Heh, this is like the greatest excuse ever. Whenever I do something stupid from now on, I'm just "in character"

In reply to this comment by Drax:
>> ^Psychologic:
So if the sun turns off then everyone freezes instantly? I'm sure he's seen a solar eclipse at some point, or at the very least that time between dusk and dawn. =)
I demand this video make sense!




He feigns that he's not very book smart.. like in the Phantom Menace review he starts making references to the Cuban missile crisis and ends up saying, "Oh I don't know.. maybe you've heard of it... a little something called WORLD WAR 1?!!" (which had me rolling out of my seat almost).

The instant freeze gag caused me to double take too, then I remembered he was in character. This guy's awesome.

>> ^Psychologic:
So if the sun turns off then everyone freezes instantly? I'm sure he's seen a solar eclipse at some point, or at the very least that time between dusk and dawn. =)
I demand this video make sense!




He feigns that he's not very book smart.. like in the Phantom Menace review he starts making references to the Cuban missile crisis and ends up saying, "Oh I don't know.. maybe you've heard of it... a little something called WORLD WAR 1?!!" (which had me rolling out of my seat almost).

The instant freeze gag caused me to double take too, then I remembered he was in character. This guy's awesome.

So if the sun turns off then everyone freezes instantly? I'm sure he's seen a solar eclipse at some point, or at the very least that time between dusk and dawn. =)

I demand this video make sense!

amazon command doesn't seem to work like in http://www.videosift.com/video/Vitalic-Your-Disco-Song#comment-818209 ... Maybe I messed up?

Also, using FlashBlock v1.3.14 extension in SeaMonkey v1.1.17 (Windows and Debian/Linux) blocks embedded videos completely! That only happens IN web pages and not on front page. Examples: http://www.videosift.com/video/Total-solar-eclipse-in-Iwo-Jima-Japan-22-July-2009 and http://www.videosift.com/video/subprime ...

The longest Solar eclipse would happen if the moon should pass directly along and over the Equator. North or south of that, and it would take less time.

>> ^HenningKO:
Longest eh?
If it's total, aren't they all the same length?


No. Totality ranges in time from eclipse to eclipse. This one happened to be the longest until early 2100s.

Relativity was tested rather quickly by explaining Mercury's orbit, by astronomical observations of gravitational lensing during solar eclipses, etc. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity#Classical_tests

^Winstonfield_Pennypacker
^ ^joedirt
Faith and scientific method are opposed to one another.

That is your opinion. It is not based on facts or evidence, and is not much different than bible thumping. What evidence do you have that faith is 'opposed' to scientific method?

It's more like the scientific method is opposed to faith (in the bible literalist sense, not the spiritual sense). That's an a priori fact; nobody's opinion. Faith seems to try to ignore science.

Within the scientific method, everyone should be willing to believe that it's possible their own theory is false, and a rival theory is true. Rival theorists should be able to agree on exactly what tests it would take to make them change their mind. This is the heart of the process.

Any theory whose proponents refuse to accept that their position may be incorrect or refuse to propose a test that would convince them, is excluded from the scientific process.

For example, let's say I believe that graphite is an electrical insulator. You believe that graphite is an electrical conductor. I tell you you're a lunatic, but if you can run an electric circuit through a graphite pencil, I'm willing to change my mind. And lo, the light comes on, and I thank you for teaching me something new, and pay for the next round.

For a real example, let's say there's this guy named Einstein who is spouting some crap like gravity is actually space curved by mass, and that nothing is exempt from this curvature, not even light. We all know he's nuts, but we talk about it, and agree on a test: before, after and during the next solar eclipse, we'll take pictures of the stars where the sun is going to be during the eclipse. If Einstein's theory is right, those stars will appear to shift towards the sun during the eclipse because of the sun's mass bending the path of their light, and then appear to shift back out again afterwards. Lo, the stars do appear to shift, and General Relativity is confirmed!

Now, ask a bible literalist what evidence it would take to make him accept that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, and no matter how scientifically educated he is, that answer will never come.

Note: None of this proves that anything in the bible is wrong, or that atheists are justified. It just demonstrates that faith (in the bible literalism sense) is not at all compatible with scientific method.

1. The Planets Move (2000 B.C. – 500 B.C.)
A thousand years of observations reveal that there are stars that move in the sky and follow patterns, showing that the Earth is part of a solar system of planets separate from the fixed stars.

2. The Earth Moves (1543)
Nicolaus Copernicus places the sun, not the Earth, at the center of the solar system.

3. Planetary Orbits Are Elliptical (1605 – 1609)
Johannes Kepler devises mathematical laws that successfully and accurately predict the motions of the planets in elliptical orbits.

4. Jupiter Has Moons (1609 – 1612)
Galileo Galilei discovers that Jupiter has moons like the Earth, proving that Copernicus, not Ptolemy, is right. Copernicus believes that Earth is not unique, but instead resembles the other planets, all of which orbit the sun.

5. Halley's Comet Has a Predictable Orbit (1705 – 1758)
Edmund Halley proves that comets orbit the sun like the planets and successfully predicts the return of Halley's Comet. He determines that comets seen in 1531 and 1607 are the same object following a 76-year orbit. Halley's prediction is proven in 1758 when the comet returns. Unfortunately, Halley had died in 1742, missing the momentous event.

6. The Milky Way Is a Gigantic Disk of Stars (1780 – 1834)
Telescope-maker William Herschel and his sister Carolyn map the entire sky and prove that our solar system resides in a gigantic disk of stars that bulges in the center called the Milky Way. Herschel's technique involves taking a sample count of stars in the field of view of his telescope. His final count shows more than 90,000 stars in 2,400 sample areas. Later studies confirm that our galaxy is disk-shaped, but find that the sun is not near the center and that the system is considerably larger than Herschel's estimation.

7. General Relativity (1915 – 1919)
Albert Einstein unveils his theory of general relativity in which he proposes that mass warps both time and space, therefore large masses can bend light. The theory is proven in 1919 by astronomers using a solar eclipse as a test.

8. The Universe Is Expanding (1924 – 1929)
Edwin Hubble determines the distance to many nearby galaxies and discovers that the farther they are from us, the faster they are flying away from us. His calculations prove that the universe is expanding.

9. The Center of the Milky Way Emits Radio Waves (1932)
Karl Jansky invents radio astronomy and discovers a strange radio-emitting object at the center of the Milky Way. Jansky was conducting experiments on radio wavelength interference for his employer, Bell Telephone Laboratories, when he detected three groups of static; local thunderstorms, distant thunderstorms and a steady hiss-type static. Jansky determines that the static is coming from an unknown source at the center of the Milky Way by its position in the sky.

10. Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (1964)
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discover cosmic microwave background radiation, which they suspect is the afterglow of the big bang. Their measurements, combined with Edwin Hubble's earlier finding that the galaxies are rushing away, make a strong case for the big bang theory of the birth of the universe.

11. Gamma-Ray Bursts (1969 – 1997)
The two-decade-long mystery of gamma-ray bursts is solved by a host of sophisticated ground-based and orbiting telescopes. Gamma-ray bursts are short-lived bursts of gamma-ray photons, which are the most energetic form of light and are associated with nuclear blasts. At least some of the bursts have now been linked with distant supernovae — explosions marking the deaths of especially massive stars.

12. Planets Around Other Stars (1995 – 2004)
Astronomers find a host of extrasolar planets as a result of improved telescope technology and prove that other solar systems exist, although none as yet resembles our own. Astronomers are able to detect extrasolar planets by measuring gravitational influences on stars.

13. The Universe Is Accelerating (1998 – 2000)
Unexpectedly, astronomers find that instead of slowing down due to the pull of gravity, the expansion of the universe at great distances is accelerating. If these observations are correct and the trend continues, it will result in the inability to see other galaxies. A new theory of the end of the universe based on this finding has been called the "big rip."

^ Interesting, I didn't know that so I looked it up.

http://starryskies.com/articles/2007/10/primal-future-moon.html

In summary:

I call Major Bullshit at 2 mins into this clip and I can back it up.

The first experiments done to measure the curvature of spacetime were performed in Africa in the 1940s. During a solar eclipse stars which were occluded by (behind) the sun were actually visible, as the light was bent around the sun by its gravity. There have been many verfications of this first experiment and nowadays astronomers use this bending of light as a tool.

It is a prediction by General Relativity that if space time is curved then light should be bent by gravity. This is what the equations predict should happen and is in fact what happens in reality.

The reason for this is that light has no mass (mass of a photon=0) - so you wouldn't expect gravity to affect light at all. It bends because the spacetime it is travelling through is curved by the presence of a massive object, in this case the sun.

Second part of their bullshit:
It is WRONG to say that a curved spacetime means that you would end up back where you started if you travelled in a straight line. General Relativity doesn't say that at all, and neither did Einstein or any other scientist. It just means that spacetime is curved and warped by matter.

Seriously guys - anyone calling 'flat universe' should be treated with the same contempt as 'flat earthers'.

These guys aren't scientists of any description whatsoever and I don't know what they're doing on any Science Channel. In fact I think they probably work for the production company that made this show.

What on earth TV programme is this? Who makes it? I feel like emailing them a ridiculously verbose WTF.

Isn't this a solar eclipse?

From the Bad Astronomy blog, www.badastronomy.com, which just named this as one of the best astronomical images of the year: "Studying the Sun seems like a pretty good idea; as the major source of light and heat for our planet, it’s a good thing that we try to understand it. And the Sun is a star, with all that implies: it’s huge in size, and frightening in its energy production.

To better understand it and the complicated nature of its surface activity, NASA launched a pair of satellites that can take pictures of the Sun simultaneously from different angles, providing a 3D view of our nearest star. They’re called the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or (haha) STEREO.

One satellite orbits the Sun ahead of the Earth, and the other behind. They stay in the same orbital plane as the Earth does in its travels around the Sun, and that means that sometimes you get interesting geometric situations which arise. The STEREO team realized that there would be a time when the Moon would pass in front of the Sun as seen by one of the spacecraft. Solar eclipses are rare on Earth, but from STEREO’s vantage it would be even more unusual.

From the Earth, the Sun is about 400 times farther away than the Moon, and is also about 400 times the Moon’s physical size. These two characteristics cancel out, meaning the Sun and Moon are about the same apparent size in the sky, so every solar eclipse has the Moon slipping in front of the Sun, with the dark disk of the Moon just barely (if even) covering the bright disk of the Sun.

That is, every solar eclipse as seen from the Earth.

But STEREO was receding from the Earth and Moon. To it, the Moon appeared much smaller than we see it, stuck as we are on the surface of our planet. The Sun, however, was still at about the same distance, and therefore looked the same size as we see it. This means that, to STEREO, the Moon appeared far smaller than the Sun.

Not long after launch, the situation arose that the Moon would pass directly in front of the Sun as seen from one of the spacecraft. STEREO turned its eye that way, and recorded what may be the most remarkable footage of a solar eclipse ever taken".

*promote

A million miles from planet Earth, last weekend the STEREO B spacecraft found itself in the shadow of the Moon. So, looking toward the Sun, extreme ultraviolet cameras onboard STEREO B were able to record a stunning movie of a lunar transit (aka solar eclipse), as the Moon tracked across the solar disk. Each frame of the movie is a false-color composite of images made through four different filters that highlight temperature regimes and structures in the upper solar atmosphere. In this frame, large bright active regions, seen as dark sunspots in visible light, flank the Moon's silhouetted disk. The Moon appears small, less than 1/4th the size seen from Earth, because the spacecraft-Moon separation is over four times the Earth-Moon distance. Tonight, the Moon will find itself in planet Earth's shadow in a total lunar eclipse.