Astronomy and cosmology help for a screenplay

[breammaster (Wey)]

Hi everyone, In my spare time I write screenplays. Currently I am working on a horror feature that has elements of astronomy and cosmology in it. I could use some help though in identifying some cosmic phenomena or events that are symbolic of “suicide” and or “sacrifice”. I currently am thinking that galaxies colliding could be a useful thing to mention. And also a star becoming a supernova. Can you guys think of anything else where things in the universe kill themselves so that other things can be born or formed?

thanks in advance
Wey

[ZeroID (Brent)]

Comets were considered to be harbingers of doom, Game of Thrones uses one eg. The Red Comet that hung in the sky.
Meteors or meteorites streaking and exploding in the sky.

[sjastro]

On the largest scale, the Universe itself, the oscillating cosmological model of the Universe might serve as a useful example.

Here the Universe stops expanding and collapses onto itself resulting in a new creation, a new Big Bang.

Steven

[Weltevreden SA (Dana)]

Astrophysics treads warily on the terrain of literary techniques such as metaphor, simile, allegory, and so on. Astronomers are not noted for taking liberties with the limits of lateral thinking. Yet unwittingly they do it all the time. Black holes, for example, convert the rapid exchange of matter density into energy density using mathematical analogs of magical transformation. These are called Lorentz transforms. Graduate students assigned the task of calculating them consider the duty a form of ritual sacrifice. These students also have an odd fondness for old films which feature maidens, volcanoes, and scowling old men with short spears.

Core collapse Type II supernovae have poorly explored literary analogs. Any star which acquires more than 8 times the Sun’s mass will eventually self-destruct in a giant explosion. Here is the screenplay scenario: Consider the the fate of a glutton at a banquet: he piles too much on his plate and then wolfs it all down, which typically results in an urge to leave the table in a hurry. Similarly, a gluttonous category of overweight star called a Wolf-Rayet ingests massive amounts of cabbage and beans from a nearby nebular salad bar (hydrogen and residual metallicity in a contracting Bok globule). In no time the W-R realizes it has gained too much weight (envelope mass) for its core capacity (hydrogen fusion). Whereupon the W-R goes on a crash diet and sheds roughly sixty percent of its mass in an enormous cloud of gas. The tableside companions have an earthier term for the result: Fast Acting Rejection Thermodynamics. This plot device is as old as Thucydides: it is Fate that dooms you, not the way you behave. A Wolf-Rayet is fated to self-annihilation no matter what it does to reform itself. Morality melodrama is an inexplicable fixation in Western thinking. In no other world culture do we find so many tales of self-destruction by self-indulgence. Every astronomer will tell you that the most abstemious stars live the longest.

Another class of supernova, Type 1a, is a morality tale involving the rich robbing the poor. These occur in my house all the time in the form of thermodynamic mass-energy transfer between two cats and one food dish. (The quantum physics explanation is that no two particle-energy states can occupy the same place at the same time; this does not cut much ice with cats.) My neighbour’s cat likes to steal food from my cat’s dish. Meanwhile, my cat is doing the same at his house. However, if they try to occupy the same food dish at the same time, the result is recorded as a feral detonation by two aural-band energy detectors in my head, via the distinctive spectral signatures of hisses, yowls, and thumps. In stars up above, a similar process is at work. One star steals mass—gas—from the surface of the other and adds it to its own waistline. If it’s a specific type of star, a white dwarf, it will reach a point where it has simply out-eaten its own capacity, and iron-dissociates into total destruction. (Intense energy and pressure can dissociate an iron atom into eleven helium atoms and an enormous amount of energy—that is why helium overabundance is the hallmark of Type 1a spectra, while iron is the signature of Type II.) The begrieved companion star receives a colossal kick in the behind as a thank-you-very-much and skulks off to get over it in a different part of the galaxy. This is analogous to a wastrel lass moving to a new town and starting over as a virgin. The physical evidence of this type of supernova—a distinct light curve seen by witnesses all over the universe—has its analog in the physical evidence of the explosion at my household cat dish. Next morning the spectral signatures of the encounter easily tell me which star exploded and which skulked off: the colour of the fur on the floor. My cat is gray, the neighbour cat is black. Alas, however, unlike their stellar colleagues, earthly cats don’t just end it there and be done with it. Not hardly! They wait all night long for the next matter-to-energy transfer, and sniffily leave me to tidy it up in the morning.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

And I thought Game of Thrones was a complicated plot !!

[breammaster (Wey)]

Originally Posted by Weltevreden SA

Astrophysics treads warily on the terrain of literary techniques such as metaphor, simile, allegory, and so on. Astronomers are not noted for taking liberties with the limits of lateral thinking. Yet unwittingly they do it all the time. Black holes, for example, convert the rapid exchange of matter density into energy density using mathematical analogs of magical transformation. These are called Lorentz transforms. Graduate students assigned the task of calculating them consider the duty a form of ritual sacrifice. These students also have an odd fondness for old films which feature maidens, volcanoes, and scowling old men with short spears.

Core collapse Type II supernovae have poorly explored literary analogs. Any star which acquires more than 8 times the Sun’s mass will eventually self-destruct in a giant explosion. Here is the screenplay scenario: Consider the the fate of a glutton at a banquet: he piles too much on his plate and then wolfs it all down, which typically results in an urge to leave the table in a hurry. Similarly, a gluttonous category of overweight star called a Wolf-Rayet ingests massive amounts of cabbage and beans from a nearby nebular salad bar (hydrogen and residual metallicity in a contracting Bok globule). In no time the W-R realizes it has gained too much weight (envelope mass) for its core capacity (hydrogen fusion). Whereupon the W-R goes on a crash diet and sheds roughly sixty percent of its mass in an enormous cloud of gas. The tableside companions have an earthier term for the result: Fast Acting Rejection Thermodynamics. This plot device is as old as Thucydides: it is Fate that dooms you, not the way you behave. A Wolf-Rayet is fated to self-annihilation no matter what it does to reform itself. Morality melodrama is an inexplicable fixation in Western thinking. In no other world culture do we find so many tales of self-destruction by self-indulgence. Every astronomer will tell you that the most abstemious stars live the longest.

Another class of supernova, Type 1a, is a morality tale involving the rich robbing the poor. These occur in my house all the time in the form of thermodynamic mass-energy transfer between two cats and one food dish. (The quantum physics explanation is that no two particle-energy states can occupy the same place at the same time; this does not cut much ice with cats.) My neighbour’s cat likes to steal food from my cat’s dish. Meanwhile, my cat is doing the same at his house. However, if they try to occupy the same food dish at the same time, the result is recorded as a feral detonation by two aural-band energy detectors in my head, via the distinctive spectral signatures of hisses, yowls, and thumps. In stars up above, a similar process is at work. One star steals mass—gas—from the surface of the other and adds it to its own waistline. If it’s a specific type of star, a white dwarf, it will reach a point where it has simply out-eaten its own capacity, and iron-dissociates into total destruction. (Intense energy and pressure can dissociate an iron atom into eleven helium atoms and an enormous amount of energy—that is why helium overabundance is the hallmark of Type 1a spectra, while iron is the signature of Type II.) The begrieved companion star receives a colossal kick in the behind as a thank-you-very-much and skulks off to get over it in a different part of the galaxy. This is analogous to a wastrel lass moving to a new town and starting over as a virgin. The physical evidence of this type of supernova—a distinct light curve seen by witnesses all over the universe—has its analog in the physical evidence of the explosion at my household cat dish. Next morning the spectral signatures of the encounter easily tell me which star exploded and which skulked off: the colour of the fur on the floor. My cat is gray, the neighbour cat is black. Alas, however, unlike their stellar colleagues, earthly cats don’t just end it there and be done with it. Not hardly! They wait all night long for the next matter-to-energy transfer, and sniffily leave me to tidy it up in the morning.

WHOOOAAA. You have just blown my mind

THanks for the insightful metaphors of astronomy and astrophysics!!! I think some of this can be very useful. I have a discord between rich and poor in this particular story and may be able to hijack your Type 1a supernovae analogy. Royalty cheque's in the mail if this ever gets made

[breammaster (Wey)]

Dana,

If some one were to refute the current belief that the universe is infact expanding at an accelerating rate, and they were trying to prove that it wasn't expanding, what type of study or experiments would they need to use?

I was reading a couple of articles recently that have shown that there may be evidence the universe is not expanding. The first argument was that the mass of atoms had increased over time and hence the redshifts that people had observed were in fact from atoms sizes increasing rather than from galaxies moving further apart.

The second article I read said that people found that the surface brightness of near and far galaxies were identical and hence this data was inconsistent with an expanding universe.

This is the second article:
http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/sc...ing-01940.html

I guess the simplied question is this:
If I were to have a couple of scientists in my story trying to refute the expansion of the universe, What type of experiments could I have them conduct. And is there a way for them to use data obtained from observing Supernova type 1a explosions?

[Weltevreden SA (Dana)]

Hi again, Breammaster. By the phrase "atoms increasing mass as they age" I think you are referring to one of the explanations used in trying to understand how MOND works without doing the homework, namely “fat atoms”. MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) was proposed in 1983 by Mordehai Milgrom as an explanation for the expanding universe long before the theory of Dark Matter originated and evolved into its present form. Milgrom's original point was that the properties of a De Sitter universe (basically Euclidian, or linear geometry) could be modified to reflect Einstein’s space-time explanation by multiplying the Gravitational Constant by the minute amount of a0 ≈ 1.2 x 10^−10 m/second, where a0 is the amount of acceleration that must be applied to Gravitational constant in order to account for things like the flat rotation curves in spiral galaxies and the expansion of the universe at the non-linear rate which has been observed. The number 1.2 x 10^−10 m s^−2 is a number so minuscule it would take a mosquito 2 years to get up to flight speed by using it.

A lot of dither has been blathered over this eensy little number. Milgrom's paper is dense and densely argued. He was no crackpot—good friends with some of the leading lights of astronomy in the 1980s‚ Maarten Schmidt and Scott Tremaine being along them. The all-too ignored heroine of this era, Vera Rubin, quantified the flat rotation curves of galaxies first noticed by Fritz Zwicky in 1939. She leaned in favour of Milgrom's theory. Unfortunately, since then both evidence and new calculations have brought astronomers to favour the lambda cold dark matter theory. This postulates a hitherto unknown and still undetected particle called dark matter, which interacts only gravitationally with the rest of the universe. I hate to say this about the world of professional astronomers, but it is very clubby and more than a little don't-rock-the-boat in matters of group consensus. Dark matter is in and MOND is out. Lord knows how that one will end up, because the example of the discipline of geology is rife with stories of theories discredited by The Club going on to prove true—the spreading seafloor and tectonic theory, and extinction of dinosaurs by the Chixulub meteor 6 million years ago being but two examples.

I suggest that before you get too enamoured of notions like atoms mysteriously gaining mass with age (where from and how?) or tired light (bye-bye 100 years of quantum mechanics theory and everything we know about the electromagnetic spectrum), you might brush up on the MOND -vs- CDM difference in the Wiki article about MOND. It is as even-handed as any I've read. Milgrom himself was a very respected professional whose idea was good at the time but has yet to explain more recent evidence.

Unfortunately, a number of MOND proponents are very poor representatives of his theory. Some use selective evidence, others skew their results by stating that their evidence is defined within the framework of Euclidian mechanics, and that their evidence proves that Euclidian mechanics is true—a tautology, and in this day and age! Oh dear. The Lerner paper you cited is a mangled edit of paper in the May 2014 issue of International Journal of Modern Physics D, May 2014, Vol. 23, No. 06 by Eric Lerner, Renato Falomo, and Riccardo Scarpa in May, 2014, “UV surface brightness of galaxies from the local universe to z ~ 5” That paper is unquestionably the worst astronomy paper I have ever come across, and believe me, there are more than a few real stinkers out there. I was so pissed off by the bad astronomy the Lerner paper represents that I got seven pages into a point-by-point refutation before I said, "Whoa" and threw the whole thing into the rubbish tip. Along with the Lerner paper, where it belongs.

Beware glib phrases lie "tired light" and "fat atoms". They are products of uninformed minds which are also too lazy to look things up.

Hope this helps,
=Dana in S Africa

[breammaster (Wey)]

Thanks for the reply Dana

Lots of useful information here! You certainly know your stuff!

[Eratosthenes (Peter)]

the slow death of a black hole via the emission of Hawking radiation

[sjastro]

Hello Dana,

Originally Posted by Weltevreden SA

Hi again, Breammaster. By the phrase "atoms increasing mass as they age" I think you are referring to one of the explanations used in trying to understand how MOND works without doing the homework, namely “fat atoms”. MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) was proposed in 1983 by Mordehai Milgrom as an explanation for the expanding universe long before the theory of Dark Matter originated and evolved into its present form. Milgrom's original point was that the properties of a De Sitter universe (basically Euclidian, or linear geometry) could be modified to reflect Einstein’s space-time explanation by multiplying the Gravitational Constant by the minute amount of a0 ≈ 1.2 x 10^−10 m/second, where a0 is the amount of acceleration that must be applied to Gravitational constant in order to account for things like the flat rotation curves in spiral galaxies and the expansion of the universe at the non-linear rate which has been observed. The number 1.2 x 10^−10 m s^−2 is a number so minuscule it would take a mosquito 2 years to get up to flight speed by using it.

The "fat atoms" probably relates to Arp-Narlikar's theory of variable mass.
This is one of the various offshoots of Hoyle's Steady State theory.
Like the Big Bang theory, steady state theories require the Universe to metrically expand, the difference being the density of a Big Bang Universe decreases with time where as density is constant in a steady state Universe. This requires mass to be "created" to compensate for expansion to keep the density constant.

Milgrom's theory (MOND) only deals with the dark matter problem, not dark energy which accounts for the accelerated metric expansion of the Universe.
The De Sitter universe model incidentally is a static model. There is no expansion of space. The model assumes that matter is evenly distributed through out space. The problem with this model is that the mathematics predicts the mass will exert a negative pressure and collapse onto itself.
To prevent this Einstein introduced his famous cosmological constant as a counterbalancing force to prevent collapse.
With the advent of expansion based cosmological models such as the Big Bang and Hoyle's Steady State theory, the cosmological constant was no longer needed until the Universe was found to undergo an accelerated expansion.
In this case Einstein's cosmological constant was reintroduced but took on a different context for an expanding Universe.

A lot of dither has been blathered over this eensy little number. Milgrom's paper is dense and densely argued. He was no crackpot—good friends with some of the leading lights of astronomy in the 1980s‚ Maarten Schmidt and Scott Tremaine being along them. The all-too ignored heroine of this era, Vera Rubin, quantified the flat rotation curves of galaxies first noticed by Fritz Zwicky in 1939. She leaned in favour of Milgrom's theory.

Fritz Zwicky's work did not cover the rotation curves of galaxies.
His coinage of the term dark matter related to the studies of the radial velocities of individual galaxies in clusters. He found the theoretical prediction for the radial velocities of galaxies in the Coma cluster did not match up with the measured values. This required more mass than was observed hence the term dark matter.

The Lerner paper you cited is a mangled edit of paper in the May 2014 issue of International Journal of Modern Physics D, May 2014, Vol. 23, No. 06 by Eric Lerner, Renato Falomo, and Riccardo Scarpa in May, 2014, “UV surface brightness of galaxies from the local universe to z ~ 5” That paper is unquestionably the worst astronomy paper I have ever come across, and believe me, there are more than a few real stinkers out there. I was so pissed off by the bad astronomy the Lerner paper represents that I got seven pages into a point-by-point refutation before I said, "Whoa" and threw the whole thing into the rubbish tip. Along with the Lerner paper, where it belongs.

Agreed.
Lerner's paper is rubbish.
One of the flaws in Lerner's paper (at least in the edition I have read) is his failure to address the time dilation of type IA supernova light curves.
A tired light theory cannot explain this.
In an expanding Universe on the other hand the Tolman surface brightness test and time dilation of the light curves are self consistent.

Beware glib phrases lie "tired light" and "fat atoms". They are products of uninformed minds which are also too lazy to look things up.

If the term fat atom is attributed to Narlikar, I wouldn't exactly refer him as having an uninformed mind. He is a foremost expert on General Relativity as has written several books on the subject.

His doctoral advisor was Fred Hoyle which probably explains his preference for a Steady State model.

Regards

Steven

[Weltevreden SA (Dana)]

Points well made and taken, Steven. I wasn't referring to the Narliker treatment but to the notion that atoms get "fat" simply because the universe is expanding and so everything in it should expand too. The populist usage does not address inertial mass or that G, the gravitational constant, decreases with time.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by Weltevreden SA

Points well made and taken, Steven. I wasn't referring to the Narliker treatment but to the notion that atoms get "fat" simply because the universe is expanding and so everything in it should expand too. The populist usage does not address inertial mass or that G, the gravitational constant, decreases with time.

Expansion doesn't occur at atomic scales for two reasons.
At local (non cosmological scales) the recession velocity is very small.
At atomic scales the velocity is essentially zero.
You can use Hubble's constant which a value of 67.8 km/s per megaparsec to calculate the velocity at atomic scales.
Secondly gravity puts the brakes on expansion.
If you take a larger scale such as the Earth-Sun distance, the distance isn't increasing as gravity constrains expansion.

G doesn't decrease with time. G is a constant which defines the strength of the gravitational force.
Interestingly there is a paper that suggests that G exhibits periodicity over small time scales.
http://phys.org/news/2015-04-gravita...tant-vary.html

Steven