Sunday, March 20, 2011

How does the Sun burn without oxygen?

Well, I personally have seen and heard this question asked many times, so I decided to answer it here.
A fire cannot burn without oxygen. You can show this for yourself, in fact: if you light a small candle and then put a clear glass upside-down over that candle (without touching the flame), you can watch the flame slowly extinguish as it uses up all of the oxygen that you have trapped around it with the glass. So, how does it burn? Here's how: The way the Sun "burns" fuel is completely different from the way a fire on Earth burns (the term "burning" is a bit misleading when used to talk about stars). The Sun gets its energy by smashing small light elements together to make heavier elements; most of a star's life is spent smashing hydrogen atoms together to make helium. The burning that a star does, then, is a nuclear reaction, and not a chemical one like the fires on Earth (when a candle burns, the atoms themselves remain unchanged: just the molecules are affected). The Sun can "burn" hydrogen to helium without the need for oxygen. It should be noted that in the presence of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, stars heavier than the Sun may burn hydrogen to helium by using the C, N and O as catalysts. Even in these stars, however, an absence of oxygen does not prevent nuclear burning.
Download this photo of the Sun HERE.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Stupidity...

Well, this is not a common mistake, it's just plain stupidity. I've just seen a video on youtube.com where a girl/woman said she was praying for an earthquake in Japan and that she's happy 'God' answered her after only a couple of days and shook the country of Japan. She also said that she will keep praying until 'God' kills all atheists and non-christians. And this is something that bugged me for some time, I can't think of a reason why would anyone want to see other people dead. They all say that their religion is the only one that's true and that it's a peaceful religion, yep, peaceful. I just don't see how it could be peaceful when believers make protests in order to force the government to declare war to a country that has a different religion and cause death to innocent people who never did anything to them. I've also heard from some people that you should pray to your god, whoever he is, every day. And to reply to that, I'll just quote Nietzsche who said: ,,I cannot believe in a god that wants to be praised all the time.''. If he's really all-powerful, then he doesn't need your prayers and he certainly won't cast you out to hell for not reminding him that he is all-powerful. To sum up, I don't believe in a God and if you do, don't take anything I write here as an offense, I don't want to insult you, I just want to see some evidence for your God and if you convince me, I'll convert to your religion. Let me know if you want to see me post videos on youtube and how you liked this post in the comments.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Big Bang theory

Another mistake commonly made by creationists. In an effort to explain the universe with a supreme being they'll often say the following: 'So, you're saying that in the beginning there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and nothing exploded into something which then became dinosaurs and humans.' Well, no scientist said or will ever say that. Scientist don't get Nobel prizes for saying 'it' just happened. In the beginning there was a singularity (a dot infinitely dense, infinitely hot and infinitely small), that is something, and it exploded due to quantum fluctuations and because E= mc^2, energy created almost equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. When these two collide they release a great amount of energy. Since there was a slightly greater amount of matter, at the end, it's all that left. When it got cold enough, protons and electrons started forming and making atoms which then by gravity pulled together to create everything you see. The evidence of the Big Bang is cosmic background microwave radiation and the temperature of space, so there ARE proofs that it happened unlike the statement: 'Lul Magic man did it' which bears absolutely no proof whatsoever. Here's a pic you should check out:

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Origin of Man

It's a common misconception that Darwin, in his famous book, explains how humans evolved from monkeys. Now some of you might ask why we still have monkeys then? Firstly, that's like asking why do we still have England when English folks colonized America. Secondly, humans DID NOT evolve from monkeys. Darwin explained that both humans and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor, not from each other. And if you wish to believe that some kind of super-being created humans (without any evidence of it, unlike evolution who's been proven in many ways) just go on, ignore this post.  Here's a simplified demonstration: