Science is Drokking Fantastic Because...

[DoomBot]

This probably sounds a bit mental but if space can be 'bent' by gravity would it suggest that space itself has a form of tangibility, I mean other than just being empty nothingness.  I'm not saying you can 'touch' space or anything like that but if it can be distorted does it suggest a certain kind of physical nature which we merely perceive as 'nothing'?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Everything I know about space is encapsulated by mike moorcock's lyrics to Black Corridor (for Hawkwind).

Space is infinite.
It is dark.
Space is neutral.
It is cold.

Stars occupy minute areas of space. They are clustered a few billion here. A few billion there. As if seeking consolation in numbers.
Space does not care.

Space does not threaten.
Space does not comfort.
It does not sleep; it does not wake; it does not dream; it does not hope; it does not fear; it does not love; it does not hate; it does not encourage any of these qualities.
Space cannot be measured. It cannot be angered, it cannot be placated. It cannot be summed up. Space is there.
Space is not large and it is not small. It does not live and it does not die. It does not offer truth and neither does it lie.
Space is a remorseless, senseless, impersonal fact.
Space is the absence of time and of matter

[Jim_Campbell]

but what I (and I suspect Mr. Campbell) was referring to, was the Strong anthropic principle; the assertion that life exists because the laws of nature actively conspire to create it.

Yes, that's the bugger that eluded me.

If that were the case, if natural laws were in some way fine tuned to be perfect for creating life, then the universe should be abundant with life and finding E.T would be easier.

Ah. And we stray into Fermi Paradox territory!

Now, for the record: I have no doubt that life in the universe is not restricted to this planet. On this planet, everywhere we look hard enough, we find life. Even where we thought it couldn't exist; in the deepest ocean trenches life exists round black smokers forming ecosystems that have no input from the sun (not that many years ago, this was believed impossible); below frozen lakes; inside nuclear-frickin'-reactors.

And that's just the tenacity of carbon-based life, before we consider extrasolar ecosystems that might give rise to, say, silicon-based life forms.

As a child of SF, I've never believed that the Sun was the only star with planets, but it's hard to remember that it is only a matter of years since extrasolar planets ceased to be science fiction. Now, it seems that every time we turn our attention to a star and look hard enough, it has planets and, as we refine our detection techniques, we find planets of roughly Earth-like mass.

Simple maths says that not all extrasolar planets can be gas giants or barren rocks, and the ferocious inventiveness of life suggest to me that we shouldn't even rule out gas giants or barren rocks as homes for some form of life.

The Fermi paradox is not explained (to my mind) only by the vast gulfs of interstellar space, though. It's explained by time. For all the illustrations and metaphors, I think we fail to grasp how fleeting human existence has been in the history of the planet; how fleeting it would still be if we lasted another 10,000, another 100,000, years.

There was that programme on C4 a few years back that rolled time forward if all humans vanished overnight and, in far less time than the human race had existed for, there would be no trace that we had ever been (except, as Alan Moore noted in Watchmen, for remnants of the moon landings on the lunar surface).

Consider, then, the possibility that we are not the first civilization to ever occupy this planet. I'm not going off into Atlantean/alien conspiracy territory, just a 'thought experiment' if you will. If you want to bracket the development of human civilization from the appearance of the earliest hominids to the present day, you're talking about a couple of million years.

By contrast, the Paleocene Epoch, during which the very earliest primates are thought to have arisen lasted for about ten million years.

Is it entirely unquestionable that, say, during the biologically diverse Cretaceous, which lasted for 80 million years, no tool-using creatures formed social groups and developed a society broadly equivalent to the Romans? Two thirds of the planet is currently underwater and much of the land that was submerged during the Cretaceous is now at the top of mountains whilst much that was once land is now covered by deep ocean.

Consider how many traces of early human civilizations remain after just a few thousand years. Now, consider what would be left after exposure to geological time. Let's say my hypothetical Cretaceous race built with wood and plant matter; harnessed biological sources for energy, erected edifices even less permanent than our own. How much of them would be left after being ground to dust by the tectonic plates for 65 million years?

Consider the almost incomprehensible number of species known to exist on Earth today, and then compare those numbers to the catalogued species of pre-history. Our knowledge of pre-history is akin to inferring the ecosystem of the world today by standing in your hallway and inspecting the world through the keyhole of your front door.

So... we might be unknowing of another civilization on our own world simply because of the intervening chasms of geological time. Now, consider that our world is about four billion years old in a universe that is (as near as we can work out) 13.5 billion years old. Consider cosmic time.

It is not unlikely that the stars are all crowded by planets, and that many of those planets teem with life. Or rather: have teemed with life; or will teem with life. The planets we detect, even assuming intelligent life could have evolved there, even assuming that life could master interstellar travel, would need to have done all these things within the same minuscule window of cosmic time that we have existed.

I do not believe that we are adrift in a lifeless universe, but I do believe that, in the context of 13.5 billion years of cosmic time, the human race is as fleeting as a quantum phenomenon. It is time every bit as much as space that separates us from any other intelligent life in the universe.

Cheers

Jim

[TordelBack]

Wasted on lettering, that one.   

[NapalmKev]

I think it's likely that some form of upright hominids existed long before the emergeance of our own species.

This probably sounds a bit mental but if space can be 'bent' by gravity would it suggest that space itself has a form of tangibility, I mean other than just being empty nothingness.  I'm not saying you can 'touch' space or anything like that but if it can be distorted does it suggest a certain kind of physical nature which we merely perceive as 'nothing'?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Can anyone offer any thoughts/advice on the space scenario i've mentioned. This is something that regularly whirls around my mind (or lack of)!

If it sounds like the fevered ramblings of a madman then I apologize, but I do feel if space cab be bent/distorted then it MUST be more than just empty void.

Help 

[Jim_Campbell]

Can anyone offer any thoughts/advice on the space scenario i've mentioned. This is something that regularly whirls around my mind (or lack of)!

As I understand it (and I'm ready to be corrected by wiser heads than mine) it's not that 'gravity bends space', it's that the easiest way to wrap your brain around gravity is to imagine the four dimensions of space/time as a two dimensional plane, and that gravity is the effect resulting from massive objects distorting that plane.

Obviously, since space/time is four dimensional concept, reducing it to a two-dimensional plane is inaccurate to the point of being useless, other than as a means of explaining the basic principle to thickies like you and I.

Cheers

Jim

[Proudhuff]

ENOUGH! Let's watch robotic dogs instead...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19567351

[NapalmKev]

As I understand it (and I'm ready to be corrected by wiser heads than mine) it's not that 'gravity bends space', it's that the easiest way to wrap your brain around gravity is to imagine the four dimensions of space/time as a two dimensional plane, and that gravity is the effect resulting from massive objects distorting that plane.
Obviously, since space/time is four dimensional concept, reducing it to a two-dimensional plane is inaccurate to the point of being useless, other than as a means of explaining the basic principle to thickies like you and I.
Cheers
Jim

Right, sorted... I think?

Cheers for the reply!   

[Zarjazzer]

wrong thread oops!

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

...I was poking around APOD and I found this:

Abell 370: Galaxy Cluster Gravitational Lens
Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team & ST-ECF

Explanation: What is that strange arc? While imaging the cluster of galaxies Abell 370, astronomers had noted an unusual arc to the right of many cluster galaxies. Although curious, one initial response was to avoid commenting on the arc because nothing like it had ever been noted before. In the mid-1980s, however, better images allowed astronomers to identify the arc as a prototype of a new kind of astrophysical phenomenon -- the gravitational lens effect of entire cluster of galaxies on background galaxies. Today, we know that this arc actually consists of two distorted images of a fairly normal galaxy that happened to lie far behind the huge cluster. Abell 370's gravity caused the background galaxies' light -- and others -- to spread out and come to the observer along multiple paths, not unlike a distant light appears through the stem of a wine glass. In mid-July, astronomers used the just-upgraded Hubble Space Telescope to image Abell 370 and its gravitational lens images in unprecedented detail. Almost all of the yellow images pictured above are galaxies in the Abell 370 cluster. An astute eye can pick up many strange arcs and distorted arclets, however, that are actually images of more distant galaxies. Studying Abell 370 and its images gives astronomers a unique window into the distribution of normal and dark matter in galaxy clusters and the universe.

And also this:

MACS 1206: A Galaxy Cluster Gravitational Lens
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI), and the CLASH Team

Explanation: It is difficult to hide a galaxy behind a cluster of galaxies. The closer cluster's gravity will act like a huge lens, pulling images of the distant galaxy around the sides and greatly distorting them. This is just the case observed in the above recently released image from the CLASH survey with the Hubble Space Telescope. The cluster MACS J1206.2-0847 is composed of many galaxies and is lensing the image of a yellow-red background galaxy into the huge arc on the right. Careful inspection of the image will reveal at least several other lensed background galaxies -- many appearing as elongated wisps. The foreground cluster can only create such smooth arcs if most of its mass is smoothly distributed dark matter -- and therefore not concentrated in the cluster galaxies visible. Analyzing the positions of these gravitational arcs also gives astronomers a method to estimate the dark matter distribution in galaxy clusters, and infer from that when these huge conglomerations of galaxies began to form.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

...because the Dark Energy Camera is up and running. Back when I was at school, one of my tutors was part of an international delegation of scientists that all went over to Chile to ask if it was OK to tear a chunk off the Andes and stick a 'jumped-up web-cam' up there. It's pretty impressive, a digital camera with half a terapixel

Links:Pictures
Fermilab Press Release

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

This is what awesome looks like:

[Mikey]

  It certainly is pops!

M.

[von Boom]

It reminds me of the first images of Enterprise being piggybacked in the 70's. Heady stuff in those days.

[Dandontdare]

it has a less awesome aspect: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/inglewood-endeavour-path_n_1856191.html

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Oh yes, I would agree that that sort of thing does diminish its awesomeness (awesomosity?), but the whole decomissioning the shuttle thing sucks in general. It is a cool picture though, that cannot be denied