Mystery of an Ancient Super Nova Solved

Bob the Super Hamste writes "The BBC is reporting that the mystery of a supernova seen almost 2000 years ago has been solved. The supernova RCW 86 was observed in 185AD by Chinese astronomers and was visible for eight months. Recently scientists have wondered how the supernova grew so big. By combining data from the Chandra X-ray telescope and the XMM-Newton Observatory with recent images from NASA's Spitzer and Wide-field Infrared Survey telescopes, scientists have figured out that the supernova expanded into a relatively empty bubble of space. These empty bubbles of space are typically associated with a core collapse supernova, but the core remnant is high in iron, which instead is associated with a type 1A supernova. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal."

Comments

So I guess it wasn't

[vanDrunen]

A certain planet from a galaxy far far away

Re:So I guess it wasn't

[Anonymous Coward]

no, obviously it wasn't a fictional planet.

Re:So I guess it wasn't

[Herby Sagues]

Huh. I have a PhD and can still recite the whole first trilogy. So I think you are unscientifically extrapolating from your personal experiences.

Re:So I guess it wasn't

[JoeMerchant]

Huh. I have a PhD and can still recite the whole first trilogy. So I think you are unscientifically extrapolating from your personal experiences.

I hope by "first trilogy" you mean episodes 4-6... I'd hate to guess what that Ph.D is in if you mean 1-3.

Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

CE stands for Common Era, which is the preferred notation now a days. And BCE for the years before that.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[SJHillman]

Not to mention AD goes before the year, not after it. AD 185 would have been correct, 185 AD is not.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[vlm]

CE stands for Common Era, which is the preferred notation now a days. And BCE for the years before that.

Its also the wrong notation. Excellent arguments at the link below by Wilson, Delaney, Panikkar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era#Opposition

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

yep!
whats the point of calling the same thing something different?
If you want a non religiously orientated calendar, don't start from a key point in a religion!

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[EricWright]

Damn straight ... On my calendar, it's October 25, 14,317,304,002.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

And which religion fro which part of the world should everyone else on the planet use? You are aware there are more than European migrant people using Jesus's story as a date point?

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[RazzleFrog]

I am as anti-religion as they come and I think the CE/BCE vs AD/BC thing is ridiculous and petty. If you aren't going to actually change the dates they represent there is no point in changing the letters. It's not like most people even know what AD stands for anymore than they know what AM and PM stand for. There are far more important battles to fight than this one.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[atisss]

Like adoption of Dvorak?

while at this, let's overhaul "second"

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[RazzleFrog]

And to respond to myself...

If you want to change that then don't you think we should change the words for our days of the week? Unless you think Tyr, Woden, Thor, Frige, and Saturn are less religious based than Jesus.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[vlm]

A real /.-er would use stardates. Negative integers if necessary, but stardates.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turtleswamp Industries has been secretly ruling the world since 3972 (by the turtle calendar).

That was back before Kraxicorius Technology split their aviation division from the rest of their company in an ironically misguided attempt to save their other ventures.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Penguinisto]

Agreed. I've always seen it as less an attempt at a clinical dating system, and more of an attempt to sound arrogant (in spite of best intentions).

There are still alternate calendars out there, based on Chinese, Jewish, Muslim, and various other religions. Not too many calendars out there that aren't.

It does make an interesting thought exercise, though... If you're going to make it non-religious, from which point do you start counting up the years? Picking the absolute oldest city in existence won't do it, because you'd have to change it all when an even older city was found. Picking an astronomical event might be easier, but, well, which one? Since we can't estimate the actual to-the-year age of the Earth, doing that is a no-go (and the coins wouldn't have enough room for "4,589,932,016" to be stamped on 'em).

Not a trekkie (or at least not enough of one to really know), but what was the whole Star Trek "Stardate" based on, anyway? It's the closest thing I've seen to any sort of universal and neutral calendar system.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Penguinisto]

Some folks are trying to do just that.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[_0xd0ad]

Duh... like any other revolutionary change to the way we've counted dates. Pick any time of arbitrary significance. Say... "now".

Now you just have to decide whether it was the beginning of year 0 or 1.

Then comes the hard part: getting people to switch. This works better when you bring an army.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>observed in 185AD by Chinese astronomers and was visible for eight months

I'm pretty sure that the Chinese astronomers didn't use either system.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm with you on the "who cares" premise, but while I'd agree that at one time Thor was a religious figure I'd argue he's not anymore -- once a religion dies out of common practice it is either forgotten entirely or becomes part of secular mythology, which is the current status of most ancient Greek/Norse/etc. religions.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[RazzleFrog]

They is really completely arbitrary and subjective, though. I am sure that some people still worship the old Norse gods.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Synerg1y]

Great, we cast away AD/BC system and KEEP the year numbering as that is an accumulative figure based on the passing of the seasons, etc... so unless Christianity was kind enough to provide us with our seasons back in the day, I think a year would still remain a year in this unholy atheistic world.

Now why would Christians stand in the way of science almost 1 for 1? That is truly worthy of debate.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your drippy, touchy feely, politically correct secularism offends me.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[atisss]

Sure, but 9 192 631 770 Caesium transitions is not very handy, so that should be changed first.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[at_slashdot]

So you consider something as being "wrong" just because three people have some arguments against it? Not even that good arguments if you take a look, one uses a slippery slope fallacy and another one is about the feeling of non-Christians (it's debatable which of BCE/CE and BC/AD are more appropriate for non-Christians...)

Regardless of arguments and how good they are, it rubs me the wrong way your certainty "it's also the wrong notation", a more honest approach would be "there are opinions against it".

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dammit, you just made me google what AM and PM are acronyms for. It's been decades since I first learned it and it's never really come up again so the knowledge was never reinforced.

Oh well, at least I know it again.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or "Christ's Era" and "Before Christ's Era". You'll need yet another pair of acronyms now fella!

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[ceoyoyo]

Those aren't excellent arguments. They're silly. Oh noes, if we stop saying AD we're going to eventually change the whole calendar! Their arguments are at least silly. The Southern Baptist Church appears to be trying to convince people to USE CE:

"The Southern Baptist Convention has criticized the use of BCE and CE as being the result of "secularization, anti-supernaturalism, religious pluralism, and political correctness"

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[ceoyoyo]

Take a celestial navigation course. It all makes sense.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

You lot always wait too long to whine! Where were you when we transitioned from BC to AD? Do you know how hard it was to get people to start counting upwards?

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[ceoyoyo]

It's religious people who care. If you're religious but not Christian you may not want to pronounce Jesus as your lord every time you write a date. I'm not religious but I can certainly understand that sentiment, and it's easier if we all just use the same thing. So CE it is.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[7-Vodka]

Thanks, I love it when people tell me what to do.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[khallow]

He's using time passed from the beginning of the universe. Which is far more awesome than mere stardates.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[ilguido]

It's in the peer-reviewed article, and a couple of those authors are clearly of Asian descents (Gavamian is an iranic surname, and Jeonghee speaks for itself).

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[bryan1945]

How about we just use +/- 0 (zero). Pick your point, all nicely metric like.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Bucc5062]

which means if you roll the clock back, the universe was actually created on a Tuesday. Always felt the weekend was on the wrong days.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Mycroft_VIII]

IIRC stardates from tos are based on the epsisode number.

Mycroft

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Preferred by whom?

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[c 0xFF]

Reading comprehension fail. Multiple times.

The first objection is religious, of course, and that's to be expected since the notation comes from religion. You've also completely flipped what the Southern Baptist Convention said. Reread that entire paragraph. Let's leave religious arguments of of this for a moment, however.

Most of the other objections are very similar. They don't say that we'll "eventually change the whole calendar." More accurately, the point is that changing to CE/BCE is a matter of removing religious references from our calendar system, so we shouldn't just change the one instance of it. Almost everything about our calendar is religious. Regardless of the what symbol you put after it, the year is still based around Christian beliefs. The number of days comes from jewish and babylonian beliefs and traditions. The names of the days come from a variety of religious deities, as do names of months. At least the concept of a month comes from a scientific principle, but that's about it. Note the difference between "we're going to eventually change the whole calendar" and "why just change the one thing?"

The last objection is interesting, although as an engineer I think it's absurd: will people really be that confused between BCE and CE? To me, that's like saying a negative sign is confusing to people learning math.

However, I think the best argument here is:

Anthropologist Carol Delaney argues that the substitution of BC/AD to BCE/CE is merely a euphemism that conceals the political implications without modifying the actual source of contention.

BCE/CE is just a euphemism. It doesn't change anything, it doesn't have any real purpose. Christians see it as a direct attack against them (and honestly, they're right in many ways), which will mean it never really gets full acceptance. And in the end, the calendar is still rooted in the same religious beliefs.

For a (bad) analogy, it's kind of like changing the official designation from "postman" to "postal worker" and then still only hiring men for the position, just to avoid offending a (possibly large) group of people.

On the other hand, the calendar contains an interesting history of religions, which has become part of our culture. What's so wrong with that?

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[c 0xFF]

And the words for the months of the year.

January was named for the god Janus.
February was named for a roman festival of purification.
March was named for the god Mars.
April might have was named for the god Aphrodite.
May was named for the god Maia.
June was named for the god Juno.

July and onward are exceptions, being named after two people and the numbers 7-10.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Artifakt]

July and August are not exceptions - They were named after Julius and Augustus as part of ceremonially making those Caesers gods after their deaths.
Squeezing them in moved the month numbered seven (September) to the ninth slot, October to tenth and so on.

There were some people who got as far as officially changing the week and month so that there were no ancient religious mentions involved. For example, they made the name of the hottest month Thermidore so as to give it a quite rational association and avoid naming months after deified Roman emperors in their new calender. This didn't stick, because they a. also instituted what was called 'The Reign of Terror", b. died violently within weeks of tampering with the calender, and c. went down in history as mostly first class jerks.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Herby Sagues]

What's the point? How about solving 90% of the problem with .000001% of the cost? Changing the numbering system wouldn't just be difficult. It will just not happen. You can tray, but you will fail. At which point you will have only helped preserving the current system of AD/BC. By moving to the CE system you stop using a religious term (which is the problem because to some is usign a fictitious character for a science reference) while continuing to use an arbitrary zeroing point, which is not a problem since unless you are able to count from the big bang or use a moving system that's based on the present time (both quite impractical), all references are arbitrary, and chosing the arbitrary (and inaccurate) date of the alleged birth of some person is as good as choosing anything else. Fundamentalists like you that dismiss battles that can be won in favor of ones that can't are the reason why fairy tales still rule society today. Pick your battles and you may win sometimes.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I used to be like you, never bothered about it. Further I went to Christian schools, and in the rural south India, even the Christian teachers did not know A.D stands for Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord. They claimed A.D stands for After Death. That confused the heck out of me. If BC is Before Christ, and AD is after death what is the 33 year of his (lack of capitalization intentional) alleged[*] life?

Anyway, I never thought much about it, till I read a column by William Safire. He used to write a column on etymology and origin of words and phrases etc in NYT. Later I learnt that he was a speechwriter for Nixon. In one of his NYT English language column he was bragging that he was instrumental in inserting the letters "A.D. 1970" into the wording etched on the gold plate carried by one of the Voyager spacecraft. He was proud that the spacecraft is carrying a reference to Jesus Christ, and he was able smuggle that reference aboard that spacecraft evading the watchful eyes the evil atheistic NASA scientists, who had no clue.

Compared to the intellect of the NASA scientists who could design a spacecraft like that, this guy is a little political hack, a bigoted one at that. If he is proud of A.D that is reason enough to oppose it.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[LWATCDR]

I am fairly religious and it just doesn't bother me. I do find the anti religion zelots a bit amusing. I am just waiting for them to demand that Maryland and San Francisco change their names because of separation of church and state.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because, as CE denotes, the Christian calendar is already in common use throughout the world as a means of coordination between various countries because many countries and beliefs do have their own internal calendar systems (ie. 2011 CE is 4647 or 4707 on the Chinese calendar, 4344 on the Korean calendar, 2554 on the Thai calendar and 2555 on the Buddhist calendar). The Christian calendar has become the de facto universal date system much like English has become the de facto universal language. As such, it makes sense to adapt it to respect all beliefs in as simple a manner as possible. AD -> CE and BC -> BCE seem like perfectly reasonable alterations to me.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[dryeo]

What does Maryland have to do with religion? I guess you could argue that her husband thought he derived his power from God but considering he lost his head over that argument I don't see how Henrietta Maria of France is related to religion.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not preferred by me, especially as i view this as neither common, nor an era. Take your Orwellian speak elsewhere.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now wait just a centon! That idea is the most ridiculous piece of felgercarb I've ever heard!

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[niktemadur]

Check this calendar proposal, I remember seeing it twenty years ago on Omni Magazine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquility_Calendar

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Only you can't measure it with any accuracy at all and its a such a big number i would never bother writing it down. The proper way is seconds since the last epoch. Currently that is j2000.0 . Star dates are not consistent in star trek so we can't use those. Once we have a devastating war against the machines we can use that? Assuming we win.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fairly religious and it just doesn't bother me. I do find the anti religion zelots a bit amusing. I am just waiting for them to demand that Maryland and San Francisco change their names because of separation of church and state.

I find it amusing that you assume anybody who doesn't buy into one of the "Big Three" religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) is an "anti-religious zealot".

I'm religious, but your Lord is not my Lord, and I dispute your claim that your Lord is the one who "owns time". So instead of getting into a pissing contest over whose God gets to be the one running Time, how about we just agree to call it the "Current Era", and leave all the dates the same so we don't have to fuck around with changing calendars?

Seems reasonable to me. The only people I see objecting to it seem to be some religious zealots who have a problem with anything that doesn't have "Christ, Jesus, or Lord" plastered all over it.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Attila Dimedici]

I know of at least one couple that worship the Norse gods (and raise their children to do so as well). From conversations with them, I am under the impression that they are part of a group that does so. The reason I am unsure is because they have on a number of occassions referred to a group that they have been involved with in activities that I would tend to identify as religious, but they have been very ambiguous about the nature of the group (and even the activities).

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[azadrozny]

It is a real pain when the bank rejects your checks dated Oct., 25 '02.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[N0Man74]

I don't know about your friends... but apparently Norse god worship is also not uncommon among some groups of white supremacists.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[LWATCDR]

Well here we have a problem of History books. My history book said that Maryland was created as a refuge for Catholics so was given the name Maryland after Mary. So was it a home for Catholics named after the blessed virgin Mary or named af the a queen named after the blessed virgin Mary?
I am not catholic so if I in anyway did not show the proper respect when using Mary's title and place in reference to Roman Catholic belief it was purely caused by my ignorance and not out of any attempt to be disrespectful.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[ByOhTek]

Since dates and time frames are the subject, I'm just going to comment on your sig since it's tangentally related.

3.5GY - 4GY, not 3GY.

one link I found places life at, at least, 3.85GY.
http://books.google.com/books?id=csJlqn4BokIC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=fossilized+bacterial+mounds+australia&source=bl&ots=Sdw9htUNHx&sig=kOTPe0YO_Y0snxGJ2XGnLaLQa_o&hl=en&ei=ThWoTvmhCfT5sQL33eHsDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

<SARCASM>
Damn you 3GY young earthers. Trying to be trendy like the 6KY young earthers while still trying to fit into the scientific community! :-P
</SARCASM>

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[_0xd0ad]

For a better analogy, it's like trying to substitute "Xmas" for "Christmas". The Christians take it as a direct attack on them (which it is, really), most everyone else thinks you're being petty, it never really catches on, and (not least importantly) the joke's on you really since you're still basing it off of the same Christian roots that you attempted to eradicate. X is the first letter in the Greek word for "Christ". Similarly, the "current era" is still based on the life of Christ. Change it from AD (Anno Domini, "the year of our Lord", not "after death" as it's often misunderstood to mean) to CE? You called it something different. Big whoop.

For an analogy that Christians would appreciate, it's like the whiners who complained about the title on Jesus cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews". The title stayed, and the whiners were told to go take a piss. Who cares what it's called? It is what it is, and it's called what it is, and that's the way it's going to stay. Unless you really, seriously believe that a sign on a gallows is going to change anyone's mind as to whether the executed was (or wasn't) the king of the Jews.

Or for an analogy that Slashdotters might appreciate more, it's like using the word "fracking" on TV because you (still) can't broadcast the word "fucking" over public airwaves. Everyone knows what it means, and everyone thinks it's a stupid fucking technicality.

There's a riddle that goes... if you call a lamb's tail a leg, how many legs does it have?
Four. It has four legs and a tail, and you're silly if you call its tail a leg.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Three point five to four billions years ago just does not have the right ring to it. Also i was referring to when the earth is completely covered by these grey goo things. Which is suspected to be a bit later than first life.

:P

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Attila Dimedici]

I had run across that before, but had forgotten it. I am pretty sure that this particular person is not a white supremacist, but now that you have mentioned it, I will have to look for signs of that.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[_0xd0ad]

I'm religious, but your Lord is not my Lord, and I dispute your claim that your Lord is the one who "owns time". So instead of getting into a pissing contest over whose God gets to be the one running Time, how about we just agree to call it the "Current Era", and leave all the dates the same so we don't have to fuck around with changing calendars?

You might as well have said,

I'm religious, but your Lord is not my Lord, and I dispute your claim that your Lord is the one who "owns marriage". So instead of getting into a pissing contest over whose God gets to be the one running weddings, how about we just agree to call them "civil unions", and leave everything else the same so we don't have to fuck around with changing the rest of the laws and stuff?

I'm not going to argue with the sentiment (I've actually argued for that civil union point before), but it's goddamn petty. It's not going to change, and the only thing to do is ignore the people who want to be petty about it, because they'll never change.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[dryeo]

Quite possibly both are right. Unofficially named after the Mary that the Catholics worship, officially named after the Kings wife.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[LWATCDR]

"Quite possibly both are right. Unofficially named after the Mary that the Catholics worship, officially named after the Kings wife."
Who was named after the Mary that Catholics hold in high reverence.
I am pretty sure that most Catholics would say the worship God and revere Mary but again I am just guessing.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[Coren22]

We could just use the date of the appearance of the star reported in the bible as leading the wise men to Jesus. :)

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[dryeo]

I am pretty sure that most Catholics would say the worship God and revere Mary but again I am just guessing.
Actions speak louder then words and quite a few Catholics act as if they worship Mary. This isn't surprising as the Judea-Christian religions are severely lacking a female side to their God.

Re:Use CE, Avoid AD to designate the years.

[LWATCDR]

I try to respect others beliefs so I am not going to say that a Catholic believes this or that . I can say that my faith doesn't believe in the saint system that the Catholic church does but I am in now way offended by a town named after a Saint.

And never, ever spell it Aluminium

[RobinEggs]

Um, why? Do you hate the monarchy? Can you just not stand the Christian goobers who think AD means 'after death'?

If it's clear then they can use it. It's not like biology or chemistry, where the old term is a serious waste of brain space and thousands of things were named or numbered completely wrong in the first place, based on limited knowledge or overzealous use of bad Greek or something. It's a completely clear and simple synonym that you want to eliminate, I presume, solely for the sake of consistency.

Consistency is a means, not an end.

Re:And never, ever spell it Aluminium

[JamesonLewis3rd]

Anno Domini

Re:And never, ever spell it Aluminium

[Penguinisto]

Like sibling said - AD stands for the Latin Anno Domini, which in English comes out to: "In the Year of Our Lord"

That's also why AD goes in front of the date in traditional year designation (so that AD 2011 reads out: "In the Year of Our Lord, Two-Thousand Eleven" )

Re:And never, ever spell it Aluminium

[waives]

Of course, in latin word order signifies very little, so this convention is debatable...

Re:Adopt the flat tax now!

[Sarten-X]

Everyone pays the same, except for those who can afford to shuffle money out of (whatever your particular country is) to somewhere else, those who have disproportionately high or low profit margins, and anybody else with a some disparity between their actual situation and the particular number chosen for taxation.

The system (whatever your particular country is) has is a monster because it's the government's attempt to model real life in nice easy-to-compute numbers. Life is complex, and so are taxes.

The Star

[gmuslera]

Wouldnt be it the one named in that tale from A.C.Clarke? Wouldnt be so surprising if early church record dates were adjusted to give a bit more "magic" to its origins.

Re:The Star

[dkleinsc]

Probably not. Modern scholarship seems to mostly be of the opinion that any kind of notable star around 4 BCE (which is when we currently think Jesus might have been born) would most likely have been not a star at all, but a comet.

But in any event, the Clarke story by that name is fantastic.

Re:The Star

[catmistake]

Nope, it is a star. The mythology behind the birth of Christ is far older than Christianity, as Horus, Krishna, and many others, all have the same basic birth/martre story. The star is Sirius. The "Three Kings" are the prominent stars in Orion's Belt. On December 25th, the Three Kings (stars) "follow" Sirius... they always line up, but on Dec. 25th, they point at the spot where the Sun rises. Looks like all these religions that have the same outline of a mythology all have a common source in some unknown early agrarian society. I'm not sure what problem these BCE/CE secularists have with agriculture... it is a calendar, after all, and what better way to build a calendar than by using the clockwork of the cosmos to tell us when to plant and harvest?

Re:The Star

[Phoobarnvaz]

Probably not. Modern scholarship seems to mostly be of the opinion that any kind of notable star around 4 BCE (which is when we currently think Jesus might have been born) would most likely have been not a star at all, but a comet.

Another different theory says that the "wise" men from the East were actually astrologers. The star or cosmic event was actually something on their astrology charts which told them about some significant event happening in Palestine. When you have Herod's court mentioning they didn't notice anything in the sky...it was nothing more than astrology being used.

Not giving it any more credence than any other theory...but whichever is true...Jesus was born about this time.

Re:The Star

[Anonymous Coward]

nice explanation of that here, a very nice and tidy analysis... however, their conclusions do not quite follow. Only recently has "myth" become synonamous with "lie." A mythology is not something one should apply a truth value to, because when you do, you are missing the whole point. Think of it the way Carl Jung and Joseph Campell have suggested, that a mythology is a social dream, and a dream is a personal mythology. In a way, at the roots of these mythologies, it always must be true, because it is an expression of our social psyche, a way to understand what or who we are... at least that is what it was for the old ones... these days, I believe we have lost our collective identity due to misinterpretations of mythologies as literal and from secular pressure.

Re:The Star

[turgid]

Another different theory says that the "wise" men from the East were actually astrologers. The star or cosmic event was actually something on their astrology charts which told them about some significant event happening in Palestine. When you have Herod's court mentioning they didn't notice anything in the sky...it was nothing more than astrology being used.

So he's not the messiah, then, he's a very naughty boy?

Re:The Star

[ceoyoyo]

CE proponents don't have anything against agriculture (they're not advocating changing the calendar). In modern times CE was used by people who, for religious reasons, didn't want to refer to Jesus as their lord every time they wrote a date. Many people who are not religious kind of feel the same way.

Re:The Star

[Daniel Dvorkin]

A mythology is not something one should apply a truth value to, because when you do, you are missing the whole point ... I believe we have lost our collective identity due to misinterpretations of mythologies as literal and from secular pressure.

The "secular pressure" is solely in response to pressure from people who do believe in the myth as literal fact. If you want to interpret the story of Jesus' birth as a Jungian / Campbellian "social dream," that's fine, but that's not how most believers intepret it -- nor is there any reason to believe that they ever have, from the days of Peter and Paul to the present.

Re:The Star

[Anonymous Coward]

A mythology is not something one should apply a truth value to, because when you do, you are missing the whole point.

Thankyou for perfectly describing the entire religion of Christianity. And most others, as well.

Now, if the followers would understand this, we would not be having "debates" about teaching "Intelligent Design" in schools, they would not feel that science is trying to disprove God, Evolution would not be controversial, and Catholics would be able to use birth control.

Sadly, that's not the case. As far as they are concerned, if it's not 100% down-to-earth solid fact, then it's a Lie. So you just called their God a lie by implying that the facts disagree with their preconceived notions of Divinity and Reality. You probably sacrifice children to the Devil in you basement shrine as well.

Re:The Star

[Attila Dimedici]

Actually, the best theory is that the "star" was a particular conjuction of planets that the astrologers of the region around Babylon would have taken to indicate that a particularly significant royal figure had been born in Israel/Judea/Palestine (it is unclear to me from the several articles I have seen on the subject what those astrologers would have referred to the region as--although it is improbable that they would have used the last as not even the Romans were using it yet at that time). Interestingly enough, there was such a conjunction that occurred around that time that would have appeared in the constellation that the Babylonian/Persian astrologers of the time associated with the Jews/Judea (I will use that designation here since it was the one being used by the Romans at the time).

Re:The Star

[catmistake]

Sadly, that's not the case. As far as they are concerned, if it's not 100% down-to-earth solid fact, then it's a Lie. So you just called their God a lie by implying that the facts disagree with their preconceived notions of Divinity and Reality.

Not at all. And in fact we can expect another solar deity with the same story within the next 500 years or so as these characters show up once an age, like clockwork. Jesus said his successor will be carrying jugs of water. Its not a joke, look at the procession of the equinoxes... "this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!"

Re:The Star

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The CE thing has nothing to do with hating agriculture, that assertion is pretty odd, I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion. It's about getting away from referring to God every time you write a date, namely, Anno Domini and Before Christ.

Even many Christians don't believe Jesus was born on Dec 25. They often think of it is Jesus' birth observed. Besides, a star that lines up with the sun every year would contradict the story a bit. If it happened every year, the Magi wouldn't have had any reason to travel on account of that star, because they'd already know it happened every year.

Re:The Star

[Anonymous Coward]

>*On December 25th, the Three Kings (stars) "follow" Sirius...*//

The Bible mentions some magi, but not 3 and not kings.

Unix Years

[thehickcoder]

Let's just call 1970 year 0 and be done with it. Previous years are negative, following years are positive.

Re:Unix Years

[catmistake]

And what of Y2K38?

Re:Unix Years

[vanDrunen]

Who says we have to limit the integer size to 32 bits? Unix time FTW!

Common Era, Current Era, or Christian Era

[Anonymous Coward]

Common Era (sometimes Current Era or Christian Era),[1] abbreviated as CE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

Re:Adopt the flat tax now!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the poor end up screwed because the whole income is taxed, and not just what's left over after rent, food, and utilities. The investment class ends up paying less tax, the poor more. Tax the net instead of the gross, and we'll talk.

So, on behalf of the poor - fuck you.

CET - Common Era Time?

[G3ckoG33k]

Or, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE

Abbreviations are a pain.

No core remnant in Type 1a

[Dastardly]

It probably should just say remnant. Type 1a supernova are the complete destruction of a white dwarf by nuclear fusion of a substantial portion of the white dwarf's mass, which does not leave behind a core.

Re:No core remnant in Type 1a

[osu-neko]

Indeed, TFA reads:

However, the case is not closed for RCW 86; these cavities are associated only with what are called core-collapse supernovas, but the Chandra and XMM-Newton observations show evidence of a great deal of iron in the remnant - associated instead with Type 1A supernovas.

The phrase in the /. summary, "...but the core remnant is high in iron..." appears to be the invention of the submitter, and does not appear in the original article.

Re:No core remnant in Type 1a

[sinequonon]

Correct. Iron cores are associated with Type Ib/Ic & Type II core-collapse supernovae. Type Ia supernovae typically originate with carbon-oxygen white dwarfs that have only their primordial iron abundance.