Has Cosmology Been Solved? 315
An anonymous reader writes "In 1998, Dr. Michael Turner published a famous paper titled 'Cosmology Solved? Quite Possibly!' where he outlined seven major issues cosmologists should address in the following ten years. Nine years later, he revisits the list in an interview with the Slackerpedia Galactica podcast. He summarizes progress on each issue, adds some new goals for the next ten years, and even suggests that cosmology is now more interesting than science fiction."
Servernova before the first comment (Score:5, Funny)
seven major issues cosmologists should address in the following ten years
1. Move to a better hosting service.
Yup! (Score:2, Funny)
*smirk*
Heathen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Heathen (Score:5, Funny)
He rested on the 7th.
Bill Lumbergh: Ahh, I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to come in on Sunday, too...
Re: (Score:2)
Why religion works (Score:4, Insightful)
Any pre-religion cavemen who were sitting around wondering where we all came from probably either starved or got eaten pretty quickly...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Come rouse me off my barstool when that happens.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, no. Evidence and facts and all that stuff are no match for a superstitious mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, it truly amazes me that people will talk about things like this without even bothering to open the Bible *or* the Koran.
Both are religions of hatred and murder.
Koran:
We have prepared for disbelievers Fire. Its tent encloseth them. If they ask for showers, they will be showered with water like to molten lead which burneth the faces.--18:29
Among many others..
Deuteronomy 13:6-10
# If t
Wow. Selective reading much? (Score:4, Insightful)
...
So, yes, a true Christian is absolutely *required* to murder any close friend or relative who points out that their god is an idiotic delusion and they should grow up and start dealing with reality.
This is a fine example of taking quotes out of context in a subject matter one is unfamiliar with and is biased against. Perhaps you should look instead to John 8:1-11, the tale of the adultress where the Pharisees drag a woman accused of adultery before Jesus to demand that she be stoned in accordance with Deuteronomy 22:22. However, Jesus instead responds, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone." When they leave in shame, he asks the woman if any still codemn her, and when she responsds that no one does, then he says, "Then neither do I condemn you, go now and sin no more."
There are many sections of the New Testament where portions of the Old Testament are reinterpreted or refuted. The food laws in Deuteronomy 14 are openly repealed in Acts 10. The mandate to stone to all breakers of the law is replaced by a message of forgiveness and redemption. To miss out on that is to wholly and completely miss the entire point of the gospel of Jesus. This is beyond twisting a few statements here and there. This is a blatant assertion that the message of Christianity is the exact opposite of the gospel of Jesus.
In other words: RTFB, newb. <g>
Re:Wow. Selective reading much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yup! (Score:4, Insightful)
They "don't like admitting"? I have never heard that -- the story is there. Now, people may differ as to the interpretation or the literary harmony, but I've never heard someone claim that the text isn't there.
A pet peeve of mine is that people who post here tend to believe that they're the first to identify a potential inconsistancy in the Bible. These have existed more or less unchanged for a couple thousand years. It's not as though all the minds contemplating the Bible simply skipped over that, and all of a sudden someone on slashdot points it out and "disproves" the Bible.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that those who tend towards literal interpretations of Genesis don't accept the ideas that the great Church theologians p
Re: (Score:2)
Christian bible Roughly - 1600 years
Sources texts - Vary widely
"pendantic" (Score:2, Funny)
To be pendantic
To be pedantic , it's spelled p-e-d-a-n-t-i-c.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it kind of is. For a long time nobody had the chance to ever read the Bible. The populations were illiterate and the Bibles were in Latin. The church leaders who had access to the Bible certainly had no motivation to investigate the seeming inconsistencies in the Bible, as long as the money kept rolling in.
Once people started reading and
Read again what he wrote (Score:4, Insightful)
We have a version of the Bible that is almost 2,000 years old (Dead Sea Scrolls). It hasn't changed much in the last 2,000 years. From the GP's post, I have no idea if he's a Christian. He's just pointing out that a lot of Biblical scholars are well aware of any apparent contradictions, and already have explanations for all of them.
My least favorite "gotcha" is when people try to claim that the Bible calculates pi to be 3. They don't seem to be able to understand that "round" and "perfect circle" do not mean the same thing. Anyways, the GP is right. Whether or not you're a Christian (I'm not), you're not going to find any "new" contradictions in the Bible. However, that doesn't mean you won't be able to make others aware of contradictions that they didn't know exist. Personally, I'm of mixed feelings on this. On one hand, most fundamentalism is anathema to science. OTOH, à la Kurt Vonnegut (who is now in Heaven), I do not wish to deprive others of their religious beliefs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If someone believed in leprechauns, would you not want to change this belief if you could? Why should we treat religion differently than any other belief in the supernatural?
Religion has somehow managed to achieve a special status where we are discouraged from applying normal conversation against it, for no other reason that because it is "disrespectful". It is almost unique in that sense. If the same status was applied to a politician, that w
Confused much? (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
In case it's new to you, the bible says flat-out there were other people before Adam and Eve, your local theologian's assumptions notwithstanding.
The implications of this are left as an exercise for the (focused) reader.
Re: (Score:2)
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
In your preferred KJV.
Then, in Genesis 2, we have Adam and Eve. With Adam, the presentation is rather brilliantly ambiguous, suggesting something like cloning, but Eve is clearly subsequent to the "them" discussed in Genesis 1.
I suggest talking to someone knowledgable of the Torah in the original--that you may not (initially) like the answer doesn't mean it's not there.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yup! (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, the true test is:
1) find a black hole 50,000 light years away
2) build a telescope big enough to see Earth at 100,000 light years distance
3) look at the edge of the black hole, using it as a mirror to reflect back the light that left Earth 100,000 years ago
Who says that creationism is untestable? Not me!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As for disproving any of that crap, wh
Re:Yup! (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern religious people seem to have no problem with God being a flat-out liar doing things like making light from stars a billion light years away already be "on the way", and showing events that never actually happened.
Strange. Not only is the Devil testing you by doing things like pre-creating proto versions of Judaism that just look like Judaism derived from it centuries later, in anticipation of God giving the Jews holy writings centuries later. But now you have to deal with God himself deceiving you. And if you are misled by any of it, you get tortured for ever and ever.
Re: (Score:2)
The bible doesn't say "mirror image" or "perfect replica."
Forget starships.... (Score:3, Funny)
In reply to your sig (Score:3, Informative)
When you get to the end, the implication is that two spaces after a full stop began to become less common about a hundred years ago, with the invention of the Linotype machine!
It would have to be a very large telescope (Score:2)
Our next generation space telescope hopes to be able to detect Earth sized planets 20-100 light years away, IIRC. Detect and see are two very different things (although I believe they hope to be able to perform spectroscopic analysis of those atmospheres). So, a telescope with 1,000x the angular resolution (possibly requiring 1,000,000x the light gathering capabilities - with modern interferometry there can now be a huge disparity between the two) will be required to detect Earth at 100,000 light years away
Re: (Score:2)
The universe appears to be pretty good at having large amounts of nothing for very long distances. Granted, I'm no cosmologist, so I could be mistaken.
One caveat (Score:2)
Leave him alone. (Score:2, Insightful)
Well some "scientists" will tell you that they are smarter than God.
I'm sure a few may have implied th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And, and as for your end times nonsense, Christians have predicting "it's right around the corner" since the 1st century. Just how many times can the apocalyptic crowd keep predicting it before everyone finally says "You know what, you're full of shit. Go away and quit bothering us with cheap threats."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Chapter/verse? (Score:2)
Could you give me the chapter/verse of the rapture story that you're referring to?
Take your time...
So, it's not in Revelations (Score:2)
I love this stuff! (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, and what was man's sin again? Oh yeah, it was eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God got mad and said, since you now know good and evil, I shall punish you and all of your descendants. But, ummm, if man didn't know good and evil prior to eati
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, look at that! A strawman and an argument from incredulity all in the same paragraph. Nothing like
welp.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:welp.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:welp.... (Score:4, Funny)
"followed by understanding women....
Now, THAT'S science-fiction!"
Hell, around here, *interacting* with women is science fiction.
Re: (Score:2)
Harry: "Yea?"
Lloyd: "She actually spoke to me."
Harry: "Get out!"
--Dumb & Dumber
Re: (Score:2)
Only if you want a science less predictable than chaos theory and quantum mechanics combined.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
and
You don't know what a woman wants, and you can't find out by asking her....
Re: (Score:2)
Re:welp.... (Score:4, Funny)
-l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I can help with the last item.... (Score:2)
Re:welp.... (Score:5, Funny)
if prenup = false:
select * from MEN where yearly_income > 500,000 and value_of_car > 80,000
else:
cocktease()
SOLVED!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably the most insightful comment EVER, and I can't mod it up!
the day that any field of scientific inquiry (Score:5, Insightful)
science is a never ending inquiry into the unknown. there will always be the unknown
however, some of the higher level stuff of cosmology strikes me as a little too far out there to be called completely science. it is in many ways an intersection of philosophy, and math, and astronomy, and even religion
i think of cosmology as a sort of soft science, like sociology
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Cosmology has been the study of scientists for millenia, though. Aristotle, Einstein, Heisenberg, Hawking -- they all at someone point pondered the mysteries surrounding the beginnings and development of the universe. Solved,
Yeah, this sounds familiar (Score:2)
Re:the day that any field of scientific inquiry (Score:5, Insightful)
*ahem.* We don't actually know that.
(/self ducks.)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So when does America invade?
why paraphrase him? (Score:2)
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/quotethis/a/rum sfeldquotes.htm [about.com]
it has a mental and verbal cadence to it. i
Re: (Score:2)
Er...tell me, just how can you know that?
the day that any field is not funded (NOT EXACTLY) (Score:4, Insightful)
But in practice there are many fields, that while questions remain, the field itself has become very stagnant because, quite frankly, there isn't a whole lot of new and exciting knowledge or conceptualization to be done. Consider, for example, that nearly all of the Human Anatomy departments of US medical schools have either folded, or, more usually, mutated into something else, like departments of Cell and/or Developmental Biology. Its not because there aren't new findings in anatomy, nor new unanswered questions, and certainly not because human anatomy isn't taught anymore (every med student still needs to know it), but rather there really isn't enough new knowledge in anatomy per se, to warrant a continuing academic dept, or new faculty, or new graduate students -- we/they/the field has MOVED ON to related, but different branches of science.
You can also ask the question another way: Do we, as a society, ever learn/understand enough about a field of inquiry that we no longer deem it wise to continue funding and using precious resources to further vigorous inquiry, instead of moving on to other, more promising, less well understood fields of inquiry ? Well the answer from the NIH, the NSF, the private foundations, the university, the scientists, the Congress, etc, etc is most certain YES.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
there's an idea i need to introduce you to: (Score:2)
the universe is fractal in nature
human beings ourselves, we are fountains of emergent phenomenon. you can describe human society in terms of starting formulae, and have no idea of the outcome. we create new and weird things in this universe that did not exist before, lending all the proof you need to conclude that the universe is open ended, not a pat and solvable math problem
absolutely 100% dead wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
if you don't understand how fundamentally weird just our existence is in the universe, you don't grasp the really weird potential for what we might do (if we don't kill ourselves or meet with a killer asteroid in the next few cneturies before we get off this planet)
you lack imagination
Not really (Score:2)
you're wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
#2: human behavior is emergent phenomenon, it's not set in stone. it makes new stuff, it fucks with the status quo, requiring mankind to develop a new understanding of things that are newly opened avenues of investigation
well said (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Too bad religion sucks at that as well, among other things.
(Expecting to be sent to mod hell by dozens of "better people")
Re: (Score:2)
He wrote two sentences. Neither was a "critique" of religion...
hey man (Score:2)
furthermore, i think you are applying a rather narrow definition for cosmology. you say i wiki'd the definition, and therefore it's invalid
and? who the hell are you? on what authority is your narrow definition more valid?
cosmology, defined (Score:2)
We need better SF (Score:3, Funny)
Cosmology (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
What does studying comets have to do with anything? Oh wait...
More interesting than Sci-Fi? (Score:2)
Can't quite seem to make up my mind, here.
Solved, still problem continues. (Score:3, Insightful)
the answer... (obligatory) (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
"How many roads must a man walk down."
The mice agreed and now that's the answer ( I think they may have had a meeting)
Not Cosmotology? (Score:2, Funny)
Lame headline (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone got a mirror ?? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Here am I, answering to myself...
I was able to access TFA, and it is a mp3. But it has a link to the original article [uchicago.edu].
Science Fiction (Score:5, Insightful)
The human element is what separates a good science fiction story from an excercise in mental masturbation. On many occasions a solid sci-fi short or novella (my preferred lengths) have helped me gain a new angle on modern day issues.
While religious fervor is a huge culprit in the scisms developing in modern society (I only can speak for the American communities I am familiar with), it should be noted that many scientists spurn the importance of popularizers like Sagan. If anything we need more focus on making scientific progress a matter accesible to non-scientists who otherwise have access only to religious cosmologies.
Presenting new science in layman's terms does not have to = dumbing the information down. Good science fiction can accomplish this.
Regards.
This Sounds Familiar (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish I could RTFA. Does his list include solving the Slashdotting Effect?
Solve Cosmology For Dummies (Score:2)
(2.01^13.12+76.339*162.23179)/(5.7902*6.55+24.102
PS: Should be solved only with low digit precision calculators, nature sucks at math.
Wait... (Score:2)
(2.01^13.12+76.3389*162.2320023135951487704990351
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)