(August 24, 2009 at 2:14 am)Pippy Wrote: I love when Kyu posts the story of the begining of the universe.No, we can observe the evidence and make conclusions based on it. The red-shift and blue-shift of the stars tells us that they are moving away from us at extraordinary speeds; that the universe itself is expanding (and still accelerating). Cosmic microwave background radiation is the "echo" (to put it metaphorically) of the Big Bang, and is considered the evidence that convinced most scientists of the Big Bang in our history.
All we have is theory. You don't know how the universe began, all we can do is speculate.
Quote:Oh, well if it's current. I see time not existing, as the fourth dimension over and above space, as hard to swallow. Unless, as you said the theoretical "big bang" event was specifically the creation of time, and space-time. The question is, for how long did time not exist?That question is just simply idiotic. You cannot have such a question prefixed with "for how long" when it concerns the very nature of time. If time did not exist, there is no time to have been before "time". Further, by "time did not exist" I did not mean the dimension, but the actual "tick" of time. To put it metaphorically, the hand on a stopwatch exists before the stopwatch is started, but once the stopwatch starts, the hand starts to move. As I said, the current theory is that time/space existed in some form, but that at the Big Bang, space started expanding, as did time (which is what causes time to "tick").
Quote:If infinity is real, than the world and universe is a seemingly infinite chain of causes and effects.Or you think as most scientists do, that infinity is not real, and that the universe has always existed in some form. "Always" used here as an abstract because time did not exist (in ticking form) prior to the Big Bang.
If infinity is not real, something had to create, without itself being created. The unmoved mover.
The big bang is a interesting theory.
Quote:oh. What about theories that are so stout they grow into laws? A theory does imply guesswork, that is kind of the point, i thought...Laws are descriptions of facts that we observe. Theories are explanations of the facts we observe. In science, a "hypothesis" is the thing that implies guesswork, as a hypothesis is an idea about how something might work, but has not yet been tested. Once it is tested and can make accurate predictions (which are further tested), only then is a hypothesis elevated to the level of "theory". There is a massive difference between the word "theory" in general conversation and in science.
Quote:In theory. We know nothing for certain about the silly "fraction of a second before or after the bang". It was (in theory) a few billion years ago. We can look back, and speculate. We can guess, make a few assumptions... Take what evidence we see, and interpret it as we will. Theory.The point is, we don't just guess and make a few assumptions. We observe, test, and predict.Theory is the testable and predictable explanation of the facts. We look back at our past all the time. Just because we live in the present doesn't mean we can't find out what happened in the past. Clues are left behind that give us an idea about how we evolved, how the Earth formed, even how our solar system developed.
Quote:Well, to be perfectly clear, 'gravity' (the word) is a symbolic descriptor of a very real thing. So gravity (the thing) is real, and has properties and function. But 'gravity' (the word) is our concept of gravity (the thing). And so the semantic 'gravity' is theory, but the real gravity we are trying to name is solid. We can, of course, test out theories about gravity, much less can we test our theories of the supposed beginning of the universe.This is the difference between scientific fact and scientific theory. Wikipedia has a nice page comparing evolution to gravity in this regard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_a...th_gravity
You say "much less can we test our theories about the beginning of the universe" and I suspect many physicists are very upset by that. The remnants of the Big Bang are still there, ready to be tested. In fact the only reason why the Big Bang theory is so universally accepted is because of the predictions and tests that have been carried out. One good test that NASA carried out resulted in the "Hubble Ultra Deep Field", where the Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of a region of space that looked completely empty. In doing so, they looked back 13 billion years (due to the expansion of the universe and the speed of light) and saw 10,000 galaxies as they looked when the universe was still young: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Ultra_Deep_Field
Quote:I feel a little put off when I remind you guys that no one was around to witness the beginning of the universe, and so we should be open minded about it's way of happening. And then, somehow, I am an idiot. OK, so you all know without a doubt how the world and universe was formed, up until the silly split second after the theoretical bang. And for me to say that that seems far fetched at best makes me an idiot. Interesting.Being open-minded is exactly the opposite of what you are doing. You are not looking at the evidence and simply saying "well, that sounds too unbelievable for me". Being open-minded is all about being skeptical, but it is also about looking at the evidence presented and the ideas presented, rather than just rejecting them outright. You've shown you have no idea what a scientific theory constitutes, so to say you are "open minded" is ridiculous. We do not believe "without a doubt", but we accept that the scientific evidence is more than compelling, and the current explanations make perfect sense in light of that evidence. If anyone comes along with a better theory, we will accept that one (as would the scientific community in general), but that hasn't happened yet.
My honest suggestion to you Pippy, is to read about scientific jargon such as "fact" "law" "theory", and do some reading of your own on the Big Bang. There are plenty of books out there, written with the public in mind. Simon Singh's "Big Bang" is a recommended read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(book)
