Subject:
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Re: Geology from Outer Space
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 4 Apr 2001 19:44:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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770 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bruce Schlickbernd writes:
> To actually answer your question is we futz about with things until we have
> reasonable confidence they work. :-)
Oh, so it's just like computer programming! :-,
> Here's an example of establishing part of a time frame through polar
> reversal and sea-floor spreading. [...]
Got it, thanks for the example.
> My advice would be to look into it in an encyclopedia - the whole subject
> exceeds my knowledge to explain it adequately.
I've done this, at least with World Book (I read this thoroughly when I was
youger :-) and Encarta (blech) and a couple of other brands. They just
kinda gloss over the details and hem and haw until you hit the next entry
and realize that there was nothing there. I haven't tried Britannica lately
tho... Do you have a recommendation, a personal fave?
> Is the sun 3 billion years
> old or 5 billion? Studing similiar stars and their progression through age.
> Calculated rate of consumption of fusionable materials.
The "stellar age" part I have some serious exception with, in that we simply
haven't been around long enough to verify that this is how stars age. At
best we've seen births and deaths in novae, and observed how stars up to so
many billions of light-years away look. It's hard for me to believe that we
have such a solid grasp of astrophysics and relativity and space-time from
such a *tiny* observation point. To some extent, these theories can be
verified with what we know of nuclear principles, but then quantum theory
begins to poke holes into our understanding of *that*.
There are so many questions in this equation, that I'm surprised more people
are not questioning some of the principles that lead us to it. At least,
there should be more acceptance of the possibility that *some* form of
metaphysics helps govern the universe.
Anyway, there's my straw man for the day. I'm not even sure my soccer
cleats left any marks on it. :-,
> I've barely scratched the surface and see how much I've written. Woof.
The effort is appreciated, tho. :-,
Cheers,
- jsproat
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Geology from Outer Space
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| (...) I minored in Geology, so most of my knowledge on the subject came from hardcore geology texts. You might want to look in used book stores for the Time-Life series on Geology. Not up-to-date, I'd imagine, but they are far more involved than an (...) (24 years ago, 4-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Geology from Outer Space
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| (...) This is a rather large subject that I could only cover here in the briefest possible manner. In part, a number of techniques may be combined as double-checks: Known decay rates of radiactivity - Carbon-14 is the best known but there are a (...) (24 years ago, 4-Apr-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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