Ignimbrite: Astrophysics

Ignimbrite 01.26.12	fucking science, man
FromDaHood 01.26.12	Brian May has a doctorate in astrophysics. That shit blows my mind.
Ignimbrite 01.26.12	that is badass
cb123 01.26.12	astrophysics is quite interesting, wish i could have chosen to do my phd in that side of physics but wasnt really an option at the university i was at
IAmHollywood 01.26.12	you should have put BATS for 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODj3joLM9Zs
Ignimbrite 01.26.12	i mean, i want to go into geophysics but still what did you end up studying?
wabbit 01.26.12	so god made all this shit in one day but took and entire day making adam? And needed to take a rib from him to make Eve?
Josh D. 01.26.12	gam...ma...ray...BURST
Josh D. 01.26.12	Event horizon and shit.
IAmHollywood 01.26.12	I salute you
Satellite 01.26.12	fuck astrophysics, i'm moving to indiana http://www.ibj.com/senate-panel-oks-creationism-teaching-bill/PARAMS/article/32182
Josh D. 01.26.12	Puke.
IAmHollywood 01.26.12	lol but seriously this shit blows my mind to the next galaxy
Yazz_Flute 01.26.12	Humbling.
cb123 01.27.12	i went into optics but yeah astrophysics has some pretty insane stuff
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	"but seriously this shit blows my mind to the next galaxy" that's pretty far away but it blows MY mind to UDFj-39546284
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	i win
Acanthus 01.27.12	Awesome list!
robertsona 01.27.12	im taking physics now and its sucking the life + desire to ever do science again out of me idk
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	i'm in advanced physics and astrophysics and both classes own hard they're also insanely difficult (especially advanced) but whatever
Satellite 01.27.12	lol @ not being an english major i don't need no motherfucking science
cb123 01.27.12	yeah i love the maths behind all the physics and ya can truly see how awesome that everything works the way it does and how seemingly unrelated fields share mathematical similarities.
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	i want to get a job someday so i'm not going for an english major
IAmHollywood 01.27.12	edge of the universe. beat that.
Satellite 01.27.12	hmm i hadn't considered that
Sirob 01.27.12	took astronomy last semester, some of the shit like this blew my fucking mind.
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	yeah things in the universe are hella big it makes me feel depressingly insignificant
IAmHollywood 01.27.12	software engineering student here lol English majors enjoy those essays
feav233 01.27.12	lol yea, astronomy is pretty cool
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	yea it is. science in general is pretty bomb though
toxin. 01.27.12	I'm pretty sure this is more astronomy than astrophysics. Kind of want to be an astrophysicist but I'll probably end up being an engineer. eh
Voivod 01.27.12	6 is so awesome.
insomniac15 01.27.12	the phases stars go through are just mindblowing, as well as everything about planets and black holes and dark matter and everything else. I wish I had been better at physics and math when I was in middle school, maybe I could've signed for the astronomy university
wabbit 01.27.12	I thought the current understand of the shape of the universe is that it doesn't have an edge but is expanding into itself.
Hyperion1001 01.27.12	well there are several models but i think the most widely discussed at the moment is that it is expanding back onto itself there are some other really cool ideas floating around though
wabbit 01.27.12	are there any theories on where the singularity could have possibly come from? I know you have the big crush theory but that just delays the explanation.
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	my understanding of the expanding universe is that it's a three-dimensional universe expanding on a four-dimensional plane, like if you drew a bunch of points on a deflated balloon and blew it up (with the points representing galaxies, dark matter, etc).
UnnamedOcean 01.27.12	Astronomy is fucking cool. I really wish I could take more courses in it, but I don't have time for a year of physics and calculus.
jefflebowski 01.27.12	astrophysics rules
Hyperion1001 01.27.12	essentially what ive come to understand is that the universe is expanding from a singularity at a rate that is governed by the hubble constant. under this model, the universe isnt an infinite body, and has a critical density governed by the matter and placement throughout the universe. as the universe expands, eventually the density of the universe will exceed the critical density and the gravitational force will stop the universe from expanding and eventually reverse it, the big crush theory essentially what is interesting though is that based on Einsteins equations and ideas about gravity, the force of gravity has the power to warp time. and what if all the matter in the universe were condensed down into one singularity? well, one theory is that time completely stops, or ceases to exist, until another expansion occurs.
NWOAHM666 01.27.12	Cool stuff here. I studied that in high school (I'm a technology student).
jefflebowski 01.27.12	My school textbooks from a few years ago all said that the the mass of the universe was less than the critical mass required for a big crunch, and it would just expand indefinitely....
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	well, one of my textbooks says that stars cannot be over 150 solar masses so idk about them anymore
jefflebowski 01.27.12	yeah, a lot of astrophysics-based theories are pretty speculative anyway. not that that makes them any less awesome
Nikkolae 01.27.12	this list deserves a mastodon guitar solo.
foxblood 01.27.12	there's pretty much nothing more interesting than quantum mechanics and astrophysics. when i find someone that's into them i can get into a discussion for hours
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	yee, quantum physics is probably the most utterly confusing, fascinating, and mystifying thing mankind has ever attempted to explain
foxblood 01.27.12	yeah seriously. watching documentaries and reading about it is just..ugh. i'm somewhat convinced it's a realm that the human mind will never have a capacity to even begin comprehending. dude i talked with my old astronomy teacher about that hubble ultra deep field picture for like an hour once. probably the most impressive picture ever taken
Hyperion1001 01.27.12	yeah that picture is strange because the more you stare at the more you realize how absolutely positively completely insignificant you are
foxblood 01.27.12	yeah it's an inevitable conclusion hyper. the universe contains billions of galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars, with TRILLIONS of planets in just the milky way. Billions of galaxies each containing trillions of planets. if you don't feel insignificant after that then you didn't think hard enough
jefflebowski 01.27.12	the HUDF image is just breathtaking
jefflebowski 01.27.12	I also find it awesome that the first 5/6 epochs of the universe occurred in less than a second
wabbit 01.27.12	ya pretty much everything happened in under a second. Like the laws of physics were created at that point.
taylormemer 01.27.12	Perhaps the most impressive model of the universe (still underway) is the Sloan Sky Survey.
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	I actually learned about that one today: pretty impressive stuff.
jefflebowski 01.27.12	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum Vacuum Metastability Events are trve kvlt
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	yeah you could name a bm album after that shit
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	or a djent album, but djent is way too gay for something that awesome
jefflebowski 01.27.12	heat death of the universe would be an awesome name for an album
taylormemer 01.27.12	Another one you guys should check out is 'quantum entanglement'. (that's actually certainly a good name for a djent album)
jefflebowski 01.27.12	i'ma definitely check that out once i've finished spending the next 2 hours on wikipedia reading about black holes
Ignimbrite 01.27.12	i did that same thing last night except it was about hypergiants and how some of them are so big that they just blow into a bunch of heavy elements that get lost in the cosmic wind instead of forming a neutron star or a black hole also i read about this theoretical object called a "quark star," where something i didn't quite catch happens to an overdense (a neutron star of "normal" density will weigh a billion tonnes for a single thimble full) neutron star and it shifts into an even denser star made entirely of strange matter. apparently the transformation from neutron to quark star would be more energetic than a supernova yeah, and i also read about black holes