New Cosmic Musical Note - B flat (-57 Octaves)

Ace of Spades HQ had this link in the sidebar about the Chandra X-Ray Observatory studies of the Perseus Cluster, but with a different title. When I started reading it, the musical aspect jumped out at me.

These sound waves are thought to have been produced by explosive events occurring around a supermassive black hole (bright white spot) in Perseus A, the huge galaxy at the center of the cluster. The pitch of the sound waves translates into the note of B flat, 57 octaves below middle-C. This frequency is over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing, so the sound is much too deep to be heard.

 B flat to the minus 57th octave? We're gonna need a bigger bass, um, something or other...

RIP Neil Armstrong, American Space Explorer

The first man to walk on the Moon has passed.

Neil Armstrong passed away today at the age of 82 following complications from recent heart surgery.

If you were alive in 1969, you may remember where you were when you heard the words that echo today, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind" along with the grainy, black and white video and beeping audio that punctuated engineers speaking the new language of space.

I was living in Huntsville, Alabama, home to the Marshall Space Flight Center at the time. Quite a few of my friend's parents worked there. There was a great sense of pride among everyone and a sense of awe for one particular teenager. I remember looking up at the Moon while walking home from a friend's house where we'd gathered to watch the landing on TV and thinking, "We actually did it."




I would later work with several of the people who made the Apollo Program a success. All of them had many fascinating stories to tell.

Godspeed, Neil. You have slipped the surely bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.

Warning! Geek Overload Ahead!

Ace had this video up over at his place.

This made my pocket protector get erect.



I'll be in my bunk. With a flashlight. Don't mind me...

Panorama of Curiosity on Mars (Uh, Make That New Mexico)

For your geekly pleasure.


Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2 in New Mexico

(h/t to the Moron Horde over at Ace's place.)

Space Geekery - Mars Rover to Land Early Monday Morning - UPDATED

UPDATE: Curiosity Lands, beams back images.


Although I don't post about it much, I'm still a space geek. Big time.

When I was but a wee lad, my elementary school herded us into the gymnasium to watch John Glenn's historic Mercury launch. If we're old enough to remember it, we can recall where we were when the Eagle landed on the Moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (whom I once saw in the airport in Huntsville, AL).

If you've ever witnessed a live launch of any kind, you know the type of awe and wonder I'm talking about.

On Monday morning, the latest Mars rover, Curiosity, is scheduled to land on Mars at 1:31 am EDT. Here's a link to the NASA web page with geekery galore, including a countdown clock. Also, there's a link to the live streaming of the event, which Curiosity's team has described as "seven minutes of terror." Many, many things must happen correctly in order to stick the landing. One failure and the rover will be a very expensive heap of metal on the Martian surface.

In space, there's no AAA.

Here's hoping for a successful landing. Long may it rove.

Let's Play 20 Questions

Here's an intriguing post that I found over at BadBlue.

20 Questions that Atheists Need to be Able to Answer.

It just so happens that I and the Moron Horde briefly touched on this the other day. As you know, I consider myself a Christian, whether or not The Big Guy does remains to be seen. Fingers are crossed.

I'm drawn to discussion and exploration of the idea, the more analytical, the better. This is easier said than done, because few things arouse the passions more than religion. I try to approach these discussions from a scientific angle, testing the author's assertions against my own experience and what I know to be true. A big part of this comes from my years in manufacturing and my daily dealings with the laws of physics. This experience has given me an appreciation for how things get made, so it's a simple matter to scale up that appreciation to the size of Reality.

I don't think that science and religion are mutually exclusive of each other. The urge and effort to make sense of the universe tends to answer just one question: What is it?

Religion asks: Why is it?

Here is where the difference in the scale of the complexity of the answer approaches infinity. Anything you can possibly imagine has been considered as the basis for what we call Creation. I mean anything, regardless of whether it makes sense or not.

To paraphrase Han Solo, "I can imagine quite a bit."

Rather than waste a lifetime making guesses about things, logic would dictate that you begin at the beginning. Science does this. It's a baseline, or rather The Baseline, for what we see all around us. We call this Reality.

Observe, test, observe some more, test some more, ad infinitum, seeking accuracy at all times. And always trying to ask the right questions.

Which brings us back, oddly enough, to 20 Questions.

I want to make one thing perfectly clear: this is not a dig against atheists. Your personal belief are yours, and because I wouldn't want to be judged for mine, I won't judge you for yours. And I'm certainly not going to try to "convert" you. That's just rude. The whole point of religion is that it originates from inside you, a true introspection. This is intended as a friendly conversation, much as we would discuss sports.

I really mean that.

And just so you know, I was agnostic at one time.

So, this question is pretty important:

And here's my take:

You have so many years to find what you should be looking for, which is a spiritual union with God. This union softens the heart, and allows for the qualities of forgiveness, compassion and empathy. It also imparts great strength of character and enables you to see what is true, and especially what isn't. This is the driving force behind my conservatism.

Only man stands on the edge of two worlds, one spiritual, the other material. We are born into the material, separate from God and Heaven: hence the phrase "born in sin." We must find our way back home in this life, much like the Prodigal Son. It isn't easy, and there are many detours and roadblocks along the way, but if we're grounded in Reality and Truth, we're always shown which way to go thanks to that spiritual union.

,
And here are a few of the 20 Questions:

1. What caused the universe to exist?
3. Why is the universe rational?
9. How is independent thought possible in a world ruled by chance and necessity?
10. How do we account for self-awareness?
11. How is free will possible in a material universe?
12. How do we account for conscience?
13. On what basis can we make moral judgements?
15. Why do human beings matter?
18. How do we know the supernatural does not exist?
19.How can we know if there is conscious existence after death?
20. What accounts for the empty tomb, resurrection appearances and growth of the church?
21. What's a henway?

I may have added that last one.

The author continues, and makes a point that I've been pondering for a few months now: Is it Time to make a decision? To choose sides? Will this question be asked of everyone sooner than we think?

So here’s the deal. It seems to me that there we can either search for and find answers to these questions, and then adjust our behavior to fit even if we will be less happy and fulfilled, or we can make our happiness and personal autonomy in this life the most important thing, and invent answers to these questions that are speculative. Either we live consistently with the evidence we have now, or we live how we want and hope for future evidence that will overturn the evidence we have now.

I think that this is the choice that we are facing as humans. Either we make truth the top priority, and let our lives change in order to respond to the evidence we have right now or we make our happiness the top priority and speculate that the universe is other than the way it is so that we can pursue happiness unencumbered by the obligation to know the Creator and Designer of the universe.

Everyone always talks about “the meaning of life”. I’ll tell you what the meaning of life is. It’s to puzzle about the questions above and get into an intimate, loving, self-sacrificial relationship with the Creator and Designer of the universe – a relationship bounded by facts, not feelings. What is so objectionable with the idea that there might be a Person out there who has a claim on us? So long as his intentions are good, why are we so unwilling to be his friend and to take his character into account when we decide what we will do with our lives?

Very well put indeed.

Stephen Hawking – “Heaven is a Fairy Story”

You may have read about physicist Stephen Hawking’s statement concerning the existence of Heaven. In an interview with the Guardian, he addresses the idea of Heaven this way, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,"

So, according to him, half the world is scared of the dark?

Hardly.

My first reaction to his statement, as a Christian, is sadness. I can understand his outlook, though. His remarks sound bitter. I feel certain that he didn’t ask to be stricken with ALS in his youth. Similarly, children with cancer didn’t ask for it, nor has anyone else who has experienced a debilitating illness.

Life isn’t fair. That phrase should be tattooed on your forehead in reverse at age 3 so you can see it in the mirror every morning. I can think of few people who have a charmed life, where everything always goes their way, their spouse is exceptionally attractive and all their children are above average.

As a famous scientist, Hawking’s words carry weight. There are many in the scientific community who agree with him, and I don’t have a problem with their personal beliefs. All of us are free to believe anything we choose to believe and also to look at life any way we wish.

Hawking is free to express his faith, as he has done. He is convinced there is nothing beyond this physical life. We are nothing more than computers that wear out and are then discarded.

I don’t happen to agree with him, but that’s just me.

I understand that scientists live in a world of measurement. They live and die, in a professional sense, by how they measure the world. Accuracy is their Holy Grail, and if something cannot be quantified, they don’t concern themselves with it. There’s nothing wrong with that attitude, that’s why they make the big bucks.

Humans are the most inquisitive organisms on Earth. That curiosity has led us to discover things that, not so long ago, would’ve been considered magic. Great strides were made in the previous century due to it: we now live longer, better, and more productive lives than at any time before. We seem to be doing a good job of subduing this Earth and using it to better ourselves, just as we’re supposed to.

But it seems as though Dr. Hawking’s curiosity stops at a certain point. He seems willing to go where no mind has gone before, only to coast to a stop intellectually. Maybe that’s all the fuel he has left. Perhaps the toll his disease has taken on him is too great for him to continue any further. That’s perfectly understandable.

However, his blanket statement that there is no Heaven and that those who believe there is are childlike, sounds to me like someone who has closed his mind. I always thought the thing that separated brilliance from averageness was an open mind. That quality that was willing to consider possibilities that no one else has considered.

Now, the notion or idea of life beyond this corporeal one isn’t new by any means; it’s been around for thousands of years and is inextricably woven into the fabric of humanity. There’s just no getting away from it. It’s so firmly fixed in every society that it cannot be ignored.

It’s like growing up in Alabama. You simply cannot ignore the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn – you have to take one side or the other.

The afterlife is like that too. Either you believe in it or you don’t.

Going back to scientists and measurement for a moment, there is no physical proof of life after death. This reality is all there is to most scientists because there’s nothing to measure, no physicality to spirit, nothing to quantify, there’s no “there” there.

How do you measure you?

Surely, you exist. Of that, there is no doubt. But what part of you is you? Where do you stop and your body begin? Are you nothing more than neural firings inside a mass of tissue? What is it that animates your body? What is your spirit?

These are the questions that scientists have no answer to, as far as I can tell. That doesn’t bother me in the least.

Could it be that we’re not meant to know certain things? Is there a line beyond which we cannot go? It seems that way to me.

And that’s where faith enters. Christianity teaches that faith is believing in what you can’t see, feel, or touch. Heaven would fall into that category.

Personally, I can’t find anything wrong with believing in Heaven. Or goodness. Or mercy, or forgiveness. Nor any of the other things that Jesus instructed us to seek in this life. And I don’t have any problem with anyone that doesn’t believe in them, or Him.

You are free.

I choose to Believe, with a capital “B.” Not because of what I’ve been taught, but because of what I’ve experienced, which has led me to question virtually everything, kinda like a scientist. That’s what faith is all about.

Your free choice.

Someone I didn’t know made an interesting comment to me several days ago. He pointed to my crucifix and asked if that meant anything to me. Being the good-natured dude that I am, I answered him that yes, it did indeed mean something to me. For a long time, I had resisted calling myself a Christian. But after years of searching, I had come to the conclusion that I was, indeed, a follower of Christ. (Whether He agrees or not remains to be seen, but I prefer to do little things, like always trying to follow the Golden Rule and be as patient as I can with my fellow man and hope for The Best, IYKWIMAITTYD.) I also told him that I didn’t care what others believed as long as they weren’t trying to kill me.

I also told him that I thought it was the right time to make a choice, at which time he walked away, seemingly satisfied with my answer.

I should note that this happened in a bar.

But I digress.

Dr. Hawking is allowed his opinion on matters of faith. I’ll listen to what he has to say and measure his words against my experience and make my own decision as to the accuracy of his view, as I hope he would do with me.

Maybe he’ll open his mind just a bit farther. Who know what he might discover?

Friday Bits of Tid - Royal Wedding Edition

So, I hear someone's getting married today. Whoever they are, I wish them the best.

Phoebe Snow passed away this week. You'll remember her for the hit Poetry Man and her work with Paul Simon. That's her singing backup on 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. She'll get to see her daughter again...

One of the benefits of blogging is that I get to discover all kinds of cool things on this Interwebs thingy. Some of them are just plain silly but some are also informative. Since I found a few of the latter today, I wanted to post them for your perusal.

The first thing my economics professor told the class was this joke. "All of the worlds' economists, if laid end to end, wouldn't reach a conclusion." As I age, I don't think he was kidding, especially when we've been the subject of so much economic experimentation lately that has been so wrong. Obama's Stimulus plan has been a dismal failure by every metric. It's done the opposite of what we were told it would do, and now we're left holding the empty money bag.

Thanks you, Mr. President.

Here's something you maybe should have watched before you signed that bill. Check out this rap video of Keynes and Hayek, Round Two.



Part One is here.

More geeky goodness can be found in this video that explains what dark matter is. As best I can figure, it fills in all the space between an atom's nucleus and the electrons in orbit, something that, for the longest time, was thought to be empty space or a even a vacuum. As yet, we don't have a way to measure this stuff, but give us time.

You might have to readjust your browsers' scale to get this video to show correctly. It's kinda tall.


Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Superman is renouncing his US citizenship. He was an illegal alien anyway, so, meh.

Via Instapundit, the Politics of Star Trek.

Woman seeks man from Easter encounter. On the off chance that one of you guys might know him, here's your opportunity to play Cupid.

From the You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Animal Division comes this story of a man dressed up as a cow who stole 26 gallons of milk, with a picture of the perp.

Also, a New Jersey town regulates chicken sex.

Why did the alligator cross the road?

Remember Monday's post? Here's more sticky note activism, this time at the grocery store. I suspect we'll start seeing a bit more of this as our economy continues to deteriorate. Somebody's gotta do it.
*Updated* No sooner did I finish this post than I found these instructions on how to construct your own slogan, along with a Sticky Note Rebellion Facebook page. Damn, y'all are working me like a rented mule.

And lastly, here's this week's official video, for all the obvious reasons...



Have a good weekend, y'all. And say a prayer for all my cousins in Alabama who were affected by the tornados. They'll need all the Help they can get. If you can help, please do so.