No.... That can't be!
But...But... What about gravity?
Three scientists just won the Nobel Peace Prize in physics, for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerated pace. Now, I've been happy understanding that one theory of the universe is the "Big Bang", where the universe just popped into existence in one great big, and I mean really, really, big explosion, where matter and anti-matter split apart and went into different universes, or something like that. It kinda' made sense to me that something like that could have happened. It would make sense that the universe would be drifting apart, after all everything has a tendency to drift away from an explosion. It also make sense to me that large bodies, with mass, have gravitational forces that cause them to attract each other, like the Earth's gravity holds the Moon in orbit, and the Sun holds the Earth in orbit. So, it would seem that at some point gravitation forces would slow and reverse the expanding of the universe. Then it would collapse back in upon itself in a "Big Crunch". So I keep looking to see the tangibles in this theory.
By saying that the universe is expanding, at an accelerated rate, they are saying that there is some energy force pushing the universe apart, because acceleration requires outside energy. Any action requires an equal and opposite reaction. My big question would be, "what is the source of energy that is pushing the universe apart?"
These three guys also won, no strings attached, 1.46 million dollars for their "Discovery". I assume that they can prove the theory and the results are reproducible.
Click on the following links for the story:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1004/Discovery-that-universe-is-expanding-faster-and-faster-earns-physics-Nobel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang
E
Big Bang Theory doesn't suggest the universe popped (or banged) into existence. It explains the early development of the universe, at best suggesting it was extremely hot and dense before experiencing rapid expansion.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't suggest the universe began with the bang or that nothing existed before the bang. For all we know, the universe may have always existed in one form or another.
poppycock anon 940, God made the universe because it didn't exist before. perhaps god, and all powerful are just too great for your tiny brain to comprehend.
ReplyDelete"I assume that they can prove the theory...".
ReplyDeleteIf it can be proven, then it isn't a theory.
...God made the universe because it didn't exist before.
Then what existed before it? Something had to take up that same space.
Anon 9:40 AM
ReplyDeleteAn explosion, simply described, is particles moving apart. We think of an explosion as “a bang” because, in our time frame, and atmosphere, particles moving apart creates a bang. The universe is @14 billion years old. In the scale of the-age-of-the-universe, a “bang” could last a million years and still be considered to be a “sudden event”. Also there would be no-bang in no-atmosphere. So, we are talking semantics. The universe is still moving outward, the subject that jumps out at me is the “acceleration”. Where is that energy coming from? Either there is an outside energy forcing it to accelerate, or…. Time is changing. I know, we are talking Einstein stuff now.
Anon 8:13 AM
In your world God is the answer to every question. I envy you. In my world science is the answer to only some questions. To find those answers is a great adventure, lost on Gods children.
By learning to read we can follow simple directions, like floating down a river we can read a sign that says “falls ahead”. If we don’t study and learn, we can’t read those signs. The non-readers would simply go over the falls and believe that God works in mysterious ways.
Blind people use canes to feel the path ahead. Scientists use knowledge and science to feel the world around them and separate the real from the myth. Science has given us far more that religion, religion has given us endless wars and ritualistic ignorance. Science has given us cures for smallpox, polio, and many other diseases. Science has fed and clothed us. While all that religion has done is threaten our productivity with eternal damnation if we didn’t spend our lives on our knees in submission to God’s higher power.
As you can readily see, I don’t fear God, but I truly fear ignorance.
Fred
My scientific question is where did God come from? Who created Him? Without those answers, "God" does not exist.
Bah, Humbug.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Oregon
ReplyDeleteNope, Chistmas is real. Happy little kids beimg good in spite of themselves. Family. Frosty mornings spent in front of the fire. Knowing that the days are getting longer and soon it will be time to plant. There are a lot of real things about Christmas. In fact, Christmas was celebrated for ages before Christ was born. The celebration came long before it was high-jacked by Christians.
Yeah but, I bet you don't believe in the Easter Bunny either.
ReplyDeleteOregon
Fred said: "If it can be proven, then it isn't a theory."
ReplyDeleteOh really, Fred? How do you feel about the theory of gravity? Yes, "law" is an outdated term. Gravity "is only a theory."
When a hypothesis reaches the level of being a theory, the other term it's known by is "fact."
As for the magical explanation "god did it," well, Mr. Theocracy just did god. It's the age-old argument that complex things require a creator, but the people who foist this erroneous (demonstrably, proven false) rule refuse to apply it to their god (what created your god?). Explaining the natural universe with magic ("God did it,") is, by definition, superstition.
Here's a Christmas primer, a brief rundown of the derivation of the non-Christian Christmas holiday. Wikipedia does a good job of it, too.
ReplyDeleteI know that the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Mickey Mouse aren't real people. But I enjoy the stories, and share in the celebration. Same as birthday parties. It's the friendship and being together that is important.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy Christmas, even after the Christians took it over. It's still about all of the things that I believe in.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link anon. That's the trouble with science, some of these myths seem to get debunked.
hank is a neighbor of ours and he lives right where the road splits coming up from the highway. baugh went right in front of his house and humbug turned sharply off to the right just before you got to his house. he didn't like cars going right in front of his house because of the dust so he moved the access without asking anyones permission. so now baugh follows humbug and splits up and around the mountain. one old guy who lives up baugh kept crashing his car where it turns into humbug. you could hear hank telling him to slow down from way up the mountain. so hank has been working on that road sort of like an expanding universe. and he is paying for it all himself since he didn't ask any of us for permission. everytime i go by something else is different. sort of like that big bang theory, i think hank got so pissed off from people driving too fast by his house and cleaning the dust off everything that he was either going to shoot them or expand the universe by diverting the road somewhere else. so maybe god just got pissed off and the expanding universe is the end result.
ReplyDeleteSo Spy, when did you become a poet?
ReplyDeleteErnie
i didn't make this up. this is a true story. and hank he is a mountain man of legendary character. then you have oregon coming up with the baugh and the humbug, the two roads where we live. out of context of course, but to call me a poet makes me think of that line, "i'm a poet and i know it and i hope i don't blow it." it's more interesting for me to say that there are 7 layers to this story, like in any sufi story. so it's more like a fable of that sort. if you get my samurai drift.
ReplyDeleteSpy,
ReplyDeleteHe's a poet & doesn't know it but his feet show it - they're Longfellows!
In my mind Science doesn't have to debunk one's spirituality, only organized religion. Yes, the universe is expanding, but only to contract. It is a pulse, as is everything else. A cycle,round and round! It is wonderful to know that science can take us back to the BIG BANG, but it can't take us back beyond that. Maybe someday it will. For me, the question, is not what force is expanding the universe, but what connects on that cosmic level that science can not begin to explain.
ReplyDeleteI dunno.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as how you were formed by the union of two cells after a long evolutionary process took place way after the Big Bang happened and that your very distant ancestors were fortunate enough to find and live and survive on a hospitable planet for millenia with all the right stuff-- air, water, oxygen, sun, food, and temperature-- for crawling out of the primordial mud and muck developing exoskeletons and eyes and ears and fingers and brains plus a myriad of other wonders for survival along the way, and given the fact that you're really only dancing on this pleasant earth for a very brief moment of time with a name in an otherwise timeless and infinitely ordered cosmos, well, it's a wonder we can even think and communicate with each other at all much less type and read our creative tinkerings across the local intraweb like you're doing right now... so, yeah, miracles happen and an expanding universe wouldn't surprise me one little bit, gravity and theories and thoughts and All.
god made the space that the universe is in, no space existed before, although God gave us the brains and the ability to use them for the creation of science, he obviously didn't give fred the ability to understand that space did not have to exist for the planets to fill up, the whole thing was gods design, and we will never truly understand god, or the universe, because our brains are very small, some obviously considerably smaller than others(Fred).
ReplyDeleteRemember when summer used to last all year, Ernie? But now that we're older, it goes by in about 2 weeks?
ReplyDeleteIt's like a record on a record player (remember those?) In the beginning, it takes a lonnnnnnnnng time to go all the way around, but now that we're near the end, it's going around really fast...
Kinda like the Universe expanding faster and faster, I'll bet.
Actually, I agree that our brains are too small to understand God. That's why I call myself an agnostic. Agnostics believe that God is unexplainable. Not you, or I, will ever understand who or what God is. But, I don't think that he micromanages either. I really don't think that "god" gives a rats patooty about what we think.
ReplyDeleteRose, the weather was so nice in Redway today that it felt like Spring. I was thinking that we had an awfully short Winter.
ReplyDeletethanks robin, i like that analogy. actually, my feet are wide like a california indians. i never liked to wear shoes when i was little. didn't know how to tie the laces for a long time. i sort of felt like someone going to indian school where they cut your hair and made them wear shoes. my mother raised me in the covelo/spyrock teaching tradition so the rod was employed at every opportunity. i have heared of the advantages of long feet, but my girlfriend treats me so well that i think mine must be the perfect size for me.
ReplyDeletei think they finally have discovered the god particle which they call the bozon which is the plural of bozo.
ReplyDelete