Astrophysicists Announce Major Discovery Of Big Bang's Smoking Gun (1 Viewer)

[Johnny Rock]

:sehorn:

 

[The Commish]

This news is incompatible with the Book of Genesis.

Clearly you haven't read Genesis and tried to logically connect the two. Genesis, Big Bang Theory, & evolution are entirely compatible. Just take a little logical thinking. Genesis does not say HOW God created anything, only that he created it. If God caused the Big Bang, then both Genesis and science are correct.

You say logic, I say mental gymnastics.

Potato, Potahto.. right?

Clearly you didn't take logic in college. Clearly you are also a typical liberal.

Which type of logic are you referring to? Logic covered in my Engineering Calculus? The type I learned to apply in computer science/programming? Or Philosophy? I guess the answer is "yes" regardless. Granted I've never heard of a college course actually titled "Logic", perhaps you could help me with that.

Also, I like the lazy route of mindlessly labeling others. Clearly the plan born of well thought out "logic".

I took both a General Logic and Symbolic Logic class in college.

But they weren't just labeled "logic". That'd be like a class being labeled "math" or "computers" so there's probably a reason he's never heard of a class titled "logic". We had several logic classes at our disposal as well.

 

[fatness]

I took both a General Logic and Symbolic Logic class in college.

Is Symbolic Logic like Tetris?

 

[Parmcat]

This news is incompatible with the Book of Genesis.

You're right.

One is scientific fact, and the other is a book of fables.

 

[jon_mx]

This news is incompatible with the Book of Genesis.

You're right.

One is scientific fact, and the other is a book of fables.

You should not use words you really don't understand their meaning.

 

[GroveDiesel]

I took both a General Logic and Symbolic Logic class in college.

Is Symbolic Logic like Tetris?

It's where you learn to take statements, convert them to an equation, and then solve the equation to determine if the statement is logically valid or not.

 

[JZilla]

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was unformed and void, darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. So there was evening, and there was morning, one day.

[SIZE=.75em]6 [/SIZE]God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the water; let it divide the water from the water.” [SIZE=.75em]7 [/SIZE]God made the dome and divided the water under the dome from the water above the dome; that is how it was, [SIZE=.75em]8 [/SIZE]and God called the dome Sky. So there was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

[SIZE=.75em]9 [/SIZE]God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let dry land appear,” and that is how it was. [SIZE=.75em]10 [/SIZE]God called the dry land Earth, the gathering together of the water he called Seas, and God saw that it was good.

[SIZE=.75em]11 [/SIZE]God said, “Let the earth put forth grass, seed-producing plants, and fruit trees, each yielding its own kind of seed-bearing fruit, on the earth”; and that is how it was. [SIZE=.75em]12 [/SIZE]The earth brought forth grass, plants each yielding its own kind of seed, and trees each producing its own kind of seed-bearing fruit; and God saw that it was good. [SIZE=.75em]13 [/SIZE]So there was evening, and there was morning, a third day.

[SIZE=.75em]14 [/SIZE]God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night; let them be for signs, seasons, days and years; [SIZE=.75em]15 [/SIZE]and let them be for lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth”; and that is how it was. [SIZE=.75em]16 [/SIZE]God made the two great lights — the larger light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night — and the stars. [SIZE=.75em]17 [/SIZE]God put them in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth, [SIZE=.75em]18 [/SIZE]to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. [SIZE=.75em]19 [/SIZE]So there was evening, and there was morning, a fourth day.

[SIZE=.75em]20 [/SIZE]God said, “Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open dome of the sky.” [SIZE=.75em]21 [/SIZE]God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that creeps, so that the water swarmed with all kinds of them, and there was every kind of winged bird; and God saw that it was good. [SIZE=.75em]22 [/SIZE]Then God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the water of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” [SIZE=.75em]23 [/SIZE]So there was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.

[SIZE=.75em]24 [/SIZE]God said, “Let the earth bring forth each kind of living creature — each kind of livestock, crawling animal and wild beast”; and that is how it was. [SIZE=.75em]25 [/SIZE]God made each kind of wild beast, each kind of livestock and every kind of animal that crawls along the ground; and God saw that it was good.

[SIZE=.75em]26 [/SIZE]Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.”

[SIZE=.75em]27 [/SIZE]So God created humankind in his own image;
in the image of God he created him:
male and female he created them.
[SIZE=.75em]28 [/SIZE]God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.” [SIZE=.75em]29 [/SIZE]Then God said, “Here! Throughout the whole earth I am giving you as food every seed-bearing plant and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. [SIZE=.75em]30 [/SIZE]And to every wild animal, bird in the air and creature crawling on the earth, in which there is a living soul, I am giving as food every kind of green plant.” And that is how it was. [SIZE=.75em]31 [/SIZE]God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.

[SIZE=1.25em]2 [/SIZE]Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, along with everything in them. [SIZE=.75em]2 [/SIZE]On the seventh day God was finished with his work which he had made, so he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. [SIZE=.75em]3 [/SIZE]God blessed the seventh day and separated it as holy; because on that day God rested from all his work which he had created, so that it itself could produce.

[SIZE=.75em]4 [/SIZE]Here is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created. On the day when God made earth and heaven, [SIZE=.75em]5 [/SIZE]there was as yet no wild bush on the earth, and no wild plant had as yet sprung up; for God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no one to cultivate the ground. [SIZE=.75em]6 [/SIZE]Rather, a mist went up from the earth which watered the entire surface of the ground.

[SIZE=.75em]7 [/SIZE]Then God formed a person from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being. [SIZE=.75em]8 [/SIZE]God planted a garden toward the east, in ‘Eden, and there he put the person whom he had formed. [SIZE=.75em]9 [/SIZE]Out of the ground God caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[SIZE=.75em]10 [/SIZE]A river went out of ‘Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided into four streams. [SIZE=.75em]11 [/SIZE]The name of the first is Pishon; it winds throughout the land of Havilah, where there is gold. [SIZE=.75em]12 [/SIZE]The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there. [SIZE=.75em]13 [/SIZE]The name of the second river is Gichon; it winds throughout the land of Kush.[SIZE=.75em]14 [/SIZE]The name of the third river is Tigris; it is the one that flows toward the east of Ashur. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

[SIZE=.75em]15 [/SIZE]God took the person and put him in the garden of ‘Eden to cultivate and care for it. [SIZE=.75em]16 [/SIZE]God gave the person this order: “You may freely eat from every tree in the garden [SIZE=.75em]17 [/SIZE]except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You are not to eat from it, because on the day that you eat from it, it will become certain that you will die.”

[SIZE=.75em]18 [/SIZE]God said, “It isn’t good that the person should be alone. I will make for him a companion suitable for helping him.” [SIZE=.75em]19 [/SIZE]So from the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird that flies in the air, and he brought them to the person to see what he would call them. Whatever the person would call each living creature, that was to be its name. [SIZE=.75em]20 [/SIZE]So the person gave names to all the livestock, to the birds in the air and to every wild animal. But for Adam there was not found a companion suitable for helping him.

[SIZE=.75em]21 [/SIZE]Then God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the person; and while he was sleeping, he took one of his ribs and closed up the place from which he took it with flesh. [SIZE=.75em]22 [/SIZE]The rib which God had taken from the person, he made a woman-person; and he brought her to the man-person. [SIZE=.75em]23 [/SIZE]The man-person said, “At last! This is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh. She is to be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” [SIZE=.75em]24 [/SIZE]This is why a man is to leave his father and mother and stick with his wife, and they are to be one flesh.

[SIZE=.75em]25 [/SIZE]They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

 

[The Goat]

This news is incompatible with the Book of Genesis.

To be honest, I just poked my head in here to see yow quickly this turned into a "The Bible is stupid" scientific masturbation session.

The over/under was you.

 

[jomar]

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”;

I've always wondered who God was talking to when he said this. There are no other Gods according to Him, and humans hadn't been created yet, so he would've had nobody to talk to for as long as He had existed. Did he start talking to himself at some point?

 

[bostonfred]

It's just mind boggling that all of the matter and energy that ever existed was there at the big bang. Which means that every degree of heat ever pumped out by the sun was there, but also every degree of heat from every star in our galaxy and every galaxy in the universe. It was all in one tiny spot. And every ounce of rock from here to the farthest reaches of the universe existed - it might not have been in rock form, but the mass was there. All in one tiny point.

The mind boggling part of it to me isn't just that you could have all of that energy and matter in one tiny space - or even the massive inflation that occurred in the fractions of a second in which the universe blinked into existence. That's hard enough to wrap your mind around.

But what really gets my head twisted is that the universe has a specific amount of mass and energy that isn't infinite, and doesn't change. Why does the universe have a mass of 1.468 gazillion tons, and not, say, 3.14? Or 1? The concept of "laws" in the universe has never made sense to me - a formula like e=mc^2 just seems absurd to me in the sense that there's no real reason for c to be 186,000 miles per second except that that's what it is. If there are arbitrary things in the universe, then how did they get arbited?

And are they universally consistent? If there are other universes, do they all have the same amount of information, or are there big universes and little universes? Is the speed of light the same from universe to universe? And while I understand that information is always preserved, if there is a big crunch, will the "next" iteration of the universe have the same amount of information?

Also blowing my mind is that the idea of "before space time" doesn't exist, but that there is a "beginning" to space time. That we can accurately say what happened in the first second of the universe, because that was literally the first second that ever existed, and nothing predated it.

The closest I can come to making sense to all this is to look at the universe as a balloon. It's easy to imagine the inflation of the universe like the inflation of a balloon, and it's pretty common to use that analogy to describe how things are expanding away from each other. It follows logically that the big bang is like the first bit of breath into the balloon, which took it from an infinitesimal speck to what it is today. But that's not right, because that scenario imagines a balloon growing into space that was already there, and occupying more and more space as time goes on. Which implies that there's something outside of that space for it to grow into. And that's not right.

Instead, it helps me to think of the universe as an already inflated balloon which is constant in size and shape. It doesn't change at all. If you take a cross section of that balloon at its widest point, you'll get a circle that's a certain size. Take a cross section at a different point, and you get a different, smaller size. At either end of the balloon, you have a balloon knot and a nipple thingy. A cross section at the very end of the balloon knot would be almost infinitely small. As you move closer to the center, it gets bigger and bigger, very rapidly at first and then more slowly until you get to its maximum size, and then the exact opposite.

Instead of thinking of those cross sections as happening from left to right, or from top to bottom, or however you're imagining that balloon, think of them as happening from beginning to end. Because time is just one dimension. From any point on the balloon, you could make inferences about the size and curvature and dimensions of the balloon, but sitting on the outside of the balloon, you could only truly see the stuff right around you, and it would all be curving away.

But if the universe has a finite beginning and a finite end - even if it's too large for us to see or even comprehend, so we can only see things one cross section at a time - then why does it have that beginning and end? Why is the universe set to last 28 billion years (or however long it is) instead of 42 billion or 1 trillion or some other arbitrary amount of time? Every finite aspect of the universe is arbitrary. How did it become what it is and not something else? I just can't get my arms around it.

 

[The Goat]

3 Then God said, “Let there be light”;

I've always wondered who God was talking to when he said this. There are no other Gods according to Him, and humans hadn't been created yet, so he would've had nobody to talk to for as long as He had existed. Did he start talking to himself at some point?

To be fair, I always wondered how the first day was measured before God made the Sun. I'm just amazed by those who take wonderfully interesting information like this, and their first instinct is to try to disprove God with it. "HA! I'm right, you're all wrong. I know what happened, and you're all stupid!"

For whatever reason, it reminds me of the scene between Billy Beane and his head scout in "Moneyball": "You don't have a crystal ball. You love to sit at that kitchen table and say, 'I know, I know, I know. And you don't.'"

 

[bigbottom]

I need a doobie.

 

[munga30]

Now imagine the balloon is black.

 

[The Goat]

I need a doobie.

Good thing we now have a cosmic microwave for the bangin' nachos that will be needed afterward.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

At the origin of the Big Bang it wouldn't have been all the mass in the universe, just all the energy...right?

 

[MikeIke]

What'd you say about my balloon knot?

 

[ClownCausedChaos2]

This is the kind of stuff that I wish I understood. Space, time, the universe...It's all so fascinating to me, but I get lost 15 minutes into "Through the Wormhole".

Anyway, carry on. I'm dumb and this is my black dot.

 

[bostonfred]

At the origin of the Big Bang it wouldn't have been all the mass in the universe, just all the energy...right?

If we're going to get technical about it, then all of the "information". But to answer your question, #### if I know. I liked this post from the first page.

I'll tell you what this means to me:

we have always worked off of first mass, then energy as the primary building blocks of our physical existence.

But here we have gravity raising its head in the very earliest of time, mass and energy.

The nature of gravity has not been formally explained, there is a theory about a body called "gravitinos" but it is purely theoretical. There are further strong forces and weak forces, also largely undefeined.

Here is gravity before there were planetary bodies, in association with energy. Energy expands, but how? Looking back in time there are gasses but not mass per se, except to the extent that gasses, like stars, have mass. But there is no solid "mass" in the respect of land, or dirt or rock. In relation to itself, energy, there is time in the form of distance, there is light, and there is a force that expels it outward and which draws it back inward (as for instance galaxies, stars and planets, and even the things living and forming on them come into existence).

This should freak all of us out because if so we are still misunderstanding a big swath of our physical existence.

 

[Yankee23Fan]

God you anti/pro religious people suck in these threads. Really. Suck. Stop.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

So if force is a function of mass but mass can be expressed as energy...can energy cause force?

 

[The Goat]

God you anti/pro religious people suck in these threads. Really. Suck. Stop.

Dude. Your signature is a Bible verse.

 

[ClownCausedChaos2]

God you anti/pro religious people suck in these threads. Really. Suck. Stop.

Dude. Your signature is a Bible verse.

From the Letter of Paul to the pains in the ###.

 

[bostonfred]

Here's another thing I've always kind of struggled with. The speed of light is about 186,000 miles per second. We can actually measure the exact speed of light with ridiculous accuracy. As I asked in my post above, why isn't it 187,000 miles per second? Why not 314159 miles per second? The arbitrariness of the facts of the universe just boggles my mind.

And starting from the moment of the big bang, we've been able to calculate data, and cross reference it, and use insanely minute details to work out things that are hidden in cosmic radiation at distances that we're only now able to see. That's all incredible enough.

But what if the speed of light wasn't actually constant at 186,000 miles per second? What if it started out at 0, then grew to one inch per second when the universe was an inch wide, then kept growing and growing as the universe inflated? We've been able to make all of these calculations based on known quantities like the speed of light, but our understanding of how the speed of light worked at the time of the big bang is based on our interpretation of data gathered from things like light waves that have traveled a distance that is internally consistent with the size of the universe assuming that light always traveled at that speed. But so much of our understanding of the size and shape of the universe is based on the constant speed of light and other waves because it's the only date we can really work off of. What if that speed had changed somewhere along the way? How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

(fwiw, 186,000 miles per second is not actually the "speed of light". the speed of light depends on the medium through which it's passing. but 186,000 miles per second is a good proxy for what i'm asking. for more information on slow light, here's a fun article off of google http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=99111)

 

[joffer]

At the origin of the Big Bang it wouldn't have been all the mass in the universe, just all the energy...right?

they're equivalent

 

[Yankee23Fan]

God you anti/pro religious people suck in these threads. Really. Suck. Stop.

Dude. Your signature is a Bible verse.

And a rather important one at that, but so what?

 

[joffer]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwise

and the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

 

[B-Deep]

this just in:

the universe is still a really big place, a REALLY big place

 

[The Goat]

God you anti/pro religious people suck in these threads. Really. Suck. Stop.

Dude. Your signature is a Bible verse.

And a rather important one at that, but so what?

It just struck me as amusing. Kinda like someone in a "Yankees Suck" T-shirt trying to bring peace and calm into a Red Sox/Yankees spat.

Not a great analogy, but I think you know where I was going.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

At the origin of the Big Bang it wouldn't have been all the mass in the universe, just all the energy...right?

they're equivalent

But not in terms of size as we normally define it.What I'm getting at is that it's easier to understand how everything could have "fit" at the origin if you think of the energy instead of the mass.

 

[bostonfred]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

 

[The Goat]

this just in:

the universe is still a really big place, a REALLY big place

And the more I read into the history of this, and start looking at the gravitational wave theory/information...

...Albert Einstein was really, REALLY smart.

 

[joffer]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

 

[B-Deep]

this just in:

the universe is still a really big place, a REALLY big place

And the more I read into the history of this, and start looking at the gravitational wave theory/information...

...Albert Einstein was really, REALLY smart.

yeah, i am fairly certain he was either an alien or a time traveler. Possibly both

 

[timschochet]

Is the speed of light constant throughout the universe, though? Is it possible that, in another part of the universe, the speed of light would be slower or faster?

 

[joffer]

Is the speed of light constant throughout the universe, though? Is it possible that, in another part of the universe, the speed of light would be slower or faster?

sure its possible, there's just no reason currently to think that.

 

[B-Deep]

i coulda been an astrophysicist...i was really good at math and science. but i was all like "what kind of job can you get with that degree"

now i think the answer is likely "a lot cooler job than you got with yours, #######"

maybe i am not as smart as I like to think...

 

[JZilla]

Is the speed of light constant throughout the universe, though? Is it possible that, in another part of the universe, the speed of light would be slower or faster?

My understanding is we know that these laws are constant, because when we look back through space we're also looking back through time

 

[Andy Dufresne]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

What does flat mean?

 

[The Goat]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

This is the theory that ends with the Big Chill, correct? Not the one with the Kevin Costner cameo...the other one.

 

[joffer]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

What does flat mean?

I could try to explain it, but I'd probably butcher it. I'd recommend Lawrence Krauss's A Universe from Nothing. It's a great read. it's also on youtube as a lecture.

Basically, they were able to look back at the "last scattering surface", which was the point at which the universe cooled enough for atoms of Hydrogen to form, and determine that the light from it was not converging (closed), or diverging (open), but was unbent.

 

[NCCommish]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

This is the theory that ends with the Big Chill, correct? Not the one with the Kevin Costner cameo...the other one.

I think you mean Big Freeze Theory.

 

[joffer]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

This is the theory that ends with the Big Chill, correct? Not the one with the Kevin Costner cameo...the other one.

correct, according to the latest theory, the universe will continue to expand and get asymptotically(sp?) cooler, but never reach 0K

 

[NCCommish]

Simply put the Big Freeze Theory says in an infinitely expanding universe the stars will eventually all run out of fuel. The universe will achieve a uniform temp too cold to support life after they go out. Keep in mind we are talking about trillions of years from now.

 

[The Goat]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

This is the theory that ends with the Big Chill, correct? Not the one with the Kevin Costner cameo...the other one.

I think you mean Big Freeze Theory.

Huh. My college prof. referred to it as the Big Chill. Bastige. I guess he liked the Kevin Costner joke.

 

[The Goat]

How can we know for sure that c is a constant?

I know that's far fetched, but so is the idea of a 13.7 billion year old universe that will end billion more years from now. 40 billion years? Why not 60 or 10? Why not 187,000 miles per second? Where do these arbitrary things come from?

we can't know for sure, we just have no reason to think otherwiseand the universe is not "set to end" after a certain period of time.

Depends on whether there's a big crunch. The energy from the big bang is causing expansion. The gravity of all of the things in the universe should eventually pull things back together. If everything eventually collapses in on itself, that's the "end" of this iteration of the universe - and quite possibly the "beginning" of another one.

the universe has been determined to be "flat", not "closed". If it was closed, it would collapse upon itself due to gravity. its not doing that, its accelerating, which is where the concept of dark energy comes from. The flat universe discovery is several years behind us.

This is the theory that ends with the Big Chill, correct? Not the one with the Kevin Costner cameo...the other one.

correct, according to the latest theory, the universe will continue to expand and get asymptotically(sp?) cooler, but never reach 0K

...and this is the one that then gives rise to the question of "Where did the singularity come from," correct? The Big Crunch is the cyclical theory (which eventually gives rise to the same question).

That's the eventual question that messes with my head. Theoretical physics is just beyond me, and when I read on it too long, it leads to drinking.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Simply put the Big Freeze Theory says in an infinitely expanding universe the stars will eventually all run out of fuel. The universe will achieve a uniform temp too cold to support life after they go out. Keep in mind we are talking about trillions of years from now.

I think that's perhaps the saddest thought there is...that if there is other intelligent life out there then it's getting further away all the time. How lonely.

 

[bostonfred]

Good stuff joffer. Thanks.

 

[NCCommish]

Simply put the Big Freeze Theory says in an infinitely expanding universe the stars will eventually all run out of fuel. The universe will achieve a uniform temp too cold to support life after they go out. Keep in mind we are talking about trillions of years from now.

I think that's perhaps the saddest thought there is...that if there is other intelligent life out there then it's getting further away all the time. How lonely.

Eventually the only stars we will be able to see are the ones in the Milky Way. All the rest will disappear beyond the horizon and we will truly seem to be alone in the universe.

 

[bostonfred]

Simply put the Big Freeze Theory says in an infinitely expanding universe the stars will eventually all run out of fuel. The universe will achieve a uniform temp too cold to support life after they go out. Keep in mind we are talking about trillions of years from now.

I think that's perhaps the saddest thought there is...that if there is other intelligent life out there then it's getting further away all the time. How lonely.

Might be the only reason we're still alive. They've been flying here to kill us for eons, but they're swimming upstream.

 

[(HULK)]

I'm not a physics person, but I keep reading that this discovery implies a multiverse. Cool if true.