What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by mabedzaqueen

Now Tracy, i just don't see why (or rather, how) something inanimate would not have ?always been there?... Simply because minerals, as opposed to animals and vegetals, have no life in them!! I suppose a kind of superior being must have provided at least the "spark" that allowed forms of life to develop on this planet (and possibly elsewhere), but where the heck does that force come from? A sort of intelligent form of energy that once was present in our solar system??

Exactly... if you're saying a superior being is required to provide the "spark" to begin life, you can't ignore that a superior being is loitering around and where did he come from? The superior being argument just defers the problem without getting rid of it.

As for how inanimate matter becomes alive, this is something that happens over billions of years. It has been observed that asteroids do contain organic molecules and amino acids. It has also been demonstrated in the lab that simulate certain types of meteorite strikes (i.e. glancing blows) that these amino acids do survive impact. It has also been demonstrated that these molecules can combine into more complex amino acids during impact. There's all kinds of events that happen to alter organic compounds. Some of these after happening many times eventually produce interesting results. Some of those even create cycles between compounds that end up reproducing themselves. Over billions of years these become complex enough that you'd call it life. Life is made up of the same stuff that inanimate matter is made up of.

Originally Posted by mabedzaqueen

Also, i've noted time is considered as a "dimension"... but it seems to me that the universe doesn't give a shit about time! Like everything inanimate, the universe simply exists, that's all... Nobody created it... To me, time matters only to what's alive... I don't think it deserves all the hype it gets

The universe does change over time, but much of it happens very slowly which gives the impression that the universe doesn't give a shit about time. Look far enough away (and therefore far enough back in time) and you'll see that stars were only made up of hydrogen, unlike now where they have heavier elements. Go back even further, and atoms didn't even exist in their present form - so inanimate objects certainly have not always existed. Go far into the future and stars will eventually run out of fuel and turn off. The universe will be dark.

[randolph]

Basically, we are dealing with two realities. The reality that we can see and measure, the visible universe. The other reality is dark energy that we cannot see but we can indirectly measure. Until we develop ways to measure and observe the dark energy, which is the predominate energy in the universe, we will be unable to fully understand what is going on. Possibly the visible universe is nothing more than foam resting on top of a sea of dark energy.

[EdwardSinclair]

I see and I read all with much satisfaction!

Clearly, each one is entitled to their own point of view and scientific theories to back them, and I shall not rule any of them out, at least not until the secret is revealed!

Some very interesting explanations have been put forth indeed.

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

Just because something is expanding does not mean it's infinite. It's been constantly expanding at a finite rate for a finite time. That makes it finite.

...but, alas, herein lies my biggest question/confusion:

Please explain what the universe is expanding on?

"Surely even the greatest painter needs a canvas in which to draw his masterpiece!"

Or is there something beyond the universe that we cannot measure, and thus cannot see? Perhaps in a different plane or dimension? Is this "canvas" infinite? If it is not the universe will come to a halt...

Furthermore if our universe resembles a white hole, would it not further validate the theory of "multi-verses"?

"To every action there's an equal and opposite reaction"
Whatever comes in, must come out, hence theoretically it should be possible for the rip in the very fabric of space itself to be made to transfer bodies in between "multi-verses", or is that reserved only to science-fiction?

Just food for thought!

[TracyCoxx]

Originally Posted by EdwardSinclair

...but, alas, herein lies my biggest question/confusion:

Please explain what the universe is expanding on?

"Surely even the greatest painter needs a canvas in which to draw his masterpiece!"

Or is there something beyond the universe that we cannot measure, and thus cannot see? Perhaps in a different plane or dimension? Is this "canvas" infinite? If it is not the universe will come to a halt...

These things are way outside our everyday experiences and so we have no intuitive way to imagine this. We're so used to space being a place where things exist and move we have no concept of what it means to be outside of that. And not just outside of space, but outside of spacetime, where there is no time either. Try and imagine that. I can't. There is something called M-Theory that does explain mathematically (and I'm using that term loosely because it's WAY beyond any math I've seen in my graduate physics classes) what is outside our universe.

It has been explained though in simpler terms. Imagine a balloon expanding. There's dots on the balloon and as it's expanding they're moving apart from eachother - like galaxies do as the universe is expanding. The surface of the balloon is a curved 2D surface. Replace that 2D surface with a 3D surface on a 4 dimensional sphere (which we can't imagine) and you get an idea what's going on.

Originally Posted by EdwardSinclair

Furthermore if our universe resembles a white hole, would it not further validate the theory of "multi-verses"?

Yes, and there is more and more indications that there are multiple universes. Also there is the question, why is our universe tuned so perfectly for life to exist? There's 6 constants: the charge of an electron, gravitational constant, hubble constant, etc, where if any of them were off even very slightly life as we know it would be impossible. Atoms couldn't exist, the universe would collapse within a millisecond, etc. How did we get so lucky to have a universe made just for us? It must have been designed by God.

Or there are countless universes where most of them do collapse within a millisecond or are completely uninhabitable for whatever reason. But within those countless universes there may be one or two like ours that can support life. And that life would be marveling at how "fine-tuned" that universe is for them. Well if it wasn't suitable for life, there would be no life to say it's suitable for life.

Originally Posted by EdwardSinclair

"To every action there's an equal and opposite reaction"
Whatever comes in, must come out, hence theoretically it should be possible for the rip in the very fabric of space itself to be made to transfer bodies in between "multi-verses", or is that reserved only to science-fiction?

The idea of wormholes came from Einstein and Rosen. It's called an Einstein-Rosen bridge. So yes, it's possible. Although you'd need exotic matter lining the wormhole to make it safe to traverse.

Originally Posted by EdwardSinclair

Just food for thought!

Question everything

[TracyCoxx]

There's a new theory being talked about that suggests that instead of a big bang, the beginning of the universe may have been something more like water freezing into ice. The ice in this case would be spacetime. So there may have been some kind of phase change from something fluid and superhot before that cooled and crystalized into a universe with spacetime. They also say that like matter, space is also made up of extremely small building blocks and is quantized. I think this is pretty intriguing. They have some work to do on it though, including showing that the properties of general relativity arise from their initial principles. The article also talks about other observations that can be made to prove their theory.

http://www.science20.com/news_articl...ig_chill-93154

[randolph]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

There's a new theory being talked about that suggests that instead of a big bang, the beginning of the universe may have been something more like water freezing into ice. The ice in this case would be spacetime. So there may have been some kind of phase change from something fluid and superhot before that cooled and crystalized into a universe with spacetime. They also say that like matter, space is also made up of extremely small building blocks and is quantized. I think this is pretty intriguing. They have some work to do on it though, including showing that the properties of general relativity arise from their initial principles. The article also talks about other observations that can be made to prove their theory.

http://www.science20.com/news_articl...ig_chill-93154

Sounds like dark energy and the Higgs field are getting closer together. Maybe they are the same thing.

[TracyCoxx]

The higgs boson is where mass comes from. Mass and its associated gravitational field is what slows down the expansion of the universe. So far, gravity is well understood and no observations have called into question our understanding of gravity yet.

The acceleration of the expansion of the universe is new, and that's what they're saying is caused by dark energy. So that's something else. Dark energy is something that seems to produce more space.