Stephen Hawking's last paper: multiverses follow the laws of physics

[BAYLOR]

Every discussion of Strong AP, like Elon Musk's obsession with the universe as a simulation, is the consideration of a "higher power".

The problem with such discussions is that they are intrinsically non-rational because they rely on information that is necessarily not possible to discover independently. But all of science is something that can be recreated at any time in complete isolation if the right questions are asked - no one has to import the "answers" from a source that is necessarily from outside our plane of existence. So there is a basic incompatibility between science and any explanation that cannot be derived from scratch. If it could be observed that some fundamental religious tenants arise spontaneously in isolated populations, that would make discussions of faith have some interaction with science, but as it stands none of the messages to humanity from external sources have ever occurred in such a manner. There is no New World Buddha or Mohammad that transmitted their Strong AP information sets to those portions of humanity in the egalitarian manner that underlies most evangelizing belief systems. That doesn't mean Islam is right or wrong, but it does mean that the faith behaves like a social meme rather than as a discrete bit of information fundamentally woven into the structure of the cosmos, ready to be revealed to anyone who asks the right questions, like Planck's constant.

Lot's of questions and answers are not scientific, and that's fine. No one needs to provide the science behind my love for my wife or the film's of Whit Stilman.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth , Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies "

William Shakespeare

 

[BAYLOR]

i feel like before this discussion ends, we may find the answer to what came first? the chicken or the egg?

Or without Time , how could the Big Bang have ever happened ?

 

[RJM Corbet]

I quite understand that, the need for absolute objectivity, and the blind adherence to religious texts and dogmas: but Onyx -- perhaps there REALLY IS a higher power? Perhaps it's not just wishful thinking/imaginary friend/opium of the people, etc. It makes at least as much sense as a monkey with a pencil? That's all ...

 

[RJM Corbet]

Or without Time , how could the Big Bang have ever happened ?

Time started at the BB-- time, space, energy, everything ...

 

[BAYLOR]

[Q

Time started at the BB-- time, space, energy, everything ...

Without time, how do you have events?

 

[RJM Corbet]

[Q


Without time, how do you have events?

Time for bed. Nite nite

 

[Onyx]

I quite understand that, the need for absolute objectivity, and the blind adherence to religious texts and dogmas: but Onyx -- perhaps there REALLY IS a higher power?

No reasonable scientist would argue otherwise.

 

[RJM Corbet]

No reasonable scientist would argue otherwise.

Thank you! That's all I needed to hear!

 

[dask]

Time started at the BB-- time, space, energy, everything ...

Since matter cannot be created or destroyed the little nugget that was the big bang was always here, wasn't it. Since everything that is everything was in that nugget, there would've been time also, wouldn't there?

 

[RJM Corbet]

Since matter cannot be created or destroyed the little nugget that was the big bang was always here, wasn't it. Since everything that is everything was in that nugget, there would've been time also, wouldn't there?

I don't know. It wasn't a nugget of anything. It was the moment that time and everything else came into existence, from nothing. There was matter and anti-matter. In fact I believe it's energy that can't be destroyed, not matter? It wasn't like a little pea floating in space waiting to explode. There was no space or time?

EDIT: Sorry, before I'm corrected: matter wasn't created ar the BB. It was when the forces and sub-atomic particles came into being, that later cooled and started to form pockets of hydrogen, after the antii particles had been destroyed, etc ...

 

[dask]

I read somewhere it was a very small and very dense particle that blew at the big bang. I thought matter and energy were equivalents of each other in some way. Aren't sub-atomic particles matter?

 

[RJM Corbet]

I read somewhere it was a very small and very dense particle that blew at the big bang. I thought matter and energy were equivalents of each other in some way. Aren't sub-atomic particles matter?

I don't think so, dask. Only when they combine to form atoms?

 

[Onyx]

Energy = Mass x Speed of Light squared.

 

[dask]

I don't think so, dask. Only when they combine to form atoms?

Okay, thank you. Still, I remember something about the photon, a sub-atomic particle, bending as it passes a gravitational field. Doesn't that make it mass or matter? (Probably not but still have to ask.)

 

[Foxbat]

Objects that take up space and have mass are called matter. Mass is the meaurement of the resistance to acceleration (a change in the state of motion). The particle/wave conundrum probably makes it uncertain (nod to Heisenberg) whether a sub atomic particle is actual matter or not.
Just my opinion

 

[RJM Corbet]

Okay, thank you. Still, I remember something about the photon, a sub-atomic particle, bending as it passes a gravitational field. Doesn't that make it mass or matter? (Probably not but still have to ask.)

No, a photon definitely isn't matter, because it has no mass. An electron has mass (very little) but is a 'point like' particle -- impossible to actually visualise, I think? An atomic explosion converts matter into energy? I'm really not that sure ...

 

[RJM Corbet]

Objects that take up space and have mass are called matter. Mass is the meaurement of the resistance to acceleration (a change in the state of motion). The particle/wave conundrum probably makes it uncertain (nod to Heisenberg) whether a sub atomic particle is actual matter or not.
Just my opinion

Yes, you're correct:
What Is the Definition of Matter?

 

[RJM Corbet]

I think it is this gentleman:
The Man Who's Trying to Kill Dark Matter

I enjoyed the article. It's a very clear explanation for lay people. It all sounds good -- cutting edge theoretical research -- but of course someone outside the mathematical mechanics can't really judge. Thank you for posting it, and apologise for just having got to reading it.

Essentially the apparent evidence of dark matter is really the attempt by dark energy to re-enter space occupied by visible matter?

 

[dask]

Since matter cannot be created or destroyed the little nugget that was the big bang was always here, wasn't it. Since everything that is everything was in that nugget, there would've been time also, wouldn't there?

I don't know. It wasn't a nugget of anything.

I read somewhere it was a very small and very dense particle that blew at the big bang.

"If the universe has been expanding constantly, it is logical to suppose that it was smaller in the past than it is now, and that at some time in the distant past it began as a dense core of matter." Isaac Asimov, An Intelligent Man's Guide To The Physical Sciences.

I thought matter and energy were equivalents of each other in some way.

An atomic explosion converts matter into energy? I'm really not that sure ...

"Einstein's mathematical treatment of energy shows that mass could be a form of energy - a very concentrated form, for a very small quantity of mass would be converted into an immense quantity of energy. Einstein's equation relating mass and energy is now one of the most famous equations in the world." (See post #153 above.) Isaac Asimov, An Intelligent Man's Guide To The Physical Sciences.

This is in no way an attempt to win an argument or parade falsehood as truth. I'm just trying to document the reasons I say some of the things I do. For those now focusing their crosshairs, don't forget to slip on your bib. Should give me the time I need to duck behind that big rock.

 

[RJM Corbet]

"If the universe has been expanding constantly, it is logical to suppose that it was smaller in the past than it is now, and that at some time in the distant past it began as a dense core of matter." Isaac Asimov, An Intelligent Man's Guide To The Physical Sciences.





"Einstein's mathematical treatment of energy shows that mass could be a form of energy - a very concentrated form, for a very small quantity of mass would be converted into an immense quantity of energy. Einstein's equation relating mass and energy is now one of the most famous equations in the world." (See post #153 above.) Isaac Asimov, An Intelligent Man's Guide To The Physical Sciences.

This is in no way an attempt to win an argument or parade falsehood as truth. I'm just trying to document the reasons I say some of the things I do. For those now focusing their crosshairs, don't forget to slip on your bib. Should give me the time I need to duck behind that big rock.

It appears that 'point particles' like quarks and electrons cannot be destroyed. But when an atom is split, the break-up releases pure energy in the form of light and gamma rays and x-rays, etc? Heat is a form of pure energy? I'm not at all clear.