Eye in London Pt. 3 of 3

(Here are the last of the picture slides. Perhaps they were annoyed by "A Second Plane Has Hit the Towers," or the diagrammes of the London Eye going Big Bang. They may have considered the author a revolutionary, a moniker I would happily accept. Worrying about what others think about you is useless.)

Colleagues in Australia caused a bit of stir when they claimed to detect alpha changing. Since the evidence is still non-conclusive, we can stipulate that product hc is indeed constant, as are the photon energy and Chandrasekhar limit. This means that redshifts of distant objects are indeed caused by expansion. It also verifies Dr. Lieu and Dr. Hillman’s very important finding (ApJ 585, L77, 2003), that “Planck time” is an illusion.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The most surprising prediction may already have been seen. Dr. Krauss says that supernova data “naively implied that the Universe was accelerating.” Redshifts are the only direct evidence of cosmic acceleration. (What was overlooked a child could ask.) What if v/c increases not because v is accelerating, but because c slows down?

When light of redshift Zed was emitted, c was faster by sqrt(1 + Z). Apparent redshift is therefore decreased. This factor is negligible for low redshifts, where zed increases linearly. An object of redshift 1.0 recedes at 60% of our present speed of light. That is only 42% of c at the time its light was emitted. The apparent redshift is just .57. Supernovae produce that light according to E=mc^2. Energy output is here doubled, for a magnitude shift of -.75. Connect the dots, and the upward curve of Type Ia redshifts is precisely predicted.

As you know, it was possible to believe that the Universe is accelerating due to some inferred repulsive energy. Now there is corroborating evidence from a nearby star. According to astrophysics, life should not have evolved here at all because at Earth’s formation the Sun was only about 70% as bright. Our average temperature would have been 10° below zero centigrade, frozen solid. Prof. Allen at Imperial says this can’t be true, for geology tells us Earth’s temperature was suitable for liquid water. This is called the “Faint Young Sun” paradox.

Here’s a hot young solution. The Sun also turns fuel to energy according to E=mc^2. Adjusting for change in c at various epochs, solar luminosity becomes a nearly level line. Some things are nearly constant, and the “solar constant” has allowed life to evolve over thousands of millions of years. This distinguishes Theory from “accelerating universe” ideas and models where c was higher only during an inflationary period. If c had not changed in precisely the amounts predicted, we would not have evolved to argue about it. A 2ND PLANE HAS HIT THE TOWERS. There are now two lines of evidence from truly independent sources indicating that c has slowed according to GM=tc^3.

More supportive data comes from the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment. The PLANCK spacecraft will determine whether baryons are indeed 4.5%. Another indication would be discovery of supermassive Black Holes at high redshift. Dr. Blandford also alluded to discovery of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. All these experiments contribute to an exciting “c change” in physics.

Eye in London Pt. 2

(The good news is that the abstract was accepted and put on the schedule as a talk, despite pressure from communists who don't even do research. There will be another day.)
Before formation of matter, initial density for a given mass M is just M/V. That number is less than this number, and the difference is 4.507034% precisely what the WMAP spacecraft has measured. Location of the first acoustic peak shows that density (Omega) = 1 as predicted. You can also model proportions of the Universe’s other components. The CMB provides an indication of change in c. The average temperature is the same over large areas. Even at this time of recombination 300,000 years after the Big Bang, c was much faster.

We can search the CMB for signatures of inflation. (Thank you Dr. Cline for the graph.) The old paradigm says that density fluctuations should be the same at all scales. Inflation’s predicted power spectrum is ruled out by both COBE and WMAP. Here is the prediction of Unified Space/Time. When predictions fit the data this closely, perhaps there is something to the theory. CMB data was initially interpreted to indicate that the universe is flat, like the Earth. When changing c is a factor, it is curved with radius R = ct as predicted.

Eye in London

(Detainment has ended, though too late for the party at Imperial College. Though this week's events were disappointing, we must keep a stiff upper lip. Yesterday 4 times as many people read my talk online than would have seen it in Blackett Hall. My experience was a nuisance, but not that bad. It was nothing like the 3600 nights Galileo spent under house arrest, or the treatment given to Aung Suu Kyi and political prisoners worldwide. I am still more concerned about Faye Turney and the British servicemembers held in Iran.)

Here are Slides 2-3, with the accompanying text:

We can illustrate Special Relativity if we keep time t vertical and compress dimensions x, y, and zed into this line. An interval outside this cone is spacelike —an event here cannot affect an event there. An interval inside the light cone is timelike, literally a matter of time. Space and Time are related by factor c, called the speed of light. From this principle can be derived the useful equations of the Lorentz transformation.

Just as this is just one capsule of the London Eye, these local conditions are part of the larger Universe of General Relativity. Again x, y and zed are compressed into the screen. There is no centre in space; every bit resembles every other bit. There is a centre in time, what we call a “Big Bang”. Near that initial singularity, mass M of the Universe was occupied a small volume. Though separated from the Big Bang by 13 thousand million years, we are within its cone and that huge mass influences even the propagation of light.

Space/Time can be Unified by a simple principle. Scale R of the Universe is distance from that origin, age t multiplied by c. That is why as t increases, Space expands. It can’t expand at a constant rate, for mass and gravity slow it down. We’ll skip some math here. GM=tc^3. (Gravitational constant, Mass of Universe, 1 dimension of Time and 3 of Space.) Both sides are constant. When t was tiny c was enormous and the Universe expanded like a Bang. As t increased that expansion slowed due to gravitation and continues asymptotically to this day. This equation made the heretical prediction that c slows at a rate too tiny to detect, until now. Today we can compare prediction with experiment.

First we can solve for c and R. This is the metric of Einstein-de Sitter expansion, tracitionally the cosmologists' favourite model. Any cosmology should solve the Einstein-Friedmann equations. These simple expressions form an exact solution of k = 0 and density (Omega = 1) . This so-called critical density of mass is in fact a stable density. Below this density, quantum mechanics predicts that matter will form via pair production.

(More coming soon.)

Talk submitted for March 29

Thank you for the privilege of delivering a closing talk, despite the pressure. We have heard that the Concorde cosmology is observation-based, rather than based upon principle. It relies upon inferred repulsive energies that can’t be observed. What is needed to strengthen cosmology is an alternative, one that makes similar predictions and can be compared to the standard model. I will include what Dr. Blandford called in his closing talk at GLAST last month “Lorentz Violation” and physicists at Imperial might call a changing speed of light.

We can illustrate Special Relativity if we keep time t vertical and compress dimensions x, y, and zed into this line. An interval outside this cone is spacelike —an event here cannot affect an event there. An interval inside the light cone is timelike, literally a matter of time. Space and Time are related by factor c, called the speed of light. From this principle can be derived the useful equations of the Lorentz transformation.

Just as this is just one capsule of the London Eye, these local conditions are part of the larger Universe of General Relativity. Again x, y and zed are compressed into the screen. There is no centre in space; every bit resembles every other bit. There is a centre in time, what we call a “Big Bang”. Near that initial singularity, mass M of the Universe was occupied a small volume. Though separated from the Big Bang by 13 thousand million years, we are within its cone and that huge mass influences even the propagation of light.

Space/Time can be Unified by a simple principle. Scale R of the Universe is distance from that origin, age t multiplied by c. That is why as t increases, Space expands. It can’t expand at a constant rate, for mass and gravity slow it down. We’ll skip some math here. GM=tc^3. (Gravitational constant, Mass of Universe, 1 dimension of Time and 3 of Space.) Both sides are constant. When t was tiny c was enormous and the Universe expanded like a Bang. As t increased that expansion slowed due to gravitation and continues asymptotically to this day. This equation made the heretical prediction that c slows at a rate too tiny to detect, until now. Today we can compare prediction with experiment.

First we can solve for c and R. This is the metric of Einstein-de Sitter expansion, tracitionally the cosmologists'favourite model. Any cosmology should solve the Einstein-Friedmann equations. These simple expressions form an exact solution of k = 0 and density (Omega = 1) . This so-called critical density of mass is in fact a stable density. Below this density, quantum mechanics predicts that matter will form via pair production.

Before formation of matter, initial density for a given mass M is just M/V. That number is less than this number, and the difference is 4.507034% precisely what the WMAP spacecraft has measured. Location of the first acoustic peak shows that density as predicted. You can also model proportions of the Universe’s other components. The CMB provides an indication of change in c. The average temperature is the same over large areas. Even at this time of recombination, 300,000 years after the Big Bang, c was much faster.

We can search the CMB for signatures of inflation. (Thank you Dr. Cline for the graph.) The old paradigm says that density fluctuations should be the same at all scales. Inflation’s predicted power spectrum is ruled out by both COBE and WMAP. Here is the prediction of Unified Space/Time. When predictions fit the data this closely, perhaps there is something to the theory. CMB data was initially interpreted to indicate that the universe is flat, like the Earth. When changing c is a factor, it is curved with radius R = ct as predicted.

Colleagues in Australia caused a bit of stir when they claimed to detect alpha changing. Since the evidence is still non-conclusive, we can stipulate that product hc is indeed constant, as are the photon energy and Chandrasekhar limit. This means that redshifts of distant objects are indeed caused by expansion. It also verifies Dr. Lieu and Dr. Hillman’s very important finding (ApJ 585, L77, 2003), that “Planck time” is an illusion.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The most surprising prediction may already have been seen. Dr. Krauss says that supernova data “naively implied that the Universe was accelerating.” Redshifts are the only direct evidence of cosmic acceleration. (What was overlooked a child could ask.) What if v/c increases not because v is accelerating, but because c slows down?

When light of redshift Zed was emitted, c was faster by sqrt(1 + Z). Apparent redshift is therefore decreased. This factor is negligible for low redshifts, where zed increases linearly. An object of redshift 1.0 recedes at 60% of our present speed of light. That is only 42% of c at the time its light was emitted. The apparent redshift is just .57. Supernovae produce that light according to E=mc^2. Energy output is here doubled, for a magnitude shift of -.75. Connect the dots, and the upward curve of Type Ia redshifts is precisely predicted.

As you know, it was possible to believe that the Universe is accelerating due to some inferred repulsive energy. Now there is corroborating evidence from a nearby star. According to astrophysics, life should not have evolved here at all because at Earth’s formation the Sun was only about 70% as bright. Our average temperature would have been 10° below zero centigrade, frozen solid. Prof. Allen at Imperial says this can’t be true, for geology tells us Earth’s temperature was suitable for liquid water. This is called the “Faint Young Sun” paradox.

Here’s a hot young solution. The Sun also turns fuel to energy according to E=mc^2. Adjusting for change in c at various epochs, solar luminosity becomes a nearly level line. Some things are nearly constant, and the “solar constant” has allowed life to evolve over thousands of millions of years. This distinguishes Theory from “accelerating universe” ideas and models where c was higher only during an inflationary period. If c had not changed in precisely the amounts predicted, we would not have evolved to argue about it. A 2ND PLANE HAS HIT THE TOWERS. There are now two lines of evidence from truly independent sources indicating that c has slowed according to GM=tc^3.

More supportive data comes from the Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment. The PLANCK spacecraft will determine whether baryons are indeed 4.5%. Another indication would be discovery of supermassive Black Holes at high redshift. Dr. Blandford also alluded to discovery of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. All these experiments contribute to an exciting “c change” in physics.

Thank you again for sharing such outstanding science this week. This is truly a thrilling time to ask questions. Someone nearly succeeded in preventing you from hearing this, thinks you cannot understand something so simple. You have many outstanding questions, so please bring it on.

T Minus 1 Day - Houston, we have a problem

2 days ago I was detained by immigration authorities due to some question about my passport. I assure everyone that my travel papers are in order, I have no criminal record in any country, and I am no threat to the UK. However, while this mysterious issue is investigated I have been detained near Gatwick, away from Imperial College and computers.

There is a good chance I will not be released in the morning and will not be there at 12:30. I am working on a way around this, so as not to disappoint those who are awaiting my talk. Some day I may comment on upside-down immigration laws. In the meantime, there is work to be done.

T Minus 3 Days - Conference Opening

No promises, but I will attempt to blog about every day of Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model, to describe some of the other speakers.

Monday morning has been scheduled with safe stuff. Roger Blandford will talk about "Origins and Tests of the Standard Model." In his position, he is often forced to repeat the party line. Gary Hinshaw will talk about WMAP results. Ofer Lahav, Lloyd Knox and Bob Nichol will mostly talk about "dark energy."

Subir Sarkar's talk at 12:15 should be interesting. This Oxford physicist is one of the few brave enough to question the existence of DE. His talk will ask "Does WMAP require dark energy?" Roger Penrose of Oxford has implied that WMAP results were analysed fro the perspective of a currently fashinable model.

After lunch Tom Shanks of Durham University will speak on "Problems with the Current Cosmological Paradigm." That is a lot to pack into a 30-minute talk. The hypothesised amount of "dark energy" is extremely close to the amount of other stuff. Quantum field theory says that if DE exists it should be 10^120 times bigger.

The Concorde cosmology puts us in the middle of hypothetical forces--a repulsive "inflaton" causing initial expansion, another repulsive energy causing current acceleration, and our Ptolemaic world in the middle. Cosmologists call this the Nancy Kerrigan problem: Why me? Why now? Given the unwanted attention last week, I can identify with Nancy.

A Very Serious Situation

As I arrive in London, there is great concern over the fate of 15 Royal Navy and Marine personnel, including at least one woman, held by Iran. Tony Blair calls it "a very serious situation." He has been meeting with top officials in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A (COBRA) deep beneath 10 Downing Street. He also met in this room after events of 9/11 and 7/7. Seizing another nation's sailors and holding them hostage is an act of war. This is eerily like 1979. The Cabinet War Rooms are a reminder that Britain has faced threats to freedom before. Brickmuppet is very concerned. I hope that sanity prevails over fanaticism, and the people are freed soon.

T Minus 4 Days - Your galaxy shouldn't exist

Galactic Cluster Collinder 2261 in the Milky Way, imaged by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) atop Mount Stromlo. I miss Australia already, but Thursday friends at ESO sent me this press release.

"Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, an international team of astronomers has shown how to use the chemical composition of stars in clusters to shed light on the formation of our Milky Way. This discovery is a fundamental test for the development of a new chemical tagging technique uncovering the birth and growth of our Galactic cradle.

"The formation and evolution of galaxies, and in particular of the Milky Way - the 'island universe' in which we live, is one of the major puzzles of astrophysics: indeed, a detailed physical scenario is still missing and its understanding requires the joint effort of observations, theories and complex numerical simulations. ESO astronomer Gayandhi De Silva and her colleagues used the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on ESO's VLT to find new ways to address this fundamental riddle."

Though we live in the Milky Way and see its band of stars at night, astronomers do not understand how our galaxy formed. It had been thought that the Milky Way formed from the merger of smaller galaxies. An international team led by astronomer Manuela Zoccalli, of the Pontifical Catholic University in Chile, has disproved that inferrence. Her observations show that stars in the galaxy’s central bulge have a different chemical composition than stars in the spiral arms. If the Milky Way had formed from collisions of smaller galaxies, stars of similar composition would be mixed together everywhere we look. Zoccalli’s observations also show that our galaxy’s central bulge formed in a remarkably short time, less than a billion years.

Every galaxy we have found, like our Milky Way, contains at its centre a massive Black Hole. Giant singularities very likely exist in Space without surrounding galaxies, but would be quite difficult to detect. Instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope and our Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea have found galaxies that existed only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. They are so distant in Space/Time that their light has shifted into the infrared. In the distant past we have seen quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei, powerful objects each radiating more energy than a million galaxies. These primordial objects are powered by massive Black Holes.

Near the beginning of the Universe, not enough time had passed for Black Holes to evolve from stars. Primordial Black Holes could form by collapse of quantum fluctuations. In the immense densities near the Big Bang, fluctuations were big enough to form Black Holes without becoming matter first. Many scientists, notably Stephen Hawking, believe that Primordial Black Holes survive today.

The mass of a collapsing Black Hole is limited by a horizon distance, the distance light can travel in a given time. Previously it was thought that Primordial Black Holes would be tiny, because of light’s limited reach. If we consider that the speed of light was faster, the mass within the horizon was enormous. Primordial Black Holes could have formed of immense mass, seeding formation of galaxies around them. The massive Black Hole at the centre of our Milky Way may be older than the galaxy. This is yet another indication of a changing speed of light.

The Southern sky is endlessly fascinating. Here we can see the nearest stars and the galactic centre. Many amazing discoveries are being made by astronomers in Australia, Chile and Antarctica. Scientists should take their heads out of those computers and look at the sky. While they are at it, they can stop harassing woman scientists. We have a lot to contribute.

T Minus 5 Days: 1984 + 23

Here's one way to make an entrance! From the original Apple Computer 1984 ad, directed by Ridley Scott. The audience is numbed into obedience by the image of Big Brother and his dark energy. The woman runs into the auditorium pursued by secret police who would stop her from speaking. She flings her hammer into the screen, and dark energy explodes in the light of knowledge. Recently the ad was revived with a certain American presidential candidate in the place of Big Brother, but we will keep politics out of this.

London was George Orwell's favourite city. Here he lived the life of a penniless writer, penning "Down and Out in London and Paris." His experience in the Spanish Civil War made him a committed socialist, but World War 2 showed him the evil of totalitarianism. Orwell and London survived the Nazi bombing together. Shortly after the War ended he finished "Animal Farm." Orwell's masterwork "1984" was published while he was dying of tuberculosis at University College Hospital, Bloomsbury.

When the year 1984 arrived many nations were in the grip of totalitarianism. Most people believed it was self-perpetuating and would last indefinitely. Within a few years most of the world would throw off communism's yoke. Surviving communists had to scurry into their spider holes, like in Cornell. In their misery, they are reduced to sending nasty e-mails at 12:51.

The threat of totalitarianism will long be with us. In science it is tempting to fall behind a consensus, repeating that planets revolve around the Earth or the speed of light is constant. As we have seen this week, communists love this sort of obedience. Totalitarianism will take many forms and guises, even hiding behind the mask of religion. The events of 7/7 reminded us that London has endured bombs before. They fear us not when we are wrong, but when we are right.

Imperial College Press Release: "The theory that Earth once underwent a prolonged time of extreme global freezing has been dealt a blow by new evidence that periods of warmth occurred during this so-called 'Snowball Earth' era."

Professor Philip Allen of Imperial College London's Department of Earth Science and Engineering, explains: "If the Earth had become fully frozen for a long period of time, these climatic cycles could not exist – the Earth would have changed into a bleak world with almost no weather, since no evaporation from the oceans could take place, and little snowfall would be possible. In fact, once fully frozen, it is difficult to create the right conditions to cause a thaw, since much of the incoming solar radiation would be reflected back by the snow and ice. The evidence of climatic cycles is therefore hostile to the idea of ‘Snowball Earth'."

This also applies to earlier periods in Earth history. These results cast severe doubt upon a "Faint Young Sun." A better theory of cosmology sheds light upon problems of Earth, like our climate. See Thursday's post!

Jupiter and Galileo's Moons

This amazing photo of Jupiter was taken from Saturn! On February 8, 2007 Jupiter was 1.8 billion kilometres from our Cassini spacecraft. Two of the Galilean satellites are visible. When Galileo turned his telescope to the skies, he was amazed to discover Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto circling Jupiter. This provided evidence of objects circling something other than Earth, in defiance of Ptolemy's cosmology. Scientists of the time literally refused to peer in the telescope for fear of upsetting their world view.

“Here at Padua,” Galileo complained in a letter to Kepler, "is the principal professor of philosophy whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass, which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? Whart shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious folly! And to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa labouring before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as if with magical incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky.”

(Thanks Nigel, for reminding me of this quote, which I used part of in January 11 post.)

If that professor were alive today his magical incantations would no doubt include "dark energy" or whatever is fashionable and safe. He would try to prevent Galileo from speaking, publishing, or even having his observations considered. Unlike this writer, Galileo did not complete a university degree. That fact would be cited against him by today's elitists.

Despite his gap in formal education, Galileo was a fair scientist. He was willing to adjust his theories in accordance with new observations. His book "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems" gave equal time to opposing ideas. Some sinister folks spread rumour that the "Simplicio" character was a vague parody of the Pope. (Did they use e-mail?) Galileo was tried, forced to recant, and imprisoned for the last ten years of his life.

Below is a closer Cassini image of Jupiter, taken January 15, 2001 as the spacecraft completed its close flyby. Galilean moon Io is visible as a tiny crescent to the left. Four centuries later moons orbit planets and planets orbit the Sun just as Galileo believed. All follow elliptical orbits as Galileo's friend Kepler discovered. All follow paths controlled by Newton's gravity. The treatment given to Galileo is very relevant today.

Scientists Question Understanding of Universe

From SpaceRef.com: "Cosmologists from around the world will meet at Imperial College London next week to challenge the theories behind the 'standard model' used to understand the universe."

"Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and Subir Sarkar from Oxford query whether we need to postulate the existence of dark energy in the universe to explain the key observations. Tom Shanks of Durham will pose a puzzling question concerning why the instruments that measured the cosmic microwave background failed to detect shadows on this 'afterglow' radiation cast by nearby clusters of galaxies. This calls into question a key part of the standard model, which clearly predicted that such shadows should be formed, and be readily observable.

"Another vital prediction not observationally verified concerns the evolution of clusters of galaxies. While theory predicts that these systems should be rapidly evolving, the X-ray data presented by Alain Blanchard from Toulouse shows a complete absence of evolution. Additionally, Jelle Kaastra from Utrecht and Niayesh Afshordi from Harvard will demonstrate how the amount of atoms and molecules of daily life falls short of that predicted by the standard model by at least 30-40 percent."

Wednesday NASA released images from the Japanese Hinode spacecraft showing that the Sun's magnetic field is more dynamic than previously suspected. Changes in the structure of the magnetic field spread outward through the corona and into Space. Though the Sun's surface has a temperature of thousands of degrees, the corona has a temperature in the millions of degrees! No one knows the cause of this, but the answer is somewhere in the Sun's powerful magnetic field. Extremely hot plasma issues from the Sun, following magnetic field lines to heat the corona. The Sun's bipolar magnetic field is similiar to that produced by a Black Hole.

The Sun has a lot to do with cosmology. According to astrophysics, life should not have evolved on Earth because at Earth’s formation the Sun was only about 70% as bright. Earth's average temperature would have been 10 degrees below zero centigrade, frozen solid. On the graph, the standard model has solar luminosity L/Lo as an increasing curve. This can’t be true, for geology and the fossil record tell us that Earth had conditions welcoming to life. This is called the “Faint Young Sun” paradox.

Here’s the Hot Young Solution: The Sun turns its fuel to energy according to E=mc^2. Adjusting for the changing speed of light, solar luminosity becomes a nearly level line. Some things really are constant, and the solar constant has allowed life to evolve over billions of years. If c had not changed in precisely the amounts predicted, life would not have evolved to argue about it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Combined with supernovae, there are two lines of data from truly independent sources indicating a “c change” in physics.

UPDATE: This little blog has reached record viewership of 742 hits per day. Thank you!

12:30 PM GMT, March 29

The talk and powerpoint were finished Monday evening, before this other stuff hit. There is still no telling what will happen next week. Yours truly will be at the podium whether I am pulled from the schedule or not. Will someone try to forcibly remove the speaker? Will there be a scuffle? Will the press be watching? Is this the most exciting science blog or what?

I wish to re-emphasise that I mean no harm to anyone. After showing early promise in maths, I was accepted to the world's best-known physics department just after turning 16. After not being allowed to finish there, I attended another university across the Bay. People associated with the first university did their best to get me removed or prevented from speaking.

I have decided to finish up with a tropical research university, a place so remote that most people haven't heard of it. It is peaceful, close to coral reefs, and far removed from the cutthroat atmosphere of Berkeley and Stanford. As was tried in 2004, someone has stalked the writer and pulled papers from arxiv. Now he has reached across the ocean to stop a talk.

I wish to thank Kea and others who have tried to help me post. Someone has under-estimated my hacking skills. The problem has been isolated to one person fingering his computer at 00:51 in the morning New York time. He confesses to pulling papers from arxiv due to prejudice. When his email went across the Atlantic, conference organisers considered it the word of Cornell.

This person's bio page is very interesting. He is an avowed Marxist-Leninist, admires Noam Chomsky, and wishes to see the US violently overthrown. Mahndisa and Lubos, you would love to hear about this guy. "There must be a social contract between a scientist and his syndic," he writes, "and an exit penalty for kamikaze runs outside this setting." People like him wish to control what you hear and think. Does he represent Cornell University?

UPDATE: Here for posterity is this character's bio page

Don Barry

This is a brief personal introduction. An abridged professional curriculum vitae may be found here.
My picture gallery is also available through this link.

Interests

Marxism/Leninism and socialist philosophy: We're returning rapidly to the era of giant monopolies and robber-baron owners. The last time this happened, in the 1880-1920 period, the "solution," a mere band-aid, required mass action by labor, inspired leadership by strong nation-states, and suppression of an entire activist movement. This time it won't be so "pretty." The nation-state is gone as an entity independent of capital, capital itself is more fluid than it has ever been before ($6 trillion in real goods traded internationally in 1993, $50 trillion in capital traded internationally in that year), and the efficiencies of production (21% of USA population in manufacturing now vs. 60% in 1920) means that fewer scabs can keep the factories open, pitting more and more people against each other. I concur with Wallerstein's prediction for an unstable "quiet before the storm" lasting another decade or two, and then the deluge. Quite frankly, I don't think we'll deal with it very well here (I recall the collapse of Weimar). In Europe, with a social-democratic tradition, I think things (this time) will go better. Will they light the way out?

I wrote the above paragraph in the 1990s. As of 2007 the police state is well underway, thanks to the connivance of both major political parties. I urge people to study the work of the Socialist Equality Party and support its candidates. I do.

Some favorite things I've read:
The Case of Comrade Tulayev , by Victor Serge, Journeyman press, 345 Archway Road, London N65AA (try finding this in your local bookstore - good luck!) Serge was one of the most perceptive social writers of our century, combining Dreiser's monumentality of form with a precision of language and miniaturist bent that gives him the scope to plumb both the interior and exterior of the political upheavals of the early century. Here's a brief excerpt.

The World Socialist Web Site, the most vital daily source of news and penetrating analysis now available on the web.
International Socialism, Once great, now rather comprador with a tendency to grasp somewhat desperately at entryism, though some authors are still worth reading.

Perry Anderson's thin volume In the Tracts of Historical Materialism, an astounding reposte to the preposterous claims of structuralism and its descendents to have superseded Marxian analysis. Anderson has since followed those he mocked into obscurantism, but at his peak he was well worth reading.

Education: I've tried to unbuild walls between scientists and their communities. Years ago, I formed an astronomy outreach organization structured along the lines of an amateur club. At its peak, my colleagues and I had a structure for involving the astronomically curious in our work outside the formal settings of a classroom. We further used the interest of our 250 participants to reach out to visitors at most of the state parks of Georgia and involved tens of thousands of people annually in a personal astronomy experience. Sadly, the experiment of "hyper-democracy" in this organization made it unstable to manipulation by unscrupulous amateurs with no vested interest in astronomy per se, and eventually led to the suspension of our support for the group. I'm convinced now that our educational system at large needs to be reformed along syndicalist lines, perhaps one of my main areas of rapport with our distinguished social critic and theorist Noam Chomsky. As in a society at large, science flourishes within professional societies and collectives of scholars and students when its progress is directed by those with a stake in it. There must be a social contract between a scientist and his syndic, and an exit penalty for kamikaze runs outside this setting (dissension within a syndic is fine, no Lysenkoism here, but the Edward Tellers and Pons and Fleischmanns of the world who operate outside the morality of their colleagues must earn their recompense).

From Cornell University

From: Don Barry [mailto:don@isc.astro.cornell.edu]
Sent: 19 March 2007 00:51
To: De Nadai-Sowrey, Graziela C
Cc: Simeon Warner
Subject: A crackpot has slipped through your screens..

Dear organizers,

I notice that you have given a slot to Louise Riofrio in one of your
oral
sessions in your upcoming conference.. She's listed in your
"Participants"
section as affiliated with James Cook University, Queensland. A simple
search
will reveal that JCU/Queensland does not list her in any capacity.

She's been a frequent crackpot pest trying to post papers on the
Cornell
Arxiv
server. If you take a look at her blog,
http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/,
all should become clear. It's actually rather hilarious in spots.

In any event, you may get some comic relief as people become somewhat
glass-eyed on the last day of a conference.

Cheers,

Don Barry,
Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Spectrograph Team,
Cornell University

Dear Friends:

I appreciate all the support you have given to this blog and the ideas therein. Because of you and others, I have taken the unusual step of announcing a speaking engagement ahead of time to a large number of people. This has influenced more than one person to make the journey to London. Unfortunately, it also draws the controversy that seems to follow Riofrio and GM=tc^3. As of this writing, someone is working very hard to have my closing talk removed from the schedule.

A similiar controversy occurred before the Texas Symposium in 2004. After my name appeared among the presenters, someone associated with the SNAP Project sent email to Stanford denying my affiliation. Greg considered this PhD's email "bizarre," since I was studying at Stanford. Fortunately professional behaviour prevailed and my presentation went ahead smoothly.

I have done nothing to harm these people, yet they are desperate to prevent you from hearing me. They will deny that a woman has a theory, and do their best to stop her from publishing. If it were in their power, they would prevent her from doing research at all. What sort of human being would whack a speaker from the schedule? I trust that, as before, cooler heads will win out over jealousy.

My own plans will not change, and I will be in London next week. At this moment my talk is still on the schedule for 12:30 PM March 29. I will happily meet every one of you who wants to meet. This blog will continue to publish. I will continue to write papers and occasionally publish them. That is the least I can do to thank you for your support.

Those of you who are unhappy or who can verify that I exist, you can email the organising committee:

Richard Lieu: lieur@email.cspar.uah.edu, Carlo Contaldi: c.contaldi@ic.ac.uk, T. Kibble: tkibble@ic.ac.uk

UPDATE: Since the anonymous perpetrator considers himself a computer expert, I have demonstrated how to hack a system. The results are posted here, and you will be very entertained.

Conservation of Energy Pt. 2

The new Highlander hybrid. As Samwise has noted, the Big Island has a lot of rugged terrain. Some lovely beaches are only accessible by foot or 4WD, and your Ocean View Estate may be at the end of a lava road. The greenest form of transport is still a good pair of legs. In Sacramento, California is a man who is very proud of his body, has posed in skimpier outfits than I would ever wear, and is the governor.

Conservation of energy leads to some interesting questions. Many of us have lived through earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Earth's internal heat creates the islands and continents we live on. Even the petrol in your tank was produced by internal heat. Earth may be thought of as a Gaussian surface containing an energy source. Where does the energy come from?

The old answer in the books is "radioactive decay." That inferrence reared its head last week as an explanation for Saturn's Moon Enceladus. As we have seen, the little Moon has a "hot spot" centred on its South Pole. The hot spot spews ionised materiel into Space, resupplying Saturn's E Ring. The JPL Press Release, suggested that radioactive elements caused the hot spot. This idea needs to be examined critically.

Because the hot spot spews materiel from the Moon's interior into Space, the Cassini spacecraft can sample what Enceladus is made of. The atmosphere contains nitrogen, which is produced from the decomposition of ammonia (NH3). That process requires temperatures in excess of 850 degrees Kelvin. Total energy production of Enceladus has been estimated at 10^9 Watts! The atmospheric plume also contains traces of methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), propane (C3H8) and acetylene (C2H2). Radioactive isotopes of these elements are all very short-lived.

The JPL team speculated about radioactive aluminium and iron. The only naturally-occuring isotope of aluminium is Al26, which has a half-life of only 720,000 years. The longest-lived isotope or iron, Fe60 has a half-life of 1.5 million years, an eyeblink in geologic time. Even potassium 40 has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. If these elements were found inside Enceladus, (they were not) the Moon should have run out of fuel billions of years ago.

When faced with an inexplicable phenomena, it is tempting even for good scientists to come up with a half-baked explanation. That is how "dark energy" got started. Once the half-baked idea is in place, it will prevent better ideas from being considered. The lead scientist of the JPL team says, "The only way to achieve such high temperatures at Enceladus is through the very rapid decay of some radioactive species." That is primitive science, for there is another way.

Enceladus' core can be modelled with a central singularity of 10^12 kg. This mass is typical for a primordial Black Hole. The singularity consumes only 2.8 kg of mass per year generating 10^9 Watts of radiation. Water and other molecules near the centre are heated to a plasma. Electrons are stripped from atoms, and the resulting ions are drawn into circular orbits around the core. The resulting electric current generates a magnetic field with the "positive" pole in the South.

Electrons and positively charged ions spiral along magnetic field lines to form bipolar jets, the classic sign of a singularity. The Northern jet is composed of electrons which are absorbed by the moon's interior. More energetic ions of the Southern jet penetrate these layers to create a South Polar hot spot. Escaping ions spiral into Space, exactly as observed by Cassini.

Without replenishment, Saturn's Rings would decay within 100 million years. Then we would face the anthropic question of why they exist at just the right time for humans to view them. Thanks to the Cassini spacecraft, we have witnessed the E Ring being resupplied from Enceladus. This observation suggests that other, unseen satellites maintain the Rings.

Like Wegener's continental drift, it will be years before these theories are accepted. in the meantime, there are many interesting discoveries on the road. This Prius has been modified as a "Plug In" hybrid, recharged from a wall socket. 100 MPG is a minimum; if you only drive locally you may not need to buy petrol at all. I confess to not paying a utility bill for years. Water falls from the sky and energy is all around us--why pay for it?

Marooned

Sorry about the interruption. Often the best work is accomplished out of publicity's glare. In Martin Caidin's novel and the movie, three astronauts from an orbiting laboratory are MAROONED by a spacecraft malfunction. (Caidin also originated THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN.) Thursday I met with journalist Chris Jones. His new book TOO FAR FROM HOME tells the gripping and little-known story of Expedition Six. Astronauts Ken Bowersox, Don Pettit and Cosmonaut Nicolai Budarin were the crew stuck on ISS in the aftermath of the Columbia accident.

On November 23, 2002 three men rode as passengers in Endeavour's mid-deck to take over station. They were originally intended to return after 14 weeks in another shuttle. On February 1, 2003 Columbia's accident nixed that plan. TOO FAR FROM HOME includes many details the press omitted, like a Texas farmer finding the astronaut's recognisable bodies in a field. The shuttle squadron was grounded until July 2005. Keeping Bowersox, Pettit and Budarin alive until rescue suddenly became a big problem.

Sending another shuttle up in Columbia's wake would have been foolhardy. The crew always had an option of using the Soyuz docked at ISS as an escape pod. Abandoning ship would have been disastrous, for ISS was not designed to survive without a crew. With no humans aboard, the station would have drifted out of orbit until docking was impossible, then its orbit would decay until it fell into the atmosphere. The goal of a permanent human presence in Space would have gone down in flames.

Finally NASA and the Russians put together a plan to keep ISS alive with a minimum crew until Shuttle returned. For the relief crew, two men were chosen for their low food requirements. One of these was Edward Lu. This crew would fly up with a new replacement Soyuz, leaving Expedition Six to return in their old ship. The return to Earth was truly a rough ride, with forces exceeding 8 G's. During atmospheric entry, the plummeting Soyuz lost all radio communication.

Expedition Six landed hundreds of miles off target, somewhere in Central Asia. It would be hours before the crew would have contact with anyone. With fresh memories of Columbia, those were agonising hours for NASA and their families. After realising that rescue was not near, the three men cracked the hatch and crawled onto an alien Earth. For hours the men lay on their backs on the grass, whose very smells and sounds had become unfamiliar. Despite their trials, all three men yearn for a return to Space..

How did the US get into this mess? After the 1969 Moon landings, Von Braun designed an Apollo Applications Programme. It would have built giant space stations and a Moon base with Apollo hardware and the giant Saturn rockets. Skylab, which orbited a 3-person lab in one piece, was the only survivor. (MAROONED featured an early version of Skylab.) As Armstrong and Aldrin were stepping on the Moon, the Nixon administration was taking steps to junk Apollo in favour of the Shuttle. When I spoke with Michael Griffin in December 2005, he acknowledged what a huge mistake this was.

The US General Accounting Office concluded that Shuttle would only be cost-effective if it were the only US launch vehicle. In response NASA stopped production of Saturn and every other launch vehicle! The Air Force was forced to adopt Shuttle, which in turn forced the orbiter to have a larger diameter and wings. Serving every customer made the vehicle bigger, heavier and more expensive than it needed to be. As the old saying goes, an elephant is a horse built by committee. Since that time, our picture of Space travel has included the Shuttle.

From the disarray following Columbia, came a Vision for the Moon, Mars and Beyond. This has given NASA a true goal going where no one has gone before. It may lead to unexpected benefits, like a mission to an asteroid. After all the risks and trials that people have undergone learning to live in Space, it would be foolish to abandon ship on the Vision. Captain Kirk would say, "We've come too far to be stopped by this."

Conservation of Energy

As in Naval Aviation, there is great pleasure in being paid to drive the best toys. Toyota (a company that knows a good thing) was kind enough to give me a state-of-the-art Prius to test-drive. The car is being introduced along with other "green" technologies. To promote the car, Toyota will even plant a tree in your name. Physicists should naturally be involved with conservation of energy.

This car is like a peek into the future. There is no key, just a little fob with buttons to lock/unlock the doors. Upon pressing the POWER button, the car starts instantly with no noise at all. The petrol engine is contolled by computer and only cuts in when extra power is needed. The car actually gets better mileage in the city than on the highway because regenerative braking recharges the batteries. It is full of gadgets like a multifunction display and a colour rearview camera. Toyota has a huge waiting list for hybrid cars like this one.

Any day now Toyota will pass General Motors as the world's biggest automaker. One reason is fuel-saving technology like this. America's scientists and engineers are not stupid. In 1987, GM's Solar Raycer won the first World Solar Challenge in Australia. With prodding from California's Republican government, GM created the EV1, whose sleek design was inspired by the Solar Raycer. The EV1 could easily travel at 85 mph and could go twice as fast if not for speed governers on the engine. EV1 had a range in the hundreds of miles, and looked cute.

EV1 was so popular that there was a long waiting list to get one. In an incredibly stupid business decision, GM stopped production and ordered all existing EV1's confiscated from their drivers. This was documented in the film Who Killed the Electric Car? American automakers preferred the high profits of building SUV's. With the price of petrol rising, all 3 big US automakers are in deep financial trouble. Sometimes you earn what you get.

A little government intervention has been useful. In the 1970's high oil prices were a threat and the Japanese were building smaller, more efficient cars. The Republican administration instituted the strict CAFE standards for mileage. In response, American automakers downsized their car lines to make them more efficient. (The word "downsizing" was invented for cars before it was applied to people.)

It is a great disappointment that during 8 years of Clinton-Gore the CAFE standards were not improved. This was due to political pressure from entrenched auto interests. As a result US carmakers focused on building SUV's, which are classified as "trucks" and not subject to the same CAFE standards. In this way, the government made it more profitable to build fuel-guzzling SUV's. Only in the present administration have CAFE standards been adjusted.

Being "green" can be very good for business. America's Boeing had the option of building a super-size plane like the Airbus A-380. For a time Boeing considered building a faster airliner, the Sonic Cruiser. Finally they focused their limited R&D funds on the 787, an advanced plane which uses less fuel. They have sold over FOUR HUNDRED 787's for a price of 250 million US per copy. Airlines want 787's so badly that Boeing can't keep up with the orders.

With all the troubles and delays of the A-380, Airbus will not have a competitor to the 787 until at least 2014 or sometime after the ORION spacecraft is in orbit. The 787 technology has already been applied to the new fuel-saving 747-8. Next Boeing will introduce a thrifty replacement for the 737, and make Google-sized money replacing a thousand 737's as they wear out. (That is a secret, and you read it here first.)

For those who live on the Big Island and need 4-wheel drive, Toyota also let me test a hybrid version of the Highlander. More advanced projects include a hybrid sports car that goes from 0-60 MPH in 4 seconds! There will also be plug-in cars that can be recharged from a wall outlet. The car chassis of the future will resemble a skateboard, a flat slab with wheels sticking out. Each wheel will contain its own motor and steer independently. By attaching different bodies, the same chassis will be convertible into a variety of vehicles. Someday you may be able to build a car for your own personality, like Batman.

The next World Solar Challenge is October 21-28 in the Northern Territories. This will be the 20th Anniversary of the original event. As was briefly done with the EV1, the focus will be on building next generation cars that you can drive home. The goal of science should be to improve life on Earth.

Outstanding Questions

I am honoured to be scheduled to give a closing talk at a conference this month at Imperial College. Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model will overview the evidence for and against the so-called standard model. It will also address alternative competing models. This will be an international conference attracting many important researchers. Forgetting for a moment what I will say, we will hear from some scientists previously mentioned in this blog.

Alain Blanchard of the Midi-Pyrenees Observatory is not well-enough known outside Europe. He has written the authoritative book GALAXIES AND COSMOLOGY. Using ESA's XMM-Newton satellite, he has gathered evidence that Dark Energy Doesn't Exist.

Professor Roger Blandford was once a student of (Astronomer Royal) Martin Rees. He was co-developer of the Blandford-Ivanek process for Black Hole jets. Today he is director of Stanford's Kavli Institute of Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. Once he reluctantly lectured about "dark energy." In his own closing talks at the AAS HEAD Meeting in October and the GLAST Symposium in February, he did not mention DE. He did comment about "Lorentz Invariance," or a changing speed of light.

Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University is a prolific author and contributor to publications like Scientific American and New Scientist. He has wondered how the cosmic microwave background "proves" inflation when the scale-invariant spectrum, which is predicted by inflation, is ruled out by both COBE and WMAP data. At his AAAS talk last month he called current cosmology "observation-driven" rather than model-driven. He also said that supernova data "naively implied that the universe was accelerating." He also wrote THE PHYSICS OF STAR TREK.

The "standard model" or Concorde cosmology is a hodgepodge of speculations dominated by an invisible "dark energy." It relies on a repulsive "inflaton" driving initial expansion, another repulsive energy causing present acceleration, and our Ptolemaic world in the middle. None of these imagined energies can be observed in a laboratory, just like the Emperor's New Clothes. The Universe of this cosmology is flat, like the Earth.

I hope that other friends from Imperial College, the UK and Europe can make the trip to London. My talk is scheduled just before lunch, 12:30 PM GMT on March 29. (There will be summary talks after lunch.) In case you are not registered for the conference, nobody pays much attention to that on the last day.

Sunshine

Danny Boyle is the ultra-hip director of TRAINSPOTTING, SHALLOW GRAVE and 28 DAYS LATER. Now he has the budget to visit Space for SUNSHINE. In a future when the Sun is dying, a spaceship is on a desperate mission to save humanity. The movie looks like gritty, suspenseful fun.

It would be foolish to think that humans understand everything about the Sun. As Carl Brannen has noted, NASA's Ulysses spacecraft has discovered that the Sun's North Pole is slightly cooler than the South Pole. Like Saturn and its little Moon Enceladus, an unknown process makes the South Pole warmer. This could be yet another sign of an internal singularity.

Theories of the Sun have advanced over time. As late as the 1920’s most astronomers would lecture that our Sun was made of iron, and glowed in the sky like a hot poker. Only a young astronomer named Cecilia Payne suggested that the Sun’s spectral lines could be interpreted as hydrogen. Because Payne was a woman, her idea was roundly dismissed. The equations of nuclear fusion were still being worked out, and most scientists doubted that Black Holes existed. Eventually the young woman was vindicated. As our knowledge of physics advances, so must theories of the Sun.

A Black Hole could conceivably exist in the second last place we would think to find one, inside the Sun! A tiny singularity would feel right at home in the temperature and pressure of a stellar interior. The Black Hole’s rotation would cause the star’s inner layers to rotate faster, contributing to a magnetic field. Indeed astronomers now know that our Sun’s core rotates faster than the outer layers due to some mysterious influence. A Black Hole could be literally in front of our face each morning.

Only occasionally would Black Holes within stars reveal themselves. In their twilight years, the largest stars would consume all their fuel until fusion abruptly ended. The equilibrium between outward pressure and the Black Hole's gravity would abruptly end. Robbed of fusion’s energy, a star would collapse catastrophically. A star’s mass suddenly falling into a Black Hole would produce an immense explosion, like a supernova.

As we have seen before, the paradox of a "Faint Young Sun" is precisely explained by a changing speed of light. Though the Sun's luminosity goes through small fluctuations, it is constant enough for life to have evolved on Earth for billions of years. Previously it was assumed that carbon dioxide somehow custom-heated Earth's atmosphere for us. This led to the present debate about global warming. Measurements of iron carbonates show that early Earth can not posibly have contained that much CO2.

No matter what one's opinion is about global warming, it is clear that humans spew too much junk into the atmosphere. Many fascinating technologies have been developed to cut emissions. This is one way that scientists can make a positive contribution to the world. I'll be away from the computer for a few days, test-driving one of those new techologies.

New Ideas Take Over

This is the sleek interior of the new 747-8. It will use the fuel-saving technology of the 787 to achieve a lower cost per seat-mile than any competitor, especially the A-380. Lufthansa has already ordered 20 of the passenger version, with options for 20 more. For 747 pilots, the new version requires almost no re-qualification. Though the 747 design is decades old, it is still prettier than the A-380. Starting in 2010, we can fly across oceans in this!

Airbus is in big, big trouble. The A-380 was launched with huge fanfare. Building the world's biggest airliner was seen as the next big thing. Now the project is in such expensive trouble that it may sink Airbus. The freighter version for Fedex and UPS has been completely cancelled. The distraction has delayed Airbus from developing a competitor to the very popular 787. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

Steinn from Dynamics of Cats is the latest to wonder about "Lorentz Invariance," or a changing speed of light. Last month Roger Blandford wondered about c change too. Steinn started his career in strings, got sick of that and has since made many entertaining blog posts. Welcome to the club!

The most convincing evidence, as Mahndisa and Roger Blandford have alluded to, may be Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays. The "Oh My God" particles have energies far higher than expected. They are difficult to explain with a fixed speed of light. Along with supernova evidence, massive primordial Black Holes, supernovae and the "Faint Young Sun" the evidence is mounting.

The "standard cosmological model" has been called the Concorde cosmology like a plane which no longer flies. It is likely to linger around gathering dust for a long time. Some old folks will go to their grave muttering that the speed of light is constant. Gathering evidence for a "c change" takes years. As more and more supporting data appears, a better model will take over.

Jupiter Poles

This photo of Jupiter combines a visual image from Hubble with X-ray data from the Chandra spacecraft. The North and South poles are alive with X-rays. Like Earth's aurora, this display occurs in both poles simultaneously 140,000 km distant! Something in Jupiter's core links the poles. Jupiter has an immense magnetic field, the strongest in the solar system. Presence of a singularity would explain Jupiter’s field, and why Jupiter gives off nearly twice as much heat as it receives from the Sun.

Cassini has seen a huge hurricane at Saturn's South Pole. The largest planet does not have a storm centred at the South Pole because Jupiter’s magnetic poles do not line up with the geographic poles. The magnetic field is angled 9.5 degrees, indicating that Jupiter’s singularity is offset like that of Earth. Jupiter completes its day in less than 10 Earth-hours. A southern jet radiating from Jupiter’s core would be bent further outward by the rapid rotation. Magnetic fields would cause the storm to rotate in an anti-clockwise direction as seen from above. For signs of such a storm, we can look at the latitude of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

Astronomers like Geoffrey Marcy and Debra Fisher have found "hot Jupiters" in other solar systems, giant planets orbiting very close to stars. Old ideas of planet formation can not explain these objects. They could not have formed solely from condensing gas, for solar radiation would cause the gas to evaporate. Presently astronomers speculate that they formed farther from their suns, and then drifted closer after formation. All of them? If that is true, why haven't our giant planets drifted into the Sun?

If giant planets formed around singularities, a Black Hole's gravity would prevent them from dissipating. Hot Jupiters could then form extremely close to stars. Rotating Black Holes could also account for the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune, and why those fields are far offset from the planets’ rotation axes. Jupiter's X-rays could result from the polar jets of a Black Hole.

Helmet For Sale

I hope everyone in Europe and within its footprint was able to enjoy the lunar eclipse. In Hawaii and the Pacific Rim we saw a red full Moon rise just after sunset. Only 12 people have walked on the Moon, and none since 1972. Many of us have never enjoyed the experience of even watching it on live TV. If plans succeed to return by 2020, the gap will be nearly a half century.

You have 2 more days to bid on eBay item #3300933083739, L. Gordon Cooper's Mercury flight helmet. On May 15-16, 1963 Cooper and this helmet orbited Earth 22 times, the last American to orbit alone. The owner originally bought it at a low price, when it was thought to be Cooper's training helmet. There are bargains to be found on eBay! According to the smiling Richard Branson in TIME, for a lesser amount Virgin Galactic will take you into Space for real.

The Mercury spacesuit was actually the US Navy's Mark V high-altitude pressure suit, developed by B. F. Goodrich for fighter aircraft. Many modifications were made during the Mercury program. The suits were never called to protect their wearers from Space, since no Mercury spacecraft lost pressure during flight. The suit nearly sank Gus Grissom, who was forced to exit from his spacecraft into the Pacific. The silver-suited Mercury astronaut was immortalised in television and movies from THE RIGHT STUFF to THE ASTRONAUT FARMER, our version of the knight in shining armour.

Thank you Brickmuppet, for enjoying the Saturn posts. This blog will try to spotlight both human and robotic Space exploration. Goals of science should be to benefit humans and life on Earth. Presently I spend the day working on a technology that even Sir Richard hasn't imagined yet. It will make human spaceflight safer, more comfortable and far more affordable. There is room in Space for both humans and droids.

Enceladus and the Rings

For 2 months Cassini has been in a high-inclination orbit around Saturn, allowing views of the polar regions. This photo from January 17 shows the moon Enceladus orbiting with the Rings. The moon's orbit is within the tenuous E Ring. Eruptions from the polar "hot spot" resupply this Ring. If they were not replenished, the Rings would dissipate within 100,000 years. There must be other sources maintaining the other Rings.

Saturn's Rings show conditions similiar to the solar system's formation. They are full of unexplained phenomena--the Enceladus hot spot, spokes believed caused by electromagnetic discharges, even cone-shaped jets of radiation issuing from the Rings. These phenomena could be explained by the presence of singularities. This would be an excellent place to search.