astronomy – Harmonia Philosophica

Dichotomies…

In a study published in Nature Astronomy, researchers from the United States and Japan unveiled the possible origins of our cosmic neighborhood’s “Great Divide”. A well-known schism which resulted to have on the one side the “terrestrial” planets, such as Earth and Mars and on the other side the more distant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, with different composition than the first ones.

“How do you create this compositional dichotomy?” said lead author Ramon Brasser.

Brasser and coauthor Stephen Mojzsis, a professor in CU Boulder’s Department of Geological Sciences, suggested that the early solar system was partitioned into at least two regions by a ring-like structure that formed a disk around the young sun. This disk might have held major implications for the evolution of planets and asteroids, and even the history of life on Earth. (1)

A world organized in patterns.

A world split.

A world united under our eye.

Constantly moving. Constantly changing. And yet, staying the same. Ancient Greeks watching at the night sky. Modern people measuring distances. Kids playing. Drawing lines on the dirt. Separating the solar system into pieces. Forming the cosmos in laughter.

Is the cosmos the creation of a wise God?

Or the result of a kid’s play?

Look at the kids playing.

Watch those wise men laugh.

I feel safe looking at differences.

Too scared to think that…

Those two options are not really that different…

Cosmic-scale magnetic fields. Scientific models’ dirty little secrets…

Photo by **Spiros Kakos** from **Pexels**

While researchers have believed for some time that magnetic fields of femto-Gauss strength extend to the largest scales in the universe — to scales larger than the largest clusters of galaxies — it is an unresolved mystery how such magnetic fields can have been created in the early universe.

One logical possibility is that the magnetic fields were enhanced by the primordial period of inflation, which is needed also to solve the flatness and horizon problem in the standard Big-Bang model. But the problem is that magnetic fields generated during inflation have been believed to quickly be washed away by the subsequent ordinary expansion of the universe making successful inflationary magnetogenesis a challenge.

Recently the researchers Takeshi Kobayashi from International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy and Martin S. Sloth from University of Southern Denmark have shown that due to Faraday’s law of induction, the assumed evolution of electromagnetic fields after inflation is different than previously assumed if there are also strong primordial electric fields.

“This opens a new door to our understanding of the origin of cosmic magnetic fields,” says Martin S. Sloth, professor, CP3-Origins, Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology, University of Southern Denmark. (1)

Magnetic fields everywhere. And yet we cannot understand why magnetic fields are everywhere. One day we will know. But how can we know anything else without knowing the obvious? How can we know magnetism if we cannot explain how the massive prevailing fields in the universe are formed? How can we know the secrets of life if we cannot understand life and how it emerged? How can we know about gravity without knowing how it can be paired with the other major theory of the cosmos (QM)?

How arrogant must we be to know anything without knowing everything?

Behold one of the dirty secrets of the science process of creating models.

That they work based on what they explain and not based on what they don’t!

Behold one of the greatest secrets of men.

That they know based on only what they know…

But one day we will know everything.

And then, only then, will we know anything…

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Chaos. Numbers. Simulations.

Digital computers use numbers based on flawed representations of real numbers, which may lead to inaccuracies when simulating the motion of molecules, weather systems and fluids, find scientists.

The study, published today in Advanced Theory and Simulations, shows that digital computers cannot reliably reproduce the behaviour of ‘chaotic systems’ which are widespread. This fundamental limitation could have implications for high performance computation (HPC) and for applications of machine learning to HPC.

Professor Peter Coveney, Director of the UCL Centre for Computational Science and study co-author, said: “Our work shows that the behaviour of the chaotic dynamical systems is richer than any digital computer can capture. Chaos is more commonplace than many people may realise and even for very simple chaotic systems, numbers used by digital computers can lead to errors that are not obvious but can have a big impact. Ultimately, computers can’t simulate everything.”

The team investigated the impact of using floating-point arithmetic — a method standardised by the IEEE and used since the 1950s to approximate real numbers on digital computers.

Digital computers use only rational numbers, ones that can be expressed as fractions. Moreover the denominator of these fractions must be a power of two, such as 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. There are infinitely more real numbers that cannot be expressed this way. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190923213314.htm)

An irrational universe.

Full of irrational people.

Trying to analyze it rationally.

Under the illusion that number we have invented can draw a sketch of the cosmos. And yet, nothing we have invented is anywhere to be seen but on a piece of paper. Can you limit the birth of a star on a piece of paper? Can you contain the death of the universe on an equation?

We believe we can.

And sadly, we do.

And at the moment we do, the universe indeed dies…

And a small voice will whisper in our ear…

Congratulations. You have now understood it all.

How irrationally rational everything is!

And inside the darkest night you will dance.

Laughter.

And for a brief moment the forest will look at you.

Crying.

And for a brief moment the forest will see nothing…

But an empty broken CD. Full of data. Full of life…

Hard to exist?

Astronomers have discovered the most massive neutron star to date, a rapidly spinning pulsar approximately 4,600 light-years from Earth. This record-breaking object is teetering on the edge of existence, approaching the theoretical maximum mass possible for a neutron star. (1)

Should it be there?

According to what we knew, perhaps no.

But then again, we know more now.

Day by day, the possibilities for its existence rise.

Year by year, the probability for the existence of anything increases.

At the end, we will know an infinite number of things.

At the end, we will be able to believe everything.

And at that moment, we will realize…

That we shouldn’t believe anything in the first place…

Watch the stars.

You know…

The only reason they are there.

Is because the sky is dark…

Citizens’ science… Nothing to do with science…

Photo by **Ludvig Hedenborg** from **Pexels**

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers have helped to overturn almost a century of galaxy classification, in a new study using data from the longstanding Galaxy Zoo project. The new investigation uses classifications of over 6000 galaxies to reveal that ‘well known’ correlations between different features are not found in this large and complete sample. (1)

By encoding their specialized knowledge into a computer game, researchers enabled citizen scientists to successfully design synthetic proteins for the first time. (2)

Science was once upon a time something for the elite few. Now it is a matter of everyone. Science was once upon a time related to wisdom. Now it is related to date analysis. Science was once upon a time part of our belief in God. Now we just believe in us. We used to be part of God. Knowing everything by bring part of it. Now we observe the million pieces we have created. At the end we will know everything. But not everything that there is. But everything that we want them to be. For we are not actually observing anything. But we have set up mirrors. To observe our selves… Through the looking glass…

Small tiny people…

Classifying galaxies…