[image: Artemis and Actaeon.jpg]
*Actaeon:* Wrong place at the wrong time
Gods and goddesses like to punish mortals. Sometimes, as in the case of
Tantalus, these punishments, though cruel, are arguably just. Tantalus
cooked a child and tried to serve his meat to the gods. The Olympians
couldn't be expected to tolerate such a grotesque breach of dinner
etiquette. So, Tantalus remains in Tartarus, parched with burning thirst
and tormented by ravenous hunger. At other times, such as in the case of
Arachne, the punishments are unjust. Athena transformed Arachne into a
spider simply because the girl proved herself to be a weaver whose skills
were comparable to those of the goddess. The punishment was more petty
resentment than justifiable reaction to a moral outrage. Today we learn
the sad story of the young hunter Actaeon, whose divine punishment proved
immensely painful and ultimately fatal. You may decide if these
consequences were just. A grandson of Cadmus*, Actaeon was a young
hunter who roamed forests each day in the company of his two hunting dogs.
One afternoon, while his hounds were seeking quarry elsewhere, the
hapless hunter came upon a delectation of nymphs.* As all mortals knew
to avoid ethereal beings, Actaeon started to leave when he saw the goddess
Artemis bathing. The sight of the moon goddess unapparelled transfixed
Actaeon. He neither shielded his eyes nor did he turn away. Instead, he
stared. The nymphs hastily encircled Artemis and clothed her. Enraged
at having a mortal "intrude on a sacred mystery," Artemis resolved to
prevent Actaeon from ever describing her body to others. She promptly
deprived him of speech and then transformed him into a stag. The
terrified Actaeon swiftly fled away deeper into the forest only to soon
encounter his hunting dogs. On seeing a stag approach, the hounds leapt
to the attack. Though now swifter than his dogs, Actaeon stumbled and was
soon captured. Not knowing the stag's true identity, the hounds tore
Actaeon to shreds and devoured him. Their hunger satiated, the dogs
then searched for the master they unwittingly consumed. It is said that to
this day the lush forests around Mount Cithaeron are haunted by the two
dogs who are always seeking the master they'll never find. This tale has
prompted prolonged philosophical discussions -are there any other type?-
about justice and misfortune. It has also inspired some philosophers to
ask, "Are there no bathtubs on Olympus?"
*Cadmus' descendants tended to suffer quite a lot.
**Those who refuse to believe that English is a beautiful language should
read lists of mythological collective nouns. Delectation of nymphs;
pleasure of pixies; torment of ogres; tizzy of fairies; lodge of fauns;
swell of naiads; and a finery of sphinxes are just a few examples.
THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
Remote Planetarium 112: Even More Questions
We are delighted that the Relativity Theories has elicited so many
questions. The notion that space and time are conjoined and malleable
truly defies our intuition, hence the fascination it exercises over us
all.
*"Does this mean that warp speed travel is not possible?!"*
*-J.D.*
Well, as much as we don't want to dampen anybody's enthusiasm for
interstellar excursions, it seems as though warp speed travel, at least in
the conventional sense, is probably not possible. For those folks
unfamiliar with the term, "Warp" refers to light speed travel. "Warp 2,"
means twice light speed, just as "Mach 2" refers to twice the speed of
sound. According to Special Relativity, light speed is the maximum
attainable velocity. Moreover, any massive object that tries to attain
light speed would experience a rapid increase in inertial mass. Were a
vessel to move at light speed, it would become infinitely massive and would
require an infinite amount of energy to sustain its motion. For these
reasons no star-faring ship could ever move at light speed, let alone twice
warp speed.
[image: 074dfa301cdb200bac45aaf274b1a1ad.jpg]
*Don't engage, Picard. * Special Relativistic restrictions preclude
warp speed because any vessel moving at light speed would become infinitely
massive.
*"Didn't scientists actually discover a neutrino going faster that light
speed a few years ago?" -L.C.*
You might be referring to the 2011 announcement by scientists working with
the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus (OPERA). This
project involved a collaboration between CERN scientists in Geneva and
Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy. They believed that tau
neutrinos emitted at Cern and detected at Gran Sasso completed the journey
60.7 nanoseconds faster than a light beam would have done. (In this case,
a light beam propagating through a vacuum.) This announcement elicited a
furious reaction from scientists from around the world. A
faster-than-light particle violates Special Relativity, a theory which is
as sacrosanct to physicists as the laws of thermodynamics. (Note: The
publication of Special Relativity in 1905 precipitated a storm of protests
as its precepts were at variance with the revered Newtonian paradigms.)
As it turned out, the neutrinos were not moving faster than light.
Instead, the timing was off due to a loose fiber optic cable. Subsequent
measurements determined that these neutrinos were not moving faster than
light. Special Relativity has withstood yet another challenge.
*"How could the Universal Expansion have exceeded light speed during the
inflationary epoch?" -A.F.*
First, we should explain that the 'inflationary epoch' is a preposterously
brief time period between 10^-36 and 10^-33 seconds after the Big Bang.
[10^-36 = 0.000000000000000000000000000000000001
10^-33 = 0.000000000000000000000000000000001]
During that brief period, the Universe expanded by a factor of
10000000000000000000000000. Imagine blowing a sphere half the
size of a molecule up to a sphere with an 11-light year diameter literally
in a fraction of a fraction of a second.
[image: SS2158939.jpg]
The rapid inflation of the Universe does not violate Special Relativity,
which applies to physical phenomena within the Universe, not the Universe
entire.
This rapid expansion did not violate Special Relativity because that theory
applies physical phenomena within the Universe, itself, as opposed to the
Universe entire. We remember that the cosmos is not expanding into
other space. Space, itself, is expanding.
To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Daily Astronomer:
https://lists.maine.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=DAILY-ASTRONOMER&A=
<https://lists.maine.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=DAILY-ASTRONOMER&A=1>