-FEB 1988 . 1988-2000 William R ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 10: Spring 1980 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Double hubble: age in trouble A key concept in modern astronomy -- the distance scale -- has been challenged by a new measurement technique. In recent years, the so-called Hubble Constant has been used to determine the distances of the farthest observable galaxies and, by assuming that they are near the periphery of the expanding universe, obtaining the age of the cosmos by dividing distance by the speed of light. Until this current challenge, the age of the universe was generally taken as about 20 billion years. The "old" Hubble Constant, however, was determined from the measurements of the distances to rather close galaxies and then assuming that the Constant thus derived held for the entire universe. The new yardstick reaches farther out into space. It is based upon the observation that the broadening of galaxy's 21-centimeter radio emission depends upon its rate of rotation, plus the belief that the rate of rotation is proportional to its brightness! This "new" Hubble Constant is 95 kilometers/second/ megaparsec, which translates into an age of only 10 billion years for the universe. Both the 10-billion-year and 20billion-year camps claim strong supporting evidence for themselves and also point to serious difficulties in the opposing method. The stage is thus set for a delightful controversy. (Hartline, Beverly Karplus; "Double Hubble: Age in Trouble," Science, 207: 167, 1979.) ...
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... life, and they are also slightly left-handed. For some unfathomed reason, chemical and biological evolution both tilt to the left! (Bada, Jeffrey L.; "Extraterrestrial Handedness?" Science, 275:942, 1997. Cronin, John R., and Pizzarello, Sandra; "Enantiomeric Excesses in Meteoritic Amino Acids," Science, 275:951, 1997. Also: Peterson, I.; "Left-Handed Excess in Meteorite Molecules," Science News, 151:118, 1997. Note that left-handed amino acids in the Murchison meteorite were also reported in the early 1980s: Kerr, Richard A.; "Odd Amino Acids in a Meteorite," Science, 216:972, 1982.) Comments. This discovery of a tilted universe means that we cannot confirm Martian life with spacecraft instruments that test for an excess of left-handed amino acids. Human philosophers, from the ancient Greeks to the present, like to think the universe is in balance, that equality reigns, yin and yang, and similar presumptions. But, let's face it: our particular universe is lopsided. Of course, our universe may be balanced by another one far away, where everything, including its intelligent life forms, are made from right-handed amino acids -- chemically speaking, a mirror image of our universe. Balance could thus be preserved at that scale. From Science Frontiers #111, MAY-JUN 1997 . 1997-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 5: November 1978 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A Redshift Undermines The Dogma Of An Expanding Universe Halton Arp has closely studied the galaxy NGC-1199, which is the brightest member of a small cluster of galaxies. One of its companions is a galaxy so dense that it appears to be a star. This compact object sports a circular shadow and seems to be silhouetted against the central galaxy NGC-1199. Arp's analysis of the absorption ring seems to prove that the compact galaxy is in front of the central galaxy. This would normally be permissible, but here the central galaxy has a redshift of 2,600 km/sec compared to 13,300 km/sec for the galaxy in front of it. This is astounding because the farther away an object is, the greater its redshift is supposed to be. (Arp, Halton M.; "NGC-ll99," Astronomy, 6:15, September 1978.) Comment. Other examples of such anomalous redshifts are known. Three pos-sible conclusions are: The redshift distance law is wrong, upsetting the Big-Bang Theory; Some galaxies and other objects have acquired anomalous velocities through some unknown mechanism; or These unusual redshifts do not indicate velocities at all. Reference. The "redshift controversy" is a major topic in our Catalog: Stars, Galaxies, Cosmos. For ordering information, visit: here . From Science Frontiers #5 , November 1978 . 1978-2000 William R. ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 36: Nov-Dec 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Order from disorder?The apparent creation of order in a universe that is supposed to be running down is the subject of a thoughtful report by Wallace and Karen Tucker. They give additional examples of order arising from disorder in astronomy (spiral galaxies, superclusters), from chemistry (Belousav-Zhabotinsky reactions), and biology (embryonic development). Again and again, they ask why order persists on increasing when the Second Law of Thermodynamics seems to demand more disorder. Throughout the article, the Tuckers employ the card-shuffling analogy. If nature is shuffling the cards of the universe, why are so many royal flushes being dealt? They introduce the works of Ilya Prigogine and others which focus on chemical situations (the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions), where reaction by-products actually make the reaction more likely and in which large, stable spiral and ring-shaped structures appear spontaneously. At the macroscopic level, shock waves from supernovas can (at least in computer models) stimulate the formation of spiral arms in galaxies. The article concludes with a quote from astronomer David Layzer: "The universe is unfolding in time but not unraveling; on the contrary, it is becoming constantly more complex and richer in formation." (Tucker, Wallace, and Tucker, Karen; "Against All Odds: Matter and Evolution in the Universe," Astronomy, September 1984.) Comment. Now Layzer's statement seems a ...
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