As Social Issues Drive Young From Church, Leaders Try To Keep Them : The Two-Way On Friday, Morning Edition wraps up its weeklong look at the growing number of people who say they do not identify with a religion. The final conversation in the Losing Our Religion series picks up on a theme made clear throughout the week: Young adults are drifting away from organized religion in unprecedented numbers. In Friday's story, NPR's David Greene talks to two religious leaders about the trend and wonders what they tell young people who are disillusioned with the church. According to the Pew Research Center, one-third of Americans under 30 have no religious affiliation. As Harvard professor Robert Putnam told Greene in the piece that kicked off the series, this trend among young people is tied to religion's association with socially conservative politics. Take Melissa Adelman, 30, a participant in a roundtable about religion that Greene had with six young adults. In Friday's story, the Rev. "I knew their pain, and I was not going to bring that to the pulpit," he says.
Do We Expand With The Universe? Untitled Document Deux livres du mathématicien français Jean-Marie Souriau Janvier 2007 Jean-Marie Souriau Avec son autorisation et dans l'optique de la diffusion des connaissances scientifiques au plus grand nombre nous mettons en ligne deux ouvrages du mathématicien français Jean-Marie Souriau, en français. Le premier, Géométrie et Relativité, est paru en 1964 aux éditions Herman. Ce sont des ouvrages d'un abord difficile, qui peuvent être classés au rayon de la physique mathématiques, qui n'intéresseront a priori que les chercheurs et les étudiants francophone. Voir évidemment son site personnel : Back to News Back to Homepage
Promoting Hinduism? Parents Demand Removal Of School Yoga Class hide captionThird-graders at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., perform chair pose with instructor Kristen McCloskey last month. Kyla Calvert for NPR Third-graders at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., perform chair pose with instructor Kristen McCloskey last month. During first period at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., Kristen McCloskey leads about two dozen third-graders through some familiar yoga poses. "All right, so let's do our opening sequence A," she says, instructing the kids. At the end of the half-hour class, 8-year-old Jacob Hagen says he feels energized and ready for the rest of the day. Schools across the country are focusing more on teaching students to make healthy choices; Encinitas Superintendent Tim Baird says yoga is just one element of the district's physical education curriculum. "We also have a nutrition program," he says. "Absolutely not — no.
It All Began in Chaos The dust speck had been plucked from the tail of a comet more than 200 million miles away. Now, under an electron microscope in a basement lab at the University of Washington, its image grew larger, until it filled the computer screen like an alien landscape. Zooming in on a dark patch that looked like a jagged cliff, Dave Joswiak upped the magnification to 900,000. The patch resolved into tiny, jet-black grains. The dust speck has a name: Inti, for the Inca god of the sun. Scientists have long known that the planets, comets, and other bodies orbiting the sun were born, some 4.5 billion years ago, from a spinning disk of dust and gas called the solar nebula. “We were dumbfounded,” says Donald Brownlee, head of the Stardust team and Joswiak’s boss. When most of us were growing up, the solar system seemed reliable and well behaved. Newton himself knew that reality was messier. In practice no one saw evidence that planetary orbits had ever changed. The first clue came from Pluto.
Frédéric Henry-Couannier La revue périodiquement remise à jour de la théorie de la Gravité Obscure: The dark side of gravity (pdf de gr-qc/0610079) Carte d'identité La théorie de la gravité obscure (Dark Gravity) est une théorie alternative de la gravitation. Au niveau phénoménologique, elle est motivée par la recherche d'une solution théorique commune aux anomalies bien connues de la gravitation à diverses échelles : effet Pioneer, courbes de rotation et formation des galaxies, accélération et platitude de l'univers, isotropie du rayonnement cosmologique, ... mais une solution qui ne fasse pas appel aux ingrédients rajoutés que constituent la matière noire, l'énergie noire et l'inflation comme dans le modèle standard de la cosmologie. Principes et construction: Pages introductives Particules Champs et symétries Energies négatives: position du problème Historique des idées autour des énergies négatives et de l'anti gravité Energies négatives, anti-matière et gravitation Energies négatives et instabilité Diaporamas:
Newtown Tragedy: Would A Good God Allow Such Evil? hide captionPeople gather for a prayer vigil at St. Rose Church in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14. In the aftermath of such tragedies, many people ask how a benevolent God and suffering can coexist. Emmanuel Dunand/Getty Images People gather for a prayer vigil at St. When a human tragedy occurs on the scale of the Newtown shootings, clergy are invariably asked an ancient question: If God is all-knowing, all-powerful and benevolent, why does he allow such misfortunes? There's even a word for reconciling this paradox: theodicy, or attempting to justify God's goodness despite the existence of evil and suffering. A World Both Beautiful And Shattered Steven Folberg, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Austin, Texas, has been asked this question before. No small assignment. "I saw a bumper sticker once that said, 'God is good. "The idea was to say, if one accepts those three propositions as true, then they're logically inconsistent. You cannot wiggle your way out, the rabbi continues.
Elon Musk at SXSW: "I Would Like to Die on Mars, Just Not on Impact" AUSTIN — The most popular name on Twitter during day two of South by Southwest was Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX. During his keynote address at the conference, Musk said he would one day like to set foot on Mars, but only if he knew his company could carry on without him and the technology could get him there safely. The old joke, Musk told NowThisNews, was that he would like to die on Mars, just not on impact. Musk also said he hopes contact with life from another planet would come some day, and that it will be peaceful. "So far we haven't seen any signs of life from other worlds," he said. "We haven't detected anything. In 2012, SpaceX made history as the first privately held company to send a cargo payload to the International Space Station. For more of Musk's keynote address, check out the video above. Would you spend the rest of your life on Mars if you were given the chance? Thumbnail image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Intrication quantique - Intrication L'intrication quantique est un phénomène fondamental de la mécanique quantique mis en évidence par Einstein et Schrödinger dans les années 30. Deux systèmes physiques, comme deux particules, se retrouvent alors dans un état quantique dans lequel ils ne forment plus qu'un seul système dans un certain sens subtil. Toute mesure sur l'un des systèmes affecte l'autre, et ce, quelle que soit la distance les séparant. Avant l'intrication, deux systèmes physiques sans interactions sont dans des états quantiques indépendants mais après l'intrication ces deux états sont en quelque sorte « emmêlés » et il n'est plus possible de décrire ces deux systèmes de façon indépendante. C'est pourquoi, comme indiqué précédemment, des propriétés de non-localité font leur apparition et la mesure sur l'un des systèmes influence instantanément l'autre système, même à des années-lumière. -il n'y a fondamentalement ni onde ni corpuscule au sens classique dans la nature. H=T(Pi)+V(Qi) Ι Ψ > = ∑ cn Ι an > où Ainsi
Mormonism: A Scrutinized, Yet Evolving Faith hide captionThe historic Mormon Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City. George Frey/Landov Mitt Romney refused to mix religion with politics in this year's presidential campaign, but that didn't repress people's curiosity about Mormonism. His candidacy brought the homegrown faith into the spotlight. Patrick Mason, a professor and chairman of the Mormon Studies program at Claremont Graduate University, says attention paid to his faith has been twofold. "South Park is a great example of this, The Book of Mormon musical is a great example of this, where people say, well, with increased attention comes increased scrutiny," he says. Mason says many people are skeptical of the church's origins, which involve the story of an angel directing Joseph Smith to golden plates and revealing a new Gospel. And yet, he says, many Americans don't think twice about Jesus walking on water or God sending Jews manna from heaven, because those age-old stories have become part of the culture. A Fluid Faith
Close Shave: Asteroid To Buzz Earth Next Week hide captionThis computer image from a NASA video shows the small asteroid 2012 DA14 on its path as it passes by Earth on Feb. 15. An asteroid the size of an office building will zoom close by Earth next week, but it's not on a collision course, NASA says. Still, some people think this near-miss should serve as a wake-up call. "It's a warning shot across our bow that we are flying around the solar system in a shooting gallery," says Ed Lu, a former astronaut and head of the B612 Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting humanity from asteroids. The asteroid known as 2012 DA14 was first spotted last year by astronomers in Spain. It will whiz past Earth on Feb. 15, going about 5 miles per second. NASA officials say this event is one for the record books — the first time scientists have been able to predict something so big coming so close. It will come closer than satellites in a geosynchronous orbit around 22,000 miles up, but is extremely unlikely to hit any of those as it goes by.
Einstein's Theory of Relativity Explained (Infographic) The theories of relativity by Albert Einstein revolutionized how the world thinks about space, time, mass, energy and gravity. FULL STORY: General Relativity at 100: Einstein's Famous Theory Has Aged Well Prior to Einstein, the laws of Isaac Newton were used to understand the physics of motion. But Newton never puzzled out the source of gravity. Reference: Einstein's Theory of General Relativity Philosopher David Hume's 1738 "A Treatise of Human Nature" was a big influence on Einstein's thinking about space and time. "It is very well possible that without these philosophical studies I would not have arrived at the solution," Einstein wrote. In 1905, Albert Einstein based a new theory on two principles. Second, he calculated that the speed of light – 186,000 miles per second (299,338 kilometers per second) – is unchanging. As a result of these principles, Einstein deduced that there is no fixed frame of reference in the universe. Time does not pass at the same rate for everyone.