For a homework problem, I have my astronomy students calculate how bright the Galactic core would be if it were a quasar and there wasn't any obscuring dust in the plane of the galaxy. It turns out to be about the brightness of the full moon, but since it would be smaller, it would be more striking. That's at a distance of 8 kpc or so.
Ned Wright's cosmology page you linked to is one of the best sources of information out there for cosmology at a variety of levels. Highly recommended.
The quoted age estimate in the original post takes into consideration the acceleration, rest assured.
Well, the leading idea about (this type of) gamma ray burst says that they're associated with supernovas. So, they look like supernovas.
Quasars are the most luminous long-lived light sources. Gamma ray bursts can release more energy for short periods of time, but there are arguments about to what extent the energy is beamed in a preferred direction (complicating efforts to calculate total energy released).
I'm not sure what you mean by "alpha and beta?" Are you talking about alpha and beta radiation? Apples and oranges, although all are called "radiation". Gamma rays are a form of light (very high energy photons), while alpha and beta radiation isn't electromagnetic radiation at all, but rather particles (He nuclei and electrons).
I *think* we observed, or tried to observe, this burst from our local observatory WIRO. At its high redshift, we probably just got limits with the optical camera that was on the telescope. I'll have to check with my student Cassandra Paul who was on and targeted a burst last week. They released some kind of circular.
As a quasar guy, I'm excited about this result but happy a quasar still holds the redshift record.
Hubble's not dead yet, and is still returning awesome data. I've got the first three images from my current project up here. As they show, HST still does a lot better than the typical ground-based imaging.
I just got a new image of a post-starburst quasar today from the Hubble Space Telescope. It's the second in the sample to show a host galaxy that is a clear barred spiral. I actually didn't think I'd see too many of these (expecting more merger products) so I'm going to have fun figuring out what's going on.
Yes, I remember it being a pain to have to provide the redshift of an object into a distance in light-years (under some cosomological assumption) just for a press release. It wasn't particularly far away by cosmological standards, a few billion light-years. I also remember having to look up what constellation it was in, which I had not the slightest clue, to put that in the article, too. It'd be better just to provide the redshift and coordinates, but that level of astronomy knowledge doesn't exist among the general public unfortunately.
I teach astronomy. We've known for quite a few years that the Milky Way is a barred spiral (observations of carbon stars being the best most recent proof prior to Spitzer) and known for decades before that it might be a barred spiral. And a barred spiral IS a spiral galaxy. Cool result in any event.
And on resolution, too, still.
I've got Hubble data coming in this week, imaging, in the optical (600 nm), with a resolution of 0.1 arcseconds. Tell me what telescope I can do that on right now, other than the Hubble. Most of the AO stuff you hear about is for near-infrared observations, which won't always do the job.
Yeah, I was getting personal rejections and encouragement from the editors of Analog, Asimov's, etc., and some short story sales to some anthologies and small press magazines when I stopped to focus on the first novel. My editor would like me to get some short fiction out places like Analog (which gave Star Dragon a very good review), but as a professor, my time is limited. I'm going to write a few short stories after I finish the current round of revisions on the current novel, however.
I think someone on the web may have done a version for the Newton -- try a few google searches. I had several people volunteer to do new or better versions of the book since I'm not an expert at this and neither is my webmaster. The pdf version is the best thanks to a motivated fan, but as you say not every platform takes pdf.
Something more like 5k. I got 5k downloads in the first day the e-version went online on my website after it was mentioned on Boing-Boing (thanks to Cory). Paperback sales are a few mulitples of that, and unfortunately not higher that. Earning out the advance isn't the big deal on a first novel -- the bottom line is whether or not Tor is going to make much money off me and how long it's going to take. I'm still revising my second novel, which won't be out until late 2006, assuming I finish soon. Even if you download Star Dragon and love it, you can't go out and buy my next one for some time. My bad.
Cory Doctorow had just done this and managed to sell something like close to 20k hardbacks of his first novel, which is really great for a first novel. I suggested doing it also to my editor, and she agreed to try it. I didn't get the whole book online until the paperback came out at the end of last year, because I'm too busy and slow. I didn't sell anywhere near 20k copies in hardback, unfortunately.
Creative Commons is a way that lets me explicitly give permission to people to download my book in its entirety and outline what they can do with the book above and beyond copyright law. It's a license, clearly stated. Fair use doesn't legally allow you to take my novel and make a copy for someone else, even if I think that might be a good idea. Creative Commons does, while also explictly saying you're not legally allowed to charge money for doing so.
I want people to read the book, like the book, tell their friends about the book -- and I'm letting a lot of people do that for free online -- so that I can sell some extra paper copies and copies of future books, I hope. Existing copyright doesn't let this happen, and I certainly don't want to just have it in the public domain.
Yes, it's copyrighted, and yes, fair use applies. You're not the first to critcize this sentence, so I obviously should have been clearer. Under fair use, no one can copy and distribute my entire book. They can quote passages and things like that, but the whole book cannot be distibuted by anyone but me under fair use.
Yes, fair use applies to my book, like everything else, but exactly as you say it doesn't let someone copy the entire thing, the "book," and distribute it. That's all I was saying. I'm definately not a lawyer and not as careful in my speech/writing as one.
There are legitimate uses for Creative Commons that this humbug is missing. For instance, I've released my first novel Star Dragon online under CC. It's a real, published novel, still available in hardback and paperback, by Tor, a major U.S. publisher of science fiction and fantasy. No one can distribute my book under "fair use" copyright law, because it wouldn't be, and certainly commercial distribution is right out. The publisher has agreed to try it in a promotional effort, the idea being I will make more sales than I lose. Early tech adopters like Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross have been doing it, too (and while I've gotten great reviews both sell a lot better than me, but are more advanced in their writing careers).
One additional thing. The humbug would claim that in many instances Creative Commons does nothing that isn't already done by existing copyright, except be trendy. Well, don't overlook trendy, I say. Many younger people on the internet these days have a clue what Creative Commons means, and know little to nothing about copyright. They may respect something labelled Creative Commons, and that's worth something. Also, it's nice to see that certain material is expected to be taken, and the author's permission is explicit and clear. It's possible to end up in court with legitimate fair use when the author and the user disagree about what that means.
And finally, even Dvorak is clueless when it comes to copyright. He says you have to add "Copyright 2005" to something to copyright it. You don't. It's automatically covered (you can still do the paperwork and register it, but in principle you don't). So here's a guy writing an article related to copyright who doesn't know the law, criticizing Creative Commons under the assumption everyone already knows the copyright laws.
I publish hard sf with Tor, like Cory, and my first novel is available for free download from my webiste. I'm currently completing revisions on my second, which should be out late next year.
One of my friends/acquaintances, Heino Falcke, works for LOFAR. I was with him at a meeting in Italy in May and got the inside scoop on a lot of things...but it was so far out I'm afraid I didn't assimilate a whole lot of the details. I've used the VLA and published a few radio-based papers, but I'm far from an expert. Definiately a revolutionary, technology-pushing system sure to produce some great science.
On the reverse side, our Dean keeps pushing our department toward computational physics because the start-up expenses are small. But we don't really have ANY experimental physicists in the departments, and our students are missing out as a result. Not everyone wants to do observational astronomy for an undergraduate reserarch experience.
Dammit! Where's my mansion??? And I want a yacht, too. If I step on only six more crackpots, I'm sure I can afford the yacht -- that's what my textbook said back in grad school (you have to know the "secret code" of differential equations to "get the message" of course).
Now I have to get back to Donald Trump about that meeting...and I'll ask about the mansion, too.
Slashdot Mirror
For a homework problem, I have my astronomy students calculate how bright the Galactic core would be if it were a quasar and there wasn't any obscuring dust in the plane of the galaxy. It turns out to be about the brightness of the full moon, but since it would be smaller, it would be more striking. That's at a distance of 8 kpc or so.
Like Q said to Galactus, "I like your big funny hat, except for those weird horn things on the side."
Galactus said nothing.
This pissed off Q, who continued, "Hey big man. Feeling big and purple are we? What, want to eat a planet? That's nothing. I can eat a whole star!"
Galactus said nothing, again, but more loudly.
"Okay," said Q. "You have that ultimate nullifier thingee that makes you all so stuck up. Well, here, let me show you something!"
And then Q blew up the star as Galactus thought Troll and went looking for a planet to eat.
Naw...it's the first flame war!
Ned Wright's cosmology page you linked to is one of the best sources of information out there for cosmology at a variety of levels. Highly recommended.
The quoted age estimate in the original post takes into consideration the acceleration, rest assured.
Well, the leading idea about (this type of) gamma ray burst says that they're associated with supernovas. So, they look like supernovas.
Quasars are the most luminous long-lived light sources. Gamma ray bursts can release more energy for short periods of time, but there are arguments about to what extent the energy is beamed in a preferred direction (complicating efforts to calculate total energy released).
I'm not sure what you mean by "alpha and beta?" Are you talking about alpha and beta radiation? Apples and oranges, although all are called "radiation". Gamma rays are a form of light (very high energy photons), while alpha and beta radiation isn't electromagnetic radiation at all, but rather particles (He nuclei and electrons).
I *think* we observed, or tried to observe, this burst from our local observatory WIRO. At its high redshift, we probably just got limits with the optical camera that was on the telescope. I'll have to check with my student Cassandra Paul who was on and targeted a burst last week. They released some kind of circular.
As a quasar guy, I'm excited about this result but happy a quasar still holds the redshift record.
Hubble's not dead yet, and is still returning awesome data. I've got the first three images from my current project up here. As they show, HST still does a lot better than the typical ground-based imaging.
I just got a new image of a post-starburst quasar today from the Hubble Space Telescope. It's the second in the sample to show a host galaxy that is a clear barred spiral. I actually didn't think I'd see too many of these (expecting more merger products) so I'm going to have fun figuring out what's going on.
Yes, I remember it being a pain to have to provide the redshift of an object into a distance in light-years (under some cosomological assumption) just for a press release. It wasn't particularly far away by cosmological standards, a few billion light-years. I also remember having to look up what constellation it was in, which I had not the slightest clue, to put that in the article, too. It'd be better just to provide the redshift and coordinates, but that level of astronomy knowledge doesn't exist among the general public unfortunately.
I teach astronomy. We've known for quite a few years that the Milky Way is a barred spiral (observations of carbon stars being the best most recent proof prior to Spitzer) and known for decades before that it might be a barred spiral. And a barred spiral IS a spiral galaxy. Cool result in any event.
And on resolution, too, still. I've got Hubble data coming in this week, imaging, in the optical (600 nm), with a resolution of 0.1 arcseconds. Tell me what telescope I can do that on right now, other than the Hubble. Most of the AO stuff you hear about is for near-infrared observations, which won't always do the job.
Yeah, I was getting personal rejections and encouragement from the editors of Analog, Asimov's, etc., and some short story sales to some anthologies and small press magazines when I stopped to focus on the first novel. My editor would like me to get some short fiction out places like Analog (which gave Star Dragon a very good review), but as a professor, my time is limited. I'm going to write a few short stories after I finish the current round of revisions on the current novel, however.
I think someone on the web may have done a version for the Newton -- try a few google searches. I had several people volunteer to do new or better versions of the book since I'm not an expert at this and neither is my webmaster. The pdf version is the best thanks to a motivated fan, but as you say not every platform takes pdf.
Something more like 5k. I got 5k downloads in the first day the e-version went online on my website after it was mentioned on Boing-Boing (thanks to Cory). Paperback sales are a few mulitples of that, and unfortunately not higher that. Earning out the advance isn't the big deal on a first novel -- the bottom line is whether or not Tor is going to make much money off me and how long it's going to take. I'm still revising my second novel, which won't be out until late 2006, assuming I finish soon. Even if you download Star Dragon and love it, you can't go out and buy my next one for some time. My bad.
Cory Doctorow had just done this and managed to sell something like close to 20k hardbacks of his first novel, which is really great for a first novel. I suggested doing it also to my editor, and she agreed to try it. I didn't get the whole book online until the paperback came out at the end of last year, because I'm too busy and slow. I didn't sell anywhere near 20k copies in hardback, unfortunately.
Really good post!
Creative Commons is a way that lets me explicitly give permission to people to download my book in its entirety and outline what they can do with the book above and beyond copyright law. It's a license, clearly stated. Fair use doesn't legally allow you to take my novel and make a copy for someone else, even if I think that might be a good idea. Creative Commons does, while also explictly saying you're not legally allowed to charge money for doing so.
I want people to read the book, like the book, tell their friends about the book -- and I'm letting a lot of people do that for free online -- so that I can sell some extra paper copies and copies of future books, I hope. Existing copyright doesn't let this happen, and I certainly don't want to just have it in the public domain.
Yes, it's copyrighted, and yes, fair use applies. You're not the first to critcize this sentence, so I obviously should have been clearer. Under fair use, no one can copy and distribute my entire book. They can quote passages and things like that, but the whole book cannot be distibuted by anyone but me under fair use.
Yes, fair use applies to my book, like everything else, but exactly as you say it doesn't let someone copy the entire thing, the "book," and distribute it. That's all I was saying. I'm definately not a lawyer and not as careful in my speech/writing as one.
There are legitimate uses for Creative Commons that this humbug is missing. For instance, I've released my first novel Star Dragon online under CC. It's a real, published novel, still available in hardback and paperback, by Tor, a major U.S. publisher of science fiction and fantasy. No one can distribute my book under "fair use" copyright law, because it wouldn't be, and certainly commercial distribution is right out. The publisher has agreed to try it in a promotional effort, the idea being I will make more sales than I lose. Early tech adopters like Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross have been doing it, too (and while I've gotten great reviews both sell a lot better than me, but are more advanced in their writing careers).
One additional thing. The humbug would claim that in many instances Creative Commons does nothing that isn't already done by existing copyright, except be trendy. Well, don't overlook trendy, I say. Many younger people on the internet these days have a clue what Creative Commons means, and know little to nothing about copyright. They may respect something labelled Creative Commons, and that's worth something. Also, it's nice to see that certain material is expected to be taken, and the author's permission is explicit and clear. It's possible to end up in court with legitimate fair use when the author and the user disagree about what that means.
And finally, even Dvorak is clueless when it comes to copyright. He says you have to add "Copyright 2005" to something to copyright it. You don't. It's automatically covered (you can still do the paperwork and register it, but in principle you don't). So here's a guy writing an article related to copyright who doesn't know the law, criticizing Creative Commons under the assumption everyone already knows the copyright laws.
I publish hard sf with Tor, like Cory, and my first novel is available for free download from my webiste. I'm currently completing revisions on my second, which should be out late next year.
One of my friends/acquaintances, Heino Falcke, works for LOFAR. I was with him at a meeting in Italy in May and got the inside scoop on a lot of things...but it was so far out I'm afraid I didn't assimilate a whole lot of the details. I've used the VLA and published a few radio-based papers, but I'm far from an expert. Definiately a revolutionary, technology-pushing system sure to produce some great science.
If animals all reproduced by cloning, how would shy parents be able to teach their kids about sex?
On the reverse side, our Dean keeps pushing our department toward computational physics because the start-up expenses are small. But we don't really have ANY experimental physicists in the departments, and our students are missing out as a result. Not everyone wants to do observational astronomy for an undergraduate reserarch experience.
Dammit! Where's my mansion??? And I want a yacht, too. If I step on only six more crackpots, I'm sure I can afford the yacht -- that's what my textbook said back in grad school (you have to know the "secret code" of differential equations to "get the message" of course).
Now I have to get back to Donald Trump about that meeting...and I'll ask about the mansion, too.