Cosmology
For those interested in astrophysics and cosmology: some comments on their scientific status from professor Bartelmann, who teaches the cosmology course I'm taking here.
"Neither is a science in the traditional sense of the word, as no experiments are being conducted. One does not take a dust cloud, let it collapse into a star and observe when nuclear fusion begins. Nor does one repeat the Big Bang very often in laboratory settings to see how it generally works. Astronomy has the excuse of having very many stars to observe, and thus, assuming spacetime translation invariance, in a sense very often repeating the long-lasting experiment that constitutes a star's life, but cosmology has nothing to go by. Only one object to study, and both its temporal and spatial scales vastly larger than any that can be considered within human range."
Still, people do research on stars, and the universe, and the results seem to make sense, at least for a large part. Of course, the geocentric hypothesis also seems to make sense, for a large part. Only there we know where it doesn't anymore; dark matter, dark energy, and cosmological constants are still a lot more fuzzy in that respect.
Cosmology is one of the fields of research where I often start to wonder why one would go into it at all, except out of pure curiosity. The practical benefits of knowing that we are close to the dark energy-dominated epoch are hard to find, especially since 'close' means 'close on the cosmic time scale', which is about 1010 years (i.e., humankind will in all likelihood have eradicated itself before 'we' would actually enter this epoch).
The funny thing is that of the courses I'm taking here, so far, cosmology seems the most practical one. The reason for this is of course that it uses results from theories that are developed in the other courses, which are therefore much more mathematical, but it still feels refreshingly 'applied'.
"Neither is a science in the traditional sense of the word, as no experiments are being conducted. One does not take a dust cloud, let it collapse into a star and observe when nuclear fusion begins. Nor does one repeat the Big Bang very often in laboratory settings to see how it generally works. Astronomy has the excuse of having very many stars to observe, and thus, assuming spacetime translation invariance, in a sense very often repeating the long-lasting experiment that constitutes a star's life, but cosmology has nothing to go by. Only one object to study, and both its temporal and spatial scales vastly larger than any that can be considered within human range."
Still, people do research on stars, and the universe, and the results seem to make sense, at least for a large part. Of course, the geocentric hypothesis also seems to make sense, for a large part. Only there we know where it doesn't anymore; dark matter, dark energy, and cosmological constants are still a lot more fuzzy in that respect.
Cosmology is one of the fields of research where I often start to wonder why one would go into it at all, except out of pure curiosity. The practical benefits of knowing that we are close to the dark energy-dominated epoch are hard to find, especially since 'close' means 'close on the cosmic time scale', which is about 1010 years (i.e., humankind will in all likelihood have eradicated itself before 'we' would actually enter this epoch).
The funny thing is that of the courses I'm taking here, so far, cosmology seems the most practical one. The reason for this is of course that it uses results from theories that are developed in the other courses, which are therefore much more mathematical, but it still feels refreshingly 'applied'.
posted by Olivier at 5:43 PM
2 Comments:
Oops, there I see the words cosmology and astrology, and you start explaining their scientificness... it took me half you entry to realise you *weren't* talking about astrology. I was already wondering why they'd teach you *that*.
On a different note (as I am too lazy to write you a seperate mail for this anecdote), I was talking to my unit mate about our holidays. So I tell him I want to go in August with friends, then he says he's going in 2 weeks, house sitting (if you get the outcome of the conversation now, you're a fast thinker). I ask where, he says Groenekan, I say ah I know that place a bit, who for, he says Henk Tieleman. Then we end up in a conversation about Henk's kids and how we both know you and how a son in Malawi must be nice to visit (except Christian thought Marieke was the one in Malawi).
I love it when you know people in this sort of circular way.
And talking of family, I've been working with ('under' is more acurate) a neurologist called Alide Tieleman for 3 weeks now. I never manage to get my courage up to ask her if you're related.
Well, sorry for spamming your reactions page.
Liefs,
-x- Q
Astronomy and astrology are always amusing to confuse :).
I don't think I know any Alide's in my family, but that is no absolute guarantee there aren't any. We could of course also be related, but too distantly to have met.
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