The Most Astounding Fact (Neil deGrasse Tyson, HD)

[Dennis Edwall]

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

Neat stuff, alright.

(Only 3.5 minutes. Sorry, I don't know how to embed the video.)

[BaalChatzaf]

Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

Neat stuff, alright.

(Only 3.5 minutes. Sorry, I don't know how to embed the video.)

A nice vid. Richard Feynman made a related point in volume one of his famous three volume set of books on physics. He said we can afford to loose most of the artifacts of civilization but one thing we should keep is the assertion: all things are made of atoms. Carl Sagan in his famous series -Cosmos- said: We are made of stuhr-stuff. He said this billyuns and billyuns of times.

You and I and all of us are children of the universe.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Mikee]

I'm a little disappointed. I think Dr. Tyson believes this rather trivial fact is impressive to non-scientists which is why he chose this. The truly astonishing fact about the universe is that it is so mysterious. No one has managed to figure it out. Feynmann was honest enough to say this. I think scientists are reluctant to admit this fact because they don't want to discourage people from pursuing scientific methods and instead choosing nonsense like religion and hocus pocus. Also a little self interest: you don't want people to think your genius amounts to nothing.

From http://blogs.scienti...-figure-it-out/ :

"Maybe we're just too dumb" Nobel laureate physicist David Gross mused in a lecture at Caltech two weeks ago.

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And maybe Physics isn't the hardest thing to figure out.

[BaalChatzaf]

"Maybe we're just too dumb" Nobel laureate physicist David Gross mused in a lecture at Caltech two weeks ago.

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And maybe Physics isn't the hardest thing to figure out.

We are primates with 3 pound brains. That implies an upper limit to raw native wits and intelligence. With the use of machines we can apply force multipliers but even they have their limits. It is entirely possible and I think very likely that the cosmos at very small scales (Planck length) may be beyond our intellectual capacity as well as our mechanical capacity to observe at that scale.

For hairless apes, we do rather well in the business of smarts. We are smart enough to survive and even flourish at our scale of energy and size and even flourish. But the Cosmos is a Very Big Thing and there may be wonders out there which we may only be able to behold (to some extent) and not fully grasp.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I'm a little disappointed. I think Dr. Tyson believes this rather trivial fact is impressive to non-scientists which is why he chose this.

It is not a trivial fact. The process by which supernovas create all the heavier elements (elements heavier than hydrogen, helium and lithium) was found out only as late as the 1930. It took a major leap in particle physics and the discovery of the nuclear forces (strong force and weak force) to conclude that our material being is the result of exploding stars.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I'm a little disappointed. I think Dr. Tyson believes this rather trivial fact is impressive to non-scientists which is why he chose this.

It is not a trivial fact. The process by which supernovas create all the heavier elements (elements heavier than hydrogen, helium and lithium) was found out only as late as the late 1930s.. It took a major leap in particle physics and the discovery of the nuclear forces (strong force and weak force) to conclude that our material being is the result of exploding stars.

Nuclear synthesis is the brain-child of the late Fred Hoyle.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dennis Edwall]

Astounding: yes, it is astounding when you consider the state of knowledge in these areas for most of human history, until just recently. From religion and superstition to knowledge that can be verified by science. That's an astounding leap in human progress.

[Mikee]

Not trivial then. I just don't remember being surprised by it. I like P.A. Cox book "The Elements: Their origin, abundance and distribution" quite a lot. He describes what goes on inside of stars very well. I just don't remember being surprised. If you accept the time line of the "Big Bang" it's obvious the elements that make up our worlds and us had to be produced inside of stars. I just don't believe Dr. Tyson would give the same answer to an audience of his peers. There is no controversy about the heavy elements being produced inside of stars, not in my lifetime as far as I remember (I'm 63). So, that's why I was a little disappointed. Dennis: what is your most astonishing fact about the universe?

Bob: I agree a significant, perhaps decisive, percentage of us do okay as hairless apes. Hopefully mankind will survive. People are at least talking about things like diverting asteroid strikes and the like. Perhaps the forward looking people intelligent enough to solve these problems will be allowed the gain and keep the resources required to do the job.

[dennislmay]

Dennis: what is your most astonishing fact about the universe?

What I find most astonishing is given where we already are how much still remains to be achieved - the sheer potiential out there is well beyond what we consider

even in most science fiction.

Dennis

[BaalChatzaf]

Astounding: yes, it is astounding when you consider the state of knowledge in these areas for most of human history, until just recently. From religion and superstition to knowledge that can be verified by science. That's an astounding leap in human progress.

Homo Sapien our kind of human has been around for between 150,000 and 250,000 years, but it is only since about 5 or 6 thousand years ago that fear and superstition began to be replaced by an understanding of law and principle. In Ionian Greece (not Athens!) the idea that Nature could be comprehended through rules, principles and regularities rather than by fear of the Gods. Ionian philosophers invented the kind of mathematics we have today, mathematics that is logically derived from a small set of assumptions (called axioms and postulates). Thales invented geometry as we know it. He traveled a lot and learned the geometry of the Egyptians (which was sophisticated surveying) and the geometry of the Babylonian (which was the arrangement of the "fixed" stars). From this he abstracted the axiomatic method.

So mankind has been getting "smart" only for the last 5 or 6 thousand years, about 5 percent of the time we have existed as a species. This improvement went into high gear about 500 years ago when science as we know it began to emerge. Physics as we know it started with Newton a little over 300 years ago and the latest revolutions in physics -- quantum theory and relativity a little over 100 years ago.

Formation of the heavy elements was developed by Hoyle a little over 60 years ago. It it were -obvious- that the components of our being are heavy atoms cooked up in stars this would have been know for thousands of years. But not so. It is not obvious. As late as 1915 there were scientists who were not convinced atoms were real. They thought atoms were an an abstract artifact that could be used for organizing observations. Ernst Mach who died in 1915 were not quite convinced atoms were real. It was the work of Albert Einstein on Brownian Motion and his derivation of Avagadro's constant that finally convinced every one that atoms were as real as rain. That was in 1905 only 107 years ago. Einstein won his Nobel Award for his work on Brownian motion and the statistical mechanics of molecules.

So do not say how "obvious" the notion of atom creation in the belly of stars is. It is not the least bit obvious and it was arrived at only after hundreds of years of head breaking work in physics. The great Isaac Newton believed in atoms but he did not have but the most crude idea of what an atom was. Even Maxwell who invented electrodynamics did not know that electric charge consisted of descrete particles. He consider charge as a fluid.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wow.

This is coolness defined.

When I aim for the stars, I am aiming for myself to some extent.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Wow.

This is coolness defined.

When I aim for the stars, I am aiming for myself to some extent.

Michael

That you are. Dead stars are your ancestors. Christ may have died for our salvation but stars bigger than our solar system died for our existence.

Ba'al Chatzaf