concepts or things that you'll never comprehend...

zenith

i dont get the piss break concept either - perhaps i have a really great bladder? but i have never taken one. (at a show)
interestingly, when i go out, i can drink about 5 beers - then usually i have go, and after that then i go EVERY beer - in australia girls around where i live joke it's 'breaking the seal'

i dont get people who insist on standing in front of you in the supermarket aisle, looking at a shelf, and clearly blocking your way, and just ignore your presence untill you finally say 'move please'

i hate the way some people just aimlessly wander in the street or the mall but seem to deliberately block you obvious path

and strangely, fake grass - its plastic - why would you cover your ground in plastic green stuff???? and if you are going to insist on that, why not pink plastic stuff, or brown, or yellow, or just match it to your house?????

ClimberInOz

Julien wrote:

I will never understand the fact that the universe is infinite...
I can't get it. It's said "there's always something after". but then ? What's after the universe ? What's in is the universe...?
When I satrt thinking about it, I can't stop.

I don't want to spoil any of the mysteries of the universe for anyone... but understanding the size and fate of the universe is actually not as complicated as you might imagine.

Size of the Universe:
Our current understanding of the size of the universe is based primarily on Einstein's General Relativity. Quite simply, scientists think that the universe is finite, but without boundaries. The only way that this can occur is if spacetime (the three dimensions of space + the dimension of time combined) is curved by the gravity of the universe.

Think of it this way- If you were walking around the equator of the earth, you would appear to be walking in a straight line but would eventually (after a long time) reach your starting point. You never reach a boundary. Space is the same, but with an extra two dimensions (1 space + 1 time) thrown in. Head off in one direction in a superfast rocket and, whilst it might take an impossibly long time, you would eventually arrive back at your spatial starting point, (although your temporal (time) starting point would now be in the past).

Fate of the Universe:
The universe is expanding- everything (with a few exceptions) is getting further away from everything else. A mutual separation of cosmic proportions. This scientific theory is as well supported by evidence as the theory of gravity. This is one of the major reasons why scientists hypothesise a 'big bang' type event.

For a long time scientists were battling with the value of omega, which is the density of the universe. Above a critical point, (omega=1), the density of the universe would be high enough that gravity would cause the expansion of the universe to stop and reverse. The universe would collapse in on itself. That is why scientists are searching for 'dark matter', to try and calculate omega.

A complicating factor was the discovery of Lambda, quite simply the energy or force that is causing the the universe's expansion to accelerate. The evidence for a universe that is exanding at an increasing rate is very strong, but not yet complete. So there are 3 options-

Universe continually expands and everything gets so far apart (omega gets very low), that the entire universe becaomes essentially very cold and empty. Life would eventually not be possible.

Omega is finely balanced and the universe's expansion will reduce but never stop. In this scenarion, which is considered the least likely, life is theoretically able to continue infinitely.

Expansion is reversed, universe collapses in on itself to a tiny point before another 'big bang' occurs and the process continues.This is called a cyclic universe, or a recycled universe. It is probably the most pleasing to people... but of course that means nothing as far as its likelyhood.

I hope that helps.

ClimberInOz

dunkman wrote:

i also cant get my head around the evolution of man from ape... cos there are still apes out there... which means they didnt evolve with us or the evolved from even shitter monkeys.. i dunno.. but i truly believe in evolution.. but man evolved really really quickly whereas a crocodile is a crocodile and has been for thousands of years...

lazy monkeys.

A minor myth- Man did not evolve from modern primates. Man and modern primates share a common ancestor. The shared ancestors of modern primates and hominids are long extinct.

The earliest hominids lived about 2 million yeas ago. This is a far shorter period of time then modern crocodiles (64 million years), but far longer then some other groups of organisms.

That being said, there is something very fascinating about an organism that has only changed to a minor degree over 64 million years. I worked with crocodiles for 5 years and they simply ooze pre-historicness!

ClimberInOz

Urban Hiker wrote:

The Universe - my heart rate goes up about 30 beats/minute and I get butterflies in my belly when I TRY to understand all that is the universe. It's fascinating, yet frustratingly perplexing.
-Something doesn't come from nothing, so how does it all even exist?
-Infinite bounds, but growing. If it's already infinite, into what does it grow?
-Etc. - it's just too much to think about. I love it. :cool:

People who are young earth creationists - All I can say is WTF.

I should really get back to work... but the first point you have raised about the universe is probably the area of science I am most fascinated with.

A universe from nothing sounds impossible, but here are some ideas that might help you to understand the idea. I stress that this is just one theory- and there are still many problems to overcome. That being said, many of the principals are very well established and they are supported by very large amounts of evidence.


1) Nothing is in this case a mathamatical term (as in 1 + -1 = 0). Imagine a perfect vacuum, in which it is impossible to find a single particle. One might think we could call this an empty space. Well actually no, we cannot. Vacuums have what is called a fluctuating quantum energy, which basically means that particles appear out of nowhere and equally quickly disappear again. These are virtual particles that only ever exist for the smallest of time frames, and are permitted by the laws of quantum mechanics provided that they disappear rapidly. In that way there is no net gain of energy to the universe- we are not really at this stage creating something out of nothing, just borrowing for a moment.

2) So emptiness is but an illusion, even so called vacuums contain a vast world of virtual particles that exist regardless of what is or is not surrounding them. But because these particles are required to disappear it does not help us to create a universe out of nothing. At the heart of inflation theory is the idea that the universe formed from nothing and then underwent a period of great expansion. We need a device for this matter leave the virtual world and become real at a phenomenal rate. But before we can deal with the issue of how the mass of matter we see today was formed, we need somewhere for it to form.

3) This is in some ways the bigger question. The basic structure of the universe is known as spacetime. In a rough description it is the three dimensions of space interwoven with the dimension of time. The expansion of the universe was the expansion of spacetime. But what created spacetime? Perhaps once again the byproducts of quantum mechanics can help us here. We have already seen how particles can literally appear out of nothing and then disappear again within spacetime. These happenings in the quantum world have been confirmed by repeated experiments. If matter can spontaneously appear out of nothing, would it be such a stretch for spacetime to do the same?

4) Many physicists believe that at the smallest length, (planck length or 10-33 cm) space time breaks up and is no longer a uniform smooth substance. Instead it forms small bubbles, which as with matter could possibly spontaneously form creating virtual space time. So if this is the case we now have mechanism for the creation of a universe. However at this stage it might be a little crowded given it is currently smaller then a single atom. Now all we need to do is find a way of making our tiny bubble of space time stick around, and then make it start to grow.

5) To do this we have to duck back to quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics particles have a wave of probability; the details of which we do not need to discuss here suffice to say that in the quantum world particles do strange things, everything is bound by chance and nothing is really impossible, just improbable. Once again I believe we can apply the same principle to our virtual bubbles in our pre-universe base. By the laws of chance one of these almost infinite numbers of bubbles is born into an ‘excited vacuum’ state. In this state the bubble would actually have a negative pressure which creates anti-gravity. The effects of this would cause the temporary bubble to suddenly expand at an alarming rate (doubling in size every 10 -35 seconds). This is our big bang!

6) The negative pressure stage of our bubble is very unstable and would not last long, but given how rapidly the bubble is expanding it would not need to. When it ceased it would release massive amounts of energy, turning our virtual bubble into a real universe and in the process converting the virtual particles contained within our bubble into real particles as well. The cessation of the negative pressure would also mean an end to the antigravity. Therefore the expansion would slow down as normal gravity takes a hold, leading to the exact effects we find so apparent in the universe today. So in summary the universe was born out of a base world of fluctuations (replacing the standard human view of nothing), was seized by inflation which eventually released the energy to create the universe we have today.



I guess in summary:

The term nothing is actually a mathamatical one and not 'nothing' as we would normally consider it, ie- the absence of all.

The universe possible began from a timeless quantum base.

This implies that our universe is but one of many, (possibly an infinite number).

These ideas are just a summary of what many of the world's leading physicists have hypothesised. A 'how it might be possible idea based on what we know now'.

There is evidence supporting many key parts of these ideas, but there are still gaps in our knowledge.

And finally... I really have to get back to work now.

Jeanie

ClimberInOz wrote:

I should really get back to work... but the first point you have raised about the universe is probably the area of science I am most fascinated with.

A universe from nothing sounds impossible, but here are some ideas that might help you to understand the idea. I stress that this is just one theory- and there are still many problems to overcome. That being said, many of the principals are very well established and they are supported by very large amounts of evidence.


1) Nothing is in this case a mathamatical term (as in 1 + -1 = 0). Imagine a perfect vacuum, in which it is impossible to find a single particle. One might think we could call this an empty space. Well actually no, we cannot. Vacuums have what is called a fluctuating quantum energy, which basically means that particles appear out of nowhere and equally quickly disappear again. These are virtual particles that only ever exist for the smallest of time frames, and are permitted by the laws of quantum mechanics provided that they disappear rapidly. In that way there is no net gain of energy to the universe- we are not really at this stage creating something out of nothing, just borrowing for a moment.

2) So emptiness is but an illusion, even so called vacuums contain a vast world of virtual particles that exist regardless of what is or is not surrounding them. But because these particles are required to disappear it does not help us to create a universe out of nothing. At the heart of inflation theory is the idea that the universe formed from nothing and then underwent a period of great expansion. We need a device for this matter leave the virtual world and become real at a phenomenal rate. But before we can deal with the issue of how the mass of matter we see today was formed, we need somewhere for it to form.

3) This is in some ways the bigger question. The basic structure of the universe is known as spacetime. In a rough description it is the three dimensions of space interwoven with the dimension of time. The expansion of the universe was the expansion of spacetime. But what created spacetime? Perhaps once again the byproducts of quantum mechanics can help us here. We have already seen how particles can literally appear out of nothing and then disappear again within spacetime. These happenings in the quantum world have been confirmed by repeated experiments. If matter can spontaneously appear out of nothing, would it be such a stretch for spacetime to do the same?

4) Many physicists believe that at the smallest length, (planck length or 10-33 cm) space time breaks up and is no longer a uniform smooth substance. Instead it forms small bubbles, which as with matter could possibly spontaneously form creating virtual space time. So if this is the case we now have mechanism for the creation of a universe. However at this stage it might be a little crowded given it is currently smaller then a single atom. Now all we need to do is find a way of making our tiny bubble of space time stick around, and then make it start to grow.

5) To do this we have to duck back to quantum mechanics. In quantum mechanics particles have a wave of probability; the details of which we do not need to discuss here suffice to say that in the quantum world particles do strange things, everything is bound by chance and nothing is really impossible, just improbable. Once again I believe we can apply the same principle to our virtual bubbles in our pre-universe base. By the laws of chance one of these almost infinite numbers of bubbles is born into an ‘excited vacuum’ state. In this state the bubble would actually have a negative pressure which creates anti-gravity. The effects of this would cause the temporary bubble to suddenly expand at an alarming rate (doubling in size every 10 -35 seconds). This is our big bang!

6) The negative pressure stage of our bubble is very unstable and would not last long, but given how rapidly the bubble is expanding it would not need to. When it ceased it would release massive amounts of energy, turning our virtual bubble into a real universe and in the process converting the virtual particles contained within our bubble into real particles as well. The cessation of the negative pressure would also mean an end to the antigravity. Therefore the expansion would slow down as normal gravity takes a hold, leading to the exact effects we find so apparent in the universe today. So in summary the universe was born out of a base world of fluctuations (replacing the standard human view of nothing), was seized by inflation which eventually released the energy to create the universe we have today.



I guess in summary:

The term nothing is actually a mathamatical one and not 'nothing' as we would normally consider it, ie- the absence of all.

The universe possible began from a timeless quantum base.

This implies that our universe is but one of many, (possibly an infinite number).

These ideas are just a summary of what many of the world's leading physicists have hypothesised. A 'how it might be possible idea based on what we know now'.

There is evidence supporting many key parts of these ideas, but there are still gaps in our knowledge.

And finally... I really have to get back to work now.

That's probably a good thing....that you have to get back to work.....it's gonna take me a couple of days to try to understand everything you've said anyway! And even then.....
Thanks though. Maybe we should have a thread where you explain this stuff to folk? Of course I'll be the dunce of the class but tis way cool that you've tried to explain it anway.

Urban Hiker

ClimberInOz wrote:

I guess in summary:

The term nothing is actually a mathamatical one and not 'nothing' as we would normally consider it, ie- the absence of all.

The universe possible began from a timeless quantum base.

This implies that our universe is but one of many, (possibly an infinite number).

These ideas are just a summary of what many of the world's leading physicists have hypothesised. A 'how it might be possible idea based on what we know now'.

There is evidence supporting many key parts of these ideas, but there are still gaps in our knowledge.

And finally... I really have to get back to work now.

I'm with Jeanie, it's probably going to take me a couple of days (and repeated readings of your posts) to understand these concepts, but ClimberInOz - YOU FUCKING ROCK for taking the time to go type all of this out for us. It is absolutely fascinating. I won't need any beer to make my head spin tonight. :D

HUGE thanks out to ya!

haffajappa

dunkman wrote:

i'm exactly the same there amigo!!!

it kills my brain when i think of that... also i think too much of the inevitable dying of the sun.. ok i know it'll be in 337209387 kwazzillion years or so, but it will happen :eek:

cillian murphy will sacrifice himself and save us all!

ClimberInOz

Jeanie wrote:

That's probably a good thing....that you have to get back to work.....it's gonna take me a couple of days to try to understand everything you've said anyway! And even then.....
Thanks though. Maybe we should have a thread where you explain this stuff to folk? Of course I'll be the dunce of the class but tis way cool that you've tried to explain it anway.

Thanks Jeannie. As for the dunce thing... I've only been a teacher 1 and a bit years now, but I've quickly learnt that the students who proclaim their own lack of understanding are the ones who often end up with the deepest understanding of the ideas.

Speaking of school- that's where I am headed now! Have a good day.

Steve

Jeanie

Urban Hiker wrote:

I'm with Jeanie, it's probably going to take me a couple of days (and repeated readings of your posts) to understand these concepts, but ClimberInOz - YOU FUCKING ROCK for taking the time to go type all of this out for us. It is absolutely fascinating. I won't need any beer to make my head spin tonight. ; ): p: D

HUGE thanks out to ya!

It was very cool of climber, I agree. I love that people know this stuff.
Just wish I could get my tiny mind around it. Good to know I'm not the only one whose head is spinning though.

Maybe a thread called The Universe 101? Or The Universe for Beginners?

Jeanie

ClimberInOz wrote:

Thanks Jeannie. As for the dunce thing... I've only been a teacher 1 and a bit years now, but I've quickly learnt that the students who proclaim their own lack of understanding are the ones who often end up with the deepest understanding of the ideas.

Speaking of school- that's where I am headed now! Have a good day.

Steve

haha! Well, you should talk to my brother, he will explain to you just how hard to comprehend I still find the concept that when you push the light switch, there is light!

But it was very cool of you to explain it all. I will endeavour to understand it.

Have a great day at school teach!

writersu

well, for starters, I think how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll


but then it all just confuses the hell out of me that there is no top in the sky....how can it go up and up and up? makes NO sense to me at all....

oh and pointless ridiculous things like locusts. 17 year damn locusts that came to Chicago this year and grossed me out so bad that I stayed in for almost 2 months.............someone may know the answer to this but do they really serve a purpose? some freak told me they irrogate but I'd rather get a hoe or whatever the hell you use for that sort of thing.,,,,,,,,,

writersu

GraySaturday wrote:

I have this problem.. things that I can't see seem to make my mind do flips

I also have a horrible time understanding the concept of death. As I've said in threads, I have actually had panic attacks because I have thrown myself into this never ending loop of thinking about life just stopping and yet life just going on without you..

scares me.

yeah and I like to think if I die I won't really know it........I know that's messed up but I would rather not know........


oh and this is fucked up........

killer kills 5 women at Tinley Park Lane Bryant and is still at large......