SGU Episode 103

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SGU Episode 103
11th July 2007
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 102                      SGU 104
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
R: Rebecca Watson
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
SL: Scott Lilienfield
Quote of the Week
There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings
Nietzsche
Links
Download Podcast
SGU Podcast archive
Forum Discussion

Introduction

You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday, July 11^th 2007 and this is your host Steven Novella, President of the New England Skeptical Society. Joining me this evening are Bob Novella -

B: Hey everybody.

S: Rebecca Watson.

R: Hello everyone.

S: Jay Novella.

J: Hey guys.

S: And Evan Bernstein.

This Day in Skepticism (0.33)

E: Hi everyone. Couple of things to note in history on this day, July 11^th: in 1979, space station Skylab returns to earth, I'm sure we all remember that.

B: Yeah.

E: In 1991, a total solar eclipse occurred over Hawaii and Mexico.

R: And… come on - also 7-Eleven!

E: Yes, it's 7-11 day here in the wonderful United States and supposedly you can go into any 7-Eleven in the country and ask for a free slurpee.

S: Free slurpee. It doesn't get better than that.

R: No it doesn't.

E: Assuming they understand what you're saying, they should give it to you.

S: Also in 1937, 1937, you guys know what happened then? July 11^th 1937?

Various: Ummmmmmmm

S: Our mother was born. It's our mother's birthday.

J: Oh that's right.

R: Oh my god you guys are terrible.

B: Geez.

R: I can't believe you didn't know that. I mean I didn't know that because I'm not related to you.

S: Well, we did just come from her birthday party. We celebrated the whole day with her, so don't worry, we took care of it.

R: Ok.

E: Steve, that's not in wikipedia, so I'm not sure that that's really true.

R: You guys are sad.

S: Now, Perry's not with us this evening. He is feeling under the weather. He's not feeling well. But hopefully he'll be back with us next week.

R: Feel better Perry.

S: Yep, so get better Perry.

E: See you next week.

News Items

Most Distant Galaxy (1.47)

S: A few news items this week. The first one is an astronomy news item. "Scientists find the most distant galaxy yet observed."

R: Very cool.

B: This was kinda interesting. Astronomers using giant telescopes said they found a glimpse of the most distant and oldest galaxies ever seen. The light the researchers viewed originated when the universe was only 500 million years old. The implication according to Richard Ellis, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, is these are the early generation of stars switched on when the universe was in its infancy. Previously the most distant galaxy known had been found at a red shift of 7, which apparently corresponds to a time when the universe was 750 million years old. This time they found galaxies at a red shift of about 9, which corresponds to a time 500 million years ago. What really fascinated me, I mean that was interesting, but what really fascinated me about this discovery is that they were able to look deep in space not because of any novel hardware or software, but because of the gravitational lensing effect first predicted by Einstein. Gravitational lensing occurs when light from a background object is bent by the gravitational field of a closer object. Ellis said that we found areas of space which act as powerful magnifying glasses. Some of these places magnified the skies as much as 20 times. I thought that was very interesting.

S: So these galaxies about the 13 billion light years away, the estimated age of the universe being 13.5 billion years. Right. So these are among the first stars to turn in the universe, to come into existence as we're seeing them. Yeah.

B: It kinda reminded me of discovering when life originated on earth, it seems that it's getting discovered further and further back in time. It's very close to the time, say, when earth started cooling down cos you're not going to have much life when the earth is a glowing cinder! So soon after that, it seems life just kinda arose very fast and this way they're finding stars older and older, stars that happened relatively soon after the Big Bang.

S: I remember about 10 years ago, do you remember this Bob? When there was a time when the oldest stars were older than the estimated age of the universe.

B: That was a period of extreme frustration for astronomers, because that does not make sense.

S: Yeah, but of course we knew that the error bars were overlapping, but it obviously couldn't be the case.

B: Right, right.

S: I also remember arguing with some creationist who was trying to use that to basically say that we didn't know anything, right, that we don't know what we're talking about because there's this conflict that can't be resolved. But they all resolve, the error bars will shrink, I'm sure the universe will be older than the oldest stars, that's of course what happened.

B: Right.

R: Sadly, I think that that's still something that some creationists try to claim as a fact.

B: Yeah.

S: They're not going to let go of a good argument just because the facts don't support it. Come on.

R: Exactly.

Science or Fiction (1.05.20)

Question #1 Boiled hair taken from the mane of a lion.

Question #2 Coffee made from coffee beans taken from the feces of a civet - a small cat-like mammal.

Question #3 Goat cheese deliberately infested with maggots

Skeptical Puzzle (11.46)

This Week's Puzzle:

A dog in Romania
A vulture in Chile
A fox in China
A bear in Iceland
A boar in Greece
A buffalo in America

Identify the psuedoscientific pattern.

Last Week's puzzle:

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1.14.00)

"There is not sufficient love and goodness in the world to permit us to give some of it away to imaginary beings." Friedrich Nietzsche

S: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation. For more information on this and other episodes, please visit our website at www.theskepticsguide.org. Please send us your questions, suggestions, and other feedback; you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website, or you can send us an email to info@theskepticsguide.org'. 'Theorem' is produced by Kineto and is used with permission.

References