Recent content by james gander

Yes thought so , just thought i would check. Google says the Earth rotates 360 degrees in a solar day and that is what was annoying me. thanks

Hi. I am confused about something and it is making me feel rather stupid. First of all i will explain what i know. I know a solar day is 24hrs long and it is defined by the position of the sun. I also know a sidereal day is 23h 56m and is defined by the postition of the stars (basically)...

Sorry i was not aware. I can see why that rule should be enforced though. Thanks.

Sorry mfb i should of checked my post. I didnt mean i "can" win the Van Allen argument. It was meant to say i "cant" win the argument. I agree with you totally, there is nothing to win. It is just this conspiracy drives me nuts mad with their lies and made up science.

(sorry - not sure about the prefix) I have read that lead shielding is dangerous against high energy particle radiation because of the high atomic number in lead. The particles would have high chance of hitting the lead atomic nuclei and producing x-rays. I am fed up with moon landing...

First thing i want to do is tell you what i do know. I know to that astronomers use a standard candle such as a Type 1a supernova or a cephied varibale because they are always the same brightness. I know that a light source is four times less bright when it is twice as distant. I know that...

Thanks for the reply but my confusion was with part of Brian Greene's book - The elegant universe. In it he says. "The strings of string theory are so small—on average they are about as long as the Planck length, they appear pointlike even when examined with our most powerful equipment. I am...

So That would meen we would of split quarks then wouldn't it? How do they we see point-like strings if they are what makes up quarks. We can't split quarks. can we?

I have just read this in a Brian Greene book, what does he mean by "they APEAR pointlike even when examined by the most powerful equipment" Seems very misleading, can soemone explain what led people to the theory of the strings existence. Surely they can't bee seen. here is the quote: "The...

Okay, now thanks this makes sense i need sleep! What we see from Earth is just the stars diameter, the light comes towards us and hits my eyes, so the light has traveled millions of miles to earth. We don't see the light going in all the other directions for millions of miles because the light...

Yes the sun is about 900,000 miles in diameter, so is it fair to say the area of a star that we seeon Earth must be much larger. If the light reaches us from that star then the light must of traveled at least that far in all other directions too. We only see it as a pinpoint because the star...

Could anyone please give me a very approximate answer. I am sure it is known by someone without me having to study the formulas for the angular diameter. Angular diameter is new to me, this is just a hobby to me i have not even purchased a telescope yet. Its the incomprehensible numbers of the...

i just want a very approx number for an average star. Is it thousands of miles, millions or just hundreds?

So how big on average is the are we see illuminated in the sky? i understand it is illuminating the Earth but it is aso illuminating a very bright area in the sky which from Earth looks like only a mm in diameter, but how large an area is the highly illuminated patch of space covering?

The light from stars reaches us from the star but the width of the star covers an area of the sky about a millimter across when looking at it from the earth. I am not asking about brightness. My question is, how large an area on average are little dots we see from Earth actually covering? Are...