[jr2]

ok, so you do _not_ want to talk about evolution (that would be #4 in your little list there), you want to talk about astrophysics, fine. well the universe is expanding, so doesn't it make since that at one point in time it was all together at one spot?

No, we _do_ want to talk about evolution (that would be #2 in my little list there)... or do you not wish to accept a dictionary definition?  Or are you simply having a hard time extrapolating from m's context which definition fit the bill for astrophysics?

2 a: a process of change in a certain direction : unfolding b: the action or an instance of forming and giving something off : emission c (1): a process of continuous change from a lower, simpler, or worse to a higher, more complex, or better state : growth (2): a process of gradual and relatively peaceful social, political, and economic advance d: something evolved

but now you're dealing with balancing up numbers and modelling around the laws of physics as they are known, but never really being able to simply test your theories at ground level.

So, according to know laws of physics, it is indeed possible for all the matter that exists in the universe to exist in an area the size of a period?  I kinda thought that wasn't the case...  What exactly leads you to believe that such a feat would be possible?  Just because the universe is expanding doesn't mean it was a single point at one time.

[Mefustae]

No, we _do_ want to talk about evolution (that would be #2 in my little list there)... or do you not wish to accept a dictionary definition?  Or are you simply having a hard time extrapolating from m's context which definition fit the bill for astrophysics?

What the heck are you talking about? Are you referring to the biological theory of the development of life known as the Theory of Evolution, or simply 'evolution' as a word describing change over time? It's probably just confusion on my part, but could you make your point a little clearer?

[jr2]

Well, I suppose you could say that you should say "the Theory of _Biological_ Evolution"...  Evolution meaning in this (m's) case the increase of order and complexity from the original, completely formless, solid state of (impossibly small) mass the universe once was.  It's quite obvious he wasn't talking of the Theory of (Biological) Evolution, as he was not referring to Biology.

[Flipside]

So, according to know laws of physics, it is indeed possible for all the matter that exists in the universe to exist in an area the size of a period?  I kinda thought that wasn't the case...  What exactly leads you to believe that such a feat would be possible?  Just because the universe is expanding doesn't mean it was a single point at one time.

It gets a bit odd, but, according to the known laws of physics, the known laws of physics weren't the same when the Universe was young, certain constants were a bit confused etc. In fact, there's no reason to say that the Primordial Atom, or whatever you choose to call it, was that small, it gets confusing because before the start of the Universe, there were no dimensions to measure it with, and no time for anything to happen to it in. I'm not a quantum Physicist, but as I understand it, there are certain values in the Universe, things like the charge of a proton etc, that effect it massively if they vary, and evidence to suggest that this is what they did.

[Mars]

*brain fries*

[Bobboau]

No, we _do_ want to talk about evolution (that would be #2 in my little list there)... or do you not wish to accept a dictionary definition?  Or are you simply having a hard time extrapolating from m's context which definition fit the bill for astrophysics?

oh, I'm sorry, I see talks about life and the word evolution I stupidly thought you wanted to talk about the theory of evolution, the thing that has to do with how species adapt over generations, but I guess you want a discussion of Etymology?

[Mefustae]

Well, I suppose you could say that you should say "the Theory of _Biological_ Evolution"...  Evolution meaning in this (m's) case the increase of order and complexity from the original, completely formless, solid state of (impossibly small) mass the universe once was.  It's quite obvious he wasn't talking of the Theory of (Biological) Evolution, as he was not referring to Biology.

There's nothing obvious about it. M said something about a 'proton evolving', which is a pretty abstract thing to say. Either he's talking about the proton-proton chain reaction and subsequent fusion reactions (the "evolution" of hydrogen protons into heavier elements) in a rather cryptic manner, or he simply misspoke as Mars surmised and he actually meant to say protein. As Bob pointed out, m's history would heavily indicate the latter, so you can excuse the rest of us for being a little befuddled as to what he was on about.

Posting is not a very intuitive form of communication. While what he was talking about may have been obvious to you, it's not always as obvious to everyone else.

[TrashMan]

If my Physics profesor is correct (He's one of hte science heads at CERN) we will never know exactly what happened in the begining.

We can mesure teh gae of the universe.
We can see it is expanding.

But we cannot see beyond the smallest mesurable time fragment (Plancks time) so the very moment of creation escapes us. And wil lescape us...forever.

Tehre was no time before..there were no laws of physics..at least not any like we know now..and given there there was no time there or no matter, there is no eway to mesure anything that happened before.

so to sum it up.

We will NEVER know what happened up untill (if you can even use that gramatical construct, since technicly, there wasn't a before) the Big bang (and atad after that).

We can know things from Big Bang + Plank time and onward...

[Flipside]

Maybe a 'Universe' is the amount of mass it requires to form a Black Hole which cannot be curved back to a white-hole elsewhere in the same universe, and effectively drops through to another 'energy level' or the like? For all we know, there might be countless universes, expanding out in an energy level as they pour through the entry point, cooling off, contracting and falling through to the next 'level' where they do it all over again.

Ok, so that's more powered by imagination than education, but, the real problem with the birth of the Universe is not that no theories make sense, it's that quite a lot of theories do, in theory, but we are never really going to be able to test them, they contain objects too small and too big to conceive in anything other than Model form. As Trashman says, the birth of a Universe is a very 'odd' moment in history, and we may never ever know what actually 'triggered' the change even if we figure out the nature of the expansion.


Edit: Actually, thinking about it, that idea could not possibly work Cookie for anyone who can guess why

[Agent_Koopa]

Maybe he meant proton decay.

[Bobboau]

We will NEVER know what happened up untill (if you can even use that gramatical construct, since technicly, there wasn't a before) the Big bang (and atad after that).

well now I wouldn't want to put such certainties into effect. we have no idea how to ever see back any further than that, it doesn't mean we won't figure something out in the future.

[watsisname]

Indeed.  A thousand years ago there was no way of telling what the sun was made of, or how far away the stars were, or even what lay at the very bottom of the oceans.
 

[Bobboau]

[TrashMan]

well now I wouldn't want to put such certainties into effect. we have no idea how to ever see back any further than that, it doesn't mean we won't figure something out in the future.

Well it doesn't make sense that you can, does it?

Can you travel back in time before the begining of time?

Anyway, my profesor seems pretty sure about it. After all ,science is not all powerfull. It can't do everything and answer all of our questions.

[TrashMan]

Indeed.  A thousand years ago there was no way of telling what the sun was made of, or how far away the stars were, or even what lay at the very bottom of the oceans.
 

A thousand years ago we didn't have scientific methonds at all. Thus, you couldn't really tell anything.

With scientific method things change, as you knowledge increases, so do your predictions become more and more accurate.

[watsisname]

I'm going to have to be picky and argue your first statement.  Hipparchus, for example, accurately calculated the distances and sizes of the moon and sun before 100BC, so there was good science even in those days.

My point is that at any given time, there are things in nature that we can't explain because we either don't have an adequate model or theory for it, or we don't have the technology to make collect data on it. 
If you went back to the day of Hipparchus and said "Hey, I know out how old the universe is!!11", not a soul on earth would take you seriously because back then nobody had the slightest idea of how you could determine such a thing.  Quite literally it was impossible with the known technology and reasoning.  Similarly in todays world we can't figure out what happened in the very first moments after the Big Bang, but I don't believe one can say for certain that a discovery wont be made sometime in the future which can allow us to do so. 

[Hazaanko]

A thousand years ago we didn't have scientific methonds at all. Thus, you couldn't really tell anything.

With scientific method things change, as you knowledge increases, so do your predictions become more and more accurate.
[/quote]

The scientific method existed back then (mostly anyways), but it just wasn't named or defined as it is today.

I think that's what you meant anyways.

But yeah - we're so far away from discovering so many things... how long has something like gravity or the brain been with us for all of our existence yet we still haven't come close to explaining it at all.

(Completely off-topic and tangental, but I'm of the idea that "Faith" and "The Scientific Method" are basically the same thing)

[Bobboau]

not exactly.

[Mars]

I would argue that not all religion is bad religion and blind anger towards a large segment of the worlds population is probably counterproductive...

On the other hand some people are damn annoying with they're belief higher things involved with conditions better explained by science.

[Turey]

Yay! Someone else who reads WellingtonGrey.net!