DNAunion

DNAunion: Yet science makes claims about other universes, even though there is no way to verify their existence experimentally.

The theist may do this, and the atheist may do that, but the skeptic is not convinced by either side's utterings and demands something concrete: the skeptic suspends judgement until sufficient evidence has been mounted and presented for (or against) a proposition.

PS: Contrary to popular belief, the default position of a skeptic is not "No, I don't believe that": rather, it is "I don't know". A skeptic is not rejectionist: he/she is a noncommital person who needs convincing before taking sides.

Principia

Really.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae ]</p>

Arrowman

Please clarify. What sort of "creationist" is your professor? Is he a Biblical literalist? And how is that belief based on "entropy"?

DNAunion

DNAunion: Thanks for the confirmation...I thought I was right.

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

Principia

Nah, I was merely pointing out the irony of your pretending to know theoretical quantum physics/cosmology, when you can't even recall basic facts about classical physics. Thank you for allowing me to more explicit.

Don't flatter yourself. And stop humping my leg.

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae ]</p>

echidna

DNA, maybe the difference is that science generally offers theories as possibilities. No shortage of critics should a scientist propose an unsubstantiated theory as fact.

Theism OTOH, as a rule asserts unverifiable concepts as fact.

Science also makes the assumption of falsity until proof. When it comes to our physical world, if it’s unverifiable, it’s logically false.

Starboy

Echidna,

That is a very strong statement. You make it sound as if science is practiced in the same way as law. Why do you think that?

Starboy

[ July 31, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

rainbow walking

rw: Redshift isn't necessarily evidence of expansion. It just shows that stars and galaxies are moving away from our point of view. This could be caused by their following a path prescribed by a universe that itself causes gravitation such that all matter and energy within its field will follow prescribed patterns according to the flux of the universal gravity. An expanding universe is just one possible explanation.

Wouldn't it be ironic if modern science made the same error that men made about the earth in assuming it to be flat? If the universe is round, like the earth and most other heavenly bodies, (albeit not symetrically so), yet immensely large such that the event of a galaxy passing over the horizon took many millions of years, it would appear as if the universe is expanding when in reality it is just evidence of a super-large phenomenon as the galaxy, following the lead of universal gravity, is just flowing away over the horizon.

Also, in reference to the BB, 15 billion years isn't enough time for light to travel to every known region of the universe yet the universal temperature is consistant in all regions so either the BB is faulty or it wasn't an isolated incident that occurred in one location. It could be that the BB was actually an extremely numerous phenomenon that took place at an approximate time all over the universal globe creating galaxies simultaneously at many, many points. The discovery of black holes in the center of many of these galaxies, (with the likelyhood that they are in the center of all galaxies), could account for the presence of the matter/energy configurations currently observable if those black holes were once erupting like giant volcanos spewing nebulous material outward in either a spiraling swirl or an elliptical swirl depending on the rotation of the particles as they erupted from the vortex of the black hole.

DNAunion

DNAunion: What do you mean "if the Universe were round"? If you mean one of the three main geometries (closed, with positive curvature), then galaxies would not move over the horizon and become unable to be seen (as a boat going out to sea is). Although light does not follow the curvature of our Earth (which is why something that has moved "over" the horizon can no longer be seen), light does follow the curvature of space (well, space-time). So even if a galaxy were on the completely opposite side of the "Universal ball", the light it emitted would still come towards us via a non-Euclidean straight line, and we would be able to see it (given enough time, of course).

[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

DNAunion

DNAunion: Yes, the STANDARD Big Bang theory does suffer from this horizon problem (and some others). That is what prompted the addition of inflationary theory to the BB theory: inflation resolves the apparent paradoxes.

The problem arises if we follow the expansion back linearly in time to the very beginning. Under those assumptions, when the entire Universe was just a speck smaller than an atom, not even light - despite its immense speed - could have traveled across that speck to all points. Therefore, all points could not have been in thermal contact, so the Universe would not have been in thermal equilibrium back then (and would not all be at about 2.73 K today). But, if we assume that there was a very brief episode of exponential expansion - inflation - then the Universe would have been even smaller at a time 10^-35 seconds (or there abouts) than the linear extrapolation indicates. Thus, prior to about 10^-35 seconds, the entire Universe - now being immensely smaller than the speck mentioned above - could have been in thermal equilibrium because all points could have been in thermal contact. Then inflation occurred at about 10^35 seconds, and the thermal equilibrium that had been established earlier was retained. Subsequent good-ole-normal expansion also retained the thermal equilibrium.

[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>