Monday, January 24, 2011

Oh Joy! The wonders of Science.


Being trained as a scientist, I'm able to work with exponents pretty well - as math is the language of science. When we get to exponents of "10 to the -7" in measuring the distances between peaks in a wave of light, it is easy to manipulated. When we are thinking of light traveling at huge speeds 3 x 10 to the 8th meters per second, it is easy to scratch it out on paper.

Some (albeit very few) are getting excited about the possibility of having a few weeks of a second sun made by an exploding star 640 LY (light years) away. Betelgeuse is nearly at SuperNova stage. Any minute now. Then, of course, if it happened this minute, I'd have to wait 640 years to see it. Too long to wait.

Now I will grant it to the excited few among us, it would really make for a marvelous event - especially if it happened to coincide with the nighttime position (Earth in between Sun and Betelgeuse). I must admit that my first thought in reading this was "Oh dear, what is the observant Muslim to do if this happens during Ramadan?" My next thought was "Short the stocks of vitamin D manufacturers".

But I'd put the chances of seeing such a thing in my lifetime are 1 to 10 to the -100th power. Not likely.


1 comment:

  1. I find your curiosity about the natural world endearing. And yeah, 640 years would be too long to wait for it. It would be really strange to have 2 suns- like a sci fi show.

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