Ernie

220 reputation

bio	website
	location	Burnaby, Canada
	age	37
visits	member for	2 years, 6 months
	seen	May 14 at 18:42
stats	profile views	10

I have spent the past 8 years working at a small ISP, where I manage E-mail, DNS, Web, and Voip servers for a couple thousand clients.

	220 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	2 years, 6 months
15 badges		location	Burnaby, Canada		seen	May 14 at 18:42

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Dec 26	awarded	Yearling
Dec 18	comment	How do you respond to questions like “Have you ever observed a UFO?” I'd respond to the conspiracy types that personally, I would be the first to let them know! Screw the Man!
Dec 13	comment	How do you respond to questions like “Have you ever observed a UFO?” Perhaps the response could start with "You know, as a scientist, explorer of the night sky, and science fiction fan (admit it! You are!), I would love to see visitors from another planet! However, every time we investigate any reports of such, they've all turned out to be completely mundane." Neil Degrasse Tyson says that he's ready to be abducted by aliens, and the moment that happens, he's swiping the first thing in reach of the examination table, providing actual physical evidence of his trip.
Dec 13	revised	How is a star's parent galaxy recognized? added 866 characters in body
Dec 13	answered	How is a star's parent galaxy recognized?
Dec 13	comment	How is a star's parent galaxy recognized? Both galaxies and supernovae are redshifted. You just need to compare the redshift of the host galaxy to the supernova in question, and you can discern whether or not the supernova - or quasar - belongs to that galaxy or not.
Dec 13	comment	Why can I never see any stars in the night sky? I would posit that you don't need to stay in complete darkness for 20-30 minutes for this to work. One of my most memorable views of the night sky before I started pursuing astronomy seriously was on a road trip at night in the winter time. We got out of the car to check on someone who had landed themselves in a ditch, and lo, not only a plethora of stars and the milky way, but an obvious difference in the colour of some of the stars. It doesn't help to look up on a clear night, either. Not everyone is so blessed with that regularly. :)
Dec 13	answered	How would the night sky appear at the edge of the galaxy?
Dec 12	awarded	Commentator
Dec 12	comment	How is it possible for astronomers to see something 13B light years away? And here, I thought that the reason we use redshifts is because it's far easier than searching for standard candles within galaxies and comparing for absolute magnitude. In more distant galaxies, it's next to impossible to find say, Wolf-Rayet variable stars. Then add to that the fact that finding absolute distance of an individual galaxy would require months of observation. Redshift on the other hand, can be measured instantaneously and works great as a reasonable estimate. Every once in a while, we'll catch a type 1b supernova and compare it to the redshift to re-calibrate our measurments.
Dec 11	answered	Why can't dark matter be black holes?
Dec 11	comment	Why isn't dark matter just matter? If you graph the velocity vs distance from the galactic center, you get a wildly different graph than you'd get from the expected outcome, even using Einstein's theory of gravity. It also demonstrates that the mass of the galaxy is very diffuse. Without the extra mass, stars at the extremities of the galaxy simply would not be a part of the galaxy at all. That's escape velocity. Here's an example graph: physics.uoregon.edu/~soper/Mass/galaxymass.html
Dec 11	awarded	Editor
Aug 12	awarded	Critic
Jul 27	comment	Will Earth Hour do damage to power supply system? @muntoo: Don't forget that your local power company keeps close tabs on overall consumption (go google it, I'm sure it's around somewhere). And that graph of consumption over time is not flat for any particular day.
Jul 27	answered	How to calculate fuel consumption of car (mpg) from speed and accleration knowing mass, drag coeff and rolling resistance?
May 17	answered	Is the “far” universe expanding more quickly?
May 17	comment	Can Jupiter be ignited? @Jeremy: Also, if by "burn" you mean a chemical reaction like a flame, you would need free oxygen for that, and there is none. It's also worth noting that we've observed comet hits on Jupiter, which produced explosions similar to those produced by thermonuclear bombs (actually, releasing more energy on the order of many thousand times anything we mere mortals can produce). Consider that this happens on a regular basis, and has already happened thousands or millions of times.
May 17	comment	Is gravity a force and if so what is its opposite? This is more apparent with masses that are more equivalent, like the Pluto-Charon system. The difference between the masses of the sun and the earth is like comparing the mass of a grain of sand to a steel ball the size of a beach ball. The earth could fall directly into the sun at a million miles an hour and the sun would barely budge, the difference is so large.
May 17	comment	Which will stop first a heavier car or a lighter car? Also, the coefficient of sliding friction will only come into effect if the road surface is icy or wet, since rubber and tarmac don't work in quite the same way. The rubber tears before you get to the coefficient of sliding friction, which is why you leave some of it behind on the road.