What is probably more interesting is that this star has a low metallicity* (that is a low abundance of heavy elements), and yet it has a planet. In most models of planetary formation there has to be heavy elements about to form as nucleation sites for the planets to condense from, which would also mean there should be heavy elements within the star.
see this article for more explanation
*
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
This experiment was totally classical in nature, since they were able to follow the particle with a camera. So I do not think this is a macro representation of a quantum concept.
As much as I understand Maxwells Demon, it is not just the insertion of the virtual wall, the very act of determining the particles energy should use up energy, and hence it cannot be used to violate the second law o
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Sansahansan,
If you are interested you can find a copy of Helen's Thesis on this page . The direct link to the pdf is here. It gets all very "mathsy", but you might find some of Chapter 1 useful. And if you can read around the equations, you might find the rest of it useful (I dont mean to imply that you wont understand the maths, but some of it is pretty involved, and it
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Sansahansan,
this is outside my area of expertise, as I have never really studied quantum entanglement. My wife's PhD was in entanglement, though in a different area, but I will ask her if she would be able to shed any light on it (this mostly goes over my head).
In the mean time, one of the authors of the paper has written this on his blog
QuoteFreedom of choice is related to,
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Pete
The problem I think is where do you draw the line as what qualifies the statement. The statement does imply that there are sequences unique to humans that are also present in cattle (but then this disqualifies the claim of uniqueness automatically). As all would agree, there are shared DNA between Cows and Humans. Just as Humans and mice share DNA, as well as Mice and Cow etc. If
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JonnyMcA
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Humanities
Personally I doubt he is very confused at all. If technically there is Human DNA in cows, then he hasnt really lied. He just hasnt told the whole truth that there is also Bovine DNA in humans. It therefore is a spin on the information. Take a piece of information that has been determined from science to be true, discard the part that interferes with your agenda, and present the rest to the au
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JonnyMcA
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Humanities
Perhaps he is getting confused with the fact that in many mammals, there is a similarity in the genetic code. For example, many tests are performed upon mice because they share a similar genetic make-up to humans. In this respect, Humans and Bovines may share some of the same genes that code for specific amino acids or enzymes. the shock horror of it all that bovine shaped creatures have human
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JonnyMcA
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Humanities
QuoteAn international team of physicists, including a scientist based at The University of Queensland, has recently closed an additional 'loophole' in a test explaining one of science's strangest phenomena -- quantum entanglement.
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Some people may like to read this article on the SDO satellite that is currently monitoring our sun, and the science it can do.
Living with a Star
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
QuoteThe Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva has produced its first pair of Z bosons, according to data released by the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration. Seeing this first pair is an important step in the giant collider's hunt for the Higgs boson because the generation and analysis of many more such events could provide one of the key signatures of the elusive Higgs.
Ful
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
I bet you never seen that coming
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
QuoteParapsychologists have made outlandish claims about precognition – knowledge of unpredictable future events – for years. But the fringe phenomenon is about to get a mainstream airing: a paper providing evidence for its existence has been accepted for publication by the leading social psychology journal.
What's more, sceptical psychologists who have pored over a preprint of the paper
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Rick
I see. I inherited a nice book called "Stars" by James B Kaler published by Scientific American Library . It was published in 1992 (so is a little dated) but is out of print now, but you may get it in teh above link (or the local amazon site), or indeed on Abe Books (there is a nice hard copy version here .
It covers the history of astronomy, as well as the basics of obse
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Rick,
is it just astronomy she is wanting, or is it general astrophysics/cosmology she is looking for (that has all the interesting bits in it).
jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Actually Don, you need to understand the principle of comoving distance which if not understood correctly leads to misconceptions.
When an object is said to be 4 billion light years away in teh popular press etc, it means we are seeing it as it appeared 4 billion years ago. In that time for the light to reach us, the expansion of the universe has carried it further away. One can think of the
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Don,
In your previous post you stated "The Universe's age has been steadily growing over the last century. It is now pegged at about 14 billion years."
I think we have the wires crossed. Yes the age of the universe is getting larger, and is growing. When you stated though about it being pegged, it implied that you were refering to the value of its measured age has been incr
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Tommi,
It is not something I have really researched myself, but I know that this has always been a sticky issue, but I believe that it just comes down to measurement errors (mostly I believe in the distance measurement). There is a large uncertainty in the ages of these "anomalous" stars (about 15 % according to here). Some studies have the uncertainty range of 11 - 18 billion ye
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
1) Because of the light horizon. Because the speed of light is finite, it will take a finite time for light from a particular distance away for it to reach us. To make the example easier to understand, imagine that the universe is not expanding (the fact that it is expanding though will not effect the crux of the argument), and that it is 14 billion years old. When you look up you will see ob
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Give or take
And of course that is near Aphelion. At perihelion it is about 5.6 Billion Kilometers (about 3.5 Million miles). With a semi major axis of about 10 Billion Kilometers (6 Billion miles).
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Some interesting information in the article too.
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
QuoteNew research by Macquarie University astronomers Duane Hamacher and David Frew supports the assertion that Aboriginal Australians were active observers of the night sky and incorporated significant astronomical events into their oral traditions.
Read the article here
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Donald,
In Everett's Many worlds we may not be
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Hi Don,
Why does your hand not burst into flame when you touch a flame or a hot frying pan surface, even for a fraction of a second? Thermal conductivity! Heat Energy doesnt travel instantaneously. metal heats up faster than your hand because metal has a higher value of thermal conductivity.
Also lets do the maths. At its maximum collisional energy, teh LHC generates collisions at a
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Closest approach was 700 Km (435 miles) not 435 Km as I stated.
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
The smooth middle section may be topographical, such as a load of fine dust that has collected in a topographical low point according to
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
I think that is out gassing, as a number of individual jets were detected prior to this encounter. See the video footage here .
Also, this comet is giving scientists something to think about with its out gassing
And of course, there is the question as to whether this comet had a meteor shower due to its close passage to earth .
Why it appears so smooth in the middle, I dont know.
Jo
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
Pictures just in
These images are taken with the Medium resolution camera (MRI). Im looking forward to the High resolution ones taken with the the HRI camera which should be downloading from EPOXI now. The closest approach was 435 Km.
Jonny
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
You are correct. i am as guilty of mapping modern tech onto possible future tech. "hands free" is all teh rage these days, and with the advancement of miniaturisation for all we know, communication devices may well be embedded into teeth in the far far future (and sticking a finger in your ear acts as the aerial).. Who knows, perhaps teh lady is using an Uhuru type earpiece communicat
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JonnyMcA
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Humanities
Or even extending it further, to faith healing (and thus back to magic, in my opinion).
The placebo effect would seem to be psychosomatic, and thus if one thought that prayers or that the power of god acting through holy men could heal, or knowing that people were praying for you, then perhaps, to some extent it could have a positive healing effect. It is an interesting point. how much of th
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JonnyMcA
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Laboratory
One slight flaw in the logic though about mobile service providers. You are mapping the modern level of technology onto this "mystery". If she was a time traveller, then obviously, she is not from our current era since we do not yet know if time travel is possible, and assuming it is, no do possess the technology to do so. Thus this "traveller" must be from some point in th
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JonnyMcA
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Humanities