Dark Universe: Science & Literacy Activity for Grades 9-12
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Gold T. Rotating Neutron Stars As the Origin of the Pulsating Radio Sources
CC/NUMBER 8 ® FEBRUARY 22, 1993 This Week's Citation Classic Gold T. Rotating neutron stars as the origin of the pulsating radio sources. Nature 218:731-2, 1968; and Gold T. Rotating neutron stars and the nature of pulsars. Nature 221:25-7, 1969. [Center for Radiophysics and Space Research: and Cornell-Sydney University Astronomy Center. Cornell University, Ithaca. NY] Enigmatic, rapidly pulsating radio sources were preferred to attribute these sources to interpreted as rotating beacons sweeping over distant galaxies, not to stellar objects. the Earth, radiating out from rapidly rotating, The pulsars now seemed to repre- extremely collapsed stars ("neutron stars"). Nu- merous detailed predictions followed from this sent just the stellar objects I had dis- model, and all were soon verified. The model cussed then. Calculations existed for also accounted closely for the previously unex- the collapsed "neutron stars" that in- plained luminosity of the Crab Nebula. [The dicated approximately their size, as SCI® indicates that these papers have been small as a few kilometers, and their cited in more than 240 and 150 publications, mass, on the order of a solar mass.4 respectively.] Astronomers generally thought that even if they existed, they could never be discovered. However hot, a star so small could not be seen at astronomi- The Nature of Pulsars cal distances. But they had not con- sidered the energy concentration re- Thomas Gold sulting from the collapse: enormous Center for Radiophysics magnetic field strengths and a spin and Space Research energy quite comparable with the en- Cornell University tire content of nuclear energy of the Ithaca, NY 14853 star before its collapse. -
The Deep, Hot Biosphere (Geochemistry/Planetology) THOMAS GOLD Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 Contributed by Thomas Gold, March 13, 1992
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 89, pp. 6045-6049, July 1992 Microbiology The deep, hot biosphere (geochemistry/planetology) THOMAS GOLD Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 Contributed by Thomas Gold, March 13, 1992 ABSTRACT There are strong indications that microbial gasification. As liquids, gases, and solids make new contacts, life is widespread at depth in the crust ofthe Earth, just as such chemical processes can take place that represent, in general, life has been identified in numerous ocean vents. This life is not an approach to a lower chemical energy condition. Some of dependent on solar energy and photosynthesis for its primary the energy so liberated will increase the heating of the energy supply, and it is essentially independent of the surface locality, and this in turn will liberate more fluids there and so circumstances. Its energy supply comes from chemical sources, accelerate the processes that release more heat. Hot regions due to fluids that migrate upward from deeper levels in the will become hotter, and chemical activity will be further Earth. In mass and volume it may be comparable with all stimulated there. This may contribute to, or account for, the surface life. Such microbial life may account for the presence active and hot regions in the Earth's crust that are so sharply of biological molecules in all carbonaceous materials in the defined. outer crust, and the inference that these materials must have Where such liquids or gases stream up to higher levels into derived from biological deposits accumulated at the surface is different chemical surroundings, they will continue to repre- therefore not necessarily valid. -
Science Loses Some Friends Francis Crick, Thomas Gold, and Philip Abelson
Monthly Planet October 2004 Science Loses Some Friends Francis Crick, Thomas Gold, and Philip Abelson By Iain Murray he scientifi c world lost three impor- Throughout his career, Abelson used which suggests that the universe and Ttant fi gures in recent weeks, as scientifi c principles to determine genu- the laws of physics have always existed Francis Crick, Thomas Gold, and Philip ine new developments from hype and in the same, steady state. This has since Abelson have all passed away. In their publicity stunts (he was famously dis- been supplanted as the dominant cos- careers, each demonstrated the best that missive of the scientifi c value of the race mological paradigm by the Big Bang science has to offer humanity. Their loss to the moon). In that, he should prove a theory. illustrates how much worse off the state role model for true scientists. After working at the Royal Greenwich of science is today than during their Observatory, Gold moved to the United glory years. Thomas Gold States to become Professor of Astron- Astronomer Thomas Gold had an omy at Harvard. From there he moved Philip Abelson equally distinguished career, in fi elds as to Cornell, where he demonstrated that Philip Abelson was a scientist of truly diverse as engineering, physiology, and the newly discovered “pulsar” phenom- broad talents. One of America’s fi rst cosmology; and he was never afraid of enon must contain a rotating neutron nuclear physicists, he discovered the being called a maverick. A fellow of both star (a star more massive than the sun element Neptunium and designed the the Royal Society and the National Acad- but just 10 km in diameter). -
Notes of a Fringe -Watcher
MARTIN GARDNER Notes of a Fringe -Watcher The Anomalies of Chip Arp We have watched the farther galaxies I don't know what the 'C stands for, but fleeing away from us, wild herds of panic all his friends call him 'Chip.' He's in horses—or a trick of distance deceived danger of losing all those friends, if he the prism. keeps up what he's doing now! "Now mind you, I am kidding, be —Robinson Jeffers cause I am very fond of Chip Arp. In fact, we were graduate students at Caltech N HIS SPLENDID book The Drama together. But in those years he was nice." I of the Universe (1978) the late George An astronomer at Hale Observatories, Abell, an astronomer who served on the in California, Chip Arp is still adding to editorial board of this magazine, specu his collection of crazy objects, and still lates what generates the enormous ener making sharp rapier jabs at his more gies emitted by quasars (quasi-stellar orthodox colleagues. (Actual sword fenc sources). Quasars are almost surely the ing, by the way, is one of his major hob most distant known objects in the uni bies.) Like Thomas Gold, the subject of verse. Their gigantic redshifts indicate this column two issues back, Arp is a that some are moving outward at veloci competent, well-informed scientist who ties close to 90 percent of the speed of delights in the role of gadfly. His peculiar light. They occupy positions believed to anomalies are quasars that seem to be be very near the "edge" of the light connected by bridges of luminous gas barrier, a boundary beyond which noth but that have markedly different red- ing could ever be observed from our shifts, or high-redshift quasars that ap galaxy. -
Can High Pressures Enhance the Long-Term Survival of Microorganisms?
Can High Pressures Enhance The Long-Term Survival of Microorganisms? Robert M. Hazen & Matt Schrenk Carnegie Institution & NASA Astrobiology Institute Pardee Keynote Symposium: Evidence for Long-Term Survival of Microorganisms and Preservation of DNA Philadelphia – October 24, 2006 Objectives I. Review the nature and distribution of life at high pressures. II. Examine the extreme pressure limits of cellular life. III. Compare experimental approaches to study microbial behavior at high P and T. IV. Explore how biomolecules and their reactions might change at high pressure? I. High-Pressure Life HMS Challenger – 1870s 20 MPa (~200 atmospheres) High-Pressure Life Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents – 1977 High-Pressure Life Discoveries of Microbial Life in Crustal Rocks – 1990s P ~ 100 MPa Witwatersrand Deep Microbiology Project Energy from radiolytic cleavage of water. Lin, Onstott et al. (2006) Science Thomas Gold’s Hypothesis: Organic Synthesis in the Mantle ß>300 MPa Thomas Gold (1999) NY:Springer-Verlag. Life at High Pressures on other Worlds? Deep, wet environments may exist on Mars, Europa, etc. I. What is the Nature and Distribution of Life at High-Pressure? Deep life, especially microbial life, is abundant throughout the upper crust . II. What are the Extreme Pressure Limits of Life? How deep might microbes exist in Earth’s crust? Pressure Can Enhance T Stability [Pledger et al. (1994) FEMS Microbiology [Margosch et al. (2006) Appl. Environ. Ecology 14, 233-242.] Microbiology 72, 3476-3481.] Life’s Extreme Pressure Limits 60 km Fast, cold slabs have regions of P > 2 GPa & T < 150°C [Stein & Stein (1996) AGU Monograph 96] Pressure Limits of Life Hydrothermal Opposed-Anvil Cell Pressure Limits of Life E. -
Edward Milne's Influence on Modern Cosmology
ANNALS OF SCIENCE, Vol. 63, No. 4, October 2006, 471Á481 Edward Milne’s Influence on Modern Cosmology THOMAS LEPELTIER Christ Church, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 1DP, UK Received 25 October 2005. Revised paper accepted 23 March 2006 Summary During the 1930 and 1940s, the small world of cosmologists was buzzing with philosophical and methodological questions. The debate was stirred by Edward Milne’s cosmological model, which was deduced from general principles that had no link with observation. Milne’s approach was to have an important impact on the development of modern cosmology. But this article shows that it is an exaggeration to intimate, as some authors have done recently, that Milne’s rationalism went on to infiltrate the discipline. Contents 1. Introduction. .........................................471 2. Methodological and philosophical questions . ..................473 3. The outcome of the debate .................................476 1. Introduction In a series of articles, Niall Shanks, John Urani, and above all George Gale1 have analysed the debate stirred by Edward Milne’s cosmological model.2 Milne was a physicist we can define, at a philosophical level, as an ‘operationalist’, a ‘rationalist’ and a ‘hypothetico-deductivist’.3 The first term means that Milne considered only the observable entities of a theory to be real; this led him to reject the notions of curved space or space in expansion. The second term means that Milne tried to construct a 1 When we mention these authors without speaking of one in particular, we will use the expression ‘Gale and co.’ 2 George Gale, ‘Rationalist Programmes in Early Modern Cosmology’, The Astronomy Quarterly,8 (1991), 193Á218. -
CV Background
Steven Soter CV 2013 Research Associate, Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024. Visiting Professor, Environmental Studies Program, New York University, 285 Mercer Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10003, and Email: <[email protected]>. Tel: 212-769-5230. RECENT ACTIVITIES Research in astronomy and geoarchaeology. Teaching at NYU: courses on Scientific Thinking and Speculation, Geology and Antiquity in the Mediterranean, Life in the Universe, Climate Change, and Energy and Environment. BACKGROUND AND EDUCATION Born in Los Angeles, California, May 1943 BSc in Astronomy/Physics, 1965 University of California at Los Angeles (Advisors: George Abell and Peter Goldreich) PhD in Astronomy, 1971 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (Advisors: Thomas Gold, Carl Sagan, Joseph Burns) PREVIOUS POSITIONS 1964-66 Research Assistant, Radio Astronomy Project, Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, California 1966-71 Research Assistant, Center for Radiophysics and 1973-79 Space Research, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. 1971-73 Postdoctoral Fellow, Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, UC Berkeley 1973-79 Assistant Editor, ICARUS: International Journal of Solar System Studies (Carl Sagan, editor) 1977-80 Co-Writer and Head of Research, COSMOS Television Series, KCET/Los Angeles 1980-87 Senior Research Associate, Center for Radiophyscs and Space Research, Cornell University 1988-97 Special Assistant to the Director, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 1997-03 Scientist, Hayden Planetarium American Museum of Natural History, New York 2004-13 Research Associate, Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, New York 2005-07 Scientist-in-Residence, Center for Ancient Studies, New York University, New York 2008-12 Visiting Professor, Environmental Studies Program, New York University, New York . -
Thomas Gold 1999.Pdf
Praise for Thomas Gold ... "Gold is one of America's most iconoclastic scientists." -Stephen Jay Gould "Thomas Gold is one of the world's most original minds." - The Times, London "Thomas Gold might have grown tired of tilting at windmills long ago had he not destroyed so many." -USA Today "What if someone told you that [the oil crisis] was all wrong and that the hydro carbons that make up petroleum are constantly refilling reservoirs. Interested? Well, you should read this book.... Gold presents his evidence skillfully. You may not agree with him, but you have to appreciate his fresh and compre hensive approach to these major areas of Earth science .... [This book] demon strates that scientific debate is alive and well. Science is hypothesis-led and thrives on controversy-and few people are more controversial than Thomas Gold." -Nature " ... Thomas Gold, a respected astronomer and professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has held for years that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and pressures." - The Wall Street Journal "Most scientists think the oil we drill for comes from decomposed prehistoric plants. Gold believes it has been there since the Earth's formation, that it sup ports its own ecosystem far underground and that life there preceded life on the Earth's surface .... If Gold is right, the planet's oil reserves are far larger than policymakers expect, and earthquake prediction procedures require a shakeup; moreover, astronomers hoping for extraterrestrial contacts might want to stop seeking life on other planets and inquire about life in them." -Publishers Weekly "Gold's theories are always original, always important, and usually right. -
And Gamow Said, Let There Be a Hot Universe
GENERAL I ARTICLE And Gamow said, Let there be a Hot Universe Somak Raychaudhury Soon after Albert Einstein published his general theory of relativity, in 1915, to describe the nature of space and time, the scientific community sought to apply it to understand the nature and origin of the Universe. One of the first people to describe the Universe using Einstein's equations was a Belgian priest called Abbe Georges Edouard Lemaitre, who had also studied math ematics at Cambridge with Arthur Eddington, one of the strongest exponents of relativity. Lemaitre realised Somak Raychaudhury teaches astrophysics at the that if Einstein's theory was right, the Universe could School of Physics and not be static. In fact, right now, it must be expanding. Astronomy, University of Birmingham, UK. He Working backwards, Lemaitre reasoned that the Uni studied at Calcutta, Oxford verse must have been a much smaller place in the past. and Cambridge, and has He knew about galaxies, having spent some time with been on the staff of the Harlow Shapley at Harvard, and knew about Edwin Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Hubble's pioneering measurements of the spectra of near and IUCAA (Pune). by galaxies, that implied that almost all galaxies are moving away from each other. This would mean that they were closer and closer together in the past. Going further back, there must have been a time when there was no space between the galaxies. Even further in the past, there would have been no space between the stars. Even earlier, the atoms that make up the stars must have been huddled together touching each other. -
Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial Or Cosmic?
Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology xxx (2018) 1e21 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pbiomolbio Cause of Cambrian Explosion - Terrestrial or Cosmic? * Edward J. Steele a, j, , Shirwan Al-Mufti b, Kenneth A. Augustyn c, Rohana Chandrajith d, John P. Coghlan e, S.G. Coulson b, Sudipto Ghosh f, Mark Gillman g, Reginald M. Gorczynski h, Brig Klyce b, Godfrey Louis i, Kithsiri Mahanama j, Keith R. Oliver k, Julio Padron l, Jiangwen Qu m, John A. Schuster n, W.E. Smith o, Duane P. Snyder b, Julian A. Steele p, Brent J. Stewart a, Robert Temple q, Gensuke Tokoro o, Christopher A. Tout r, Alexander Unzicker s, Milton Wainwright b, j, Jamie Wallis b, Daryl H. Wallis b, Max K. Wallis b, John Wetherall t, D.T. Wickramasinghe u, J.T. Wickramasinghe b, N. Chandra Wickramasinghe b, j, o, Yongsheng Liu v, w a CY O'Connor ERADE Village Foundation, Piara Waters, WA, Australia b Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, University of Buckingham, UK c Center for the Physics of Living Organisms, Department of Physics, Michigan Technological University, Michigan, United States d Department of Geology, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka e University of Melbourne, Office of the Dean, Faculty Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, 3rd Level, Alan Gilbert Building, Australia f Metallurgical & Materials Engineering IIT, Kanpur, India g South African Brain Research Institute, 6 Campbell Street, Waverly, Johannesburg, South Africa h University Toronto -
A the Highland Park Enews August 1, 2016 221 S
, A The Highland Park eNews August 1, 2016 www.hpboro.com 221 S. Fifth Avenue, Highland Park, NJ, 08904 732-572-3400 Events & Meetings Tuesday, August 2 Book Break 3-5 yr. old Story Time 11:30 a.m., Public Library Tuesday, August 2 Teen Sidewalk Chalk Graffiti and Games 3:00 p.m., Public Library Tuesday, August 2 National Night Out rd 5:00 p.m., North 3 /Raritan Ave Tuesday, August 2 The NJ Youth Corps of Middlesex County was on-hand Wednesday, July 27th working the International Film Festival – Second Mother 1st stage of our Senior/Youth Center beautification project. Weeds were pulled, shrubs trimmed, and beds mulched. We can't wait to see how the project progresses. Thank 6:30 p.m., Public Library you to all involved. Wednesday, August 3 Borough Council Meeting Re: Buck Woods Having a Blast at the Highland Park Recreation Summer Camp 7:00 p.m., Borough Council Wednesday, August 3 Community Food Pantry 7:00 p.m., Senior/Youth Center Tuesday, August 9 Book Break 3-5 yr. old Story Time 11:30 a.m., Public Library Tuesday, August 9 Summer Afternoon Film Series –Rudy (PG) 3:00 p.m., Public Library Summer in Highland Park is always fun, especially for the many kids who attend our Tuesday, August 9 Recreation Summer Camp. This year we are averaging 175 campers per week in our day International Film Series – Coming Home camp, sports camp, teen camp, and new special needs camp. This week’s sports camp is 6:30 p.m., Public Library soccer, and next week will be tennis or wrestling. -
Georges Lemaître & the Big Bang
Monsignor Georges Lemaître & Albert Einstein, 1933 In the winter of 1998, two separate teams of astronomers in Berkeley, California, made a similar, startling discovery. They were both observing supernovae – exploding stars visible over great distances – to see how fast the universe is expanding. In accordance with prevailing scientific wisdom, the astronomers expected to find the rate of expansion to be decreasing, Instead they found it to be increasing – a discovery which has since "shaken astronomy to its core" (Astronomy, October 1999). This discovery would have come as no surprise to Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966), a Belgian mathematician and Catholic priest who developed the theory of the Big Bang. Lemaitre described the beginning of the universe as a burst of fireworks, comparing galaxies to the burning embers spreading out in a growing sphere from the center of the burst. He believed this burst of fireworks was the beginning of time, taking place on "a day without yesterday." After decades of struggle, other scientists came to accept the Big Bang as fact. But while most scientists – including the mathematician Stephen Hawking -- predicted that gravity would eventually slow down the expansion of the universe and make the universe fall back toward its center, Lemaitre believed that the universe would keep expanding. He argued that the Big Bang was a unique event, while other scientists believed that the universe would shrink to the point of another Big Bang, and so on. The observations made in Berkeley supported Lemaitre's contention that the Big Bang was in fact "a day without yesterday." When Georges Lemaitre was born in Charleroi, Belgium, most scientists thought that the universe was infinite in age and constant in its general appearance.