Slashdot Mirror
What Struck Earth in 775?
ananyo writes "Just over 1,200 years ago, the planet was hit by an extremely intense burst of high-energy radiation of unknown cause, scientists studying tree-ring data have found. The radiation burst, which seems to have hit between 774 and 775, was detected by looking at the amounts of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in tree rings that formed during the 775 growing season in the Northern Hemisphere. The increase in 14C levels is so clear that the scientists conclude that the atmospheric level of 14C must have jumped by 1.2% over the course of no longer than a year, about 20 times more than the normal rate of variation (abstract). Yet, as the only known events that can produce a 14C spike are supernova explosions or giant solar flares, and neither event was observed at the time, astronomers have a cosmic mystery on their hands."
If I do it'll be because I think it's funny; not because you say so.
I really wish people would stop with this sort of thing.
775 was a year of false permissiveness when anyone could read or do anything as long as it was produced by a small cabal known as "the group", headed by "owner".
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"Would this mean carbon dating is inaccurate for items older than 1300 years? "
No; RC dating uses lots of correction tables to account for events like this (this is not the only such event, just the biggest one that is not explained) and for natural/cyclic variations in C14. So the effects of this will already be catered for when computing dates; it's just the 'WTF' of the event itself being discussed here.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
No, it's not demeaning, unless you define "demeaning" as failure to place higher value on political correctness than scientific examination of things based on evidence. Beliefs being heartfelt doesn't make them scientifically valid, and oftentimes seems to result in irrational adherence to said beliefs. This occurs in the face of absolute lack of supporting evidence for said beliefs, and/or overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Write failed: Broken pipe
No. A myth is still a myth no matter how many people believe that it is not. If two billion people started to believe that the world was gnawed out of a carrot by The Great Rabbit, it would still be just a myth.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
Just a side comment, but don't you think it's a little insulting to tell scientists who've put blood and sweat into these scientific discoveries that they need to pander to the religious, to pretend to hold some doubt, to lie that they wish they were wrong, to equivocate when no equivocation is really required, to imply and insinuate and hint rather than outright state what they know (inasmuch as you can know anything -- they'll grant you that), just to make people less sad about the religion they have merely because of the location of their birth and the (recursive) beliefs of their ancestry? I'm not normally one to go and try to de-convert the religious (my parents were missionaries, I'd rather just leave peole alone), but does that mean we have to be on eggshells? Besides -- the religious all feel free to call each other's religions (N) mere mythology and outright lies, why should we hold back about N+1 beliefs?