Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Edge of the Universe

mark5 and DA Morgan,

"There are theories which suggest virtual particles poppping in and out of existence and all of this contributing to a seething bath of uncalculable variability at the quantum scale."

Rubbish! To 'pop' out of existence would be to dissappear. Do you mean popping out of existence literally as in they just do not exist, the particles that made them are no more? Or do you mean that the particles that made them split up to form something else? You can smash a watch and the watch will no longer exist, but the peices that make the mechanism still will. Are you implying that an entire watch can 'pop' out of existence? What happens to its atoms? Sorry to be a problem-maker but when talking to me in the future can you please be VERY specific about what you mean by these following subjects:
1.existence
2.the universe
3.nothingness
4.infinity
5.everything
6.time
7.space
8.space-time

"My personal belief is, like with M-theory, someone with special vision and talent (like Wheeler) will come along and show us how the big and the small are really the same thing and we have just been looking at them as different, assuming they are different."

By small do you mean negative numbers, or do you mean zero? If you mean zero, you are wrong about what you just said.

"I can appreciate the classic bed-sheet or trampoline analogy but the aquarium works better for me because it completely surronds the object, whereas the bed sheet is two-dimensional."

What is ether? When I read about it it was described as a totally different explanation of things to space-time, it also said that space-time was favoured by the scientific community.
Now that I hear your analogy of space-time as water, I no longer know the difference between the two.

hey Rob,

first, let me correct a reference error i made when talking about M-theory. The gentleman who helped advance the field was Ed Witten (not Wheeler).

Yes, to pop out of existence does mean to disappear from this known universe. There is speculation that our universe may not be the only one around. For an extreme version of this possibility you can see books by David Deutsch (The Fabric of Reality). I could only handle a few chapters before he started blowing my mind.

As far as being specific, I can only be as specific as my knowledge takes me. Other than that, you're on your own.

I do not mean negative numbers when I refer to small. I mean small size distances such as 0.000000000000000000000000000000001 meters. I do not mean zero, just distances that are very small such as the lengths between atoms or even within atoms.

Good point about the ether and the water analogy. According to the things I've read, in the years before Einstein most physicists believed light had to be carried thru a medium in order for it to travel. They called this medium 'the ether'. The comparison that is commonly given is that of sound being carried on/in water by water molecules either getting closer together or farther apart. Einstein changed the world view (for most of the scientific community) when he claimed there was no ether and light did not need a medium to travel thru.

However, I have recently read that the ether arguement is regaining traction among some scientists because it helps to explain a few of their findings. I would have to go back and sift thru my SAs to find the reference and the reason. I belive it is in a group of writings called 'Beyond Einstein' Special issue SA September '04.

good evening,

mark

ric,each one of us have an universe in our individual mind, as you have one,as for me,as an ant or elephant has its own.yes,considering the consciousness even a tree has its own universe.in our memory we have a birthday and from earthly experience we come to know of our edge of life in death.in our bodily experience we have our limit and a center point what we think to lie anywhere in our mind.dear ric, right up to now we can't touch the question as who i am or what is the consciousness really .i think ,a question on cosmology and that on consciousness are the same thing.thinking about your own self ,i think, one day you will have the answer.thank you.

mousumi ... please try to adhere to standardly accepted definitions common to the language of those with which you are attempting to communicate.

The "universe" you may experience under LSD or in your nightmares has nothing to do with any commonly used or accepted definition of the word.