shadron
Philosopher
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2005
- Messages
- 5,918
This has, almost surely, been answered somewhere in thei forum in the last two years, but as everyone kno0ws, the noise in cosmology and astrphysics is abnormally high, and so I'd like to seek a specific answer from our panel of experts.
For those who don't know about it already, the Cassiopeia Project (www.cassiopeisproject.com) is a video project that apparently has as it's goal the creation of an large number of short videos on various subjects in science. It is a creation of Mud Brick Media, about whom I know nothing except that it is based in the deep south, and that they do rather lots of videos, many being live music. In a quirky way, they created a science fiction story to provide a "fun" backbone rationale to the creation of these stories, involving time travel, a pair of hapless travelers who require education in the sciences, a moderator named Jeeves, and a computer named Chaucer who acts as narrator. The three humans meet in Chaucer as avatars, and Chaucer narrates the lessons the two "students" need to learn, which are, of course, the education videos that are the reason for the project.
In general, the series uses first rate animation techniques and sound, and some of the ideas presented in the animation are really top notch. I would recommend the Standard Theory set of lessons for anyone (like me) having trouble keeping track of all the various particles. OTOH, there are a couple of lessons in Global Climate which are of the denialist camp. It is scuttlebutt that the project is funded by a retired physicist who wanted to use his wealth for something useful; apparently he has a conservative streak in this one area. People also notice the occasional error in fact from various places in the series.
The particular part that I want help with is a two part series on cosmology. It is entitled "The Universe - Created Out of Nothing?", and purports to present the "Land of Cold, Dark Matter Theory". I had never heard of this (yeah, I are engineer). So my first question is, could someone summarize, with reference to this video, what that theory is and what is its extent within the video?
The second question is, how much of the video is accurate, how much and which parts are speculative? Inflation, in particular, seems to be skipped over rather casually. While I know that a lot of this has not really be "nailed down", are there things that are known that aren't presented? Comments in general about these videos and all of CassiopeiaProject's videos are fair game.
The first video is at
And the second has a clickable tag right at the end of the first.
For those who don't know about it already, the Cassiopeia Project (www.cassiopeisproject.com) is a video project that apparently has as it's goal the creation of an large number of short videos on various subjects in science. It is a creation of Mud Brick Media, about whom I know nothing except that it is based in the deep south, and that they do rather lots of videos, many being live music. In a quirky way, they created a science fiction story to provide a "fun" backbone rationale to the creation of these stories, involving time travel, a pair of hapless travelers who require education in the sciences, a moderator named Jeeves, and a computer named Chaucer who acts as narrator. The three humans meet in Chaucer as avatars, and Chaucer narrates the lessons the two "students" need to learn, which are, of course, the education videos that are the reason for the project.
In general, the series uses first rate animation techniques and sound, and some of the ideas presented in the animation are really top notch. I would recommend the Standard Theory set of lessons for anyone (like me) having trouble keeping track of all the various particles. OTOH, there are a couple of lessons in Global Climate which are of the denialist camp. It is scuttlebutt that the project is funded by a retired physicist who wanted to use his wealth for something useful; apparently he has a conservative streak in this one area. People also notice the occasional error in fact from various places in the series.
The particular part that I want help with is a two part series on cosmology. It is entitled "The Universe - Created Out of Nothing?", and purports to present the "Land of Cold, Dark Matter Theory". I had never heard of this (yeah, I are engineer). So my first question is, could someone summarize, with reference to this video, what that theory is and what is its extent within the video?
The second question is, how much of the video is accurate, how much and which parts are speculative? Inflation, in particular, seems to be skipped over rather casually. While I know that a lot of this has not really be "nailed down", are there things that are known that aren't presented? Comments in general about these videos and all of CassiopeiaProject's videos are fair game.
The first video is at
And the second has a clickable tag right at the end of the first.
Edited by Myriad:
Thread title changed by member's request.
Last edited by a moderator: