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Posted on 12/18/2005 5:46:34 AM PST by samtheman
That is a cosmological battle - Big Crunch or Cold Empty Universe. In other words, will the Universe end in fire or ice (metaphorically speaking). Data suggests that (based on our current thinking), the universe will gradually drift away into nothingness.
Which reminds me of the Robert Frost poem:
Some say the world will end in ice,
some say it will end in fire,
And having tasted desire,
I hold with those who say fire.
Have you checked the University of Phoenix, they seem to have a Major for everything.
Little Rock, AR has a vast amount of information on file with respect to everything related to this subject ... in the Clinton Library.
In an infinite number of universes, surely there is one with flying monkeys!I can't get my head around infinity. I prefer to speculate (and all of this is in the realm of speculation) on the possibility of a large but finite number of other bubbles and also prefer to think of us and our monkeys (flying or otherwise) as unique in all the cosmos. But that's just my particular fancy and means nothing.
What is interesting is that people who "know better" (that is, those who can do the math) are speculating along the lines of this article.
the argument that we find the universe improbably friendly to life because we are alive in this universe is neither an explanation nor an argument, but merely begs the question.You are right. It's not an argument, or an explanation. It is a speculation. And to my mind, an interesting one. Frankly, more interesting than the supposition that a book written by the scholary members of a nomadic desert tribe a few thousand years ago actually specifies the dynamics of the universe.
To my mind (and I'm not trying to win an argument, merely justify my own speculations), it makes more sense to toy with ideas of alternate big-bangs (in which some get the physical constants "right for life" and others don't), than to believe that a book written at the dawn of mankinds erudition correctly lists the technical specifications of our cosmos.
What would differ in those "anomolous" patches? Would they not conform to the same physical laws that govern this "patch?" Are we supposed to believe that Relativity extends to the very fabric of reality, and that Truth itself varies from locale to locale?
Would an intelligent observer from Tau Ceti IX see a universe governed by different laws, arising from completely different origins? Can we no longer rely on the assumption that certain values are immutable and universal?
Intriguing, but I suspect more of a parlor exercise than a physical reality.
Steady State (or any pop theory amounting to such) is an elegant mathematical way to commit the logical fallacy of "begging the question" by not addressing: What was the First Cause?
Remember: Nothing creates itself.
Remember: There is no such thing as infinity.
Q.E.D., Kalam Cosmological Argument, q.v.
Sauron
That has to be the funniest ping I've seen!
It's like trying to reconcile where the interior of your house came from (if it's all you've ever known) if you have no understanding of anything outside your house.
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Shall we go after the M-theory and trash the string theory?
I'm a frayed knot
Schrödinger's cat.
Not certain, but things are looking bad for the Big Crunch. Our expansion rate appears (recent observations) too high,
I thought a couple of years ago scientists were puzzled by measurements that the expansion of the universe was speeding up, accelerating. This flew in the face of gravity which should decelerate the rate. I have not heard any contrary reports since. I'd settle for an answer on the driving force behind this acceleration as more useful than wondering if the universe is antropical.
Seems true. Nice turn of phrase, too. In my falsificationist persona, I suppose I am one of them.
I don't know that this is a straightforward Shroedinger case, but it does pose some intriguing questions.
A 'multiverse' in which every possibility happens blows Hell out of the experimental method, though.
the experimental method still works for events inside our universe, which are the only events we can see or test anyway
like i said, this is speculation, but i personally find it interesting.
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