NASA just announced results from an epic experiment some 47 years in the making; the rotation of the Earth does indeed twist and distort the fabric of space-time, and data from a set of the most perfect gyroscopes ever made now confirms this aspect of Einstein's theories of relativity. The gyros, part of the Gravity Probe B satellite experiment, were engineered to an unbelievable degree of precision. The quartz-silicon spheres at the heart of the devices are as close to Euclidean perfection as the human race has yet been able to achieve, and the slight observed precession of their spins over time, as predicted by Einstein, measured the relativistic "frame drag" created by Earth's great mass rotating at the bottom of its gravity well.
I'm impressed. The scope of this experiment is amazing, and it speaks volumes about our drive to understand the reality that contains us. The world is messy, and creating precision is one valid reaction to the chaos. A ruler brings order - we can begin to fence off little pieces of the infinite fields of data available, testing pieces one against the other so that we can begin to make some sense of the constant riot that surrounds us.
Does precision oppose chaos, or does it pay respect to it? The Universe will never be precise, but by creating precision we can perhaps enjoy the mess a little more.
Showing posts with label Universe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Universe. Show all posts
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Outside of the Box
We live in a box we can't see out of. Quite literally, because light has a speed (186,000 miles per second), as we look out into the night sky, the farther out we look the farther back in time we see. And since the Universe has an age (our best current guess is just shy of 14 billion years), it has an observable limit. More Universe surely exists beyond the limit of our visibility some 45.7 billion light years away*...but we won't ever get to see it.
Not only that, but we won't personally get to see most bits of the universe that are inside the observable limit, simply because what's going on there "now" won't be visible to us til the light reaches us. A star 7,000 light years away from us could have ceased to exist yesterday, and we won't know it for another 7000+ years. To us, that star is still shining. Light and time, those phenomena easily detected by our senses, have set boundaries around us. Even though the geocentric theory of creation has been roundly debunked on several orders of magnitude, in one very important way it is still valid. The point of observation is, by definition, the center of the observable universe.
We still keep searching for ways to escape the box, though. We keep dreaming up new theories, testing and wringing new data from the stuff that makes up our physical reality. We sit at the center of the Universe, but the edges of it are right here as well, nested in the folds of the human mind.
Read more here: Five weird theories of what lies outside the universe via io9.com and here: Observable Universe via Wikipedia.org
*The Universe is expanding at an apparently increasing rate. This means that what we can see is farther away than the age of the Universe in years times the speed of light, because space keeps getting "bigger." Weird enough for ya yet?
Not only that, but we won't personally get to see most bits of the universe that are inside the observable limit, simply because what's going on there "now" won't be visible to us til the light reaches us. A star 7,000 light years away from us could have ceased to exist yesterday, and we won't know it for another 7000+ years. To us, that star is still shining. Light and time, those phenomena easily detected by our senses, have set boundaries around us. Even though the geocentric theory of creation has been roundly debunked on several orders of magnitude, in one very important way it is still valid. The point of observation is, by definition, the center of the observable universe.
We still keep searching for ways to escape the box, though. We keep dreaming up new theories, testing and wringing new data from the stuff that makes up our physical reality. We sit at the center of the Universe, but the edges of it are right here as well, nested in the folds of the human mind.
Read more here: Five weird theories of what lies outside the universe via io9.com and here: Observable Universe via Wikipedia.org
*The Universe is expanding at an apparently increasing rate. This means that what we can see is farther away than the age of the Universe in years times the speed of light, because space keeps getting "bigger." Weird enough for ya yet?
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