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Astronomers Awaiting 1a Supernova
Aryabhata writes to tell us BBC News is reporting that astronomers have sighted a star on the brink of a "1a" supernova. This opportunity presents the first chance astronomers have ever had to view a supernova of this magnitude up close. From the article: "They are so rare that the last one known in our galaxy was seen in 1572 by the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who first coined the term nova, for "new star", not realizing he was in fact witnessing the violent end of an unknown star. It has long been believed that type 1a supernovae are the death throes of a white dwarf star. But all modern ones have been so distant that it has not been possible to see what had been there beforehand."
If there are any Latinas in the audience, I want to give your feet a supernova of my man batter. Serious inquiries only.
We don't know that from this article. For one, they don't mention how far away the star is. Two, they don't name the star, so I can't look it up. Three, evidence of a supernova could reach us anywhere in the next 100,000 years, which is about how long it takes light to reach us from the other side of the galaxy.
So if it happens tomorrow, we may not know about it for another 100,000 years. If it happened 50,000 years ago, we might see it tomorrow, or 50,000 years from now.
The article is long on grand imagery, but it's missing the information that would be important to know whether it already happened.
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In a quasi infinate universe these things would happen constantly, not only once in a 225year span. (3*75, which is the human life expectency in Western Europe and the biggest part in the US)
If the universe is 13.7 billion years old and there is only one supernova in the universe each 226years, that would make only 60 619 469 supernovas since the origin of the universe.
wiki:
Supernovae tend to enrich the surrounding interstellar medium with metals, which for astronomers means all of the elements other than hydrogen and helium and is a different definition than that use in chemistry. Thus, each stellar generation has a slightly different composition, going from an almost pure mixture of hydrogen and helium to a more metal-rich composition. Supernovae are the dominant mechanism for distributing these heavier elements
This means, in your words, that only 60 619 469 stellar compositionsions in the universe consist of more then hydrogen and helium alone, so also metals. Which implies aliens do not harvarst human genes and thoughts, but rather metals to build UFO's to show off to other races with their bling bling as it's so rare in the universe.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
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Big deal. Simultaneity through space-time isn't reflexive (thanks to the "minus" sign in ), that doesn't mean that there's some absolute reference frame against which you can say something happened, say, 5000 years ago. In fact: there isn't.
NO. You're assuming that your preferred reference frame is more "real" than other reference frames. IN YOUR REFERENCE FRAME it blew up 4 minutes ago. THAT REFERENCE FRAME IS ARBITRARY.
Imagine a non-accelerating observer moving just under the speed of light in our reference frame, moving past the sun, towards us. As far as he's concerned, he's not moving. Light leaves the sun. One second later, in his reference frame, the light gets to us.
THERE IS NO CORRECT REFERENCE FRAME: his measurement is as valid as yours. It is just as correct to say the light left the sun 1 second ago as it is to say that it left 8 minutes ago.
Space-time is weird stuff - don't try to tack your own intuitive absolute non-relativistic rigid space-time under it, you can't do it. This isn't "just light" behaving that way, it's the way that space-time is structured. Your intuition isn't up to the job, no matter how much you wish otherwise.
God, I hate it when people who don't understand relativity pretenf to, and then try to explain it wrongly, as though it were just about things getting weird when you go fast and causality having a speed limit. Space-time is weirder than that.