Cosmos-a space-time odyssey

[harakka]

Time isn't a law, it's something created by humans

Unless you want to get uselessly philosophical about it, things happen at intervals and have velocities without humans being around.

 

I would highly recommend not getting into cosmological speculations without knowledge of relevant physics.

[EnigmaGrey]

We better describe time as movement of things . . .

That's how a second is defined? In this case the cycles of an electron from one orbit (valence?) to another.

 

[Cdr.Keen]

 

Time isn't a law, it's something created by humans

Unless you want to get uselessly philosophical about it, things happen at intervals and have velocities without humans being around.

 

I would highly recommend not getting into cosmological speculations without knowledge of relevant physics.

 

 

 

 

We better describe time as movement of things . . .

That's how a second is defined? In this case the cycles of an electron from one orbit (valence?) to another.

 

 

yes, as i wrote. maybe my answer was quoted out of context because it was the answer to uberevan.

 

the question we're hunting isn't how time works on this planet - we already know that. the question is more like - why there are elements? and then we go deeper - why there are electrons? why there are forces? it's mind-blowing how deep we can go - but all we know is based on our limited knowledge.

[Rathlord]

 

Not sure you understand a single facet of physics Uberevan.

I'd appreciate it if you'd elaborate on your assertion.

I'm simply responding with the same logic I read.

Thank you Enigma for giving me something constructive that I can actually use.

 

Edit: Are you referring to my comment on Anti-Matter and Dark Matter?  I did truthfully need to refresh my memory about them, but saying I don't understand anything at all about physics is a bit erroneous.

 

 

Sorry, that wasn't a nice thing for me to say- my apologies. What I mean is, the vast majority of your conclusions are not based on any solid principles, and don't follow the logical order of the system. It's not really important, though- was a rude thing for me to say either way. Cheers.

[CaptainBinky]

I've not watched it yet, but I have a hard time believing it could possibly live up to Carl Sagan standards. I also, in general (and no offense meant to our American friends) tend to dislike US documentaries (and for that matter, UK documentaries which aren't either fully or in part made by the BBC) since they tend to work along the lines of, "here is a fact. Now let's restate that fact 50 times in order to fill up this hour time-slot".

 

I am reminded of this utterly dreadful US documentary about Quantum Mechanics (I forget the name) which spent faaaar too long showing footage of multiple basketballs bouncing around while the narrator banged on ad nauseum about "the very big... and the very small" /shudder

 

If you want to watch a really good lecture about the Universe and all that entails, I recommend very highly Lawrence Krauss' "A Universe from Nothing" (and the book of the same name)

 

 

<3 Lawrence Krauss

[deprav]

I've watched like the 4 first episodes of Cosmos for now. I don't know Carl Sagan's ideas but from what I've seen of the show -for now- there's nothing letting the spectators think the universe is the result of an intelligent design.

Tho, those first answers in the thread made me wonder if Carl Sagan believes in "intelligent design" ? does he... ?

[CaptainBinky]

Tho, those first answers in the thread made me wonder if Carl Sagan believes in "intelligent design" ? does he... ?

 

Er, no. Definitely not

 

(Also, past tense - he's dead)

[123Imirish]

I've watched like the 4 first episodes of Cosmos for now. I don't know Carl Sagan's ideas but from what I've seen of the show -for now- there's nothing letting the spectators think the universe is the result of an intelligent design.

Tho, those first answers in the thread made me wonder if Carl Sagan believes in "intelligent design" ? does he... ?

It's a science based show. I hope I don't offend your beliefs, I'm not trying to when I say this, but there is no current evidence supporting Intelligent design without a creator having made the big bang instead of making the world bit by bit. If anything the evidence points towards the recently confirmed big bang, but  that doesn't mean (a) God(s) don't exist. I'm an Atheist but if you believe something and aren't physically harming (or mentally) anyone then why should I put your beliefs down.

I've not watched it yet, but I have a hard time believing it could possibly live up to Carl Sagan standards. I also, in general (and no offense meant to our American friends) tend to dislike US documentaries (and for that matter, UK documentaries which aren't either fully or in part made by the BBC) since they tend to work along the lines of, "here is a fact. Now let's restate that fact 50 times in order to fill up this hour time-slot".

 

I am reminded of this utterly dreadful US documentary about Quantum Mechanics (I forget the name) which spent faaaar too long showing footage of multiple basketballs bouncing around while the narrator banged on ad nauseum about "the very big... and the very small" /shudder

 

If you want to watch a really good lecture about the Universe and all that entails, I recommend very highly Lawrence Krauss' "A Universe from Nothing" (and the book of the same name)

 

 

<3 Lawrence Krauss

I don't think anyone can beat Sagan fun fact: he smoked cannabis, just like the Irish president in his youth

also congrats to Colorado and Washington for the legalization  

Edited April 14, 2014 by 123Imirish

[CaptainBinky]

 

I've watched like the 4 first episodes of Cosmos for now. I don't know Carl Sagan's ideas but from what I've seen of the show -for now- there's nothing letting the spectators think the universe is the result of an intelligent design.

Tho, those first answers in the thread made me wonder if Carl Sagan believes in "intelligent design" ? does he... ?

It's a science based show. I hope I don't offend your beliefs, I'm not trying to when I say this, but there is no current evidence supporting Intelligent design without a creator having made the big bang instead of making the world bit by bit. If anything the evidence points towards the recently confirmed big bang, but  that doesn't mean (a) God(s) don't exist. I'm an Atheist but if you believe something and aren't physically harming (or mentally) anyone then why should I put your beliefs down.

 

There's a biiiiiiiiiig distinction between deism and theism. The former, even hard-line staunch atheists cannot reasonably claim is untrue since it's unlikely we'd ever be able to prove things one way or the other. It is, after all, a theory discussing what happened before the existence of space and time and a creator who leaves no mark on the cosmos. Theism, however, deals with a combination of history and the nature of physical laws - an entity which interacts with the universe should leave a trace, like moving your hand through water produces ripples. If no ripples are produced, no interaction has taken place. But given that we're dealing with an omnipotent eternal entity by nature unlike everything we've seen in the Universe, who's to say what is, or isn't possible? Nobody can, on either side of the argument.

 

All skeptics do, is say that there is no rational reason to believe something on bad or no evidence. They don't claim that such things are impossible (or at least they shouldn't if they're being honest).

 

On that note, we should bear in mind another distinction - the use of the term "theory" in science, and in common language. I can posit a theory that invisible unicorns exist - but that's a very different usage of the word theory as the "theory" of gravity. In science, theories have predictive power and can be tested.

[deprav]

Woops, yeah past-tense my bad.

Also don't worry 123Imirish you didn't offend my beliefs ^^ I only got confused by Ontogenesis first post : "Never seen it, but inteligent design is just silly.".

 

Got me thinking that after a few episodes of Cosmos, explaining the laws of physics and evolution of species & Life, the show would start making claims about those laws being the fruits of an intelligent design, like a trap telling you "look at all that science I've got" and then *BAM* "there eat some of my religion". That would have disappointed me a lot... But I've just been misguided !

 

Tho, I'm not atheist and I do think we got to have faith in something greater than us, something that makes us humble and keeps us from wandering off our "nature" (adaptability inside the eco-system which we emerged from). The mind blowing huge universe, the unlikely order of things coming out of chaos, the randomness of Life and the fact every living things will struggle to live without the need to know why etc... I mean, considering the very nature of life, our own existence is at the same time an obvious thing AND a "miracle" of luck. That's what "god" is for me, it's not an intelligent designer or a fatherly spirit ; it's a state, a concrete observable thing.

 

For me, science doesn't disprove "god", it only reinforce my amazement toward that huge thing we're a (meaningless) part of. We need spirituality as much as we need science or else we'll just end up loosing ourselves in an absurd anti-natural society, living for a meaningless ressource we made up and which has no concrete value to life, we'd become a mad species. Oh wait...

[uberevan]

That's what frustrates me on the argument of Deism/Theism/Atheism and whatnot.  There's no way to prove either side...Although I'd rather be a Christian and wrong than an Atheist and wrong if you catch my drift...That's no argument to sway anyone though, more like a reason to keep following your religion.  

Just food for thought...think about the fact that if life didn't exist, there'd be nothing in the Universe to appreciate the Universe because life is the only thing that can process information and observe what it is contained within...

 

Also, saw this funny post on Reddit:

"Next up for our science fair we have Godfrey...I'm thinking a  B-..."

"What?  But why?"

"Simple. Your experiments are going through a stage where they only care about sex and war.  Half of them don't even think you exist!"
"How is that my fault?  I've sent like 5 guys  to remind them!!!  I called one of them my son and they nailed him to a tree!"

*Teacher moves on*

*Godfrey throws our universe away*

"Back to the drawing board..."

[CaptainBinky]

That's what frustrates me on the argument of Deism/Theism/Atheism and whatnot.  There's no way to prove either side...

 

That's not just true for deism/theism/atheism, it's true for pretty much any claim anybody can make. There's no such thing as 100% certainty for anything (except possibly pure mathematics) - with any claim, natural or supernatural, you can only deal with probabilities. X is more likely than Y. Z is so overwhelmingly more likely that we can treat it as fact. But any such truth claims have an often unspoken caveat of, "with our current understanding". There is truth to Newtonian physics but as Einstein showed, it's not the full story and while the laws remain accurate on human and cosmic scales, they fall down at the atomic scale. But that doesn't stop the laws being true/accurate for planets, solar systems, and basketballs.

 

Even extremely out-spoken atheists (or anti-theists) and Darwinians such as Richard Dawkins, if you actually read or listen to what they claim, do not speak of certainties. Dawkins, for example, speaks of evolution as true in the same sense as the theory of gravity is true. There is overwhelming evidence to support it that we may treat both as true facts... but that doesn't mean future knowledge couldn't change the way we look at things in the same way that Quantum theory and Relativity changed the way we looked at Newtonian laws.

 

Although I'd rather be a Christian and wrong than an Atheist and wrong if you catch my drift...

 

Aaaah Pascal's Wager A philosophy which would work perfectly were there no such thing as multiple religions. In other words, since you're dealing with a whole array of beliefs which are all contradictory, belief in religion A does not protect you if it turns out religion B is the true one.

[mikaelkerensky]

What is beyond the red shift limit? (the edge of the observable universe)

[CaptainBinky]

What is beyond the red shift limit? (the edge of the observable universe)

 

The edge of the observable universe, and the edge of the universe are two different things. Everything we see is in the past, further in the past the farther we look. So when we look at stars we could be seeing stars which presently do not exist. Given that we are statistically unlikely to be at the exact centre of the universe (if that even could mean anything, and given that it would make the centre of the universe not centred on the centre of our galaxy, but instead on an outer arm), and that the region in which we can detect light contains galaxies, then it is likely that beyond what we can see is more galaxies

 

We can measure the cosmic microwave background radiation, before which the universe was opaque to light - but that doesn't mean that future technology wouldn't permit "seeing" beyond that limit.

 

If you mean, "causally disconnected matter", then what you're talking about being beyond this universe would effectively be, therefore, another universe.

[mikaelkerensky]

It's more of a food for thought question. As for being the center of the universe... We may not be the center of the actual universe, but we are the center of the observable universe. At least until we discover another intelligent race. My other favorite food for thought when thinking about the universe is this: if we live in a probabalistic universe, and that universe is infinite then somewhere out there is a planet made of cotton candy.

[CaptainBinky]

It's more of a food for thought question. As for being the center of the universe... We may not be the center of the actual universe, but we are the center of the observable universe. At least until we discover another intelligent race. My other favorite food for thought when thinking about the universe is this: if we live in a probabalistic universe, and that universe is infinite then somewhere out there is a planet made of cotton candy.

 

True, but imagine in the future assuming no technological advances:

 

1) Far objects that we can detect now will be unobservable due to expansion and red-shift in the future

2) Therefore, we know of and can measure empirically the existence of objects which will be utterly hypothetical in the future.

 

Therefore, for there to not be galaxies beyond what we can see now would mean that we happen to exist at a time that everything that exists is visible. This is so staggeringly unlikely considering the vastness of cosmological timescales, the comparative ridiculously tininess of human timescales, and the fact that technology improves over time (what we can see now is not what we could see 100 years ago, or 100 years from now), that it is reasonable to assume the existence of unobservable galaxies.

[mikaelkerensky]

Ah, but once we develop technologies to see things that are purely hypothetical now, we're just expanding the "bubble" of the obserable universe. We still remain the center. Until we either colonize other star systems or find another intelligent species. Then we create a 2nd "bubble" of observable universe in which we are no longer the center. Also re: the cotton candy planet: we've already discovered free floating clouds of drinkable alcohol. There are impurities like benzene that need to be filtered out, but that's relatively easy to do compared to getting there. Deep space alcohol - drink the void! (patent pending)

[CaptainBinky]

Ah, but once we develop technologies to see things that are purely hypothetical now, we're just expanding the "bubble" of the obserable universe. We still remain the center.

 

Yeah, I'm absolutely not disputing the fact that the farthest we can possibly see with current technology is anything other than a maximum radius - and therefore there is a 'sphere of visibility' centred approximately at me and you right now.

 

Of course, it's a theoretical radius - it would necessitate having telescopes of maximum power pointed in all directions uniformly at all times.

[mikaelkerensky]

And i totally agree that the limit of the observable universe is not the edge. So many things remain unknown and the things we do know are already so awe-inspiring... Our universe is a fascinating and wondrous place. I hope we never discover all there is to know.

[CaptainBinky]

If you really want to blow your mind, consider this:

 

The universe is smaller than the observable universe. The universe is, therefore, curved back on itself. What we see as distant galaxies are closer galaxies observed at a different time.

[Rathlord]

It's more of a food for thought question. As for being the center of the universe... We may not be the center of the actual universe, but we are the center of the observable universe. At least until we discover another intelligent race. My other favorite food for thought when thinking about the universe is this: if we live in a probabalistic universe, and that universe is infinite then somewhere out there is a planet made of cotton candy.

The 'cotton candy planet' argument (very similar to the 'if you go far enough there's a limit to quantum states and you'll eventually find another you' argument) are demonstrably false because they treat all quantum states- and those of their neighbors- as equally probably and having no impact on each other. This is false.

It's a fun probability joke, but it's nothing more than a joke- it's one propagated by the internet that I really wish wasn't, because it's misleading and people don't understand; probability has no impact at all on reality. It solely and inaccurately represents our predictions of what might be. The misunderstanding of probability has been something that's bugged me since I was a kid.

[mikaelkerensky]

It's more of a food for thought question. As for being the center of the universe... We may not be the center of the actual universe, but we are the center of the observable universe. At least until we discover another intelligent race. My other favorite food for thought when thinking about the universe is this: if we live in a probabalistic universe, and that universe is infinite then somewhere out there is a planet made of cotton candy.

The 'cotton candy planet' argument (very similar to the 'if you go far enough there's a limit to quantum states and you'll eventually find another you' argument) are demonstrably false because they treat all quantum states- and those of their neighbors- as equally probably and having no impact on each other. This is false.

It's a fun probability joke, but it's nothing more than a joke- it's one propagated by the internet that I really wish wasn't, because it's misleading and people don't understand; probability has no impact at all on reality. It solely and inaccurately represents our predictions of what might be. The misunderstanding of probability has been something that's bugged me since I was a kid.

It's not that all things are equally probable. A cotton candy planet is incredibly improbable. But given an infinite universe in which probability is a factor, many improbable things should exist. I don't really believe that a cotton candy planet is possible. Many faxtirs go into something like planet formation that make it practically impossible. But given that you're dealing with infinities, something practically impossible would in fact still be possible. Mankind itself is practically impossible, the amount of factors leading to self-intelligent creatures is immense. Yet we exist (at least i do, no proof the rest of you are anything but figments of my deranged imagination)

[CaptainBinky]

 

 

It's more of a food for thought question. As for being the center of the universe... We may not be the center of the actual universe, but we are the center of the observable universe. At least until we discover another intelligent race. My other favorite food for thought when thinking about the universe is this: if we live in a probabalistic universe, and that universe is infinite then somewhere out there is a planet made of cotton candy.

The 'cotton candy planet' argument (very similar to the 'if you go far enough there's a limit to quantum states and you'll eventually find another you' argument) are demonstrably false because they treat all quantum states- and those of their neighbors- as equally probably and having no impact on each other. This is false.

It's a fun probability joke, but it's nothing more than a joke- it's one propagated by the internet that I really wish wasn't, because it's misleading and people don't understand; probability has no impact at all on reality. It solely and inaccurately represents our predictions of what might be. The misunderstanding of probability has been something that's bugged me since I was a kid.

It's not that all things are equally probable. A cotton candy planet is incredibly improbable. But given an infinite universe in which probability is a factor, many improbable things should exist. I don't really believe that a cotton candy planet is possible. Many faxtirs go into something like planet formation that make it practically impossible. But given that you're dealing with infinities, something practically impossible would in fact still be possible. Mankind itself is practically impossible, the amount of factors leading to self-intelligent creatures is immense. Yet we exist (at least i do, no proof the rest of you are anything but figments of my deranged imagination)

 

These kinds of statements are rather pointless though, aren't they? Could a cotton candy planet exist? Not within the laws of physics which operate in the observable universe. Could a cotton candy planet exist somewhere with entirely different laws of physics? Perhaps that's the only way a planet can form. How improbable is life? Depends on what you're sampling, and how you measure life. What we do know, is that on the only planet we know anything about in any great detail, there is life - and lots of it. Perhaps life isn't that improbable at all. Perhaps there's loads of it out there in the universe. Perhaps the only thing which is improbable is the chances of two life forms living on two different planets in two different solar systems happening to co-exist at a time where there's time and technology enabling the contact or detection of one another.

 

Until we've had a decent in-depth look at a significant proportion of planets in (at least) our own galaxy, it's rather difficult (and pointless) to make any sort of meaningful guesses. That's not to say it's not worth looking for it, though

[CaptainBinky]

Does nobody else remember Laurence Krauss saying that empty space (yes, empty) with our current laws contains energy, and that energy can create virtual particles, therefore giving credence to the universe coming from nothing?

 

Yes - see the video I posted called "A Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss

[Rathlord]

 

 

It's more of a food for thought question. As for being the center of the universe... We may not be the center of the actual universe, but we are the center of the observable universe. At least until we discover another intelligent race. My other favorite food for thought when thinking about the universe is this: if we live in a probabalistic universe, and that universe is infinite then somewhere out there is a planet made of cotton candy.

The 'cotton candy planet' argument (very similar to the 'if you go far enough there's a limit to quantum states and you'll eventually find another you' argument) are demonstrably false because they treat all quantum states- and those of their neighbors- as equally probably and having no impact on each other. This is false.

It's a fun probability joke, but it's nothing more than a joke- it's one propagated by the internet that I really wish wasn't, because it's misleading and people don't understand; probability has no impact at all on reality. It solely and inaccurately represents our predictions of what might be. The misunderstanding of probability has been something that's bugged me since I was a kid.

It's not that all things are equally probable. A cotton candy planet is incredibly improbable. But given an infinite universe in which probability is a factor, many improbable things should exist. I don't really believe that a cotton candy planet is possible. Many faxtirs go into something like planet formation that make it practically impossible. But given that you're dealing with infinities, something practically impossible would in fact still be possible. Mankind itself is practically impossible, the amount of factors leading to self-intelligent creatures is immense. Yet we exist (at least i do, no proof the rest of you are anything but figments of my deranged imagination)

 

 

I didn't say they were equally probable, I said that (at least in the popular internet video about 'another you' existing somewhere) it ignores that facet of fact. 

 

 But given that you're dealing with infinities, something practically impossible would in fact still be possible.

 

This is, indeed, true. But what's not true is that just because something is possible- and even within the realm of probability, doesn't mean it actually exists. So while yes, it could, just because probability states that given an infinite universe it would exist- it still doesn't because probability has no impact on reality.