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Posted by Ken S. Tucker on January 20, 2008, 1:39 pm
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On Jan 19, 1:50 pm, david.willi...@bayman.org (David Williams) wrote:
> -> There's something I find strange about Olber's paradox.
> -> Let me lay out a 3D XYZ cartesian grid, with arbitrary
> -> units of 1 mile, and at each vertex let there be a person.
>
> -> Now I'll send out a light signal from the origin spreading
> -> to all persons, at which time they each begin humming a
> -> tune, generating a faint sound. (We'll assume sound
> -> is carried by the medium).
>
> -> Now according to Olber, the amplitude of the humming
> -> will build indefinitely, in fact to infinity.
> -> See the problem, the sound energy generated is every
> -> where of finite density, i.e. 1 hummer/cubic mile, yet
> -> the sound becomes infinitely dense.
> -> Is there something wrong with that?
> -> Regards
> -> Ken S. Tucker
>
> The sound isn't of finite density; the hummers are. Each hummer is
> feeding sound energy continuously into the medium, and we are assuming
> that the sound never degrades, gets absorbed, etc.. So the intensity of
> sound builds up and up, with no limit within the parameters of this
> fantasy.
>
> If the hummers consist of a sound-absorbing material, then the level
> of sound will reach a limit when the rate at which each hummer absorbs
> sound equals the rate at which he produces it. This is analogous to the
> astronomical Olber's paradox, which does not say that the intensity of
> light would be infinite, but that it would equal the mean brightness of
> a stellar surface. At that point, each star would absorb as much light
> as it produces.
>
> dow
Thanks Dave, I need to review.
Regards
Ken
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