Comments on: twinkle-twinkle 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000th of a star

twinkle-twinkle 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000th of a star

lalochezia — Tue, 30 May 2006 21:10:35 -0800

Starlight: a meditation. From the always excellent 3QD.

By: argybarg

argybarg — Tue, 30 May 2006 21:35:44 -0800

Nice, but ... Mr. Raymo is flattering himself here by thinking that he's the first to think of this. I'd be flattering myself to think I'm the only other person who has thought of this. Although I never ran the numbers as in this essay, I can't count the number of times I've looked at a star and tried to imagine the pathway of that starlight across interstellar space onto my retina. Then blink, and imagine the photon that almost made it...except that your eyes were shut for an instant.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Tue, 30 May 2006 21:53:36 -0800

Awesome. "...it's full of stars!"

By: moonbiter

moonbiter — Tue, 30 May 2006 22:03:15 -0800

Mr. Raymo is flattering himself here ... I especially like the literary slight of hand where he kind of puts himself on the same playing field as Darwin, Einstein, and Watson & Crick with this musing. Cute, that.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Tue, 30 May 2006 22:08:14 -0800

The extreme distance of the star has to be counterbalanced with an appreciation for its extreme brightness. I did some calculations. At its known luminosity, Arcturus is emitting 10^46 photons/sec in a sphere. So, as he says, if our eye is capturing 10^-41 of that, that means about 100,000 photons/sec from Arcturus. Its got photons to spare. (corrections to my numbers are welcome) Our eye, which detects light logarithmically, can detect anywhere from 10 photons/sec to 10 billion photons/sec. So, Arcturus is no problem. Had he thought a little deeper about it, he would have realized that even though those other stars are dim, they are still there covering their part of the radial sphere. With so many of them covering the sky, why isn't the night sky bright? This is Olber's paradox.

By: slatternus

slatternus — Tue, 30 May 2006 22:43:17 -0800

I know I'm supposed to find this sort of whimsical musing beautiful, but until we find evidence of at least ONE complex biosphere outside of our solar system- and if we're lucky evidence of intelligence - these sorts of things just fill me with a sense of tragedy. We give meaning to it all by the act of perception and contemplation of course, but that meaning is sort of pathetic and barren - for the moment.

By: quite unimportant

quite unimportant — Tue, 30 May 2006 23:11:08 -0800

Stop! This has gone far enough. We're overdosing on numbers. No such thing.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Wed, 31 May 2006 00:00:52 -0800

Next step in this meditation: muse on about how much of the light reflected by *you* reaches a distant (future) observer, as they gaze into the night sky...

By: surplus

surplus — Wed, 31 May 2006 03:21:15 -0800

Nobody's thought of this comment.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 31 May 2006 05:14:14 -0800

Not only was the "nobody's ever thought about this before" thing stupid, the piece was terribly written. All those expanding spheres of light from thousands of stars (the ones that are bright enough to see), mushing about through space... Offhand, it's hard to think of a more inappropriate verb for expanding spheres of light than "mushing."

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Wed, 31 May 2006 05:38:53 -0800

Then blink, and imagine the photon that almost made it...except that your eyes were shut for an instant. Except not. The original photon has been absorbed and reemitted, scattered and refracted by our atmosphere (and again by the lens of your eye), at least as far as I understand things. That's not quite as poetic, though.

By: elderling

elderling — Wed, 31 May 2006 07:13:52 -0800

"What if uhh... C-A-T, really spelled dog?" -Ogre

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Wed, 31 May 2006 10:09:11 -0800

I don't think Darwin, Einstein or Watson & Crick mind it when "ordinary people" do their best to think rationally. That's how they all got started, isn't it?

By: moonbiter

moonbiter — Wed, 31 May 2006 23:53:05 -0800

I don't think Darwin, Einstein or Watson & Crick mind it ... You're right. All of them would encourage folks to do their best to think rationally. Whether the author is thinking rationally or not by believing this little observation of his is on the same level as what the above luminaries did is a different question.