A Couple Interesting Facts About the Sun

[waldenwriter]

I was watching a program called "Atom" on the Science Channel a little while ago (since there wasn't anything else on) and during the program they said a couple interesting things about the sun.

First, they said that the sun, per cubic meter, produces less heat than a human being. In other words, I produce more heat than a piece of the sun the same size as me.

Second, they said that a large portion (like 1/3) of the sun is composed of helium, and that this puzzled scientists because the sun, which burns at 15 billion degrees, is not hot enough to produce that much helium (which would be produced by nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms). One famous scientist from Ukraine, they went on to say, used the Big Bang Theory to try to explain this phenomenon, saying all the helium in the sun was made in the first 10 minutes or so after the Big Bang, during which period the universe was hot enough for such helium production to occur.

(Granted, I don't believe the Big Bang caused that, because I don't believe in the Big Bang. Not just for religious reasons either, but because, based on my meager knowledge of physics, the Big Bang is not scientifically possible. It is an explosion with no known source, meaning that for it to happen matter and energy -- both of which are needed for an exothermic reaction, a.k.a. an explosion -- would have to be created. However, this violates the scientifically accepted laws of the conservation of matter and the conservation of energy, which state that both matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. So it couldn't have happened.)

Anyway, I digress...pretty interesting, huh? What do you guys make of these factoids?

[Jeff Gerke]

Well, for one thing, it explains why you always seem to brighten up a room when you walk in.

;-)

[beckyminor]

I smile when scientists are puzzled. Mean, I know.

[dizzyjam]

I like what someone wrote back in 1957:

(This is a portion of a booklet entitled "Does God Exist?" All capitalization done by the original author)

AMAZING KNOWLEDGE OF SCIENCE
Now suppose we confine ourselves to facts!
What, then, has science actually determined?
Discovery and study of radioactivity has proved that there has
been no past eternity of matter! Radioactivity is described as a
process of disintegration. The atomic age is opening up new
fields to explore. Soon after Madame Curie discovered the
element radium, in 1898, it was discovered that radium, and
the other radioactive elements as we know now, are continually
giving off radiations.
HAS MATTER ALWAYS EXISTED?
So notice carefully what this FACT of science means:
Uranium is a radioactive element heavier than radium. It has
an atomic weight of 238.5. In decomposing, it gives off a helium
atom, weight 4, repeated three times, and then the substance left
is radium, atomic weight about 226.4. Radium, then, is simply
the end product of uranium after it has lost three helium atoms.
Then the disintegration continues in radium. And the final
product of this process of radioactive disintegration is the
element lead! Now of course this process requires great periods
of time. The calculated half-life of radium is 1,590 years—
uranium much longer.
I have seen it myself, in the darkroom of an X-ray laboratory.
A tiny portion of radium was placed on a mirror at the far end
of a hollow tube, and I looked into this tube through a magnifying
glass at the other end. Under this magnification what I saw
appeared as a large, vast, dark sky, with thousands of shooting
stars falling toward me from all directions. Actually what I saw
were the emanations of tiny particles being emitted by the
radium, greatly magnified.
We know, therefore, that there has been no past eternity of
matter!
WHEN MATTER DID NOT EXIST
The radioactive elements in existence today have not yet been
in existence long enough to have run their course, and disintegrated
into lead. To have ALWAYS existed, without any definite
time of starting in the past, this “life” period of radioactive
elements long ago would have run its course. All radioactive
elements would have long ago disintegrated into lead. Since
these elements exist only for a definite span of years, and all the
uranium, radium, thorium and other radioactive elements in the
world today have not yet existed that many years, there was a
time, prior to the duration of this span in the past, when these
elements DID NOT EXIST!
Here we have definite scientific proof that MATTER HAS NOT
ALWAYS EXISTED. Here we have definite specific elements which
once, in the long ago, did not yet exist. Then there came a time,
later, when these elements CAME INTO EXISTENCE.
Evolution usually postulates that things come about GRADUALLY,
through the slow-moving natural processes of the present.
Try to imagine, if you can, something coming into existence out
of nothing, GRADUALLY! Can your mind entertain the idea?
I think not. No, I think if you are rational, you will have to
accept the fact of a special and necessarily instantaneous
CREATION. And SOME POWER or SOME ONE had of necessity to do
the creating. There is a cause for every effect. And in accepting
that inevitable FACT, proved by the findings of science, of the
existence of that GREAT FIRST CAUSE, you have accepted the
FACT of the existence and preexistence of the Creator—GOD!

END QUOTE

Just thought I'd add that on here for the discussion. Hope it helps.

[juniperlee]

I am certainly no scientist but there is something interesting in the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics which involves entropy. I read about this in a book some time back. I gathered from the book that basically the universe (and all things in the universe) tend to move from a state of order to disorder. Some examples would be a spring will eventually unwind, gases will disperse, and even you desk will go from neat to messy unless something intervenes with energy to make order out of the chaos.

Science and evolution suggests that random development occurred out of the chaos over billions and billions of years completely ignoring this Law of Thermodynamics. Ironically the more "scientific" viewpoint would come from following the laws of physics and recognizing that a Creator purposefully put energy into developing the original order.

[Christian Soldier]

Evolutionists will always throw in a curious subclause in the 2nd law: In a closed system, entropy will always increase. According to science, which I think is full of it, the Earth is an open system because we get energy from the sun. Yet, the sun itself is decaying into entropy. *Shrugs* Seems like circular logic to me.

[brianjones]

I'm taking astronomy this semester (sigh) what is shows me is how really in science it really is guess work and the farther away from our solar system the more speculative this science is. While we've seen the death of stars we have never seen their birth and their ideas of how they are birthed are so wild and fantastic it defies description. But I digress we were talking about the sun.

[Resha Caner]

Mmm. Science is no exception to 2 Tim 4:3.

[journeyman]

Paul nailed it. People do cluster around expounders of a certain point of view and refuse to acknowledge the truth.

[ashy]

Oct 18, 2009 16:08:47 GMT -5 Christian Soldier said:

*Shrugs* Seems like circular logic to me.

Circular logic is all the world has, brother...

[Paul Baines]

I did a little philosophy back when I was studying and something from that course really stuck in my mind. They said that the original aim of science was to discover more about God's creation. At some point (back before philosophy split off into more specialised subjects) they decided that invoking God was cheating and so should be left out of any scientific explanation.

Sadly they've now removed Him so far from the picture that the aim of science these days seems to be to prove that God does not exist.

Who was it who said about the Big Bang: In the beginning was nothing, which exploded ?