Do you believe in Black Holes?

I take back the science trip; it gave us the electric handbrake

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Well I did ask :smirking_face: and most said no, (they know where to draw the line)

Dont go there, not with my apprentice lol :laughing:
He would say whos Einstein?

You would be surprised at some of the peeps I work with :person_shrugging: then I have the ones who believe in ancient Aliens from long long ago, (youtube)
The list can go on and on.. haha :sweat_smile:
To be fair they are really kind just uneducated in certain subjects.

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Add Dark Energy into that mix, too!

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String theory gets me with its multi universe, to make the maths work?

You know, not so long ago I found records back about 1996 when I first got into it, and I used to do variable star observing (look it up, stars which vary in brightness to to energy variations, and you compare to other ‘fixed’ stars with constant brightness). Anyway, I’d have logs from like 2-3-4am in the morning…when I used to then get up for work the next day! lol You’re a total machine in your late teens!

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I’ve never really looked into that area.

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You really got the bug back then didn’t you!
Your more of a stargazer than myself, full credit to you!

I’m more of a armchair viewer, watched 1000s of hours since Patrick Moor, when I was young.

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How it came about was fate. I was in a library one day Autumn '95 and Patrick Moore’s GCSE Astronomy was poking out of the shelf. I was kind of interested in it as a kid, and I picked the book up, looked through it and took it out. Enjoyed it as I was going through it, but some maths stuff was iffy to me, and my B’ther said he had a GCSE Maths book from when he had to do some test for a job. Anyway, I found I was picking that up well too (I did jack all in school at this stuff), and got a GCSE Physics book too. Again, hard, but kind of clicked. I started getting really into it, and took them at GCSE via night classes, then did Maths/Physics A levels after that. After a good few years doing rubbish office jobs, the bug came back, I had about a year getting back into it and then did a Maths degree about 10 years back. A few other ‘mature’ students were on that course too, one was awesome and is in the research game now. If I may be afforded a seemingly non-humble remark, but me and him both had first class honours, and he was first (top) of the 150 odd in the graduating year, and I was second (proud of myself, I worked my guts out!), however, that guy was 100,000 times what I was, total monster, genius stuff lol I’m not surprised he still works in the game with it. He was/is a nice guy too, helped me out loads.
I still wonder how it would have all panned out if that book wasn’t poking out in a library that day lol Funny too the genetics you’ve got for something, which you’re totally oblivious too until stumbling across something by accident

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Wow, yet another incredible stroy from this forum :clap: its astonishing to think one book could start off a new chapter in your life, teachers didn’t have the ability to reach into your being, but you found it in through a book!
We could say the book found you! Its amazing how something so small can trigger a life long love, some people never find it, some people do! Im so pleased to hear your story, wish I could add a similar story, I am just different to most people, I am a dreamer always shooting arrows :bow_and_arrow: to the stars but always grounded Sagittarius :sagittarius:

Yes a seed of postive influence that book :folded_hands:

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I’ve definitely had a few managers at work with a black hole between their ears!! :rofl:
To me there’s got to be life out there somewhere, the universe is far to large for there not to be, but what form it takes is anyones guess

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Haha they all have black holes between their ears!

If they have working ears at all!

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“The surest sign that intelligent life exists in the universe is that none of it has ever tried to contact us” - Calvin & Hobbes.

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Shirley, which direction they are spinning in depends on which side you are observing it from?

I’m inclined to “believe in” black holes. My socks must be going somewhere.

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Do you have a Golden Retriever?

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There is of course a planet to which all Biro pens go to to live a fulfilled Biroid existence, hence you can never find one when you need it, according to the late great Douglas Adams - may this be true of socks - I do not have a retriever, or any dog and I check airing cupboards, washing machines etc and still there are some unpaired socks… :roll_eyes: :thinking: :laughing:

Bring on quantum physics, string theory etc and dont forget Schrodinger’s cat(or not cat!)
The truth is out there :laughing:

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Risk failing the MOT without a cat…

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Or with a cat, that may not or may be there - explain that to the DVLA :rofl:

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It was curiosity about the Voyager missions that led me to realise that the vastness of the universe is almost incomprehensible - at least for my tiny brain:

Voyager 1, launched in 1977 to study the outer planets is travelling at 35,000mph and it took 40 years to reach the edge of the solar system. At its current speed, it will have to travel for something like forty thousand years to reach the nearest star in our Milky Way galaxy. It would take approximately 1,756,500,000 years to cross our Milky Way from one end to the other.

And after that, the nearest galaxy to The Milky Way is the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light years away. 2.5 million years for a radio signal to reach Earth. And that’s the nearest galaxy - observations from the Hubble telescope suggest that there are hundreds of thousands of galaxies in our universe. And is there more than one universe?

And from macro to micro: I live near the beach. On walks down there I could ponder this - one of the single grains of sand I’m walking on contains more atoms (roughly 2x10 to the 19th) than there are stars in the universe (very approx 10 to the 12th according to the ESA).

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The vastness is the one that gets me when trying to imagine how big the universe must be. the photo taken by Voyager 1 called ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ shows how big it is, and in comparison Voyager wasn’t even that far.

I read an article a couple of days ago about a star which had a supernova, and now we see, it has the supernova. But when it actually happened was in the time the Dinosaurs walked the earth. That long it took light to reach us. MINDBLOWING.

What also is mindblowing is that a 48 year old machine running on something like DOS and is subject to harsch environments still works, whilst on my 2011 MX-5 I can’t seem to find where the rattle in the cockpit comes from… :wink:

oh… and yes I do believe in Black holes.

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That’s because it’s design is from maybe a decade before DOS.

:grinning:

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