"Science laws universal" poll

Do you consider the scientific facts we have established are "truly" universal? For example: f=ma is true within our observable area...and at the far, unobservable ends of the universe.

Yes...3
No...2
Undecided...3

I am somewhat "undecided" on this. Our knowledge is basically based on observation and prediction. But it may be somewhat far fetched to extrapolate what we know to the whole universe. What may be true here fails a zillion light years away. We just don't know and express a lot of faith in the physics we know.

Limit on understanding the universe

"Either our ability to know reality has reached a dead end, or this is just another theoretical challenge to overcome, and we're approaching it the wrong way."

"The Riddle of the Unique"

Why is it so hard to build a complete theory of our universe?

by

Carlos Arturo Serrano Gomez

October 29th, 2008

Ohmynews

The scientific method we have been employing to obtain and verify knowledge comes from a hybrid source: it follows the regularities of nature by closely watching its behavior with as little interference as possible, adjusting to its ways and accepting its indifference toward us, but it also follows the logical pathways of the human mind, obeying our criteria for relevance and significance, asking only the questions we are interested in solving. It is neither fully objective nor fully contingent; it's a compromise in-between.

Thus any model of reality will always be an approximation. In most cases this is enough: we can plan the trajectory of a space probe across millions of kilometers, or assemble DNA molecules to perform specific tasks, and succeed in both. Only when studying highly complex systems, such as the weather or global economy, do we need to devise theories of much greater precision.

The current debate over the proper interpretation of quantum events and the way to integrate them with the rest of our physics is one that goes beyond the problem of precision, for below a certain subatomic threshold precision is out of the question, fixed values are replaced by probability functions, and direct observation becomes interference. Either our ability to know reality has reached a dead end, or this is just another theoretical challenge to overcome, and we're approaching it the wrong way.

However, a serious limitation persists. This is the only universe we can observe. Unlike all our other models, which deal in generalities, a theory of the universe must be able to explain the unique. We cannot take a sample of universes and test their average responses; we are confined within this only specimen. Deprived of a larger background, we must proceed from what we can observe from this side of the glass and figure out how the same laws that apply for everyday phenomena could produce a singular event.

This is not only an empirical consideration; it has a cognitive side as well. We are inherently unable to imagine how a mind without our impulses and biases would operate; we would need to delete all our evolutionary conditioning and position ourselves outside of the universe for us to be able to a make complete and detached examination of it. Our present condition can be compared to having only a portion of the contour of a jigsaw piece in a puzzle of unknown extension.

A recent article in Scientific American argues that a theory of the universe appears more acceptable if it treats it as one in a multitude of possible universes. In other words, it becomes easier to handle if it stops treating ours as something unique.

The human mind needs to deal in generalities; it is ill-equipped to understand the singular, and, as this case shows, it will build an abstraction of general properties if necessary in order to better grasp it. For practical purposes, those other universes may be fictional, as there is no possible interaction with them. We and their inhabitants will never meet and compare notes. But by postulating their existence, if only for theoretical convenience, a model as we're used to working with becomes possible. Like imaginary numbers, they help the puzzle look more complete.

This solution is sentenced to be provisional, for the same reasons why we'll have to wait until we find lifeforms in other systems to know whether Darwinian evolution is universal. Another intelligent species, with its own biological and cultural history, may be able to see these same problems from a different angle. They will not be subject to our cognitive defects, but will doubtlessly have some of their own. Helping each other we might postulate theories that are somewhat better suited for describing phenomena that are common to us all, but they will always be incomplete, always an approximation.

A famous short story by Borges makes the case that the map is no match for the territory. Similarly, any model of reality is by definition simpler than the system it simulates, and that's why no mind in this universe will ever conceive a complete theory of it. This fact won't stop scientists from pursuing their passion, though. It is in our nature to keep trying.

Cool astronomy photographs

In awe...
Ghost Head Nebula

One of a chain of star-forming regions lying south of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud . Two bright regions (the eyes of the ghost), named A1 and A2, are very hot, glowing blobs of hydrogen and oxygen. The bubble in A1 is produced by the hot, intense radiation and powerful stellar wind from a single massive star. A2 has a more complex appearance due to the presence of more dust, and it contains several hidden, massive stars. The massive stars in A1 and A2 must have formed within the last 10,000 years since their natal gas shrouds are not yet disrupted by the powerful radiation of the newly born stars.-- David Darling/Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy & Spaceflight.

Red Spider Planetary Nebula

Oh what a tangled web a planetary nebula can weave. The Red Spider Planetary Nebula shows the complex structure that can result when a normal star ejects its outer gases and becomes a white dwarf star. Officially tagged NGC 6537, this two-lobed symmetric planetary nebula houses one of the hottest white dwarfs ever observed, probably as part of binary star system. Internal winds emanating from the central stars, visible in the center, have been measured in excess of 1000 kilometers per second. These winds expand the nebula, flow along the nebula's walls, and cause waves of hot gas and dust to collide. Atoms caught in these colliding shocks radiate light shown in the above representative-color picture. The Red Spider Nebula lies toward the constellation of Sagittarius. It's distance is not well known but estimated by some to be about 4000 light-years.

Witch's Broom Nebula

Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula. Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch's Broom Nebula. The rampaging gas gains its colors by impacting and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon. The bright blue star 52 Cygnus is visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova.

Cat's Eye Nebula

Three thousand light-years away, a dying star throws off shells of glowing gas. This image from the Hubble Space Telescope reveals The Cat's Eye Nebula to be one of the most complex planetary nebulae known. In fact, the features seen in the Cat's Eye are so complex that astronomers suspect the bright central object may actually be a binary star system. The term planetary nebula, used to describe this general class of objects, is misleading. Although these objects may appear round and planet-like in small telescopes, high resolution images reveal them to be stars surrounded by cocoons of gas blown off in the late stages of stellar evolution.

Wings of a Butterfly Nebula

Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured above, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes. The expended gas frequently forms an impressive display called a planetary nebula that fades gradually over thousand of years. M2-9, a butterfly planetary nebula 2100 light-years away shown in representative colors, has wings that tell a strange but incomplete tale. In the center, two stars orbit inside a gaseous disk 10 times the orbit of Pluto. The expelled envelope of the dying star breaks out from the disk creating the bipolar appearance. Much remains unknown about the physical processes that cause planetary nebula.

Christmas Tree Cluster

Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.
Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or "protostars." At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to "crawl" away from their location of birth. Over time, the natural drifting motions of each star will break this order, and the snowflake design will be no more.

Thor's Emerald Helmet

This helmet-shaped cosmic cloud with wing-like appendages is popularly called Thor's Helmet. Heroically sized even for a Norse god, Thor's Helmet is about 30 light-years across. In fact, the helmet is actually more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubble's center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. Known as a Wolf-Rayet star, the central star is an extremely hot giant thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution. Cataloged as NGC 2359, the nebula is located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. The sharp image captures striking details of the nebula's filamentary structures and also records an almost emerald color from strong emission due to oxygen atoms in the glowing gas.

Crab Nebula

This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The above image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is presented in three colors chosen for scientific interest. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second.

Cat's Paw Nebula

Nebulae are perhaps as famous for being identified with familiar shapes as perhaps cats are for getting into trouble. Still, no known cat could have created the vast Cat's Paw Nebula visible in Scorpius. At 5,500 light years distant, Cat's Paw is an emission nebula with a red color that originates from an abundance of ionized hydrogen atoms. Alternatively known as the Bear Claw Nebula or NGC 6334, stars nearly ten times the mass of our Sun have been born there in only the past few million years. Pictured above, the end of the Cat's Paw nebula was imaged from Mayall 4-Meter Telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, USA.

Rosette Nebula

Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of the this flowery emission nebula. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244. These stars formed about four million years ago from the nebular material and their stellar winds are clearing a hole in the nebula's center, insulated by a layer of dust and hot gas. Ultraviolet light from the hot cluster stars causes the surrounding nebula to glow. The Rosette Nebula spans about 100 light-years across, lies about 5000 light-years away, and can be seen with a small telescope towards the constellation of Monoceros.

Snowflake Cluster versus the Cone Nebula

Strange shapes and textures can be found in the neighborhood of the Cone Nebula. These patterns result from the tumultuous unrest that accompanies the formation of the open cluster of stars known as NGC 2264, the Snowflake cluster. To better understand this process, a detailed image of this region was taken in two colors of infrared light by the orbiting Spitzer Space Telescope. Bright stars from the Snowflake cluster dot the field. These stars soon heat up and destroy the gas and dust mountains in which they formed. One such dust mountain is the famous Cone Nebula, visible in the above image on the left, pointing toward a bright star near the center of the field. The entire NGC 2264 region is located about 2,500 light years away toward the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros).

Markarian's Eyes

Across the heart of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster lies a string of galaxies known as Markarian's Chain. Prominent in Markarian's Chain are these two interacting galaxies, NGC 4438 (left) and NGC 4435 - also known as The Eyes. About 50 million light-years away, the two galaxies appear to be about 100,000 light-years apart in this sharp close-up, but have likely approached to within an estimated 16,000 light-years of each other in their cosmic past. Gravitational tides from the close encounter have ripped away at their stars, gas, and dust. The more massive NGC 4438 managed to hold on to much of the material torn out in the collision, while material from the smaller NGC 4435 was more easily lost. The remarkably deep image of this crowded region of the universe also includes many more distant background galaxies.

Iris Nebula

Like delicate cosmic petals, these clouds of interstellar dust and gas have blossomed 1,300 light-years away in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus. Sometimes called the Iris Nebula and dutifully cataloged as NGC 7023, this is not the only nebula in the sky to evoke the imagery of flowers. Still, this beautiful digital image shows off the Iris Nebula's range of colors and symmetries in impressive detail. Within the Iris, dusty nebular material surrounds a massive, hot, young star in its formative years. Central filaments of cosmic dust glow with a reddish photoluminescence as some dust grains effectively convert the star's invisible ultraviolet radiation to visible red light. Yet the dominant color of the nebula is blue, characteristic of dust grains reflecting starlight. Dark, obscuring clouds of dust and cold molecular gas are also present and can lead the eye to see other convoluted and fantastic shapes. Infrared observations indicate that this nebula may contain complex carbon molecules known as PAHs. As shown here, the Iris Nebula is about 6 light-years across.