Steve Anonsen
On 4/10/96 Scott wrote to scp@calvin.edu:
Friends and acquaintances,
As you know, the Hubble telescope is up and running, and giving us some
interesting pictures. How will these new considerations be taken into
account in dealing with cosmology, especially from a Christian perspective?
Note:
Hubble shoots empty spot in space (about 2.6 x 2.2 arc seconds) and finds
1,500 (approx) new galaxies. To make a rough approximation of what that might
mean, that is 1/29363160839th of the celestial sphere. Do a little rough
math, and you can see there's a brand new mass problem looming its ugly head.
On top of which, only about 40% of the galaxies seen could be described
as normal.
On top of which, size relationships vis a vis red shift are reaaaallly
screwy, which means either (a) some things are so big out there minds must
blow, or (b) the red shift don't mean what a lot of folks think it means.
Most folks are betting on (b) which means, dump all current cosmologies.
Meanwhile, on another front, everywhere they point interferometers,
they're finding planets. Lots and lots of them, percentage-wise. And
resolving techniques are only good enough to spot HUGE planets in close
orbits, which are presumed to be quite rare. So... if you want to work the
math on the likelihood of an earthsize planet, though it's all still
guesswork, the numbers just went off the scale.
Meanwhile, they've found some flaws in the measurement techniques
(japanese guy, as it turns out) of both G and c and, as best anyone can tell
from precision measurement over the last couple of years, there's no reason
to assume either value has changed at all. Ever. (Not ruled out, of course,
over time periods previously unconsidered, but no evidence to support same).
Meanwhile, visual interferometry in England has been using instruments
as small as three feet to resolve stars.
Meanwhile, large scopes on earth and the hubble have used an internal
interferometric technique to resolve the stars to the point that features of
the stars themselves can be logged and measured (notably Betelgeuse, which is
huge as stars go) and they don't look the way they were supposed to.
Meanwhile, the jupiter probe did not find either (a) the chemistry
expected or (b) the temperatures expected, but it did find (c)
protoaminoacids (it seems, if the interp of the data is correct. Weird stuff
in that soup, as it turns out).
Just a sampler. Heard about all those? Or are they news? The details of
any one of them are a several hour's study, and all of them are tremendous
leaps.
Oh, en passant: Hayakutake B2's nucleus was an xray bomb, and nobody can
figure out why. It was flourescing like a maniac, and the darn thing was
visually blue.
Sincerely, Scott Scurrah
Student; Dpt. of Philosophy
University of South Carolina