Chip wrote:
"Who invented it (radiocarbon dating)?"

I`d rather date a real live girl.

All living things contain radiocarbon (carbon 14). It`s a radioactive
isotope which appears in small concentration in the atmosphere from
cosmic ray bombardment. After death, former living things no longer
absorb the isotope. The radioactive isotope in the dead thing starts to
decay at an exact and uniform rate. Its radiation half-life is 5,730
years.

Remnant radiation makes it possible to date things formerly living
within the past 50,000 years. approximately.

The radiocarbon dating technique was developed by Dr. Willard F. Libby
(1908-1980) in the late 1940s.

This comes from "The Handy Science Answer Book" of the Carnegie Library
of Pittsburg.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI.

On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 11:51:24 -0500, (Richard
Harrison) wrote:
This comes from "The Handy Science Answer Book" of the Carnegie Library
of Pittsburg.


Hi Richard,

Yes, an answer for the itinerant questioner.

But now for something completely different but wholly within the
purview of light (let's see if they can get this one):

In an infinite universe filled with stars, every line of sight should
eventually meet the surface of a star. The dimming of starlight with
distance should be exactly canceled out by the increase in the number
of stars you see as you look farther out, so the night sky should
appear as bright as the surface of the sun - but it is not.

This paradox, was solved by:
Erle Stanley Gardner
Edgar Allen Poe
Edwin Powell Hubble
Edward Roscoe Murrow

Name the one who coined the paradox for extra credit.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Richard Clark wrote:


This paradox, was solved by:
Erle Stanley Gardner
Edgar Allen Poe
Edwin Powell Hubble
Edward Roscoe Murrow

Name the one who coined the paradox for extra credit.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Hubble

Olber

tom
K0TAR

Richard Clark wrote:
On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 11:51:24 -0500, (Richard
Harrison) wrote:

This comes from "The Handy Science Answer Book" of the Carnegie Library
of Pittsburg.



Hi Richard,

Yes, an answer for the itinerant questioner.

But now for something completely different but wholly within the
purview of light (let's see if they can get this one):

In an infinite universe filled with stars, every line of sight should
eventually meet the surface of a star. The dimming of starlight with
distance should be exactly canceled out by the increase in the number
of stars you see as you look farther out, so the night sky should
appear as bright as the surface of the sun - but it is not.

This paradox, was solved by:
Erle Stanley Gardner
Edgar Allen Poe
Edwin Powell Hubble
Edward Roscoe Murrow

Name the one who coined the paradox for extra credit.

That would be Hubble that solved the paradox, and the initial paradox
was by Heinrich Olbers, although Jean-Phillippe Loys de Cheseaux (jeez
Louise, whatta name!) dabbled in that too. Even Kepler to some extent -
though he took the easy way out and decided the Universe must not be
infinite.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Richard Clark wrote:
"This paradox (differing light intensities in various directions) was
solved by?"

I have not seen that question before, but will speculate that Edwin
Hubble deserves the credit as he used "red shift" in the light from
other galaxies to show that they are speeding away from us and our
galaxy. In fact, they are accelerating so that the farther the galaxy is
away from us, the faster it is moving away.

From continuous acceleration, the distant galaxy will eventually reach
the speed of light. Then, light from the distsnt galaxy won`t reach us
because it will tag along with the fast moving galaxy.

There may be a time shortage too as Einstein has shown time slows as a
thing moves faster.

Hubble has also shown that the Doppler effect would shift the frequency
lower as velocity of the retreating thing increases. Shift the frequency
low enough and the wave is no longer described as light but may be
classified as a millimeter radio wave.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 23:01:27 -0500, (Richard
Harrison) wrote:

Richard Clark wrote:
"This paradox (differing light intensities in various directions) was
solved by?"

There may be a time shortage too as Einstein has shown time slows as a
thing moves faster.

A close and suggestive answer.

Hi All,

Well, it is notable that no "astronomer" got this one right ;-)

I will 'fess up in that it was a trick question because it contained a
ringer (one that three out of three sprung for).

However two out of three got the extra credit question (Olber's
Paradox). No doubt second tier, and to date silent, observers may
chime in with "authority." ;-)

No, Hubble may have described an answer that satisfies the paradox,
however the FIRST (1848) and ACCURATE response to this issue was
written by Edgar Allen Poe in "Eureka!" what he calls a prose poem
dedicated to Alexander von Humboldt:
"Were the succession of stars endless, then the background of the
sky would present us an uniform luminosity, like that displayed by
the Galaxy -- since there could be absolutely no point, in all
that background, at which would not exist a star."

Poe's work is a very large monograph on the nature of electricity,
gravitation and a very sophisticated description of the cosmology of
cluster galaxies (including what are still current theories of
condensation during stellar and planetary formation). To bring the
paradox to a conclusion he offers: for our being able to view this
totality of solar flux as a continuous sheet of luminosity requires
that the universe must have existed FOREVER. The concept of light
traversing space at less than instantaneous velocity (and that there
are huge and vast distances involved) shows a deep consideration of
the topic. This monograph is exceedingly developed with a style of
irony that I enjoy.

This intelligence touches on a topic that I have broached on one other
occasion. Poe was at one time an engineering student at West Point,
THE pre-eminent engineering school of America (7 presidents were
engineers). Most of us only encounter his work through recitations of
"The Raven," or, for many of us, with the drive-in movies produced by
Roger Corman in the early 60s with Vincent Price et al ("The Tell-Tale
Heart," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Pit and the Pendulum"
and others).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Richard Clark wrote:
"To bring this paradox to a conclusion he (E.A.Poe) offers, for our
being able to view this totality of solar flux as a continuous sheet of
luminosity requires that the universe must have existed forever."

It is now assumed that space and time began maybe 15 or 20 billion years
ago. Poe may be wrong.

Albert Einstein speculated that the speed of light is a universal
constant. He may be wrong.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

Richard Harrison wrote:
Richard Clark wrote:
"To bring this paradox to a conclusion he (E.A.Poe) offers, for our
being able to view this totality of solar flux as a continuous sheet of
luminosity requires that the universe must have existed forever."

It is now assumed that space and time began maybe 15 or 20 billion years
ago. Poe may be wrong.

Albert Einstein speculated that the speed of light is a universal
constant. He may be wrong.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

There has never been a contradictory observation that the speed of light
is other than a constant, ever.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove -spam-sux to reply.

Jim Pennino wrote:
"There has never been a contradictory observation that the speed of
light is other than a constant, ever."

A.A. Michelson and E.W.Morley in 1881 measured the speed of light in the
direction of the Earth and the speed of light at right angles to the
Earth`s motion. No difference was found.

Light does have different speeds in different media. This causes light
to bend when passing from one medium to another. The "speed of light" is
through space or a vacuum. The more a substance bends light, the higher
its refractive index.

I said Einstein may be wrong. I should have added that I don`t think so.

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

wrote:


There has never been a contradictory observation that the speed of light
is other than a constant, ever.


FYI:

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~dzuba/varyc.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ng_010815.html

vy 73

Andy, M1EBV