Star Date 12 09 2019

Science Officer Russ Frizzell reporting:

Star Trek: Inspiring Culture and Technology 111

SmithsonianX: POPX5.1

EdX.org

Unit 2, Starlog Entry 1

 As we explore the frontier of space, how can we approach the peoples and environments that we encounter? Can we reconcile our instinct to explore with an awareness of our impact on space, planets, and potentially, other species?

As the year 2019 comes to a close, the people of Earth are setting the stage for our next “giant leap.” NASA and the China National Space Administration CNSA are racing to be first to establish permanent inhabited bases on the Moon. NASA and SpaceX also have direct ambitions for colonization of MARS. It is not expected that living critters will greet them at either venue. But, there certainly could be unexpected life forms clinging to these diverse habitats. 

Scientists are scrambling to preserve samples of the dust on the surface of Mars before the flood of colonists contaminate it forever. The Mars 2020 rover is set to launch from Cape Canaveral in July of 2020 and it will carry test tubes designed to preserve these samples from contamination by future microbes brought from Earth. NASA does not even know if the sample containers will ever be returned to Earth because sample return missions are so difficult and expensive. They only know this may be the last chance to preserve soil samples on Mars and they are giving it their best shot. CNSA and ESA the European Space Agency both have their own Mars rover missions set to launch in 2020 as  well!

Our exploration of the solar system is under way. We have no Idea how the events will unfold but the adventurers of the human species are going after it right now. Freeman Dyson says there are all different sorts of possible life forms hiding in the solar system. We have not found any because our reconnaissance is just beginning and our technology is under development. If we find no other life then space will be considered free for the taking. If alien life is discovered, then who knows what will happen?

A continuing dialog is surely needed but who will be involved? The commercial space sector is not guided by the same drivers as national space agencies. There are laws and policies which can not be enforced off Earth. What made lawmakers think they can dictate to the future anyway? Asteroid mining alone can produce more wealth than even the science fiction dreamers have ever dreamed. The future of space exploration is so exciting already that all we can do is thank the creators of Star Trek from the bottom of our hearts for helping prepare us for the future that is to come.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2020

Planetary Society Interview with Freeman Dyson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ20eU83wWs&feature=emb_logo 

Nasa.gov

https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/ESA_s_Mars_rover_has_a_name_Rosalind_Franklin

https://spacenews.com/chinas-first-mars-spacecraft-undergoing-integration-for-2020-launch/

https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:SmithsonianX+POPX5.1+3T2019/courseware/bff8f169645a49d4b0d0fe52f4c6ff81/13e449894cae47a0a0cbd8918a26a34e/?child=first

Stardate 12/11/2019

Margaret asks, “What new technologies are making us more self-sufficient?” Why is it necessary to be self-sufficient in these areas? How will this help us progress as humans and as explorers?

There is a very good reason for thinking rocket technology makes us more self sufficient. Even though conserving the natural environment is vitally important to us on Earth, it cannot be our only endeavor. We can protect the diverse species until our eyes pop out, but eventually an asteroid is going to come and wipe it all out. 

If we develop rocket technology now we will be positioned to defend the Earth from unexpected asteroid strikes. If we survive that long then an alien race from elsewhere can arrive and devour us and take over our civilization. Really really good spacecraft technology will be able to protect us when that eventuality actually happens. 

If we survive all that then our Sun is going to run out of nuclear fuel and puff up into a red giant and destroy the Earth. Then it will blow off its outer layers and scorch the remaining cinder to a crisp. This will be some billions of years in the future but we will want to have our technological solutions set in place before the end. And this is only one of the reasons we need to develop rocket technology right now.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRElMg-ekg2YH4mwRXtMoSk83J9px2vF9VIn0uMjNCGcA2CT3zQa5o9-14UkErJZCCFKZUnF3_WXKxp/pub

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQK9FDIMcbYhcJ3ezJaVTIBonMeAJyvqaV5nwnuHG3xkc7jArZjh7tcpLAAeu2I72OvUaWClK0HtTqX/pub

dimension analysis, scientific notation, and fun facts.

Monty Python comedy group has helped fill the world with laughter, and for that I am grateful. But there was also a moment of artistic magnificence when they gave the world an inroad to knowledge. In the middle of the the movie, “The Meaning of Life” Eric Idle performs the Galaxy Song. Copied from montypython.net

(spoken)
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
(sung)
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough,

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at 900 miles an hour.
It's orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it's reckoned,
The sun that is the source of all our power.
Now the sun, and you and me, and all the stars that we can see,
Are moving at a million miles a day,
In the outer spiral arm, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of a galaxy we call the Milky Way.

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars;
It's a hundred thousand light-years side to side;
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light-years thick,
But out by us it's just three thousand light-years wide.
We're thirty thousand light-years from Galactic Central Point,
We go 'round every two hundred million years;
And our galaxy itself is one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

(waltz)

Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth!

Isaac Asimov once wrote that he loved big numbers. Many people I meet today say that they do not like math, but let’s not let that dissuade us. There is a great challenge we are faced with here. Check these numbers and see if they are correct. Then convert them to standard international units using scientific notation. Then watch the youtube video of the Galaxy Song with deeper appreciation.

Earth rotation: 900 miles an hour, is this figure correct? Well Earth’s radius is 3960 miles. The circumference of a circle is 2 x π x radius, and each rotation takes 24 hours.

2 r=24881 miles/24 hours=1037 mi/hr

Well that’s about right near the equator. As you proceed North or South from the equator the radius of the path you travel on your daily rotation gets smaller so at some latitude on Earth you are revolving at 900 miles an hour. Try to determine what that latitude is for extra credit. The number gets smaller as you near the pole until when you get there you are just spinning slowly around and not traveling with each daily rotation. Now let us convert 900 miles an hour to standard international (SI) units:

9x10^2 mi/hr x 1.609x10^3 mi/hr x 3600 s =

4.02x10^2 m/s

With paper and pencil (and calculator) in hand check all their numbers and convert them to SI units. Stephen Hawking did, you can do it too. I noticed he corrected five of Eric Idle’s numbers and he missed one incorrect number. Both versions of the Galaxy Song are available for your enjoyment on youtube. Using scientific notation we should have:

9.0x10^2 mi/hr = 4.02x10^2 m/s

Now check the rest:

19 miles a second____________________________ m/s

A million miles a day__________________________ m/s

40,000 miles an hour__________________________ m/s

One hundred billion stars________________ pure number

One hundred thousand light years_____________ meters

Six thousand light years_____________________ meters

Three thousand light years___________________ meters

Thirty thousand light years___________________ meters

Two hundred million years__________________ seconds

Millions of billions = 106109= ___________ pure number

Twelve million miles a minute____________________ m/s

I sing this song to myself often using Stephen’s numbers. Except I say ten million miles a day for the Sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see. We are orbiting around the Milky Way galaxy this fast due to the gravitational attraction from the supermassive black hole in the constellation Sagittarius. Orbital velocity can be figured in meters per second with the simple formula:

v(orb)=sqrt(GM/R)

G is Newton’s constant G=6.674x10^-11 m^3/(kg s^2)

M is the mass of one hundred billion stars

M=2x10^30 kg x 10^11

R is the distance to the center we are orbiting, 30,000 light years. R=3x10^4 LY x 9.46x10^15 m/LY=__________meters.

This velocity can be rounded off to 200,000 meters per second. It agrees with Stephen’s number, 400.000 miles an hour, to one significant figure. So go through and check all these numbers and see if they are correct. Wikipedia is a helpful reference for this type of exercise where possible errors are of little impact. What we really want is to get a mastery of using scientific notation and dimensional analysis, so that we can be confident of the facts we are using and communicating with others. Besides, Stephen and Monty Python have created a masterpiece and everyone should go to youtube and see it.

Do we really live in a Black Hole?

An introduction to Cosmological Natural Selection.

Russ Frizzell

01/24/14

The purpose of science is to get people to examine what is real and abandon false ideas which are misleading. Our understanding of the Universe is vitally important for our species’ long term survival. The sun is going through a life cycle which will effect the earth’s climate. Dangerous meteor impacts are rare but a realistic threat. Also, it’s just plain fun to think about how mysterious, wonderful, and amazing space is.

Nobody really understands how the Universe came to be. The weird condition of the Universe being curved like a saddle is very strange. Astronomers and cosmologists everywhere insist that the Universe is flat and it is expanding from some super bizarre Big Bang event.

Alternative ideas about how the Big Bang happened and ever improving measurements of expansion suggest saddle shaped space and how we may be living inside of a black hole. This surprising idea that we are inside a black hole is not entirely accepted science. However, if found to be true, the Universe did not come from nothing and is definitely not flat.

Cosmological Natural Selection is the idea pioneered by the cosmologist, Lee Smolin. He argues that black holes are baby universes and that universes reproduce by creating lots of black holes within themselves. This is of wide interest because the laws of nature which make our kind of life likely, also make black holes likely. These two aspects of nature may be intimately related.

Standard Model Cosmology

Hubble's law tells us the size, age, and expansion rate of the Universe. Hubble's constant (H) is very close to 21.7. A galaxy one million light years away is moving away from us at about 21.7 kilometers or 14 miles per second. A galaxy 100 million light years away is flying away at 2170 km/s.

A million light years is a great distance, light speed (C) rounds up to 300,000 km/s. So one light year is found to be 9.5 trillion kilometers as follows:

Light year = speed of light x days per year x hours per day x seconds per hour.

LY=300,000x365x24x3600

LY=9,500,000,000,000 km.

The farthest galaxies we can observe at the edge of the visible Universe are the same distance no matter what direction. I'll call the distance (R). Observing as if from the center is the only view we have. We can imagine things from different views and compare what we see with our telescopes, with what we expect. The Universe looks the same in every direction and astronomers conclude the distribution of galaxies is about the same everywhere.

The rule followed by nature shows that the constant (H) mentioned above does indeed account for the motion of the galaxies we see. The velocity (V) of galaxies flying away from us follow Hubble's Law.

.

Velocity (V) = Hubble’s constant (H) x Distance (R).

If we use the speed of light as our velocity we find the edge of the visible Universe by dividing the speed of light by Hubble’s constant.

Distance (R) = Speed of light (C) x million light years/Hubble's Constant (H)

R = 300,000 x 1,000,000 LY / 21.7

R=13.8 billion light years.

Anything beyond is traveling away from us faster than light and it will never be observable.

The age of the Universe is described the same way. Age (A) is the speed of light (C) divided by (H) given in millions of years.

Age (A) = Speed of light (C) x million years/Hubble's Constant (H)

A = 300,000 x 1,000,000 Y / 21.7

A=13.8 billion years.

The visible Universe is a sphere which is 13.8 billion light years in radius.  The cosmic microwave background from a sphere that size is the oldest artifact from the big bang we can detect. The age of the Universe is the same as  the time light has taken to arrive here from the big bang.

If the expanding Universe were much smaller in the past, everything must once have been within the radius for a black hole of the same mass as the universe has. How could the entire Universe have escaped from this condition? It is well known of black holes that nothing escapes their gravitational pull, not even light. Everything must still be inside!

The only way for the Universe to have escaped is if it were always infinite and gravity pulled the same in every direction. Or as the inflationary model suggests, some inflation field did it?

What would being inside a black hole really look like? Possibly, a saddle shaped universe.

Saddle Shaped Universe

Not only is space expanding but the expansion is accelerating over time. This is what is meant by a saddle shaped space. Two parallel light beams traveling into the future must separate and travel away from one another due to the expansion.

fig 1

Astronomers looking into deep space notice galaxies much closer together in the distant past. This vista is described by Roger Penrose as hyperbolic geometry, the Universe is very much like an M. C. Escher world. Space has expanded more over time than flat space predictions can account for.

fig 2

Black holes are characterized by their singularity in the center and horizon at their boundary. Suppose the acceleration is the result of free fall toward a black hole singularity. The event horizon of the black hole may be what is observed as a cosmic microwave background seen from the inside. All other observations from this freely falling view would match the standard model of cosmology.

fig 3

Frame dragging from General Relativity confirms that space is stretched out by any massive object in motion. Frame dragging can then be how space-time is created in an accelerating way. Centripetal acceleration may perfectly balance the acceleration of gravity. Angular momentum may be the only thing which could limit compression of the black hole singularity due to gravity. Conservation of gravitational mass and conservation of angular momentum must work together in some way. The modern hypothesis called loop quantum gravity may one day describe the singularity but this science is not fully developed as yet.

fig 4

Space is stretched by tidal effects along the direction of the inward spiral and not along the direction of the black hole’s radius. Freely falling matter will orbit increasingly faster as it spirals closer to the singularity. Frame dragging occurs faster than matter can fall through it, space is created.

The black hole we reside in is probably still growing by absorbing matter and energy from its surroundings. Our Universe may be embedded in a nutrient rich area of a larger universe, perhaps a supermassive black hole in a large galaxy.

Fig 5

Compare the standard model of Big Bang cosmology with a model of a black hole. It can be calculated the size of a black hole of the same mass as our entire Universe. The radius of a black hole, if it is the same mass as our sun, is three kilometers. So we only need to multiply 3 km times the number of solar masses in the Universe. Estimating 300 billion galaxies and 150 billion times the mass (Ms) of our sun for each galaxy, the radius (Rs) of the black hole in multiples of (Ms) is:

Rs = 3 km per sun x Suns per galaxy x Number of galaxies

Rs=3 x 150,000,000,000 x 300,000,000,000

Rs=135,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km.

To change this large number of kilometers into a more manageable number of light years we divide this by 9.5 trillion kilometers per light year:

R = 135,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 km/9,500,000,000,000 km/LY

R=14 billion LY.

14 billion light years, just larger than what we found earlier for the Hubble radius of the Universe. The mass of our Universe is equal the mass of a black hole of the same known radius. Let that sink in a while (pun intended).

If angular momentum continues to be conserved and if the speed of light continues to be the speed limit of the Universe, the singularity should form a ring. Centripetal acceleration will limit mass from falling all the way to the center point. The rotation of this ring drags space out, effectively  expanding it.

By crossing the event horizon (the boundary of the black hole, where nothing can leave), space and time are distorted so much that matter may adhere to new physical laws and fresh parameters. Time, space, and velocity might gain new meaning when crossing the horizon. The horizon is a place where entropy itself could be inverted. From the inside it would look just like a big bang event.

This strongly supports the hypotheses of cosmological natural selection as described by Lee Smolin. Universes may reproduce this way. Smolin feels the parameters are adjusted by the singularity. People existing within it will naturally conclude the parameters of physics are unaccountably well fine tuned for their existence.

Conclusion

Better research is surely needed to confirm or falsify the saddle shaped universe hypothesis. Observations of the Cosmos are becoming more accurate with modern telescopes and space science is improving all the time. Because ultimate causes for the big bang are still open to debate, every possible cause should be carefully considered.

Cosmological Natural Selection is not entirely understood within modern cosmology and the saddle shaped universe hypothesis might be easily disproved. By necessity so many estimates, simplifications and approximations abound in cosmology that much interesting physics is yet to be uncovered. It is hoped that the saddle shaped universe hypothesis will stimulate debate and generate research that will compliment Cosmological Natural Selection or refute it.

Sources:

[1] Smolin, Lee, Time Reborn, 2013.

[2] Serway, Raymond, et al, Modern Physics, 3rd edition, 2005.

[3] Susskind, Leonard, General Relativity Lectures, Stanford University, YouTube, 2012.

[4] Gezari, Suvi, The tidal Disruption of Stars by Supermassive Black Holes, Physics Today, May 2014, page 37.

[5] Penrose, Roger, The Road to Reality, 2005.

[6] Giddings, Steve, Black Holes, Quantum Information, and the Foundations of Physics, Physics Today, April 2013, page 30.

[7] Brockman, John, Universe, Edge.org presents:, 2014.