Dear Reader, the 4th edition of THE MUNCH REPORT has finally arrived. I am well aware that you have been looking forward to this event, but now the time has come.
More weird thoughts from the "INTERPRETER OF OZ" the unqualified hobby cosmologist and environmentalist, the one who asks usually stupid questions and in most cases comes up with equally stupid answers. |
POSITION : 32°44'•47N and 016°42'•68W MOOD : LOOKING FORWARD ENJOY ! |
BACK TO THE FUTURE
I took some pictures this year of the fireworks at the Redentore festival in Venice. Officially called the "Festa del Redentore" , an event held in July, this year it was on the 14th and 15th.
Every year a bridge is built over the Guidecca channel over which the Patriarch of Venice, in 2012 Sen.Franceso Moraglia, walked from Zattere to the church of Redentore ( = redeemer ) to hold a mass in memory of the plague's defeat in 1577. That plague had killed around 50.000 people, so obviously it was a major relief when it came to a stop.
But that is only the official part.
The fun actually happens in the channel. Hundreds of little boats gather, full of happy ( and merry ) people. Very merry people, actually. Boat jumping is a favourite sport, just to mention one activity next to the drinking. Usually no harm is done, may be some boats knocking each other, but nothing serious. The fun continues during the night and into the late hours of the following morning, and sleep is difficult to catch.
But the highlight of all of this is the spectacular firework, although in a period that historians might later call
"The Years of Austerity" (2010 - 2037,most likely)
is has been cut from the normal 45 to now 'only' 32 minutes.
I know , you world travellers out there, you have seen Sidney Harbour Bridge, London and others, but the fact remains that with the background of the City of Venice, there is nothing to compare it with.
Believe me.
But that's not what I would like to reflect upon. What I got interested in as I watched this spectacular, was the illumination, or in more scientific terms, the light that was distributed over the night sky . Almost like our milky way, just closer.
I took some pictures this year of the fireworks at the Redentore festival in Venice. Officially called the "Festa del Redentore" , an event held in July, this year it was on the 14th and 15th.
Every year a bridge is built over the Guidecca channel over which the Patriarch of Venice, in 2012 Sen.Franceso Moraglia, walked from Zattere to the church of Redentore ( = redeemer ) to hold a mass in memory of the plague's defeat in 1577. That plague had killed around 50.000 people, so obviously it was a major relief when it came to a stop.
But that is only the official part.
The fun actually happens in the channel. Hundreds of little boats gather, full of happy ( and merry ) people. Very merry people, actually. Boat jumping is a favourite sport, just to mention one activity next to the drinking. Usually no harm is done, may be some boats knocking each other, but nothing serious. The fun continues during the night and into the late hours of the following morning, and sleep is difficult to catch.
But the highlight of all of this is the spectacular firework, although in a period that historians might later call
"The Years of Austerity" (2010 - 2037,most likely)
is has been cut from the normal 45 to now 'only' 32 minutes.
I know , you world travellers out there, you have seen Sidney Harbour Bridge, London and others, but the fact remains that with the background of the City of Venice, there is nothing to compare it with.
Believe me.
But that's not what I would like to reflect upon. What I got interested in as I watched this spectacular, was the illumination, or in more scientific terms, the light that was distributed over the night sky . Almost like our milky way, just closer.
Scientifically however, I just saw ..... light.
As we know, light travels at roughly 300.000km per second, or in other words, a lightyear represents appr. 9.5 trillion kilometers of light travelling through the universe in one year. That means when you blink with your eyes, a lightbeam has already travelled 5 times around the earth. Or take the sunlight, which has been travelling for 8 minutes, before it finally arrives on earth and we can see it. In other words, if somebody would switch of this big furnace called sun, we would still have light for eight more minutes. Everybody must be happy about this !
Now let's expand on this. The sun is in the centre of our solar system, but it is only one of some billions of solar systems in the universe, the latter spreading over billions of light years and therefore trillions of kilometres of distances, and still expanding. That means again that a light from a distant star that we can see today on earth, has been travelling for many years, actually millions of years, some in fact billions of years. Some light is even older than our solar system, which has been formed only some 4.6 billion years ago.
As a result we are able to identify and see some light that is as old as the creation of the universe itself, some 13.6 billion years ago ! Now if I compare this with the
'Big Bang' of Venice,
I wonder whether those who invented fireworks just copied the
Big Bang of the Universe ?
As we know, light travels at roughly 300.000km per second, or in other words, a lightyear represents appr. 9.5 trillion kilometers of light travelling through the universe in one year. That means when you blink with your eyes, a lightbeam has already travelled 5 times around the earth. Or take the sunlight, which has been travelling for 8 minutes, before it finally arrives on earth and we can see it. In other words, if somebody would switch of this big furnace called sun, we would still have light for eight more minutes. Everybody must be happy about this !
Now let's expand on this. The sun is in the centre of our solar system, but it is only one of some billions of solar systems in the universe, the latter spreading over billions of light years and therefore trillions of kilometres of distances, and still expanding. That means again that a light from a distant star that we can see today on earth, has been travelling for many years, actually millions of years, some in fact billions of years. Some light is even older than our solar system, which has been formed only some 4.6 billion years ago.
As a result we are able to identify and see some light that is as old as the creation of the universe itself, some 13.6 billion years ago ! Now if I compare this with the
'Big Bang' of Venice,
I wonder whether those who invented fireworks just copied the
Big Bang of the Universe ?
Anyway, so far I just mentioned some basics, but I will not bore you with science - although I find it fascinating. But I am even more interested in some philosophical and consequential logical questions that derive from all this.
Astro -Physicists, Cosmologists and other serious scientists may forgive me now for what is coming.
QUESTION :
What if one day we would , by whatever means, be able to travel faster than light ? Would the logic be right that we then could
travel
'BACK TO THE PAST' ? or even 'BACK TO THE FUTURE' ?
Here is my ( complicated and deranged, I admit ) thought process:
SCIENTISTS KNOW that 13.6 billion years ago the conditions to create the universe were the same for all the mass that was created . Scientific proof of that is that on earth as much as in the universe the chemical elements of 98 in total are the same here than on distant suns and planets elsewhere, like for instance hydrogen, helium on the lower end of complex chemical structures, to the more heavier elements,from carbon all the way to iron or gold.
Our own human bodies consist of a number of these 98 chemical elements !
In order to generate these compounds, huge forces, only released by tremendous nuclear fusions ( many times hotter than those of the sun !!!!!! ) are required. The result are heavenly bodies and the light they generate ( for instance the stars of the Milky Way) , with a colour spectrum that gives away the proportional ingredients they are made of.
Nevertheless to finish this little introduction, I accept that only 15% of all matter in the universe consists of chemical matter, whilst the rest is unspecified, the scientists call it "the black matter".
But let's leave that aside for a moment.
So in case that in the moment of the creation of the universe all ( physical and chemical ) conditions were the same, then I ask myself why should there only be one "Blue Planet" , why not two , or three, or indeed 100s ? In a universe with billions of solar systems, what is the percentage of 100 possible earths, or let's say earth conditions, representing different stages of their evolution , in relation to the number of all stars : 0,000 000 1 % ? or more, or less ? This is so small, and yet so significant !
So if there is a likelihood for other heavenly bodies with earth-like conditions and if these bodies have been created in different stages/times of the universe's own development then there must be conditions existing in distant galaxies that have allowed in relation to
our own evolution of life
a slower/shorter or equally possible faster/longer development .
As all chemical elements are the same, I go one step further and ask forthwith :
IS IT TOO FAR FETCHED TO SAY THAT
there must be ( human ) life out there, sometimes more , sometimes less advanced than us ?
But now comes the best:
If all what I said before makes sense to you, and if we now could find a way in order to travel faster than light, we could explore the universe to the extent that we would be able to meet species that are similar to those on earth say 100.000 years ago.
Dinosaurs may be ?
So Disney Corporation , please join Sir Richard Branson's space travelling company and find the
"Mother of all Jurassic Parcs".
Or we could find species, humans, that are far more advanced than us ?
May be they have created much more advanced societies, for instance with
free Wifi everywhere ,
and no taxes,
or something like that.
Please, NASA, please Sir Richard Branson, do something. I want to know.
I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE FUTURE !
Astro -Physicists, Cosmologists and other serious scientists may forgive me now for what is coming.
QUESTION :
What if one day we would , by whatever means, be able to travel faster than light ? Would the logic be right that we then could
travel
'BACK TO THE PAST' ? or even 'BACK TO THE FUTURE' ?
Here is my ( complicated and deranged, I admit ) thought process:
SCIENTISTS KNOW that 13.6 billion years ago the conditions to create the universe were the same for all the mass that was created . Scientific proof of that is that on earth as much as in the universe the chemical elements of 98 in total are the same here than on distant suns and planets elsewhere, like for instance hydrogen, helium on the lower end of complex chemical structures, to the more heavier elements,from carbon all the way to iron or gold.
Our own human bodies consist of a number of these 98 chemical elements !
In order to generate these compounds, huge forces, only released by tremendous nuclear fusions ( many times hotter than those of the sun !!!!!! ) are required. The result are heavenly bodies and the light they generate ( for instance the stars of the Milky Way) , with a colour spectrum that gives away the proportional ingredients they are made of.
Nevertheless to finish this little introduction, I accept that only 15% of all matter in the universe consists of chemical matter, whilst the rest is unspecified, the scientists call it "the black matter".
But let's leave that aside for a moment.
So in case that in the moment of the creation of the universe all ( physical and chemical ) conditions were the same, then I ask myself why should there only be one "Blue Planet" , why not two , or three, or indeed 100s ? In a universe with billions of solar systems, what is the percentage of 100 possible earths, or let's say earth conditions, representing different stages of their evolution , in relation to the number of all stars : 0,000 000 1 % ? or more, or less ? This is so small, and yet so significant !
So if there is a likelihood for other heavenly bodies with earth-like conditions and if these bodies have been created in different stages/times of the universe's own development then there must be conditions existing in distant galaxies that have allowed in relation to
our own evolution of life
a slower/shorter or equally possible faster/longer development .
As all chemical elements are the same, I go one step further and ask forthwith :
IS IT TOO FAR FETCHED TO SAY THAT
there must be ( human ) life out there, sometimes more , sometimes less advanced than us ?
But now comes the best:
If all what I said before makes sense to you, and if we now could find a way in order to travel faster than light, we could explore the universe to the extent that we would be able to meet species that are similar to those on earth say 100.000 years ago.
Dinosaurs may be ?
So Disney Corporation , please join Sir Richard Branson's space travelling company and find the
"Mother of all Jurassic Parcs".
Or we could find species, humans, that are far more advanced than us ?
May be they have created much more advanced societies, for instance with
free Wifi everywhere ,
and no taxes,
or something like that.
Please, NASA, please Sir Richard Branson, do something. I want to know.
I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE FUTURE !