Posts: 25314
Threads: 239
Joined: August 26, 2010
Reputation:
156
RE: Evolution
April 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm
(This post was last modified: April 29, 2012 at 10:57 pm by Cyberman.)
(April 29, 2012 at 9:41 pm)Abishalom Wrote: I only took 1 astronomy class. They said the universe was about 15 billion years old by measuring Doppler shift (or something like that). I just went along with it at the time since that's what they taught us. I never really thought much about it nor did I even know that people actually believed in a young earth at the time. To be honest I never actually thought to question science (or really anything else) when I was younger.
Actually, light from distant stars and galaxies is old not because of the Doppler effect, but because of the travel time of the light itself. Light, obviously and by definition, travels at the speed of light. The time that light takes to reach our eyes depends on the distance it has to travel. So the light from the Sun takes around eight and a half minutes to reach us. If we were in a spacecraft sitting roughly 9,500,000,000,000 km (about 5,900,000,000,000 miles) from the Sun, a photon leaving it would take one year to reach us. To make things simpler, that distance is classed as one lightyear.
Thus the light from a star that is, say, 10 ly away would take ten years to reach us. Our nearest neighbouring large galaxy*, the Andromeda galaxy (classified as M31) is almost three million ly away. And that's one of the closer ones; we've found more galaxies than there are stars in our own, the most distant ones (so far) being over 13,000,000,000 ly away (sorry, I hate and detest the 'new' definition of billion and refuse to use it unless I absolutely have no choice but to do so). Clearly, over such vast distances the expansion of space is going to have a profound effect, increasing with distance. But that's not what causes the light to be old.
* M31 is only our nearest large neighbour, not the nearest galaxy to our own. That honour goes to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, which took the title from the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy - which we are in the process of 'eating' - in 2003. That one itself usurped the throne from the long-reigning Large and Small Magellanic Clouds in 1994. All of them are far, far closer to us than poor old Andromeda.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
Posts: 2658
Threads: 121
Joined: March 19, 2012
Reputation:
27
RE: Evolution
April 29, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Abishalom Wrote:Sorry I just realized I didn't answer your question. But yes I do believe that the universe is young. Despite knowing exactly how old some of this light is?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it" ~ Aristotle
Posts: 4234
Threads: 42
Joined: June 7, 2011
Reputation:
33
RE: Evolution
April 29, 2012 at 11:59 pm
Ignorance is divine.
Trying to update my sig ...
Posts: 1327
Threads: 37
Joined: January 15, 2012
Reputation:
15
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 9:32 am
(April 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm)Stimbo Wrote: over 13,000,000,000 ly away (sorry, I hate and detest the 'new' definition of billion and refuse to use it unless I absolutely have no choice but to do so).
USA vs. Europe....the forum is in the UK so I guess the USA loses this one. How about we say 13000 million?
Posts: 157
Threads: 2
Joined: April 24, 2012
Reputation:
8
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 12:37 pm
(April 29, 2012 at 8:50 pm)Abishalom Wrote: (April 29, 2012 at 8:44 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: Abishalom, what do you think of the age of the light we see from stars?
Why does the age of light matter? As long as it still works it's fine with me. 
^Yeah, that certainly doesnt surpirse me. Christians don't usually care HOW things got here, as long as they're here. But they're more than willing to dismiss scientific fact as proof? "Why is the grass green?" "I don't care why it's green, I like it because its pretty!" Stfu.
“Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self.” - Max Stirner.
Posts: 18503
Threads: 79
Joined: May 29, 2010
Reputation:
125
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Either god (or the scapegoat, the devil!) )put those light beams from distant stars and galaxies just 6000 lightyears from us
-Or-
The light speed wasn't always constant (AKA the statler-waldork defence)
In any way godidit!!!111one eleven
Too bad I found those answers unsatisfying 
Posts: 13901
Threads: 263
Joined: January 11, 2009
Reputation:
82
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 1:07 pm
(April 30, 2012 at 12:37 pm)jess_essential Wrote: (April 29, 2012 at 8:50 pm)Abishalom Wrote: (April 29, 2012 at 8:44 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: Abishalom, what do you think of the age of the light we see from stars?
Why does the age of light matter? As long as it still works it's fine with me.
^Yeah, that certainly doesnt surpirse me. Christians don't usually care HOW things got here, as long as they're here. But they're more than willing to dismiss scientific fact as proof? "Why is the grass green?" "I don't care why it's green, I like it because its pretty!" Stfu.
Grass is green because chlorophyll has no need need for the green part of the spectrum so reflects it while absorbing the parts of the spectrum it does need.
The more you know.
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.
Posts: 1473
Threads: 20
Joined: November 12, 2011
Reputation:
26
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 4:57 pm
(April 30, 2012 at 9:32 am)Phil Wrote: (April 29, 2012 at 10:13 pm)Stimbo Wrote: over 13,000,000,000 ly away (sorry, I hate and detest the 'new' definition of billion and refuse to use it unless I absolutely have no choice but to do so).
USA vs. Europe....the forum is in the UK so I guess the USA loses this one. How about we say 13000 million?
What is the new definition of 13 billion? 
You are currently experiencing a lucky and very brief window of awareness, sandwiched in between two periods of timeless and utter nothingness. So why not make the most of it, and stop wasting your life away trying to convince other people that there is something else? The reality is obvious.
Posts: 201
Threads: 0
Joined: April 16, 2012
Reputation:
0
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 7:23 pm
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2012 at 7:25 pm by Abishalom.)
(April 30, 2012 at 12:37 pm)jess_essential Wrote: (April 29, 2012 at 8:50 pm)Abishalom Wrote: (April 29, 2012 at 8:44 pm)FallentoReason Wrote: Abishalom, what do you think of the age of the light we see from stars?
Why does the age of light matter? As long as it still works it's fine with me.
^Yeah, that certainly doesnt surpirse me. Christians don't usually care HOW things got here, as long as they're here. But they're more than willing to dismiss scientific fact as proof? "Why is the grass green?" "I don't care why it's green, I like it because its pretty!" Stfu. If it weren't for Christians then there would be no modern science. So I find it quite ignorant for you to actually believe that statement.
BTW what does the "age of light" have to do with "how it works" (rhetorical question  )?
Posts: 19789
Threads: 57
Joined: September 24, 2010
Reputation:
85
RE: Evolution
April 30, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Bullshit. The impetus for modern science in europe was contingent upon historic chances not in any way dependent upon anything uniquely Christian.
|
