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Geologists Claim Earth May Be Softer Around The Middle Than Previously Thought
A new geological study is suggesting that what we know about the lower mantle of the Earth may have to be reevaluated. Since we are unable to actually sample the Earth at those depths, scientists rely on the use of seismic waves to study the lower reaches of the Earth. This new study suggests that material in the lower mantle has unusual characteristics that make sound move more slowly, suggesting a softer makeup than previously thought. "What's most important for seismology is the acoustic properties--the propagation of sound. We determined the elasticity of ferropericlase through the pressure-induced high-spin to low-spin transition. We did this by measuring the velocity of acoustic waves propagating in different directions in a single crystal of the material and found that over an extended pressure range (from about 395,000 to 590,000 atmospheres) the material became 'softer'--that is, the waves slowed down more than expected from previous work. Thus, at high temperature corresponding distributions will become very broad, which will result in a wide range of depth having subtly anomalous properties that perhaps extend through most of the lower mantle."
Jenny Craig. It worked for Pluto.
Makes sense - it gets older - it gets fatter - softer in the middle :-)
And chewy too!
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Waiting patiently for all of the self proclaimed geologists on this site to start spouting BS. You're all experts on everything else... Don't let me down.
Well duh! As I get older I get softer around the middle too!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Softer around the middle, thinning ice sheets - sounds like somebody's getting older...
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
Earth!
Now with delicious soft filling and an irresistably crunchy core!
So is that why our nights are so long?
More on topic, I wonder what difference this will make to the study of seismology? Don't different densities refract the pressure waves from seismic events? Perhaps this new model will improve the ability to measure the location of earthquakes?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
I said it before and I'll say it again, the Earth is a giant micro-waved jawbreaker, and it's warming up! Y'all laughed at me, just wait until you get licked to death by the giant tongue from outer space, or burnt to death once it explodes.
You just got troll'd!
"Hail Satan!" -- Mike S.
Before you go trolling, at least get your there, their, and they're down. Basic grammar goes a lot way to helping your "argument".
I get softer in the middle the more I sit at my desk and surf /. at work.
I didn't know that creationists think that planet earth developed through evolution. This might explain some of their confusion, then.
As for the quote from Genesis: you might be better off reading a version that was not mangled by hundreds of years of wrong translations and political machinations.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I'll assume you were trying to be funny, but firmament means sky, not ground.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
To middle-age, Earth. Wait until things begin to get saggy and noisy all over.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Before you go trolling, at least get your there, their, and they're down. Basic grammar goes a lot way to helping your "argument".
Ouch, that's embarrassing.
Perhaps everything slows down because at its core the Earth is just stupid.
The Russians made 6.7km before giving up drilling not only because of the heat (180c), which could have been worked around, but mainly because any further drilling beyond that point the hole had a tendency to close up like molten soft plastic upon retraction of the drill bit.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=567
Efforts to restrict industrial pollution have lowered the average particulate size created by man. These tiny pollution particles work their way into the earth's mantle, causing it to become more plastic, like a jar of marbles. Left to continue, the earth will become a giant wobbly mush, and we will be flung into space as the earth shakes violently, like a pizza dough spinning and warping. The only thing we can do is begin polluting more immediately, burning as much coal as possible and ripping off all of these pollution control filters.
This is my sig.
We're all softer around the middle than we would like to think.
I wonder whether this observation gives any more credibility to the theory that the center of the Earth might have a nuclear reactor. The following article describes the theory:
http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/jan252002/126.pdf
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
they'll have to remake "The Core"? I mean I like Hilary Swank and all, but not again!!!
Well, the Earth's primary intelligence (humans) is going soft in the head, so I guess it's just old age.
There is a chipmunk
At the center of the earth
And in his big oven
He bakes his own desserts
He warms the ocean
And from that, life springs forth
Little organisms building trash around the clock
Compost heaps
Or melting pots
For Farmer John's
Smoked Sausage stocks
Worms make the dirt
And the dirt makes the earth
And all of the roots have a place to sleep now
All the chanuks have squash to eat now
Worms make the dirt
And the dirt makes the earth
And people hold hands and feel terrific
Food comes from dirt
It's scientific
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Everybody knows that the earth is really hollow and is filled with Reptilians who were banished there for being mean. Just wait til these goofy scientists find a way into it in 2012. Then we will all be doomed.
Until then, I will keep wearing my tinfoil hat with pride.
Yet Genesis the band said "not enough love to go 'round, tell me why this is the land of confusion". I submit, Sir, that this invalidates your argument.
There has been an error in the reporting
Apparently the Geologists recently upgraded (read downgraded) their computers to Windows Vista
Upon processing the results, the OS sensed they didnt not have a full license, and there for sent back only what they had paid for, leading to the premature conclusion of a softer core
that I got out of Geology as a career. I mean talk about boring.......
Vote Quimby!
firmament
c.1250, from L. firmamentum "firmament," lit. "a support or strengthening," from firmus "firm" (see firm (adj.)), used in Vulgate to translate Gk. stereoma "firm or solid structure," which translated Heb. raqia, a word used of both the vault of the sky and the floor of the earth in the O.T., probably lit. "expanse," from raqa "to spread out," but in Syriac meaning "to make firm or solid," hence the erroneous translation.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
And it happens almost every time.
It's not an ozone hole. It's a solar panel for a sex machine.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
That makes sense, the Earth is only 6000 years old.. which is equivalent to 60 man years. .. people might see dinosaurs appear and disappear at intervals.
At age 7000 the Earth will start spewing noxious fumes and it will need a giant catheter to pipe all fluids to outer space.
At age 8000 it will become extremely wobbly, driving off from it's orbit.. some biblical historians also speculate it might smash into mars at this time..
At 9000 light will become extremely dim and the Earth will only see daylight for 2 hrs in a day, the rotation and revolution speeds will slow down to a crawl.. At certain periods of time, it might start hallucinating that it's still 20
At 10,000, the Earth will stop moving.. it will need pipes from other planets in outer space to keep it moving, albeit very very slowly..
It's during the 10,000 - 11,000 age that the Earth will simply collapse and only leave behind a few remnants of it's internals.. these remnants will then be used by God to create the next earth..
at the risk of getting pounded over another joke.....
Wikipedia isn't penned by God?
I thought all biblical transcriptions were guided by Gods hand so no such mangling could occur?
I wonder if there is a boynton beach for planets to retire to???
nuff said...
sig sig sig siggy sig
Hail Slashdot, where ideology always trumps evidence.
I always have the same response for this, every time: Stop with the rhetoric and show me the manuscripts. It's not like Hebrew is some obscure language that nobody understands. So, how would YOU translate the passage in question?
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
Well your test is unfair, not to mention arrogant. You're using specialized jargon vocabulary and concluding from the 'duh' reaction that the person tested wouldn't have a cogent opinion if you phrased it in terms he understood. That's illogical.
Your car mechanic could do the same trick to you by making use of jargon, slang acronyms and whatnot, so that you'd respond with a 'duh' when asked (in jargonspeak) whether you think your car would get better gas mileage under hard or gentle acceleration.
Stripped of its intellectual arrogance, however, you do have a point: it's difficult for someone without substantial background to critically evaluate climatology research on its own merits. This creates a dilemma: as far as the Higgs boson is concerned, it doesn't matter whether only specialists understand the science, because there's no decision needing to be taken about the Higgs boson that affects anyone other than the specialists. With climatology, this is not so. Decisions that must be taken affect everybody. Is it reasonable to leave them entirely in the hands of the few who thoroughly understand the science? Most people say no. They insist on their democratic right to participate in the decision, since it will affect them and their descendants. Not to mention the fact that putting decisions with society-wide consequences into the hands of a small number of people with zero public oversight does not have a very good track record (thalidomide, Chernobyl).
Part of the answer will have to be the elimination of snobbish counterproductive attitudes such as yours ("trust me, I'm a doctor!"), and urgent efforts by people who do understand the science to educate those who don't.
Clearly we do not understand the properties of our inner earth as well as we would like. Where or how does physics describe this acoustic 'softness' given the circumstances? What of earths gravity? Does gravity truly intensify the closer towards to the center you are? Are there any mathematics that accurately describes all this? Lastly, how does the movement of the earth's magnetic dynamo play into all this. I'm no expert in physics, but I certainly hope we see answers to these questions in time.
NASA scientists are pumped because now they can just use a large ground pounding machine to effectively stop the birth of a smaller, more annoying baby Earth.
Correct. Jerome was influenced heavily by the Septuagint, who were in turn influenced by the prevailing cosmology of Alexandria, Egypt, which considered the sky as a vaulted ceiling with support structures.
As for the Hebrew understanding of the construction of the sky, other references hold the idea of something that is stretched or spread out. The idea of a vaulted support is not to be found in Hebrew cosmology.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
I can imagine that earth's "core" may be soft. My reasoning tells me that the "core" is not subject to much gravity. A micro-gravity environment, if you will, due to the relative equal mass in all directions pulling in all directions that balance. Once I think that, I have trouble wrapping my brain around the question: "How great is the pressure?"
If the answer is (relatively speaking) low pressure, then with the estimated high temperature I can imagine a liquid like center.
Well I would have worded it completely differently.
"The earth, its round, and it took a billion imaginative years before humans *landed on it. Make peace, and realize this... Sharing is caring."
At least thats what I would have translated it. And my version is SOOOOoo much friendlier.
*landed = suddenly humans appeared. (based on the great book's example.)
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
At the center of the earth is a singularity.
;^)
Hell, it'd explain the red-shift and why no one can travel faster than the speed of light.
--
Toro
This fellow says Hell is 3700 miles down, speaking from a first hand account. Go 23:00 minutes into the video for the figure.
"6489 207435 890634 72 34893 41 98673 83576 60354847 935078 94370543 87 52403795 4309827 50943875 4092473 50947 320957 430".
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Damned Global Warming is causing the earth to melt!!
I've been saying this for years! Those sissy elves made Middle-Earth too soft! Their overly-peaceful ways made Sauron's rise to power almost inevitable!
Oh, wait...
- Francis Ocoma
Please wait while Sig Request is being processed...
There is no original Hebrew text of Genesis since it is a collection of writings by anonymous contributors, written a few hundred years B.C. Nobody was obviously present during the actual event anyway. Plus, I do not speak or read Hewbrew. But I do know that Hewbrew is so open to interpretation that the Kabbalah is able to add a "hidden" esoteric interpretation level to the Jewish holy texts, alont to the other three levels of "regular" Thora study, which already add heaps of interpretation. So it's not as if having an original Genesis text in Hewbrew meant that there was just one official "true" version.
My "translations and political machinations" comment was a bit misguided re Genesis, I had briefly forgotten that we are talking about the Old Testament, not the new. But let us look at a few existing translations:
King James Version
1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
American Standard Version
1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Bible in Basic English
1:7 And God made the arch for a division between the waters which were under the arch and those which were over it: and it was so.
Darby's English Translation
1:7 And God made the expanse, and divided between the waters that are under the expanse and the waters that are above the expanse; and it was so.
Douay Rheims Bible
1:7 And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so.
Noah Webster Bible
1:7 And God made the firmament; and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
World English Bible
1:7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so.
Young's Literal Translation
1:7 And God maketh the expanse, and it separateth between the waters which are under the expanse, and the waters which are above the expanse: and it is so.
Elberfelder Translation, German (protestant, tries to be literal)
1:7 Und Gott machte die Ausdehnung und schied die Wasser, welche unterhalb der Ausdehnung, von den Wassern, die oberhalb der Ausdehnung sind. Und es ward also.
Katholische Eineitsübersetzung (Catholic Unified Translation), German
1:7 Gott machte also das Gewölbe und schied das Wasser unterhalb des Gewölbes vom Wasser oberhalb des Gewölbes. So geschah es.
Luther Bible 1545, German
1:7 Da machte Gott die Feste und schied das Wasser unter der Feste von dem Wasser über der Feste. Und es geschah also.
Jewish Publication Society
1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
Ok, so God either created a "firmament", an "arch", an "expanse" ("Ausdehnung"), an arch or a vault ("Gewölbe"), a pillar or a stronghold ("Feste"). Forgive me if I'm not impressed by the precision there. In addition, all this dividing of the waters above from the waters below the arch/stronghold/firmament does not seem to make much sense in any of these translations, and the interpretations are all tortured. I don't think anyone can be sure to know what this actually is supposed to mean.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
I wrote "Hewbrew", thrice :( I blame it on the early morning hour in which I wrote this.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Remember that the size of their fleet is based on the current level of technology in the galaxy. So even if we got attacked, it would just be by a single frigate - can't kill more than a few million & blow up a few factories.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
A softer than expected inner layer was the base of the crustal shifting theory of Charles Hapgood in his Path of the Pole book.
The book and theories were prefaced/backed by Einstein, but it was rejected by geologists.
Maybe there was a seed of truth in Hapgood's work?
What's in a sig?
Well, if you basically use the rule "anyone can make words mean anything they want them to", you can surely make Genesis say whatever you want. What the Kabbalists do is pretty much irrelevant to what the actual words of a manuscript are, and what those word mean (I am thoroughly acquainted with what they do to a biblical text, having read many of the old talmudic sources). The same thing is done with the Greek texts by the gematria-obsessed gnostic crowd. Don't even get me started on all the Bible-code garbage (show me one vetted statistician who believes that nonsense). Grammar is grammar and vocabulary is vocabulary. Words have meanings that can be proven by historic use and context. Pray tell, would you treat the text of, say, the epic of Gilgamesh the same way? The Code of Hammurabi? The works of Julius Caesar?
But as to your examples, the translations are either following the Septuagint or the Hebrew text. Expanse is the most accurate word. Firmament/vault/arch all follow the Greek (as did Jerome in the Vulgate). Since the Hebrew word raqiah basically means a thing that is stamped down, stretched out or stamped thin, context must determine what is meant. The context in this case is obvious. Go grab three or four different translations of the Brother's Karamazov and compare them. You will find the same problem.
As to your first contention, that "there is no Hebrew text of Genesis" I make the same response. Show me your manuscript evidence. Show me source fragments. Show me documented proof of a recession. If all you are going to do is repeat the unproven hypothesis (for lack of any evidence) of a small handful of 19th century German theologians, then at least admit it.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
Uh, I never wrote "there is no Hebrew text of Genesis". What I did write is that "there is no original Hebrew text of Genesis since it is a collection of writings by anonymous contributors". There is a difference, you know.
Anyway, your "Brother's Karamazov" (sic) counter example is ridiculous. I will not find the same problem there, as the Brothers Karamazov does not expect me to take it as God's own words and to believe each and every word in it on faith.
My problem is not that there are translation and tradition problems with old texts. That's to be expected and ok. I have an issue with treating such works as holy scriptures that cannot be questioned. And if I'd do such a thing you can bet that it would make a difference to me whether I believe that God has created an expanse, or a stronghold.
And what about those people that trusted Luther in 1545 and held the wrong believe that God created a stronghold. Are they going to rot in hell?
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Isn't it like someone had intelligently designed grammar nazis so they embarrass themselves every time they make a correction?
:P
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
Just wanted to add 2 things:
1. As you correctly remarked, I am anything but an expert in these things. But that's not needed for this discussion, which I meant to be about whether it makes sense to have unquestioned believe in a translated text that you _know_ is not the same as the original.
2. You didn't address my point that neither translation makes any sense, what with the separating of water and water through whatever, be it an expanse, a stretched out thing, a vault or a stronghold.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Welcome our winged, writhing-tentacled green overlord.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah' nagl fhtagn...
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
Your original post was about the grammar and the translation of same. Therefore it is not a ridiculous comparison, since your argument was not about the theology, but about the meaning of specific words.
:)
As to your other questions, I never waste my time arguing theology on Slashdot. Fully prepared to do so. Stupid place to do it. It's like trying to play chess while there is an entire audience booing, throwing rotten vegetables, and spouting Monty Python quotations.
Actually, I think Luther would laugh at your question and shake his head. Then he'd offer to discuss it over beer and brats. I'd be willing to do the same if you're ever in Minneapolis.
Mir tut es leid, Menschen daß Einfältigfehlersuchenbaumfolgendenaffen sind.
"I wrote "Hewbrew", thrice :( I blame it on the early morning hour in which I wrote this."
So, it's too early in the week for thee to be creating?
funny, what we don't know, there is a giant city of crazy rock people who live down there, they are related to rosie od'nal, and Carlos mencia
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss