The blog of Hilton Ratcliffe

 
 
Today I’m chatting with published astrophysicist Hilton Ratcliffe. Hilton is just one of those people who makes life infinitely interesting. No matter what question I have, he takes the time to *put things into perspective* for me, and he’s rather lovely. I’m pleased my path crossed his last year, and that we’ve maintained contact…  let’s [...]

Interview by Kirt Griffin for Examiner.com: South African astrophysicist Dr. Hilton Ratcliffe on the Sun and how it drives our Climate
 http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-13886-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2010m4d14-InterviewSouth-African-astrophysicist-Dr-Hilton-Ratcliffe-the-Sun-and-how-it-drives-our-climate
 A few years ago I was introduced to Hilton Ratcliffe by a mutual friend. He had published a book, “The Virtue of Heresy: Confessions of a Dissident Astronomer”. The book held me fascinated as [...]

Dear Oliver, friends,
I’m an interested observer of this discussion, and look at it through the lens of physics (oh how I envy chemists that freedom to practice their art without strictures of meta-geometrical topology that afflict extra-terrestrial physics. Imagine if we tried to discuss chemical reactions in varying space curvatures).
For some years now, Oliver and [...]

To understand cosmic cycles, study explosions. The moment a star dies in a supernova, an inexorable tide of creation goes forth, and it is a beautiful thing to behold. It represents cosmic nativity. A supernova (SN, plural SNe) takes a fraction of a second to explode, yet its brilliance outshines entire galaxies, and the nebula [...]

Is the Universe expanding? It would appear not. What do we see? We do not see, let alone measure, large objects systematically moving away from all other large objects. On the contrary, it would seem to be quite the opposite, at least in the case of colliding spiral galaxies. Every observable large scale system is [...]

Here is an extract from my Hypography thread Is Newtonian Mechanics an advantage or a limitation in astrophysics?
Quote from The Virtue of Heresy:
“There are no Black Holes, no Dark Matter and Dark Energy, no curved spacetime, no ultimate speed limits, no beginning and no end. By simply accepting infinity as a fact of life, we avoid [...]

Is Cosmology fact or fiction, science or fairy tale? Do we need it? is it good for us? Does it have any useful purpose? Should we be confined to a Standard Model?