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Chandra Discovers Enormous 'Skull' 106

Posted by michael from the scary-nebula dept.
ActMatrix writes: "Just in time for Halloween, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory has imaged a portion of the Perseus A Cluster that looks frightfully like an enormous skull. The "eyes" are apparently created by bubbles of gas created by electrons blasting out of a region near an enormous black hole, and the "mouth" is a galaxy with an estimated 20 billion stars. Chandra has snapped some amazing images so far, and this one is no exception. The Discovery.Com article has a good pic of the skull."
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Chandra Discovers Enormous "Skull" More

Chandra Discovers Enormous "Skull"

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  • nebula (nby-l)
    n., pl. nebulae (-l) or nebulas.

    1. Astronomy. a. A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness depending on the way the mass absorbs or reflects incident radiation.

    Next question...

    ----------------------------
  • From the story "Oddly enough, there is a second coincidence in the skull discovery, says Wanjek. The constellation Perseus is named for the mythical Greek hero who slew the snake-haired Medusa, and is usually depicted in illustrations holding his shield and sword in one hand and Medusa's head in the other."

    What is the coincidence? They found a picture a bit like a head, and the galaxy is named after someone who had a head (or two)? What (in the immortal words of Harry Hill) are the chances of that?
  • Er, the picture on the discovery channel page loked more like a "pumpkin" or "Jack Skellington's Head from The Nightmare Before Christmas " they said the actualy full on skull picture was too scary. Wankers...

  • Skull found on slashdot, too (Score:5)

    by Nicolas MONNET ( 4727 ) <nicoaltiva&gmail,com> on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @04:51AM (#662917) Journal

    OO
    o
    ^^^ < PH34R M3!!
    vvv


    --

  • Uranus' Spies are everywhere!!!!!!!
  • you've got a several billion dollar telescope.

    you're happily staring through it plumbing the mysteries of the universe.

    a big, burning, grinning skull is staring right the fuck at you. it's not staring anywhere else, it's staring right the fuck at YOU.

    this does not bother you in the least?
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    ICQ# 77863057
  • Check out the Flat Earth Society's Mars Project [flat-earth.org] - it's hilarious. :-)

    ------------------
  • But because the image might be a little too scary, they've decided to use a broader angle, which makes Perseus A look like a pumpkin.

    I really don't know what to say about this. Are they really suggesting they're worried someone will be scared out of their wits by this picture? "Man sues Discovery.com, Observatory for posting Satanic-themed picture"? Surely over-sensitive people haven't taken over THIS much.

    One can only hope that they made this comment tounge-in-cheek.

  • Re:Modern Superstition (Score:5)

    by Hanno ( 11981 ) on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @05:33AM (#662922) Homepage
    Hey, do you realize that this is just plain, simple fun?

    It's Halloween, so the researchers checked their library of images and looked for an image that fits the occasion. I for one prefer scientific projects where the researchers enjoy their work so much that they can do something like this.

    I'm sure that the same scientists will check their library again for Christmas and see if they can find some Christmas-related picture, too.

    It's a cute joke, that's it. Got it?

    ------------------
  • Grand prix: for coordinates of DeCSS code[1] on the sky in the visible range.
    First award: for coordinates of slashdot.org letters[1] on the sky in any observable range.
    Second award: for coordinates of Linux penguin or MS Windows logo.

    [1] Text should be OCR capable.
    ---
    Every secretary using MSWord wastes enough resources

  • there's quite some stuff wrong with me.. but tell me.. does this [mud.nu] look like a one-eyed elderly woman?

    //rdj
  • Well unless piggy back rides are examples of molesting I think not... Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy, he hath bore me on his back a 1000 times, and now how abhorred in my imagination it is, my gorge rises at it... (I had to recite it for Soph. english in high school :) and for those who watch(ed) Animaniacs... Woah, check out skullhead... he gave me piggy back rides... I think I'm gonna blow chunks... that's about the size of it
  • Actually, this is only partially true. Last I heard, the so called 'guys that did it' (aka, 'Doug & Dave') were con artists basically trying to cash in on the phenomenon. From what I'm told, the circles they created had none of the characteristics of genuine circles, and actually ended up destroying the crops, which is normally what you don't find in authentic ones.

    This is something of an interest of mine...belive what you like about whatever else -- this stuff is actually rather interesting, regardless of whatever formed them. Extremely complex sets of symbols and designs ('circle' doesn't at all describe a great deal of them nowadays) that appear overnight in the middle of nowhere all across the globe is something worthy of at least keeping an eye on, just to see where it goes: be it foreign OR domestic in origin. :)
  • Let's try this link to one of my favorite sites, APOD:

    http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ ast ropix.html [nasa.gov]

    Good only on Tuesday.
  • This reminded me spookily of some of the sci-fi stories from the 30's or thereabout, in which the idea was propounded that what we see as atoms are in fact solar systems with planets surrounding them on a very much smaller scale, and in turn our solar systems and stars are just atoms in a much larger universe; in effect an infinite number of universes on different scales, all inside one another like Russian dolls. I know the science in these 'science-fiction' stories was bunkum, and that it's only the angle we're seeing this at that makes it look even vaguely like a human face, but I have to confess remembering the idea amused me...

    Savant
  • Actully theres been serious studies done on it, and if you actully look at the things, theres no way that just a few people could do it. The crops arn'te harmed at all, and there are also almost always little wierd flying things around before or after the event.
  • "buoyant magnetized bubbles"

    Could somebody explain buoyancy in space?

  • Interesting. I hear they're currently engaged in a mad search for a Santa Claus-shaped galaxy by Christmas. What the space program won't do to look pertinent...
  • Well I like your new take on the monkeys in a room anecdote, but there is quite a bit of difference between these two situations.

    For "privileged" vantage points, there are 360 degrees of possible azimuthal sight lines, times 180 for longitudinal (I know I'm not using very good terminoligy here, but you get the idea).

    That's quite a bit of space to have a specific sight line (directly perpendicular to the plane of a binary star system's orbit for example) but not nearly as large as a random Hamlet. A work of literature as complicated as Hamlet will NEVER be randomly generated by a pack of monkeys, unless you want to wait many orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe. We have many examples of star systems and galaxies, however, for which we view them nearly perpendicularly (or more likely, since any azimuthal angle is equivalent the probability is higher) along their plane.

    Add the variety to the universe coupled with our mind's excellent image processing, which is eager to find order in chaos, and you find pictures such as this one.

    Doug
  • missed the nebulae part. And it doesn't require "cloning" to know that there are people who look alike in this world. Thanks for the update though!
  • hmm, your use of degrees to calculate vantage point probability is probably flawed, since several degrees (and not neccisarily quantized specificaly to 360) could produce a workable vantage point. But I get your point.

    It might be easier to assume that its easy to think that three holes in a spherical shape could easily look like a skull. Especially on Halloween. Now if a nebulae looked like a crab, that would be something (j/k).
  • Inside of two weeks we'll see "Space Skull" T-shirts

    Oh, yes, could I please get one? *grin*

  • I can just see the tabloids... (Score:5)

    by Millennium ( 2451 ) on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @04:52AM (#662936)
    You know all the "Satan's Face Found In <insert weather pattern here>!!!" articles? They're going to have a field day with this one.

    My guess is we'll also see either the formation or mass suicide of at least one doomsday cult, which the media will connect with this. Mass hysteria will follow, accompanied by loads of new material for late-night talk show comedians.

    And finally, someone, somewhere is going to find a way to capitalize on this. Inside of two weeks we'll see "Space Skull" T-shirts, hats, etc.
    ----------
  • if that looks like a skull, I look like a 89 yr old woman with 1 eye and 3 hairs.

    //rdj
  • Galaxies, black holes, clouds my ass. Its perfectly clear to me; Unicron has awakened and is now coming to get us.
  • Anyone can CLEARLY see the image is that of Douglas MacArthur! I mean, sure, you sort of have to squint and tilt your head to the side a bit, but there ya go!
  • This cluster is, ironically enough, right next to another grouping of stars which look (from Earth) to be a giant serif-style X. On another part of the sky, deep-seeing telescopes can also see a figure of a serpent with the words "monsters be here."

    Interesting.

    Walk the plank! [ridiculopathy.com]

  • We could even have a galaxy of Butts.
    They could even have a "Whose butt is it anyway" contest
    That would be nice. Especially if you got to compare with the real thing - standing on a stage 5 feet from you.


  • ...humans will try to turn any old pile'o'crap into a human face. Let's just hope we don't end up trying to talk to some aliens arsehole...or gonads...

  • DOOM (Score:2)

    by b0z ( 191086 )
    I think it sorta resembles one of those demon skulls that are burning and fly at you in Doom. It's pretty amusing, but I discount this to be the same as the "face" on Mars. But, just in case it is the monster that spits out the skulls on doom, I am going to go get my BFG ready just in case.
  • Of course it doesn't bother me. There could be a billion such objects in the universe, which we don't notice as special because they lack this chance alignment, making it look like a skull from our perspective.

    In a universe as vast as ours, chance alignments are inevitable.

    Doug
  • Don't you see, its a pure energy being. Pickard and Data were right, they do exist. Run for your lives, the end is nigh!! Just don't, what ever you do go and shoot it with that there phaser of yours, it'll only go and get stronger....oh and that lightsaber too.....
  • Looks more like a pig's snout to me...

    --
  • This thing doesn't look like a skull at all. It might if you are talking some sort of elephant man skull with no top or something. I really thought it was going to be so eerie that I was going to have to tell everyone at work today about the killer space skull. but I am not about to even bring this up again in my life ever. nice pictures though.
  • If that looked like a skull, take a look at http://chandra.harvard.e du/ photo/cycle1/0204/index.html [harvard.edu]. It reminds me of some will'o'wisps.

  • Re:I can just see the tabloids... (Score:3)

    by Mignon ( 34109 ) <satan@programmer.net> on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @05:56AM (#662949)
    mass suicide of at least one doomsday cult

    At least that's something politicians can't blame on video games, music, television, movies, the internet, etc.

  • Oh my god its Ghost Rider [marvel.com] and he's stuck in space! NASA please get him back, he fights on the side of good, regardless of his looks and I really need him for my halloween party. He looks so confused too, they much not teach much astronomy at Ghost Riding school.
  • Nagarlothotep ... thank you very much.

  • Hmmmm (Score:1)

    by xiox ( 66483 )
    As one of the team who produced this image, I find the Chandra Halloween card a bit naff. They've missed off the mouth!! card [harvard.edu] Jeremy


  • Not to be a jerk here, but that's a very human-centric view of things--


    a billion light years old which puts its current appearance being that long ago in years way before there even was any human skulls in existance to model it on.

    Perhaps human skulls have been modelled after this thing?



    Seth
  • Honest! And that was several months ago!

    Jeremy
  • "no, no, no,
    it's "Alas, Poor Yorrick, I knew him well..."     "

    Actually, you are wrong and the original poster was correct.

    It is a common misconception, but the ACTUALY line is, indeed,

    "Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio..."

    I wish people would check their facts before posting from time to time!

  • Ever lie on your back in a field and look at the clouds and go "Oh, that cloud looks like a fish", or "That cloud looks like a dog", or whatever?
    Ever stare into a roaring fire and see pictures in the flames?
    That's what this is like, basically. Someone at the lab said something like "Hey, if you turn your head and squint a bit at this picture, it looks kinda like a skull!"
    And it's good hallowe'en based publicity.
    Chandra tends to be like Hubble's less famous brother, as the Hubble's pictures tend to be prettier than X-Ray pictures. So anything that raises its visibility in the public eye has to be good.
    Although sadly I expect some religious nutters to pick up on this. Perhaps we can tell them "God is dead, and that's his skull!"

    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • Isn't it eerie how science fiction is turning into reality? I read this and immediately thought of "The Mote in God's Eye" - Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle. Now how long before we have regular colonies on the planets and FTL travel?
  • Since you ask, yes ;-P
  • It's just odd how these crop circles always appear near main roads, or on flightpaths, and always in fields with a fresh set of tractor tracks. Maybe the space aliens from planet arse drove a tractor...
    Or maybe some pranksters used the tractor tracks to walk down to create a piece of Crop Art in a visible place.
    And that's what Crop Circles are. They're not magic(k), they're not alien, they're a couple of pranksters performing art.


    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • But, according to the article on discovery.com they did not think anything of it as it had been held in a different rotation. Also, once they had rotated it around and found out it looked very much like a skull it was already mid-october, just in in time for Halloween.
  • ....doesn't really look that much like a skull to me, I could look at clouds for an hour or so and find a cloud that looked more like a skull than this cluster.

    There was a similarly unconvincing story a while back relating to what looks like a face on the surface of Mars [msss.com]

    ----------------------------
  • These nebulae don't look humanoid!

    The human brain is pre-programmed to infer human characteristics from visual inputs.

    Remember the man in the moon?

  • Look more like a shrunken head, maybe off a zombie or something. I just can't wait till someone makes a dorky movie about it like Mission to Mars. Or maybe take it to be Carl Sagan's "signature of the artist."

  • The outer gods wont like this one... (Score:5)

    by Syllepsis ( 196919 ) on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @04:28AM (#662964) Homepage
    Nyarlahotep (sp??) should be coming to deal with those astronomers, the outer gods don't like to be photographed. It didnt look like Azathoth, but it could have been Cthugha, or hopefully just a star vampire.

    Pray that we won't be seeing Cthulhu anythime soon, but be on the lookout for fungi from Yuggoth.

  • I was expecting some sort of hideous death-mask skull. This looks more like something that's about to sit next to you univited on a bus, start telling his life story. And all the while, emitting a not quite describable but definitely unpleasant smell...
  • Poor Yorick...

    I knew him, Horatio...
  • "Nyarlahotep (sp??) should be coming to deal with those astronomers..."

    I thought it was Azathoth who sat out in space.... Of course, I'm not really up on my Cthulhu mythos...

    Eric Gearman
    --
  • Your right, I believe they all do. Nyarlahotep (sp?) is the messenger of the gods, so I imagine he would be the one to come and reduce the astronomers to babbling psychotics, if any are allowed to live.
  • Okay, it has been a long time since I have looked at a human skull, and I'm not an anatomy major or anything, but the only part I saw resembling a skull was the two supposed "eye holes" that appear. Other than that, any shape above or below the eye holes looks nothing like a skull. Looks more like some cartoon eyes out in the middle of nowhere than a skull. Oh well... Maybe my imagination just isn't that great. Maybe some should mirror this with a picture of a skull next to it, rotated similarly and see how similar they look.... i would, but I have to go to class

  • No "NGC 604" show up in the Chandra site search...
    0x0000
  • Cthulhu loathes me, this I know,
    Cause Uncle Abdul tells me so,
    You are weak and he is strong,
    Piss him off, you won't last long.

    Ia! Cthulhu loathes me!
    Ia! Cthulhu loathes me!
    Ia! Cthulhu loathes me,
    Cause Abdul tells me so.

  • Re:The great expedition (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    As lead guitarist for the Chandra Project I would like to share some of the behind the scenes info on what went on during our last tour of Eastern Europe. We were having difficulty getting our drummer to show up for the gigs due to some problems he was having with his contact lenses. It turns out that he wasn't washing them in the evening and they were sticking to his eyelids! Stupid prick! One of my co-band members, Proffesor Lurve (our keyboard player) noticed that if he spat in the drummer's eyes it provided enough liquid to free up the contact lenses and our drummer could see!!!!! So, hats off to Dr. Lurve !!!
  • Something else for the UFO obsessed to point at. First, a face on Mars [google.com], now this!

  • Re:Subjective interpretation (Score:3)

    by Bob McCown ( 8411 ) on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @05:02AM (#662974)
    These nutcases have taken it to extremes. Go check out Enterprise Mission [enterprisemission.com], ground zero for those loonies. Especially check out the 'conference center', where anyone can post 'findings'.

    A crystal city on the back of the moon! Mars Fungus! Frozen Pipes!

    Why do these people get all the good drugs?

  • I just saw something that looked like Liz Hurley.
    Occam's razor - it MUST have been Liz Hurley. Will post remaining later


    Occam's Razor need not apply to everything.
    Many a times, it is the 'not the simplest' solution which it the correct one.


  • I find it ironic that today's supposedly "modern" and "scientific" age, which supposedly dispels all those old, unfounded superstitions, still go for this kinda nonsense. I mean, gimme a break, this thing only looks like a skull because of the angle we're seeing it from Earth! I betcha it will look nothing like a skull were we to travel closer to it and photograph it. And somebody has already pointed out that even the scientists who saw it thought nothing of it until they looked at it from a particular angle.

    Reminds me of those oh-so-profound calculations that Bill Gates = 666. Yeah right. I fancy just about anyone's name can be made into 666, you just hafta find a suitable contortion and strange way of calculation.

    Isn't it odd that modern, so-called scientific, man still finds fascination in such things?
    ---

  • You all remember those picture when you loook at it you can see a old woman or a young one. This is just a different way of looking at a collection of starts and planets. Nothing more.
  • "The "eyes" are apparently created by bubbles of gas created by electrons blasting out of a region near an enormous black hole"

    I know the feeling all too well. Felt like that the day after a Happy Hour session....
  • Cambridge dictionary says: [cambridge.org]

    nebula noun [C] SPECIALIZED
    a cloud of gas or dust in space, appearing either bright or dark
    nebular adjective SPECIALIZED

  • I imagine he would be the one to come and reduce the astronomers to babbling psychotics

    Does that require any outside help? I thought scientists are babbling psychotics unless proven otherwise?
  • Azathoth lies dead yet dreaming at the bottom of one of our oceans, dreaming insane dreams (for Azathoth is insane) and is surrounded by mad pipers.

    Bleh, Azathoth is an H.P. Lovecraft invention. Get over it. =)
  • Occam's Razor does apply to everything. If you saw something that looked like Liz Hurley (who's Liz Hurley btw?) for as far as you could tell then Occam's Razor tells you to assume it was Liz Hurley until you've got any real reason to believe that it was really that changeling you saw on Star Trek.

    However, if you saw something that only vaguely resembled Liz Hurley (think: picture of a nebula), but clearly could not be her then Occam's Razor does not tell you to assume it was her, but to assume it was ... a nebula (DUH).

  • It's Bill The Cat's skull, can't you tell?

  • Little weird flying things? Mosquitoes? Dragonflies? Midges? What?
    Crop Circles are a prank - almost an artform, as pranksters try to make more and more complicated constructions to out-do each other. Maybe they have more than a few people. Maybe they have all their friends.


    Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
  • dangit, that deserved a dd-"yeeeaaaaahhhh!" but it flips out the lameness filters.
  • I keep a link [harvard.edu] to Harvard's page to view whatever they dig up from time to time. Cool stuff.

    Other cool space images from Yahoo on the Soyuz launch:

    Transport [yahoo.com]

    Launch pad [yahoo.com]

    Liftoff [yahoo.com]


    --

  • Ban Astronomy! Won't someone please think of the children!
    ___
  • sorry he got you on this one. It would have been better to say that the odds are greater that it wasn't Liz Hurley since there is only one of those and probably dozens if not more look alikes.

    Then the problem of Occams Razor would be that no matter who you saw that looked like Liz Hurley, you would never believe it was really her since a look alike is the simplest explanation.

    Occams Razor is a Roulette Table stratagy, its just playing the odds. It may be applied to every situation, but it is not correct in every situation (hence its a razor not a law.)
  • No, it's radiskull [shockwave.com], and he will kill you one by one.



    Fist Prost

    "We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
  • I cried when Optimus died... 'course, I was only 8 at the time.
  • Just a side note: The crop circles are definitely wierd. The crops that are man made are quite different from the "normal" ones. The man made crops, when looked at from an electron microscope, show tearing and breaking of the stalk. The "normally made" crop circles show none of the damage that people cannot help but cause.
  • That is probably going to be the funniest thing i'll see all day.

    Hell, probably all week...

  • Yep, A infinite number of rednecks shooting at an infinite number of road signs will produce Shakespears works in braile.

    Randomness is the new way to "explain what we can't explain." Kind of like what God was to people before Darwin showed them the way.

    There was a Scientific article even that showed how there could be a negative value of entropy, if the rest of the universe was infinite entropy (meaning enough randomness should produce one example of extreme order) right? The problem is we aren't in a universe of infinite entropy.

    p.s. I'm not saying this is random, I'm not saying this is a sign from heaven.
  • Then again, we don't have Halloween, so I'm probably not very skull-oriented
  • The point is, in Latin, "nebula" means "cloud", as in cloud in the sky. Astronomers simply took the Latin word to refer to the astronomical object.

  • Oops sorry wrong comic.

  • Re:Subjective interpretation (Score:5)

    by ansible ( 9585 ) on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @04:37AM (#662997) Journal

    Yup, it goes to show how strongly our pattern recognition firmware is geared towards social interaction.

    It always makes me amused to hear about the "Face on Mars", which is a somewhat symmetrical mountain that does look vaguely like a human face. Some people take this as evidence of intelligent life trying to contact us. Sheesh.

    Occam's Razor, people. Just because you see some lights in the sky doesn't mean we're being visited by aliens. Just because the pyramids in Egypt are made out of big, heavy blocks doesn't mean that we had construction help from "Ancient Astronauts". And some long scratches in the ground do not mean it's an spaceship runway.

    What gets me the most are the people who believe crop circles are done by aliens. And this is after the original guys showed how they did it on TV!

    OK, that drifted a bit. I must be in rant mode today.

  • Our brains are remarkably adept at recognizing faces, something AI researchers have found enourmously hard. We are wired to recognize similarities, and even more so to pick out things which resemble ourselves (or mother, or father). Hence Elvis in taco shells, Virgin Mary sightings in water stained walls, and now a Jack-o-lantern in space.
  • Its just a skull! So what? Would it make a difference if it were shaped like my butt? (Anyone's butt for that matter).

  • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I could look at clouds for an hour or so and find a cloud that looked more like a skull

    What do you think the word nebula means?

  • Plan X from outer space. Definitely the best sci-fi movie ever. The special effects were absolutely amazing. Especially all those little wires those plates had going to the roof...
  • Hey! That face made a damned good cameo in the movie (which was bad and could have been made better very easily) "Mission to Mars." It had some good actors in it (Gary Sinse has been in like every space movie since Apollo 13) but the plot is stupid. I do like the modification the made to the ISS tho, very snazzy. Gravity in space will be cool.
  • The APOD (Astronomy Picture Of the Day) also has a good picture... http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
  • no, no, no,

    it's "Alas, Poor Yorrick, I knew him well..." and then he goes on to talk about how the weirdo molested him as a child.

  • I think a civilisation that contructed such an object would have to be very prescient and powerful. As the size of the object is probably a few million light years across and would be a monumental engineering effort to say the least. It is also at least a billion light years old which puts its current appearance being that long ago in years way before there even was any human skulls in existance to model it on.
    Go form your own paranoid conclusions from this.

  • Remember, in the beginning -- a huge flaming thing hurls towards the ship and then a skull appears in the middle of it... And right after that Bruce Willis wakes up.

    Oh, jiit. What if 5-El was a prophecy?.. "But I don't want to go to Egypt!"

  • Noooooooo! Stay far away from him. It's Sinistar!

    Run, coward, run!

  • ... it just somebody watches us through his microscope...
  • A bit off topic... but extending this reply...
    I recently learned in a neuroscience class that faces have special neurons for them in the brain. They are the only things that your eyes see that have special neurons dedicated to recognizing. That's the reason you can recognize someone's face from so far away. Therefore all this makes sense, people seeing faces in things, such as the face on mars and this "skull".
    Other animals have special recognition capabilities for other forms by the way, though I forget specific examples.
  • D'OH, I'd typed up the perfect reply to your post and even previewed it, but when I was just tweaking the details, netscape crashed on me, so you'll have to do with the following digest version:

    Looks like we've hit a cultural divergence here. I had no idea that there were dozens of people with the exact same appearance as Liz Hurley. Hence my question: "who's Liz Hurley btw?"

    However, my point remains: Occam's Razor can be applied to everything: it's just going with the best choice.

    And with my cultural background, I was also right about the woman probably being Liz Hurley because, lacking the important knowledge that Liz Hurley has been cloned, it was the simplest explanation.

    Then the problem of Occams Razor would be that no matter who you saw that looked like Liz Hurley, you would never believe it was really her since a look alike is the simplest explanation.

    If you had no additional information about the person you were seeing, that would be the best explanation, so no problem here in my book.

    Btw, my interpretation of the post by SevenSeasOfRhye was that he compared actually seeing Liz Hurley and seeing a picture of a nebula that looked like Liz Hurley. Obviously the second is not the same as the first and therefore he dared criticizing Occam's Razor. I just couldn't let that one slip.

  • Alas..... (Score:3)

    by AntiPasto ( 168263 ) on Tuesday October 31, 2000 @04:43AM (#663016) Journal
    poor Yorick.... I downloaded him well.

    ----

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