Over the past few months i’ve been reading The Urantia Book off and on.
I recently got to a paper that discusses the physical characteristics of our “local universe.” In it they make some pretty interesting claims, i will only ask for clarification on a couple.
In the book the “messenger” states “If you were to walk through most of the stars in your local universe, they would feel little different than the atmosphere of Urantia (Earth)”
Is this true? Obviously we don’t know for sure, but we must be able to have some sort of idea.
“The astronomers and chemists on your planet are so far completely unaware of the presence of ‘supergases’ these gases make up many of the stars throughout the universes. These elements are gaseous but have the density of iron.”
Has anything like this ever been discovered? Theorized? Is this possible?
NOTE: I do not want to debate the religious aspect of The Urantia Book, please just stick to answering the questions i provided. This is GQ.
Well, if we’re just casually tossing out the “it would vaporize you” bit, what exactly does it mean to say it would “feel little different than the atmosphere of Earth?” It’s exactly the same except for being completely different?
Actually, we know that the atmosphere of the sun (which is a typical star) is absolutely unlike Earth’s. Lots of hydrogen and precious little oxygen, for a start. Temperature, pressure, and composition are completely different (Wiki link). And, of course, the centre of all live stars is a giant H-bomb, which is definitely not naturally present on Earth.
Hydrogen has at least one metallic state, and it’s hypothesised to be present in Jupiter’s core, but it’s not gaseous. Stars are made up largely of hydrogen which is in a plasma (Wiki link), and that gets very dense as you near the core of the star, indeed it must for fusion to occur.
I suggest you take any further similar scientific statements in this book with a huge pinch of salt.
Huh? I don’t know anything about the book, or what its agenda is, but what does that statement even mean?
Stars greatly vary in age, composition, size, temperature, gravity, among many other factors, so just what are we calling “most stars”? Furthermore, how can one walk on/through a star, as it has no surface. I’m not sure what kind of difference it’s talking about, since there is little that the star has in common with Earth at all. The statement has essentially no meaning.
Even if it were true, or you could even derive a modicum of similarity between taking a stroll on the Earth, as opposed to a stroll on the Sun, why would that be important at all? What would this tell you?
The Sun’s gravity at the photosphere is about 28 times Earth’s, so it’s not quite that bad. But it’s still probably not a good idea to shun that offer.
How can we ignore the “religious aspect” of the book? That’s basically all these statements are based on. Taken out of their religious context, they are meaningless.
Even in the context of “religious messages,” much of the Urantia Book is meaningless, although it is well-written and entertaining as a scientific romance.
If we ignore the “vaporization” aspect, and also the fact the the Sun’s composition is wholly different from the Earth’s atmosphere, we can look at just the effects of density.
At the photosphere (the Sun’s effective surface) the density is about 2×10[sup]-4[/sup] kg/m[sup]3[/sup]. That’s far less than the density of the Earth’s atmosphere at sea level, which is just over 1 kg/m[sup]3[/sup].
At the Sun’s core, the density is around 150000 kg/m[sup]3[/sup]. That’s over 10 times the density of a heavy metal like lead or gold. And it’s still a plasma at that density, which is sort of like a gas (in the sense that a plasma is a compressible fluid).
And between those two states, theres a more-or-less smooth transition. So at some point, there’s a region in the Sun where the density is the same as Earth’s atmosphere at sea level—or any other altitude, for that matter. And there’s a region where the plasma has a density equal to iron, but is still in a state with some gas-like properties.
So yeah, if you throw in enough ridiculous assmuptions, you could make something out of the statements in that book. But By the time you make all those accommodations, it’s not really the same idea, is it?
If our astronomers and chemists are completely unaware of these supergases, then we can’t exactly give you any astronomical or chemical answer about them, can we? And this being GQ, we can’t exactly give a religious of philosophical answer, either. So what kind of answer are we supposed to give?
A star is not a planet. Its important to realize the difference. You cant walk through a star. You wont even be able to get near one because of the temperatures.
As far as gases as dense as iron? Err, is its that dense then its no longer a gas.
<I>NOTE: I do not want to debate the religious aspect of The Urantia Book, please just stick to answering the questions i provided. This is GQ.</I>
If youre interested in cosmology I suggest you read this free pdf book by NASA. It also has a recommened reading section. Getting science from a religious book is really just silly. The questions you are asking dont make sense.
This book was written in the 1930s, i had this strange idea that our knowledge of chemicals and astronomy might have improved since then.
And i dont feel that ignoring the religious aspect of this book for this thread makes everything else meaningless. The whole point of this paper is to reveal to the mortals of Urantia what the universe is like.
The short answer is that nothing outside of what Earthly scientists understood in the 1930s that was “revealed” in the Urantia Book has been validated by later Earthly advances in knowledge. Also, several of the things which were accepted scientific knowledge in the 1930s which were “revealed” in the Urantia Book have been superceded by later Earthly discoveries.
The parts where it is accurate were known at the time of its publication. Several parts which were considered accurate at the time of publication are now believed to be inaccurate. And none of the “revelations” have been corroborated.
And no, I do not have any cites handy. I am at my day job. The discussion of the scientific merits of the Urantia Book is a larger topic than I can address here.
But, you’re assuming the assertions of the book line up with reality, when we know that’s not the case. So, other than illogical faith, there’s nothing to really discuss here.
Maybe you should start another thread in Great Debates.
Skeptic Martin Gardner address this ridiculous new age cult book and the claims of its followers in his own book here. Maybe its at your local library.
I’m a long time student of The Urantia Book. I can tell you first of all that the authors state that many of the science facts will become obsolete as science advances. I can also tell you that there are several concepts in the book that were verified long after the book was published. One of these is the idea of plate tectonics and the giant Pangea land formation from which the continents split off. Plate tectonics had been theorized around 1911 but the idea was not accepted by most geologists until seafloor spreading was discovered in the 1960’s. Another idea in the book that was ahead of its time was the collapse of a supernova due to the outflux of neutrinos. This was not known until two facilities detected the neutrinos from SN 1987.
But of course the science in the book is just a footnote; one purpose of the book is to inject some significant spiritual concepts into our world to move us away from the theology of the Middle Ages. Another purpose is to give us a better picture of the human Jesus and to give a truer picture of his mission to our confused world.
By the way, Martin Gardner spoke with me about the Urantia Book and mentioned me in his book. Unfortunately, he admitted that he did not read much of the Urantia Book and as an atheist he didn’t have much appreciation for its spiritual quality. Namaste
