Denis papin was right

The Hubble Telescope has taken a picture of deep space where the light from the pictured objects started out 12 billion years ago giving us an insight into what the early universe looked like. I always used to worry about why Galaxies looked un-distorted as they were thousands of light years across and the light from the far side would therefore take thousands of years more to reach us than the light from near side. Of course Galaxies revolve which adds in a further complication. I wanted to work out what difference this would make to the appearance of the galaxy compared to what we would see if the light travelled instantly. I suspect that all the factors end up cancelling each other out so we see an un-distorted picture. It is a bit like the puzzle about the rower who is moving upstream on a fast flowing river when he loses his hat. He does not notice the absence of headgear for ten minutes during which he rows further up stream at 5 km per hour. He then turns round and rows back after his hat. If the river is flowing at 10 km per hour, how long will it take him to reach his hat? The answer is quite simply 10 minutes. The moving river is irrelevant. The rower is moving relative to the water. Imagine the river was frozen solid and the rower was instead a skater. If there is no wind, it would obviously take him the same time to re-trace his steps. I am sorry to say that this fooled me the first time I read it but it was solved instantly by Richard Feynman. I am getting quite good at solving this sort of puzzle but that is only because I know what to expect in such riddles. I suppose that this show up how physical, Newtonian stuff can lead you quite logically to the Alice-in-Wonderland world of relativity and quantum physics. It takes genius to ask the question what would the world look like if I rode on a beam of light.

If you want to understand Relativity (Special and General) then read this book. I understood how the Lorentz Transformation equations are derived after reading this, something which is usually skirted in even quite weighty tomes. All they need is one on Heisenberg and Schroedinger and that is the whole of the Cosmos covered. Once everybody understands it then the Universe will vanish and be replaced by something more difficult. Science seems to work on the premise that everything can be known. I have mentioned this before (too often) but it seems that reality always retreats into further complexity. There is no end-solution. The anthropic principle suggests that the Universe is only the way it is because we are here to observe it. It almost seems to say that while mankind lived only on the Earth and that the heavens were just a few pinpoints of light, then that was the way the Universe actually was. Similarly, while the existence of sub-atomic particles was not known, then they did not really exist. I sometime lie awake imagining other places in the world. My favourite at the moment is to think of the other side of the Earth at the exact antipodes and at the exact same time; this somehow makes the world more real. Go back to pre-history. Because there was no-one imagining the galaxies, maybe they did not exist. As man, created by God, becomes inquisitive as he released from the continuous daily drudge, he imagines and experiments and finds out more about very large things and vert small things. Did those things exist before they were looked for or imagined or did God increase the complexity of the world so that there was always something more to discover. It is dangerous to think you have got to the end of things. There will always be something more to find. Can we ever know the limits of the Universe in space and time and any other dimensions that exist out there? Find Top Quark and then split it down in to what it is made of. Can we ever be sure we have found everything. This is a bit like G?del's Incompleteness Theorem. Does this aqpply to the universe as well as mathematics? The universe is defined by mathematics so maybe this is true. Is the unknowable bit God? God, not the devil is in the details.

That is more like it. I am sure my Wife will think that this is a random Friday but it is not. I know that the above is not rigorous science or theology but it is a reasoned discussion and in no way mentions Bandicoots, Bananas or anything else of a suitably random nature. I still have my Andy Warhol time before I have to start work so what to write about? Not the weather even if it is the Solstice tomorrow. I wonder how many people go to Callanish for the Solstice? Not as many as go to Stonehenge I would say. There, imagine Callanish tonight. It won't be dark, even in the middle of the night. If you imagine a bit further and go to Shetland then it will be lighter still.

Happy Solstice.