[scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD
[EMAIL PROTECTED] This article appeared in Scientific American, May 2005 Too Cold for Comfort DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD BY GEORGE MUSSER When you first meet dark energy, it seems so charming. An alluring stranger, outsider to the Standard Model of particle physics, it entered astronomers' lives a decade ago and won their hearts by fixing all kinds of problems, such as discrepancies in the age of the universe and the cosmic census of matter. Cosmic expansion has got its groove back: once thought to be winding down, it is actually speeding up. But astronomers have come to realize that dark energy has a dark side. The cold grip of its repulsive gravity is strangling the formation of large cosmic structures. And now observers see it prowling the neighborhood of our own Milky Way. You dont need to go so far to find dark energy, says Andrea Macci of the University of Zurich. Dark energy is also around us. Up until recently, those seeking the exotica of the universe, dark matter as well as dark energy, focused on the very largest scales (galaxy clusters and up) and on comparatively small ones (a single galaxy). But in between is a poorly studied cosmic mesoscale. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which in turn is part of the Local Volume, about 30 million lightyears in radius. We and the rest of our gaggle are flocking en masse at 600 kilometers per second, lured by the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and other outside masses. Tracking relative motions within the volume, though, is tough; it requires distance and velocity measurements of high precision. Early efforts by Allan R. Sandage of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., and others in the 1970s, confirmed in recent years, hinted that stuff is moving abnormally slowly on average, somewhere around 75 kilometers per second. Simulations predict that galaxies, pulled together by gravity, should buzz around at closer to 500 kilometers per second. By analogy with a gas of slow-moving molecules, the Local Volume is cold. Another way to think of the problem is in terms of cosmic expansion. Theory predicts that you'd have to go out hundreds of millions of light-years, where matter is spread randomly rather than finely structured, before the overall expansion should outgun localized motions. Yet in the Local Volume, you have to go out only about five million light-years. One explanation, championed by Igor Karachentsev of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is that galaxies and their individual cocoons of dark matter swim in a sea of dark matter. The sea would mute the density contrasts and hence the gravitational forces that drive galactic motions. The only trouble is that matter, whether dark or visible, should not spread out into a sea. It should clod. So others have looked to dark energy. Its gravitational repulsion would offset galaxies gravitational attraction, thereby deadening their motion. In and near the Milky Way, attraction wins, but beyond a certain distance, repulsion does. As Arthur Chernin of Moscow University and his colleagues calculated in 2000, this distance is five million light-years, exactly where galactic motions deviate from standard predictions. The initial calculations actually only halved the galactic velocities, which is not enough. But the new full-up simulations by Maccis group indicate that dark energy works after all. If and only if you include dark energy, there is a very good agreement, Macci says. This is why we state that we have found the signature of dark energy. Not everyone agrees. In 1999 Rien van de Weygaert of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Yehuda Hoffman of Hebrew University in Jerusalem argued that the Local Volume is caught in a cosmic tug-of- war between surrounding galaxy clusters. This, too, would pull galaxies apart, offsetting their own gravity. To decide whether this mechanism or dark energy is more important, astronomers have to compare the Local Volume with similar regions. If those not caught in a tug-of-war behave similarly, the dark energy must be to blame. Unfortunately, the teams disagree on what similar means, so the debate goes on. If Maccis model proves to be right, then dark energy, once considered the most out there idea in science, an ethereal abstraction of little relevance, will bump a little closer down to earth. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
[scifinoir2] Cats use fax as toilet, spark house fire
TOKYO (Reuters) - Two kittens picked the wrong place to relieve themselves when they urinated on a fax machine, sparking a fire that extensively damaged their Japanese owner's house. Investigators in the western city of Kobe have concluded that the fire in January was caused by a spark generated when the urine soaked the machine's electrical printing mechanism. The fire damaged the kitchen and living room before it was put out by the house's owner, who was treated for mild smoke inhalation, said Masahito Oyabu, a fireman at the Nagata fire station in central Kobe. The kittens quickly ran to safety, he added. If you have a cat, or a dog for that matter, be careful where they urinate, Oyabu said. Especially keep them away from electrical appliances and wires. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/cat_fire_dc Tracey deMorsella, Managing Producer Convergence Media, Inc. Home of The Multicultural Advantage Phone: 215-849-0946 E-mail: tdemorsella @multiculturaladvantage.com http://www.multiculturaladvantage.com -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.6.8 - Release Date: 6/11/2005 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [scifinoir2] Cats use fax as toilet, spark house fire
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now there's a story line for an SF piece by Ms. Butler! Parable of the pissers... ---Original Message--- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Date: 06/11/05 15:01:22 To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Subject: [scifinoir2] Cats use fax as toilet, spark house fire TOKYO (Reuters) - Two kittens picked the wrong place to relieve themselves when they urinated on a fax machine, sparking a fire that extensively damaged their Japanese owner's house. Investigators in the western city of Kobe have concluded that the fire in January was caused by a spark generated when the urine soaked the machine's electrical printing mechanism. The fire damaged the kitchen and living room before it was put out by the house's owner, who was treated for mild smoke inhalation, said Masahito Oyabu, a fireman at the Nagata fire station in central Kobe. The kittens quickly ran to safety, he added. If you have a cat, or a dog for that matter, be careful where they urinate, Oyabu said. Especially keep them away from electrical appliances and wires. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/cat_fire_dc Tracey deMorsella, Managing Producer Convergence Media, Inc. Home of The Multicultural Advantage Phone: 215-849-0946 E-mail: tdemorsella @multiculturaladvantage.com http://www.multiculturaladvantage.com -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.6.8 - Release Date: 6/11/2005 Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD
Hi Amy: thanks for posting this. Since I renamed our web site Dark Energy Cafe, i had been researching it. Tracey -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Amy Harlib Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 1:35 PM To: Mike Sargent Subject: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD [EMAIL PROTECTED] This article appeared in Scientific American, May 2005 Too Cold for Comfort DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD BY GEORGE MUSSER When you first meet dark energy, it seems so charming. An alluring stranger, outsider to the Standard Model of particle physics, it entered astronomers' lives a decade ago and won their hearts by fixing all kinds of problems, such as discrepancies in the age of the universe and the cosmic census of matter. Cosmic expansion has got its groove back: once thought to be winding down, it is actually speeding up. But astronomers have come to realize that dark energy has a dark side. The cold grip of its repulsive gravity is strangling the formation of large cosmic structures. And now observers see it prowling the neighborhood of our own Milky Way. You dont need to go so far to find dark energy, says Andrea Macci of the University of Zurich. Dark energy is also around us. Up until recently, those seeking the exotica of the universe, dark matter as well as dark energy, focused on the very largest scales (galaxy clusters and up) and on comparatively small ones (a single galaxy). But in between is a poorly studied cosmic mesoscale. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which in turn is part of the Local Volume, about 30 million lightyears in radius. We and the rest of our gaggle are flocking en masse at 600 kilometers per second, lured by the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and other outside masses. Tracking relative motions within the volume, though, is tough; it requires distance and velocity measurements of high precision. Early efforts by Allan R. Sandage of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., and others in the 1970s, confirmed in recent years, hinted that stuff is moving abnormally slowly on average, somewhere around 75 kilometers per second. Simulations predict that galaxies, pulled together by gravity, should buzz around at closer to 500 kilometers per second. By analogy with a gas of slow-moving molecules, the Local Volume is cold. Another way to think of the problem is in terms of cosmic expansion. Theory predicts that you'd have to go out hundreds of millions of light-years, where matter is spread randomly rather than finely structured, before the overall expansion should outgun localized motions. Yet in the Local Volume, you have to go out only about five million light-years. One explanation, championed by Igor Karachentsev of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is that galaxies and their individual cocoons of dark matter swim in a sea of dark matter. The sea would mute the density contrasts and hence the gravitational forces that drive galactic motions. The only trouble is that matter, whether dark or visible, should not spread out into a sea. It should clod. So others have looked to dark energy. Its gravitational repulsion would offset galaxies gravitational attraction, thereby deadening their motion. In and near the Milky Way, attraction wins, but beyond a certain distance, repulsion does. As Arthur Chernin of Moscow University and his colleagues calculated in 2000, this distance is five million light-years, exactly where galactic motions deviate from standard predictions. The initial calculations actually only halved the galactic velocities, which is not enough. But the new full-up simulations by Maccis group indicate that dark energy works after all. If and only if you include dark energy, there is a very good agreement, Macci says. This is why we state that we have found the signature of dark energy. Not everyone agrees. In 1999 Rien van de Weygaert of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Yehuda Hoffman of Hebrew University in Jerusalem argued that the Local Volume is caught in a cosmic tug-of- war between surrounding galaxy clusters. This, too, would pull galaxies apart, offsetting their own gravity. To decide whether this mechanism or dark energy is more important, astronomers have to compare the Local Volume with similar regions. If those not caught in a tug-of-war behave similarly, the dark energy must be to blame. Unfortunately, the teams disagree on what similar means, so the debate goes on. If Maccis model proves to be right, then dark energy, once considered the most out there idea in science, an ethereal abstraction of little relevance, will bump a little closer down to earth. Yahoo! Groups Links -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.6.8 - Release Date: 6/11/2005 --
RE: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD
Kewl! Marin, Keith, you catch this? Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Hi Amy: thanks for posting this. Since I renamed our web site Dark Energy Cafe, i had been researching it. Tracey -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Amy Harlib Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 1:35 PM To: Mike Sargent Subject: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD [EMAIL PROTECTED] This article appeared in Scientific American, May 2005 Too Cold for Comfort DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD BY GEORGE MUSSER When you first meet dark energy, it seems so charming. An alluring stranger, outsider to the Standard Model of particle physics, it entered astronomers' lives a decade ago and won their hearts by fixing all kinds of problems, such as discrepancies in the age of the universe and the cosmic census of matter. Cosmic expansion has got its groove back: once thought to be winding down, it is actually speeding up. But astronomers have come to realize that dark energy has a dark side. The cold grip of its repulsive gravity is strangling the formation of large cosmic structures. And now observers see it prowling the neighborhood of our own Milky Way. You dont need to go so far to find dark energy, says Andrea Macci of the University of Zurich. Dark energy is also around us. Up until recently, those seeking the exotica of the universe, dark matter as well as dark energy, focused on the very largest scales (galaxy clusters and up) and on comparatively small ones (a single galaxy). But in between is a poorly studied cosmic mesoscale. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which in turn is part of the Local Volume, about 30 million lightyears in radius. We and the rest of our gaggle are flocking en masse at 600 kilometers per second, lured by the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and other outside masses. Tracking relative motions within the volume, though, is tough; it requires distance and velocity measurements of high precision. Early efforts by Allan R. Sandage of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., and others in the 1970s, confirmed in recent years, hinted that stuff is moving abnormally slowly on average, somewhere around 75 kilometers per second. Simulations predict that galaxies, pulled together by gravity, should buzz around at closer to 500 kilometers per second. By analogy with a gas of slow-moving molecules, the Local Volume is cold. Another way to think of the problem is in terms of cosmic expansion. Theory predicts that you'd have to go out hundreds of millions of light-years, where matter is spread randomly rather than finely structured, before the overall expansion should outgun localized motions. Yet in the Local Volume, you have to go out only about five million light-years. One explanation, championed by Igor Karachentsev of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is that galaxies and their individual cocoons of dark matter swim in a sea of dark matter. The sea would mute the density contrasts and hence the gravitational forces that drive galactic motions. The only trouble is that matter, whether dark or visible, should not spread out into a sea. It should clod. So others have looked to dark energy. Its gravitational repulsion would offset galaxies gravitational attraction, thereby deadening their motion. In and near the Milky Way, attraction wins, but beyond a certain distance, repulsion does. As Arthur Chernin of Moscow University and his colleagues calculated in 2000, this distance is five million light-years, exactly where galactic motions deviate from standard predictions. The initial calculations actually only halved the galactic velocities, which is not enough. But the new full-up simulations by Maccis group indicate that dark energy works after all. If and only if you include dark energy, there is a very good agreement, Macci says. This is why we state that we have found the signature of dark energy. Not everyone agrees. In 1999 Rien van de Weygaert of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Yehuda Hoffman of Hebrew University in Jerusalem argued that the Local Volume is caught in a cosmic tug-of- war between surrounding galaxy clusters. This, too, would pull galaxies apart, offsetting their own gravity. To decide whether this mechanism or dark energy is more important, astronomers have to compare the Local Volume with similar regions. If those not caught in a tug-of-war behave similarly, the dark energy must be to blame. Unfortunately, the teams disagree on what similar means, so the debate goes on. If Maccis model proves to be right, then dark energy, once considered the most out there idea in science, an ethereal abstraction of little relevance, will bump a little closer down to earth. Yahoo! Groups Links -- No virus found in this incoming
Re: [scifinoir2] Don't forget The Batman and Justice League
KEITH! Long time no type... Keith Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:New eps of both series are on Cartoon Network (or at least I never saw The Batman). Good shows. I originally panned The Batman, but it's grown on me. Love the atmosphere. Justice League Unlimited continues to impress, if for no other reason than all the new characters they introduce. Tonight is Captain Marvel, which ought to be good. And there's a great running storyline about the US government plotting against the JL. They fear the League's power, bolstered in part by the arrival of the evil Justice Lords from another dimension ,and the recent realization that the JL satellite has a weapon on it. Amanda Waller and company have been quite conniving in the things they've done to get an edge over the League, including recently breaking into the satellite and stealing an Olympian suit of armor. Good stuff [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] - Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. - Discover Yahoo! Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing more. Check it out! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[scifinoir2] Early Batman Begins Reviews are great
There are NO spoilers here. Two reviews, both giving Batman Begins an A. I'm even more pumped now than I was before. Until Narnia gets her, I have sneaking suspicion this will be my favorite movie of the year!! 'Batman Begins': The franchise finally takes wing on the big screen By ERIC ROBINETTE The Middletown Journal Batman never had super powers, but the dark knight has pulled off a super feat. For the second summer in a row, a superhero movie ranks among the best films of the year. Last year, it was Spider-Man 2, the live action pinnacle of the genre. Batman Begins is virtually its equal. Warner Brothers Pictures 'Batman Begins' The verdict: The Batman movies have never achieved greatness - until now. When Batman first flew into comic racks in 1939, he was all about vengeance. But that was mostly missing from the Batman movies of the late '80s to the mid-'90s, replaced by sullen introspection in Tim Burton's films, then outright camp in Joel Schumacher's. As a result, the Batman movies have never achieved greatness - until now. Co-writer/director Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer have wisely ignored the last four films and started from scratch. Batman Begins not only brings the hero back with a vengeance, it has vengeance coursing though almost every scene. What set Batman apart from most of his caped brethren was that he was as frightening as many of the criminals he hunted. That piercing intimidation is largely what makes Batman Begins so memorable. Nolan is the ideal director for Batman because he and the character share a knack for creating an unnerving sense of dread. Like Nolan's Insomnia and Memento, Batman Begins is an engrossing look at a dangerously fragmented mind. Years after the murder of his parents, a simmering Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) falls in with deadly fighters in the Orient under the exacting tutelage of Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson, who between The Phantom Menace, Gangs of New York and Kingdom of Heaven has cornered the market on mentor/father figures). When Wayne returns to the crime-ridden Gotham City, he must battle a plot by a villain called the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), who is the mirror image of Batman in that fear is also the Scarecrow's weapon. He develops a mind-altering drug to paralyze his victims with their most primal terrors, and threatens to spread it throughout the city. I'm making the movie sound awfully grim, and to be sure, this intense thriller is absolutely not for children or viewers looking only for breezy fun. Older kids, and some restless adults, will likely become antsy when Batman doesn't show up in costume for more than an hour into the film. I urge those viewers to be patient. The first half of the film cleverly sets up a slam-bang payoff with more than a few startling moments. Once Batman Begins gets going, it becomes impossible to shake. Even the Batmobile, with its silly monster truck-like wheels, works in this movie's hyper-real world. The film boasts the strongest cast of all the Batman movies. Bale, whose intense style has spawned a cult following, will inspire more than a cult after his formidable turn. Bale's Batman doesn't just sneer at criminals - he growls at them. Michael Caine, in a pitch-perfect performance, plays Alfred not just as a butler but as a devoted servant determined to uphold the Wayne family honor, which means he does not always approve of Bruce's methods. Morgan Freeman is great fun as Batman's gadget master with a twinkle in his eye, and Murphy is suitably maniacal without being over the top. If Batman Begins has a chink in its suit, it's that it lacks the emotional resonance of Spider-Man 2 or the first two Superman movies. This is not the fault of Katie Holmes, who has a rather limited role as Bruce Wayne's love interest. However, since Batman is inherently aloof, warmth is naturally in short supply. I chalk this one up to personal preference more than any actual faults, of which there are few. Batman begins, indeed. On the big screen, he finally begins to take wing. *** Nolan's 'Batman' gets it right By LESLIE GRAY STREETER Palm Beach Post He's been beat up, shot up, set up, camped up, dragged down and bombed out. But 66 years, hundreds of comics, a few television shows and five major motion pictures later, Batman, that angsty crime-fighting cave dweller, is alive and kicking with great aplomb and KABOOM! As the fabulously cool Batman Begins opens Wednesday, it might seem odd that Hollywood's willing to pump more megabucks into chronicling the saga of Bruce Wayne. Think about it - as popular as the character is in the comics (where he's appeared continuously since 1939 and continues to star in at least six serials a month), his last big-screen outing, Joel Schumacher's hacktastic Batman and Robin, was a big fat Batbomb. Critics hated it. Batfans (including yours truly) hated it.
RE: [scifinoir2] Don't forget The Batman and Justice League
Yeah, same here! Where you been hiding?! -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Astromancer Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 18:12 To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Don't forget The Batman and Justice League KEITH! Long time no type... Keith Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:New eps of both series are on Cartoon Network (or at least I never saw The Batman). Good shows. I originally panned The Batman, but it's grown on me. Love the atmosphere. Justice League Unlimited continues to impress, if for no other reason than all the new characters they introduce. Tonight is Captain Marvel, which ought to be good. And there's a great running storyline about the US government plotting against the JL. They fear the League's power, bolstered in part by the arrival of the evil Justice Lords from another dimension ,and the recent realization that the JL satellite has a weapon on it. Amanda Waller and company have been quite conniving in the things they've done to get an edge over the League, including recently breaking into the satellite and stealing an Olympian suit of armor. Good stuff [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] - Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. - Discover Yahoo! Stay in touch with email, IM, photo sharing more. Check it out! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] _ Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ . [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/rkgkPB/UOnJAA/Zx0JAA/LRMolB/TM ~- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scifinoir2/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD
Most def! Always been interested by stuff like dark energy and dark matter. I remember in the original Star Trek series, they spoke of the barrier at the edge our the Milky Way as reading negative energy and negative density. (This was in By Any Other Name, when the Kelvins took over the Enterprise). As a kid I thought that was silly. How in the world could you have negative energy? Now we hear about dark matter/energy, energy in supposedly empty space (the premise of the Quantum torpedoes on Trek and the Zero Point Modules on Stargate Atlantis) and even anti-time. Fascinating! -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Astromancer Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 18:01 To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD Kewl! Marin, Keith, you catch this? Tracey de Morsella (formerly Tracey L. Minor) [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:Hi Amy: thanks for posting this. Since I renamed our web site Dark Energy Cafe, i had been researching it. Tracey -Original Message- From: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Amy Harlib Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 1:35 PM To: Mike Sargent Subject: [scifinoir2] DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD [EMAIL PROTECTED] This article appeared in Scientific American, May 2005 Too Cold for Comfort DARK ENERGY CHILLS OUR GALACTIC NEIGHBORHOOD BY GEORGE MUSSER When you first meet dark energy, it seems so charming. An alluring stranger, outsider to the Standard Model of particle physics, it entered astronomers' lives a decade ago and won their hearts by fixing all kinds of problems, such as discrepancies in the age of the universe and the cosmic census of matter. Cosmic expansion has got its groove back: once thought to be winding down, it is actually speeding up. But astronomers have come to realize that dark energy has a dark side. The cold grip of its repulsive gravity is strangling the formation of large cosmic structures. And now observers see it prowling the neighborhood of our own Milky Way. You dont need to go so far to find dark energy, says Andrea Macci of the University of Zurich. Dark energy is also around us. Up until recently, those seeking the exotica of the universe, dark matter as well as dark energy, focused on the very largest scales (galaxy clusters and up) and on comparatively small ones (a single galaxy). But in between is a poorly studied cosmic mesoscale. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group of galaxies, which in turn is part of the Local Volume, about 30 million lightyears in radius. We and the rest of our gaggle are flocking en masse at 600 kilometers per second, lured by the Virgo Cluster of galaxies and other outside masses. Tracking relative motions within the volume, though, is tough; it requires distance and velocity measurements of high precision. Early efforts by Allan R. Sandage of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif., and others in the 1970s, confirmed in recent years, hinted that stuff is moving abnormally slowly on average, somewhere around 75 kilometers per second. Simulations predict that galaxies, pulled together by gravity, should buzz around at closer to 500 kilometers per second. By analogy with a gas of slow-moving molecules, the Local Volume is cold. Another way to think of the problem is in terms of cosmic expansion. Theory predicts that you'd have to go out hundreds of millions of light-years, where matter is spread randomly rather than finely structured, before the overall expansion should outgun localized motions. Yet in the Local Volume, you have to go out only about five million light-years. One explanation, championed by Igor Karachentsev of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is that galaxies and their individual cocoons of dark matter swim in a sea of dark matter. The sea would mute the density contrasts and hence the gravitational forces that drive galactic motions. The only trouble is that matter, whether dark or visible, should not spread out into a sea. It should clod. So others have looked to dark energy. Its gravitational repulsion would offset galaxies gravitational attraction, thereby deadening their motion. In and near the Milky Way, attraction wins, but beyond a certain distance, repulsion does. As Arthur Chernin of Moscow University and his colleagues calculated in 2000, this distance is five million light-years, exactly where galactic motions deviate from standard predictions. The initial calculations actually only halved the galactic velocities, which is not enough. But the new full-up simulations by Maccis group indicate that dark energy works after all. If and only if you include dark energy, there is a very good agreement, Macci says. This is why we state that we have found the signature of dark energy. Not everyone agrees. In 1999 Rien van de Weygaert of the
[scifinoir2] Early Batman Begins Reviews are great
There are NO spoilers here. Two reviews, both giving Batman Begins an A. I'm even more pumped now than I was before. Until Narnia gets her, I have sneaking suspicion this will be my favorite movie of the year!! 'Batman Begins': The franchise finally takes wing on the big screen By ERIC ROBINETTE The Middletown Journal Batman never had super powers, but the dark knight has pulled off a super feat. For the second summer in a row, a superhero movie ranks among the best films of the year. Last year, it was Spider-Man 2, the live action pinnacle of the genre. Batman Begins is virtually its equal. Warner Brothers Pictures 'Batman Begins' The verdict: The Batman movies have never achieved greatness - until now. When Batman first flew into comic racks in 1939, he was all about vengeance. But that was mostly missing from the Batman movies of the late '80s to the mid-'90s, replaced by sullen introspection in Tim Burton's films, then outright camp in Joel Schumacher's. As a result, the Batman movies have never achieved greatness - until now. Co-writer/director Christopher Nolan and writer David S. Goyer have wisely ignored the last four films and started from scratch. Batman Begins not only brings the hero back with a vengeance, it has vengeance coursing though almost every scene. What set Batman apart from most of his caped brethren was that he was as frightening as many of the criminals he hunted. That piercing intimidation is largely what makes Batman Begins so memorable. Nolan is the ideal director for Batman because he and the character share a knack for creating an unnerving sense of dread. Like Nolan's Insomnia and Memento, Batman Begins is an engrossing look at a dangerously fragmented mind. Years after the murder of his parents, a simmering Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) falls in with deadly fighters in the Orient under the exacting tutelage of Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson, who between The Phantom Menace, Gangs of New York and Kingdom of Heaven has cornered the market on mentor/father figures). When Wayne returns to the crime-ridden Gotham City, he must battle a plot by a villain called the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy), who is the mirror image of Batman in that fear is also the Scarecrow's weapon. He develops a mind-altering drug to paralyze his victims with their most primal terrors, and threatens to spread it throughout the city. I'm making the movie sound awfully grim, and to be sure, this intense thriller is absolutely not for children or viewers looking only for breezy fun. Older kids, and some restless adults, will likely become antsy when Batman doesn't show up in costume for more than an hour into the film. I urge those viewers to be patient. The first half of the film cleverly sets up a slam-bang payoff with more than a few startling moments. Once Batman Begins gets going, it becomes impossible to shake. Even the Batmobile, with its silly monster truck-like wheels, works in this movie's hyper-real world. The film boasts the strongest cast of all the Batman movies. Bale, whose intense style has spawned a cult following, will inspire more than a cult after his formidable turn. Bale's Batman doesn't just sneer at criminals - he growls at them. Michael Caine, in a pitch-perfect performance, plays Alfred not just as a butler but as a devoted servant determined to uphold the Wayne family honor, which means he does not always approve of Bruce's methods. Morgan Freeman is great fun as Batman's gadget master with a twinkle in his eye, and Murphy is suitably maniacal without being over the top. If Batman Begins has a chink in its suit, it's that it lacks the emotional resonance of Spider-Man 2 or the first two Superman movies. This is not the fault of Katie Holmes, who has a rather limited role as Bruce Wayne's love interest. However, since Batman is inherently aloof, warmth is naturally in short supply. I chalk this one up to personal preference more than any actual faults, of which there are few. Batman begins, indeed. On the big screen, he finally begins to take wing. *** Nolan's 'Batman' gets it right By LESLIE GRAY STREETER Palm Beach Post He's been beat up, shot up, set up, camped up, dragged down and bombed out. But 66 years, hundreds of comics, a few television shows and five major motion pictures later, Batman, that angsty crime-fighting cave dweller, is alive and kicking with great aplomb and KABOOM! As the fabulously cool Batman Begins opens Wednesday, it might seem odd that Hollywood's willing to pump more megabucks into chronicling the saga of Bruce Wayne. Think about it - as popular as the character is in the comics (where he's appeared continuously since 1939 and continues to star in at least six serials a month), his last big-screen outing, Joel Schumacher's hacktastic Batman and Robin, was a big fat Batbomb. Critics hated it. Batfans (including yours truly) hated it.
