On Sat, 07 Jan 2006 08:32:47 -0500, Nightphoenix wrote:
Can experts now explain the origin of the universe? Many
scientists, uncomfortable with the idea that the universe was created
by a higher intelligence, speculate that by some mechanism it created
itself out of nothing. Does that sound reasonable to you? Such
A short list of things that "sound reasonable" to most people:
heavy things fall faster than light things
the Earth is flat
the Earth is at the center of the Universe
Everything moves thru time at the same rate.
All are known to be wrong, based on simple observation.
A short list of things that sound impossible to most people:
an electron can behave as a particle or a wave, depending on how you look
at it.
measuring the state of a quantum particle can influnce the particles'
behavior *before* the measurement takes place.
Hanging out near a strong source of gravity will slow your passage thru
time.
measuring the state of a quantum particle will instantly affect the
behavior of another quantum particle, no matter how far away it is in
space.
All are known to be correct, based on careful, more sophisitcated
observation.
Now, would you like to continue to use "what seems reasonable" as a valid
test of how the Universe operates?
speculations usually involve some variation of a theory (inflationary
universe model) conceived in 1979 by physicist Alan Guth. Yet, more
recently, Dr. Guth admitted that his theory "does not explain how the
universe arose from nothing." Dr. Andrei Linde was more explicit in a
Scientific American article: "Explaining this initial
singularity - where and when it all began - still remains the most
intractable problem of modern cosmology."
By the way the inflation theory speculates as to what happened a
fraction of a second after the beginning of the universe. Advocates of
inflation hold that the universe was initially submicroscopic and then
inflated faster than the speed of light, a claim that cannot be tested
in a laboratory just like evolution as the origin of man. Inflation
remains a debated theory.
Most all theories in science remain debated. Some theories, such as the
origin of the Universe, will always be hard to study due to a lack of hard
evidence. Your point?
--
MarkA
(this space accidentally filled in)
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