The Underground shut down about 10 years ago, it's now part of The Leeds Academy.

You still get funk bands on at The Wardrobe.

Sela's the in place at the moment, plenty of jazz! Off to see a band playing Horace Silver tunes tonight.

Never mind Goldilocks.

It's the 3 Bears and their black hole you have to worry about.

Not only that, but the quest for scientific knowledge is quite insignificant also, especially in regards to the search for intelligent life forms. It's interesting enough to follow scientific discoveries but we have to remind ourselves of the teleological point, not only in terms of what science "seeks" but also what "we" seek as human beings. It's problematic when these two are seen as the same thing rather than two separate notions.

In one sense this just emphasizes our finitude as human beings and our absurd quest for a "theory of everything" - find the missing particle, figure out dark matter, gain the "elixir of life" and so on. In another sense it also emphasizes the fact that science continues to push technology to the limit; it keeps pushing the boat out further and further in our quest for scientific "truth" (or the existence of intelligent life, in this case). But we have to draw the line somewhere, especially in terms of a teleological goal and the sheer amount of money used in producing even greater and more powerful technology.

That's very true. But science wants to act like a purely disinterested pursuit, where scientists make clear and calculated discoveries without any non-technological, of subjective, involvement. We only need to read Thomas Kuhn to remind ourselves how important this point is. It's not for nothing that the first major scientific discoveries (by Greek Milesians such as Thales and Anaximander) were purely a product of thinking. Of course we push the theoretical side deeper and deeper but the gap between so called "metaphysical speculation" and what we call "scientific realism" has been pushed so far apart now that reconciliation appears impossible. Many people today don't realize that the majority of our greatest scientific discoveries were carried out without the help of technology. Ptolemy and Giordano Bruno being two great examples. As a self-severing discipline, science is its own goal and purpose. The problem is, when science cannot find what it's looking for it increases technological power and pushes this demarcation to an even greater distance.

I agree.

Human beings by nature are very inquisitive creatures hence their constant need to explore, investigate etc. A common human behavioural trait is the refusal to accept that "Science" is not EXACT and, for me, this explains the continued quest for "pure science".

: )

D

I guess that due to the NON ZERO element, we as a species will endevour to seek alien life forms, as long as we are able.

The fact there is a slim chance of us not being alone is exciting enough. We can live in hope that 'they' might come and contact us.

Leeds is pretty cool, as it always has been. Underground was a legendary night! As James said, Sela Bar is flying the jazz flag for the city now.

Easy JT, but out of those 20 years, how many have supported an atmosphere that can support living organisms?

This one graced my ears on the way home last night. How apt!

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If there is intelligent life out there then it would do well not to contact a planet full of primitive creatures such as ourselves.

We should also hope that they're more intelligent than we are.

Else we'd probably kick off with them because they're wearing the wrong coloured shirt....

In case anyone is interested (UK based), tomorrow Times is worth buying even to ditch the paper, for the 2nd Eureka pull out on science, focussing I think on the LHC.

In fact, if you can get to a Caffe Nero, today's Times is also worth buying from there as it comes with a free Penguin Classic, but only from the coffee shop. Todays is "Deep Simplicity" by John Gribbin - definitely worth it for 90 of Her Majesty's finest pence.

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Klaaaaaaaaaaatu

If you want a natural way to have your mind blown tonight then check out Horizon at 9pm on BBC2.

In half an hour in fact, but I'm sure it will be on iPlayer if you miss it.

Did anyone watch horizon last night?

"Who's Afraid of a Big Black Hole?"

Still on the iplayer for the on demand crew. Brilliant programme - very interesting but so scary. Loads of physicians simply doing equations and then explaining how all the maths and physics we believe as 'concrete' suddenly fall apart and no longer add up when it comes to explain how black holes exist.

In a nutshell, the viewpoint was that human science is too basic to understand them at the moment. We simply have no idea and are nowhere near advanced enough yet. The more we try to understand them the less they make sense. The best bit was when one got a calculator out to do a sum to work out a distance and was like "Erm... I'm sorry I can't comprehend that number"

Plus it had this guy on it. Been on quite a few programmes. PROPER HAIRCUT.

that's Michio Kaku - proper don.

gonna watch Horizon tonight after C. League.

CERN is due to be switched back on before Xmas.

Bit annoying that isn't it.

Reminds me of Sun Ra 'Sky is a sea of darkness when there is no sun'

Just for those interested, I saw this last week and forgot to post it up. V. interesting wrt the amount of suns being born and hence exoplanets supporting life. Tell me to shut up if it's not the done thing, but it is a physics thread...


Astronomers have discovered that young, fertile galaxies give birth to stars such as the Sun at a "runaway" rate of up to 50 a year. They found that "stellar nurseries" within early galaxies similar to the Milky Way, produced stars far more rapidly than first thought.

Astronomers looked back 12.5 billion years to study one of the most distant galaxies known, MS1358arc. Light from the galaxy began its journey across the Universe one billion years after the big bang.

"Gravitational lensing" was used to magnify the galaxy by making use of the way its light bent round a nearby galaxy cluster. Using this technique the scientists were able to observe rapid bursts of star formation.

New stars were being created in the galaxy’s star-forming regions at a rate 100 times faster than predicted.

Measuring 6,000 light years across, the collection of stars was expected to evolve into a spiral galaxy similar to our own, the Milky Way.

The findings, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, were based on observations from the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii and Nasa’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes.

Dr Mark Swinbank, an astronomer from the University of Durham, said: “The runaway effect in this galaxy suggests it is growing much faster than expected.

“Given the size of the star-forming regions, we would expect it to be forming stars at the rate of about one sun per year, but it seems to be much more active than that.

“We think this galaxy is fairly typical of galaxies at this time and we expect that the Milky Way once looked like this as it formed its first stars.

“In effect we are seeing the first generation of stars being born in a galaxy like the Milky Way. This gives unique insight into the birth of our own galaxy.”

Most of the observed stars would have eventually exploded as supernovae at the end of their lives, said the scientists. However, light from the explosions will not reach our part of the universe for billions more years.

Supernova explosions hurl debris into space which eventually forms new stars and planets.

“In this respect these stars are the seeds of future star formation in the universe,” said Dr Swinbank.

Professor Andy Fabian, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, which funded the study, said: “This pioneering work shows what our own galaxy might have looked like when it was a tenth of its present age.”


Wowsers.