April 17, 2001
Miscellaneous Subjects #75: 1. An idea, whose time has come? + 2. HOLDING A VISION OF A HEALED EARTH + 3. Comment from Russ MICHAEL about the anti-LFAS campaign + 4. Three Public Hearings on LFAS + 5. SONAR OR LATER and WEEPING AND A-WHALIN' + 6. SOLVING THE ENERGY PROBLEM AND CO2 REDUCTION + 7. The World's First Free Energy Machine + 8. World's Largest Fuel Cell Installation Planned + 9. WHOA, CANADA + 10. New Evidence Found to Back Universe 'Dark Energy' Theory + 11. More on Joao de Deus
Hello everyone
Another compilation packed-full with important and/or amazing things to know.
And some really good news ;-)
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
1.
From: "George Knox" <grantman@usaor.net>
Subject: An idea, whose time has come?
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001
Jean
I discovered several weeks ago a book, describing the Greeks, which made a most magnificent statement.
"There is nothing more powerful, than an idea whose time has come."
The sheer thought of what that means, is overwhelming. At one time the idea of building a wall for protection was thought the only logical thing to do. In China they worked on such a wall for a thousand years! It can actually be seen from outer space. I speak of the Great China Wall of course.
Independently halfway around the globe, Hadrian was well at work on his wall as well. I can't imagine they were in communication with each other or that either group of builders was working together at any one time, but it was an idea each area of people believed in. Silly to us as modern men, but to them it was a good idea. It had to have been, for if you stop and think it took hundreds of years to build these walls and they could only have been done with popular support. Today's government changes direction faster than most of us change our underwear, so if we look back we have to think, that at the time, the idea of building walls for whatever reason, was an idea, who's time had come.
One other major idea that came along which changed the course of civilization as we know it today was the one that people should lock up their food. As we went from tribal economies where we foraged and stored little, to an agrarian one, where we needed to store and keep safe our food, the idea of locking it up, was accepted by all. It was an idea whose time truly had come! How else could we have something to eat in the dead of winter, if we did not protect it? However it started, it became a cornerstone of modern civilization. The Chinese, Hindu, Sudanese, Americans and Japanese, all see it as perfectly normal. Think of a world where the food was not locked up, and you can see how ingrained the idea is in your head!
But what about now. What idea is breaking forth or has already begun to show its light on the horizon, that is at our very fingertips, but we cannot yet see the immenseness of its breath and vision?
Last night on the nightly news, a reporter reporting on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict reported to her audience there was little hope of averting more bloodshed in the coming days. Both sides where pitted in a centuries old trench of religious bias; preparing for martyrdom and senseless brutality against one and another. Little hope is held out for any respite form the conflict.
It was then that it came to me. Why are they fighting? For God? Their God? For Land? Their land? For the right to be right? For what reason? Isn't it time for a new idea? Is it not time for us to take a step forward and put that next unknown step into action? Is it time for truly the lamb to lie down with the lion? How did the first block builders feel as they laid those cornerstones? How did that first family feel when it was learned they had a catch of food stored, and locked, from the rest of the tribe? Ho do you feel now?
By all accounts we humans have been roaming around on this planet for more than a several hundred thousand years. We still search for the remains of Australopithecus and yet know full well it will yield us little more information than what where his diet or disease indexes. We will never know if he hated broccoli or if he had a nagging way of singing in a falsetto voice that irritated those who knew him. As Sid.
My point to all, is that like the idea behind the wall, the food in lock and the fighting for your square inch of desert, there is an idea, which has to be coming, which few or maybe none of us can see.
It is neither based on one God nor the belief in a better world yet to come. It is more powerful that any set of rules and guidelines ever devised by the written hand. It is idea that man must come to accept about his relationships with his fellow man, and it is a very simple one.
It is an idea, that peace, is more important, than war. That we as a race of beings who are exactly the same, yet functionally different at the same time and every time. Like snowflakes, yet we are still snow.
It is an idea that accepts the meaning, of " ONE " From the tiniest of your DNA's molecules, to the largest bone in our universal body. If I win, you win, and if you loose, so do I. It is beyond tribalism, or civilization of societies. . It is beyond your need or my desire; it is in fact, an idea, whose time has come.
George Knox
Pittsburgh
AND MY COMMENT WAS:
As you so poignantly and beautifully express, Peace is *indeed* and idea whose time has come. Your letter is now included in a coming compilation for all to share in and empower this vision.
And as expressed by another participating ERN member, Tim Miejan <EDGElink@AOL.com>, a couple years ago, that is exactly the kind of contribution that may indeed help "expand and deepen global awareness and the sense of forming a global spiritual community gradually empowering itself to contribute in shaping the future of this world."
2.
From: "Marguerite Gaudet" <marlouyes@msn.com>
Subject: HOLDING A VISION OF A HEALED EARTH
Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2001
Hello
'Tis I, Mar-Lou, again! In addition to the "writing and hollering" I mentioned in my last msg to you, YOUR MEDITATION GROUPS ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THE TRANSFORMATION OF EARTH AND ALL THEREIN!. Spirit chided me this morning, in a loving way, for not including that. ALSO, THE MANNER IN WHICH WE MEDITATE, i.e. HOLDING A VISION OF A HEALED EARTH; FOCUSING ON EARTH AS PARADISE; FOR IT TRULY DOES EXIST NOW IN THAT REALM OF SPIRIT IN WHICH ALL THINGS ARE HEALED AND PERFECT.
Lord knows it is not always easy to get away from the mind sets that we have been handed as children and have accepted as adults and most difficult to pull our minds off from the scenes of destruction and madness here BUT I feel it is necessary during our meditations to concentrate on the HEALED planet. IT CAN HAPPEN! I say "CAN" because free will is still part of the human set up. If each of us works toward our own perfection, and "tuning/toning" up our TRUE SELF-hood the "magic" (TRUTH actually) of SPIRIT'S LOVE and all ITS implications can manifest. Muddy water and clear water cannot exist in the same space.
It is Good Friday (Christian holy day) AND the 13th (Qabalah Key 13 Death, Overcome evil with good) So this is a day for transformation; the releasing of the false ego and a time for renewal; letting the old negative ways "die" to be recycled in Spirit's realm. In that context it is truly a Good Friday! But "Easter Sunday" is my favorite; the concept of the Resurrection! I love the thoughts and feelings of personal renewal and flight into the truth and release from the old suppressing, muddy, thought forms. What a space of JOY.
LOVE LIGHT TRUTH AND TRUST TO YOU ALL AND ALL YOU LOVE
JOYOUS RENEWAL FOR ALL
MarLou
marlouyes@msn.com
3.
I TOTALLY SUPPORT THE VIEW EXPRESSED BY RUSS MICHAEL BELOW (AND RECEIVED FROM ANOTHER BEYOND-THE-VEIL TOTALLY RELIABLE SOURCE AS WELL - More on this in the near future)
From: "Russ MICHAEL" <russ.michael@vpn.at>
Subject: JEAN HUDON Stop LFAS Alert - Last Call for Action
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001
Friends and Beloveds,
JEAN HUDON IS HELPING PEOPLE AWAKEN!!
The "hidden government" knows that the whales and dolphins, the Cetaceans are higher advanced than our human race--and that they work CONSCIOUSLY and closely with the Galactic Command. They literally help ANCHOR all of earth in a proper GRID line BALANCE...
Thus the "sonar to detect enemy submarines" is a deliberate ruse to KILL off the only FULLY CONSCIOUS species on the SURFACE of our planet--for our invisible, but very real "rulers" do not want humanity to get "out of bondage" and INTO THE LIGHT!!
Whatever "activists" can do--with as much PUBLICITY as possible--must be done immediately!!
In a real sense--if the CETACEANS "go"--humanity "goes"--for without these intuitive, highly intelligent planetary STEWARDS, caretaking earth (who have taken over OUR job), LIFE on this planet will CEASE!!
ALL THE PUBLICITY that can be generated must be amplified--for dark forces cannot OPERATE effectively IN THE LIGHT!!
SAVE THE WHALES AND DOLPHINS--our HIGHER, loving, more aware, now callously murdered, chased, butchered, and "sound-waved to death" brothers and sisters!!
Thanks Jean.... Bless their hearts. Bless your heart.
In LIGHT and LOVE...
***Michael
4.
THANKS TO WIDESPREAD PROTESTS, A SMALL FIRST VICTORY HAS BEEN WON...
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001
From: Cheryl Magill <shootdaguy@yahoo.com>
Subject: Three Public Hearings on LFAS
Dear Jean,
Please know how very much your attention to the whole LFA Sonar issue is appreciated! Kindly let your readers know that collective action has caused the National Marine Fisheries Service to delay their proposed ruling, to extend the comment period and to hold three public hearings.
Please share with your readers the posting below which is written by Michael Jasny of the NRDC and ask them to use extraordinary means to share this information with people in Hawaii, California and near the Maryland/DC area. This is the moment when differing values and opponency may be expressed by peaceful means.
This is not business as usual. We have the opportunity to engage in transformation. Please ask people to urge others to attend these hearings.
Thank you!
Cheryl A. Magill
---
Bowing to an extraordinary number of requests, both from the public and from members of Congress, the National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to hold three public hearings on the Navy's Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar program. Now that we have secured an opportunity to be heard, it is crucial that we all take advantage of it. This email lays out the dates, times, and locations of these hearings and describes how you can participate.
--On *April 26*, there will be a public hearing in *Los Angeles, California*. It will take place from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the Renaissance Hotel, 9620 Airport Boulevard (near LAX).
--On *April 28*, there will be a public hearing in *Honolulu, Hawaii*. It will take place from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Hotel, 2552 Kalakaua Avenue.
--On *May 3*, there will be a public hearing in *Silver Spring, Maryland*, just outside of Washington, D.C. It will take place from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon in the Auditorium of Silver Spring Metro Center Building 4, 1301 East-West Highway.
The hearings will begin with a brief presentation from the National Marine Fisheries Service; after this, members of the public will have the opportunity to speak: to raise questions about LFA, to articulate your concerns, and finally to urge the Fisheries Service to withdraw its proposed rule allowing the Navy to harass, injure, or kill marine mammals. (Speakers will probably be limited to 3-5 minutes.) Making a statement is a fine way of participating in the process, but please don't feel you have to speak: what is most essential and meaningful is that you attend. NRDC will provide more information--at least on events in California--as the hearing dates draw near.
I do not need to tell you how important these hearings are. They are our signal opportunity to demonstrate the rising level of public concern about this issue--and to demonstrate this not only to NMFS, which in its initial unwillingness to hold hearings of any kind deeply underestimated the public's interest, but to the press and to our representatives in Congress, whom we have begun to ask for oversight. If you will be in California, Hawaii, or the Washington, D.C. area, I urge you to attend; if you work locally or regionally on environmental issues, please inform your colleagues or constituents as well.
If you have questions, suggestions, or outreach information to pass along, please contact me at the number/address below. And thanks to everyone for getting the word out--
Michael Jasny, Associate
Natural Resources Defense Council
6310 San Vicente Blvd., Ste. 250
Los Angeles, CA 90048
tel/fax 323-934-2138
mjasny@ucla.edu
NOTE FROM JEAN: I'll have more details soon as to what you can do to help with this, IN ADDITION TO ATTENDING TO ONE OF THESE MEETINGS MENTIONED ABOVE IF YOU CAN...
5.
DAILY GRIST
10 Apr 2001
http://www.gristmagazine.com
6.
SONAR OR LATER
It is highly likely that Sonar transmissions from U.S. Navy ships caused an unprecedented number of whales and a dolphin to strand themselves in shallow waters off northern Bahama islands last March, according to a task force from the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service. But the Navy is still hoping to get a permit from the NMFS for a new sonar system to detect submarines in 80 percent of the world's oceans. The Navy says the system would use low-frequency sonar waves, as opposed to the higher-frequency waves that have been shown to cause a reaction in whales. But the Natural Resources Defense Council says the system still hasn't been adequately tested. Ken Balcomb, a marine mammalogist, says low frequencies can create the same damage in whales' air cavities as higher frequencies, leading to hemorrhaging around the brain and ear bones.
New York Times, Rachel X. Weissman, 10 Apr 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/10/science/10WHAL.html
Take action and stand up for dolphins and whales
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.stm#sonar
The customer-is-always-right whale -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha031901.stm
---
DAILY GRIST
11 Apr 2001
5.
WEEPING AND A-WHALIN'
Drawing the ire of environmentalists, Japanese whaling ships returned to harbor this morning with a catch of 440 minke whales after five months at sea. The catch was within the limit for minkes set by the International Whaling Commission. Japan says that research is the main reason for the harpooning, but greenies dispute that. Greenpeace says the catch will earn $33 million on the wholesale market and the whale meat will end up in pricey Tokyo restaurants. Last year, Japan provoked international outcry by expanding its whale hunt to include Bryde's and sperm whales, in addition to minkes. A Japanese official said the country will try to convince the IWC this summer to increase the amount of permissible whaling.
Los Angeles Times, Reuters, Midoriko Morita, 11 Apr 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010411/tCB00a1774.html
Take action to end Japanese whaling
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/oceans.stm#whaling
6.
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001
From: "Hal Fox" <halfox@qwest.net>
Subject: Send this to your undisclosed recipients.
Dear Friend Jean Hudon,
Your analysis of the problem is excellent. Your solution omits the most important solution to healing the planet.
In a recent letter to President George Bush, I wrote the following:
SUBJECT: SOLVING THE ENERGY PROBLEM AND CO2 REDUCTION
Dear President Bush,
The Kyoto Agreement will not solve the problems of greenhouse gas reduction, only technology will. The current energy problem will also best be resolved by new-energy technology. Before, the first new electrical power plant can be designed, built, and placed on line there will be new-energy devices and systems available to provide less expensive and non-polluting power from abundant energy sources. While none of this new-energy technology has been developed using government funds, it would be wise to position your administration to take credit for the dramatic changes in energy production that will be occurring during your administration.
Attached are papers that describe these new-energy developments and the $4.5 trillion per year market to be tapped. The U.S. will be a technology leader in this new-energy industry. The results can be a new burgeoning industry far bigger than the combined computer, communications, and internet industries. It is strongly suggested that your Department of Energy become informed and become a major source of media information about new-energy developments. Under previous administrations, the DOE staff has been deliberately misinformed in an attempt to preserve the appropriations of billions of dollars allocated to the study of non-productive, nuclear-energy research.
After twelve years of world-wide search, we have found four new-energy inventions that are considered to have strong commercial potential. The enclosed papers provide more detailed information for your staff, including an estimate of market penetration over the next decade. The first of these new-energy developments is being readied for commercial production. One application of new- energy technology has been shown capable of on-site transmutation of high-level radioactive wastes (both liquids and solids). ... Sincerely, Harold L. Fox, President, EEMF Cc: Secretary of Energy END OF EXCERPT FROM LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH.
The important point is that all the do-gooders in the world, including all of the environmentalists, must have some technology that replaces the burning of fossil fuels.
For more information, New Energy News is sent via email monthly to members of the Institute for New Energy. Any who are interested can join INE for only $35 per year, anywhere in the world.
Best regards,
Hal Fox, editor, J. New Energy
Note from Jean: See also "Miracle in the Void: The New Energy Revolution" at
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000/MiracleinVoid.htm
7.
THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE FEATURES A DEVICE WHICH HAS NOT BE VERIFIED BY INDEPENDENT SOURCES TO CONFIRM IT ACTUALLY ACHIEVES WHAT ITS INVENTORS CLAIM IT DOES.
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2001
From: Trevor <wharmony@iinet.net.au>
Subject: The World's First Free Energy Machine...
New Magnetic-Electric Device
Can Power Home From Near
Free Energy Source
By Penny Robins
The Cairns Post - Northern Queensland
8th March, 2001
(Note - 'Ergon' refers to the local electricity supplier utility which used to be known as the FNQEB Far North Queensland Electricity Board).
Two Cairns inventors yesterday unveiled a world first commercial machine which can power a house from a permanent, clean, green and virtually free energy source.
The machine, developed by Brinsmead mechanical engineer John Christie and Edge Hil electrician Lou Brits, has an international patent pending and is expected to go on the market for $4000-$5000.
Relying on the attraction and repulsion of internal magnets, the Lutec 1000 operates continually on a pulse-like current 24 hours a day - producing 24 kilowatts of power - once it is kickstarted from a battery source.
The device is more than 500 per cent efficient, compared to a car which is less than 40 per cent efficient and loses power through heat and friction.
No powerlines would be needed to distribute energy from the individual power sources.
There is no heat, harmful emissions or airborne matter in the transmission.
If it were not for the magnets, which have a life of 1300 years, and the battery pack, which has a life of about five years, the machine would be in perpetual motion.
A demonstration of the motor from the carpeted study of Mr Christie's Brinsmead home revealed the device in all its glory - bigger than the average cyclone back-up generator but much less noisy.
M Christie and Mr Brits have been tinkering together on the motor in their spare time since they met in a Sheridan St cafe five years ago and began sharing ideas.
One and a half years ago, the design was perfected and the pair lodged a patent with Brisbane patent attorneys Griffith Hack.
Mr Christie said the next step was to develop a small-scale pilot plant in Cairns to begin distributing the motors to the places they were needed most - such as shops and homes in the power-starved Daintree region and the Torres Strait.
He said the price tag for the devices could vary in remote locations depending on government rebates, freight and installation costs.
The beauty of the device was that it was transportable and could be packed in a removalist van along with other earthly possessions when moving house, he said The only problem the pair now face is in raising $500,000 to start their production plant.
"We're trying to keep it local, and trying to keep it in Australia, but it's hard because, offshore, they are more aggressive in taking up new initiatives," Mr Christie said.
Already, the invention has received interest from the United States, China, Japan and Indonesia.
"But we want to set up here and put the product on the market first, and then we'll take it to the world," he said.
Mr Christie said it had been hard to keep a lid on the invention which had such a huge potential in the quest for clean, green, energy production.
He said he and Mr Brit also feared the worst once they realised the significance of their invention.
"We were afraid the kids would be kidnapped or we'd be shot, I'm not kidding," he said.
"You hear horror stories about people running up against fuel companies, but it's all hogwash - people in the main are desperately looking for technologies that will help our environment."
The pair have begun discussions with Ergon as there is also the opportunity of selling energy back to the grid.
Mr Christie said the average home with a pool needed only 14kW of energy per day - which meant a 10 kW daily excess would be left over during the generation process
Griffith Hack partner Cliff Carew, who was speaking from Brisbane, confirmed the device was genuine and unique.
"An international application has been lodged, they've conducted an international search and haven't come up with anything similar, so it would seem to be a new concept," Mr Carew said.
He said it would be another two and a half years before the patent was recognised in 140 countries around the world - the usual length of time for an international patent to be processed.
8.
From: "Judith Iam" <judeiam@cwnet.com>
Subject: Good News to start the week
Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2001
World's Largest Fuel Cell Installation Planned
PRNewswire - Tuesday April 3, 2001
SOUTH WINDSOR, Conn. - Six PC25(TM) fuel cell power plants manufactured by International Fuel Cells will power the world's largest fuel cell installation to be built in Connecticut, IFC announced today.
The PC25 units, which each produce 200 kilowatts of electricity and 900,000 Btus of heat, will provide primary power to the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown, Conn. The heat produced by the fuel cells will be used for heating and cooling the facility.
IFC is working with Select Energy, the competitive energy marketing and services subsidiary of Northeast Utilities, (NYSE: NU - news) and NU affiliate subsidiaries Select-HEC Inc. and Northeast Generation Services Company (NGS) on the project for the Connecticut Department of Public Works.
IFC has manufactured the PC25 power plant since 1991 and delivered 220 units to customers in 15 countries on four continents. Those power plants have together accumulated some 4 million hours of operation. Use of these power plants has already reduced 600 million pounds of CO2 emissions and 11 million pounds of NOx and SOx, compared with typical US combustion-based power plants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized IFC last year with a Climate Protection Award as a result of these accomplishments.
SOURCE: International Fuel Cells, c/o PR Newswire
9.
DAILY GRIST
11 Apr 2001
CLIP
2.
WHOA, CANADA
Canada's environmental record ranks second-worst in the world compared to 28 other industrialized nations, according to a study by a professor at the University of Victoria. Sweden came out No. 1, while the U.S. brought up the rear in the study, which ranked per-capita measurements of greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy consumption, logging, and generation of nuclear waste, among other factors. The researcher, David Boyd, said the study revealed that "Canadians talk the talk of environmental protection, but we don't walk the walk." But some conservative critics say the study's per-capita methodology was misleading and weighted the results against heavily industrialized countries like Canada with small population bases.
Take action to help Canadian critters
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.stm#Canada
Take action for clean energy in Canada
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.stm#canada
10.
THIS IS FASCINATING - AND MEANS THE UNIVERSE WON'T END IN A "BIG CRUSH"
Date: Fri, 06 Apr 2001
Subject: FW: New Evidence Found to Back Universe "Dark Energy' Theory
From: SRAOSHA <sraosha@indo.net.id>
From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/03/M N235282.DTL
Tuesday, April 3, 2001 (SF Chronicle)
New Evidence Found to Back Universe "Dark Energy' Theory
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer
Powerful new evidence was reported yesterday that a ghostly "dark energy" -- its cause and nature almost totally unknown -- pervades the cosmos. Like air rushing into and expanding a child's balloon, the strange energy is somehow forcing the universe to expand faster and faster with time, Berkeley scientists and National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials reported at a press conference in Washington. The new evidence puts to rest astronomers' 70-year-old belief that cosmic expansion slows with time and that the universe might eventually gravitationally collapse like a failed souffle, scientists said. Instead, many experts now expect the universe to expand forever, accelerating faster and faster as eons pass, and to gradually dissipate like late-morning fog in San Francisco. The universe won't disappear, exactly, but galaxies will be so widely dispersed many billions of years from now that they will be effectively invisible to each other. The new evidence is imagery of the most distant known exploding star, Supernova 1997ff, more than 10 billion light years away. Its brightness contradicts explanations made by skeptics to undermine the accelerating-cosmos thesis.
The images were obtained by Hubble Space Telescope observations and high-speed computer modeling at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley. The scientific team analyzing the supernova was led by Adam Riess, until recently of the University of California at Berkeley, now at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
FASTER AND FASTER
"This is a very significant development in our understanding of the universe. The universe is speeding up, not slowing down as astronomers have thought for 70 years," Professor Mike S. Turner of the University of Chicago declared at the press conference. Turner, who was not a part of the Riess team, is one of the world's leading cosmologists -- a scientist who studies the origin, evolution and fate of the universe. As a result, skeptics have been routed, and scientists can now feel much more confident about the 3-year-old accelerating-universe hypothesis, which Turner called "one of the great scientific discoveries of the last 25 years."
Yesterday's announcement could well make dark energy -- once dismissed as a science-fictionish concept -- an orthodox scientific view. The new evidence "is like somebody dropping a large book on your table and saying, 'Here's the evidence,' and you're stunned. . . . It is really dramatic, " Lawrence Berkeley astrophysicist Peter Nugent said in a telephone interview. It also means scientists must now get serious about figuring out what is fueling cosmic expansion. Many astrophysicists assume the cause is "dark energy," but no one knows what it is.
THE 'REPULSIVE THING'
The Berkeley findings "leave the biggest mystery of all: What is dark energy? What is this repulsive thing?" Riess asked during a phone interview.
Most astrophysicists have accepted the idea that the cosmos was born from a kind of explosion, popularly dubbed the Big Bang. According to traditional theory, after the Big Bang the gravitational pull of matter slowed cosmic expansion. Until recently, this slowing was expected to continue forever.
Decades ago, Albert Einstein had proposed the existence of a type of dark energy that he called the "cosmological constant." He suspected it was a mysterious force that counteracted other forces compelling the universe to expand.
To Einstein's subsequent chagrin, Southern California astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe really is expanding: All around us, galaxies are receding into space. Einstein realized he had missed the chance to predict the discovery of the expanding universe -- one of science's most incredible revelations.
In recent decades, though, scientists began to think the cosmological constant might really exist. Renaming it "dark energy," some suggested the unseen force is generated by the continual creation and destruction of subatomic particles in the void of space. Unfortunately, calculations show that if this were true, then this version of dark energy should be wildly more powerful than suspected, so powerful that the universe would have dissipated long ago. So the question remains: What is dark energy? Most astrophysicists would rather not believe in dark energy, and have been dragged kicking and screaming, so to speak, into the dark energy era.
Riess and Nugent say their new observations show that the newly studied supernova -- technically known as Supernova 1997ff -- is 10 billion to 11 billion light years away. (A light year is almost 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in one year. For example, the nearest star, besides our sun, is more than four light years away.) The Berkeley astronomers measured the supernovae by analyzing their "red shift." That is, they use spectroscopes, which split light into its spectrum of colors, to identify dark lines in the red part of their spectrum. The exact position of the lines reveals how fast that part of the cosmos is retreating from our part of the universe.
PROOF FOUND IN BERKELEY
By measuring the supernova's red shift, the Berkeley astronomers determined that it is as far away -- and as bright -- as it should be if one assumes that it existed at a time when the cosmos was decelerating under gravitational tug, soon after the Big Bang. (Because light has a finite speed, the farther one looks into space, the deeper one sees into the past. The supernova is more than 10 billion light years away, thus its image is more than 10 billion years old.) Later, for some reason, dark energy switched on and caused cosmic expansion to accelerate, the scientists say. In 1998, Berkeley scientists stunned the world when they reported initial evidence for the accelerating universe. They based the discovery on observations of distant supernovae, specifically a class of exploding stars known as "Type 1A."
The 1998 discovery of the accelerating universe was completely unexpected -- even more unexpected than the discovery of cosmic expansion itself in the 1920s. Back then, cosmic expansion was implied by Einstein's fledgling equations for "general relativity," a theory of gravity based on the notion that space and time are part of a common fabric, "space-time." By contrast, the 1998 discovery of the accelerating universe came totally out of the blue. Whatever dark energy is, and however it drives cosmic acceleration, it is "very weird stuff," Turner said. He added jokingly that to date, "our main achievement in understanding dark energy is to give it a name."
E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com
11.
From: Daniel <daniel@sunriseuk.idps.co.uk>
Subject: More on Joao de Deus
Re: "The Amazing Cures of a Brazilian Miracle Man", the most powerful unconscious medium alive today -- http://www.nexusmagazine.com//miracle.man.html
If anyone out there would like even more information they might like to look at http://www.soaringspirit.com/Miracle.htm and then click on "The Mystical Dance of Miracles". Also if anyone wants to make the journey, this may be useful: go to http://www.luminousjourneys.com
The next journey is from June 18th - 30th 2001.
