Are there any careful students of this blog? If there are, then one of them might notice that Another Unusual Planet (Saturday, 13 September 2014) and Yet Another Unusual Planet (Thursday, 19 April 2018) describe the same planet. There is no plan or oversight of posts over a span of three and a half years so randomness prevails. The two descriptions differ so let both stand.
Is it a coincidence that this unusual planet and the nearby newly condensed star are in sight of the Cloud Universe? No. They are in the thin verge of the gas-filled globular cluster that the Kirkasanters, observing it from within, had thought was a distinct universe. The infalling cosmic material that had made the unusual planet's sun expand came from the globular cluster and the dynamic processes within that cluster are continually causing new stars to condense.
Although Kirkasanter scientists had no problems with physics, chemistry, atomistics or quantum theory, they:
observed stars mere light-months apart vanishing into the shining fog;
measured the concentration of the observable dust and gas;
thought that the interstellar medium was uniformly dense everywhere;
had no conception of receding galaxies (nor did Terrestrial astronomers until 1929);
formulated a relativistic theory of a universe two or three hundred light-years across with its space sharply curved by its condensed mass;
have different laws and constants in their physics;
saw stars condense and evolve chaotically with no cosmic structure;
already knew that gravitics and hyperdrive were possible;
made FTL ships work despite theoretical problems;
thought that the dark space outside the Cloud Universe was another universe;
postulated a multidimensional explanation.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson showed the Kirkasanters as behaving and thinking in very realistic ways about the sciences. A mix of shrewdness, prior knowledge, brilliance, and plain old mistakes.
Sean
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