On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 23:23:02 GMT, Wendy of NJ >
wrote:

>On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 03:13:00 GMT, "Matthew Fields" >
>wrote:
>
>>In article >,
>>Peter T. Daniels > wrote:
>>
>>>They're all just so inherently implausible -- kind of like, How did the
>>>eye evolve?
>>>--
>>>Peter T. Daniels
>>
>>Ever seen planaria flatworms? or octopusses? Eyes have evolved
>>something like 8 separate times, including "half-an-eye" phases where
>>all they are is light-sensitive patches hooked up to the nervous
>>system. A fuller awareness of what's already been explored in the
>>natural world puts things like eyes into perspective as practically
>>guaranteed to arise, while leaving questions like how galaxies get
>>spiral structures unanswered (My current pet hypothesis is that almost
>>all spiral galaxies have arisen from mergers of smaller galaxies which
>>used to orbit each other, but the events take place on such a vast
>>scale of time and space and my grasp of numerical solutions to General
>>Relativity is too weak for me to simulate the hypothesis in a computer
>>and see what features of galaxies it might predict which nobody has
>>looked for before--but watching this game from the sidelines is
>>certainly exciting, see http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html for
>>a wonderful archive of visual aids on this kind of topic).
>
>
>There are some really interesting videos of supercomputer simulations
>of colliding elliptical galaxies that give rise to many galactic
>shapes seen in telescopes. I have this on video from a while back
>(early 90's or late 80's - I don't really remember), so I don't know
>if it's available on the net anywhere. I think they were done by JPL.
>
>-Wendy

Replying to myself to add: these aren't the videos I meant in the
previous post, but they are very cool:

http://www.astro.washington.edu/stinson/nbody/galform/