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To: Fester Chugabrew
"These are all based upon obersrvation of the current universe."

Oh really... Well, first of all, neutrinos are pretty 'iffy' right now as to whether they've actually been detected at all. They're by no means something we're able to 'test' with just yet. Black holes cannot be observed by their very nature. The only thing we can observe is specific effects upon surrounding things (such as stars), which we then infer are the result of black holes because we have no better explaination. Quantum theory/quantum mechanics exists at a level so small that oberservation and testing begin to lose meaning. It exists more in equations on paper than anywhere else. I'll skip the Big Bang, as that becomes funny with something else you said. String Theory is something which completely exists on paper. We have no way of observing the 'strings' themselves, let alone watching them vibrate.

The Big Bang is the funniest one, in light of your comment that, "does not necessitate extrapolations backwards into the unobserved.". Ok, so looking back on Earth a few million years necessitates extrapolations backward into the unobserved, but looking back several billion years to some unknown point in the universe does not? Fascinating. The formation of the elementary particles during the cooling of the universe is really amazing stuff, but it's a complete extrapolation of something inherently unobservable by anyone born of this universe.
577 posted on 11/29/2004 3:05:47 PM PST by NJ_gent (Conservatism begins at home. Security begins at the border. Please, someone, secure our borders.)
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To: NJ_gent
. . . neutrinos are pretty 'iffy' . . .

Yes indeed, just like theories of evolution. As I said, since all these conclusions are based only upon observations of the status quo, there is no way to prove their history with any more certainty than the existence of God.

594 posted on 11/29/2004 3:59:01 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: NJ_gent
Well, first of all, neutrinos are pretty 'iffy' right now as to whether they've actually been detected at all.

Neutrinos got detected in the late '40s or early '50s. We knew to look for them because some kind of missing "little neutral thing" was needed to account for the variable energy sum of the then-detectable particles (proton and electron) coming out of neutron decay. One neutron being like another, conservation of energy demanded that the sum of the energies should be a constant and it wasn't. Thus there had to be another product, something hard to detect.

Although most neutrinos pass through the Earth without interacting with anything, some few will hit. We now detect supernova events like SN1987A from the spike in neutrinos.

604 posted on 11/29/2004 4:26:43 PM PST by VadeRetro (Nothing means anything when you go to Hell for knowing what things mean.)
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