The Universe as Told by Two Regular Guys

By Daniel McNeill and Randy Vincent

Have you ever looked up on a dark night and wondered what the deal was with all those stars?  Have you ever been around your coworkers or friends who were talking about the planets or stars above and you simply had no understanding about what they were saying?  Well, this book was written for you.  Two regular guys, who are NOT as

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel McNeill
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087879161

Daniel McNeill

Dr. Dan McNeill received his BS degree from North Carolina State, a BS as a Physician Assistant from Wichita State and his PhD in Anatomy from East Carolina University. Following two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, McNeill was hired as a neuroscientist at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in 1988. In 1994, Dr. McNeill closed his research lab and assumed the position of Director of the OU Physician Associate Program; a position he held until his retirement in 2013. With his extensive involvement in health care delivery systems, public policy, and working with the uninsured, McNeill directed the creation of a new PA Program at Oklahoma City University from 2014-2018. McNeill recently joined the faculty of the developing PA Program at Northeastern State University. His love of teaching and science and his fascination with the night sky led him to team up with his next door neighbor, who shares the same interest in astronomy, to write this book.

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Copyright © Dan McNeill & Randy Vincent, 2020

The publisher and author are providing this book and its contents on an as is basis and make no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to this book or its contents. The publisher and the author disclaim all such representations and warranties. In addition, the publisher and the author assume no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any other inconsistencies herein.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form either by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

ISBN 978-1-0878-7916-1

First Edition Feb 2020

Book Design by JD&J Design

Contents

Chapter 1 The Guys

Chapter 2 Light, Space, and Time

Chapter 3 Our Solar System

Chapter 4 Our Galaxy, the Milky Way

Chapter 5 The Local Group

Chapter 6 The Virgo Supercluster and Its Neighborhood

Chapter 7 The Expanding Universe

Chapter 8 A View of Things

Dan

To my parents Peggy and Bobby who gave me opportunity. To my lovely wife Kelly who is much more than I deserve in this Universe. And to my good friend Randy, may we have many more warm summer evenings fishing, looking at the stars, and pondering questions without answers.

Randy

Albert Einstein said, For every one billion particles of antimatter there were one billion one particles of matter. And when the mutual annihilation was complete, one billionth remained, and that’s our present Universe. To my forever friend, Dan, who made me think about this quote and the vast Universe that surrounds us and who has enabled me to explore the stars and all their wonder.

Authors note: The calculations used in this book were performed on a smartphone. Descriptions of distance, time, and speed were rounded up or down to the nearest sensible number. Every effort was made to ensure accuracy in our calculations, but frankly, when it comes to math, we ain’t the coldest beers in the fridge.

Chapter 1

The Guys

Look here. If you want to understand the Universe like an astrophysicist, this is not the book for you. If that’s your goal, go read books by Stephen Hawking. We’ve read them. Understood most of them. The rest was theoretical blubbery way over our heads.

If you majored in philosophy and want to pontificate about the origin of the Universe and whether or not we really exist, then move out of your parent’s basement, get a paying job, and go ahead and read this book because it’s full of plain and simple facts about our very real Universe. And at twenty-eight years of age, you really should finally learn something that matters.

For the rest of you, if you want to get a handle on the Universe, because on occasion you walk outside at night and look up only to wonder, What’s the deal with all those stars? Well my friend, you’ve found a home. Also, if you find yourself in the middle of an intelligent conversation and your desire is to not seem as dumb as a bag of hammers, well again, this book contains some tidbits you might be able to blurt out to convince them otherwise.

Randy and myself, we’re just two regular guys who are fascinated by what we can find through a telescope. From that fascination, you start to Google things in an attempt to understand, and before you know it, you know enough simple shit to write a book. So, here we are, writing this book, in language anyone at the Coconut Shack Bar can understand in order to discuss questions like, what’s out there, where are we, and where are we headed? Before we get into those things though, here’s a little bit about us because you really ought to know who you’re dealing with and just how regular we are.

Figure 1. I mean what can you say. Two guys going out to check their jug lines on a warm summer evening. Dan on the left and Randy at the helm. How much more regular can you get?

Randy is pretty well educated. He earned his bachelor’s degree from East Central University in 1978 and immediately went to work at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma as a civilian contract specialist manager. He retired in 2010 and spends most of his time at his place in Brooken Cove on Lake Eufaula, Oklahoma. He fishes most every day and hunts deer during the fall. He’s damn good at both. Randy’s wife is Diane. She’s a smart woman and loves the stars too.

I grew up in North Carolina and earned my Ph.D. in anatomy from East Carolina University in 1986. A few years after retiring from my first real job at the University of Oklahoma, my wife Kelly and I moved permanently to what had been our lake house in Brooken Cove. I now work at a local university. I fish and hunt too, but not nearly as competently as Randy. And while Kelly will occasionally succumb to my whiney, You’ve got to come see this, and look through the telescope, she really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about this Universe stuff. On the other hand, she’s much smarter than me, and had she been so inspired, would probably have done a better job at writing this book.

Randy and Diane are our next-door neighbors. During the summer months, we’re all outside either fishing, cruising the community and the lake in our golf carts, or working in the yard. After the Sun sets in a clear sky, Randy and I can usually be found setting up the telescope in the driveway and cruising the sky for whatever fancies us. It’s a tough life in Brooken Cove.

So, how did we come to write this book. My daughter Emily and I were visiting family in North Carolina over Christmas. We were over at my sister’s house when my brother-in-law Ken asked if I might be interested in a telescope. On the top shelf of their bedroom closet was a Meade telescope Ken had given to his family as a Christmas present many years earlier. They had pulled it out once, couldn’t see a thing, put it back in the box, and there it sat for all that time. Ken asked if I wanted it because he wanted the closet space back, and I said, Damn skippy. I’ll take it.

When we got back to Brooken Cove and the winter clouds eventually gave way to clear spring skies, I set the telescope up and low and behold, the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn were right there! And that