I think comparing Big Bang Theory to the theory of Gravity is a fair comparison. One does not have more evidence than the other.

Sure, we see the effect of gravity all around us, but by the same token we see the expansion of the universe, redshift, and cosmic background radiation. Just because you don't understand the fancy physics behind Big Bang doesn't mean it isn't true. I know dropping shit and watching it fall is a lot easier to grasp.

11/19/2009 9:47:51 AM

Quote :

"higgs boson ftw"

more like wtfit (where the fuck is it).

people from the future need to stop fucking with our experiments.

11/19/2009 10:10:33 AM

Quote :

"Rebut or get the fuck out."

I'd rather stay and enjoy what entertainment you no doubt will provide. You're just too dense that its not even worth taking the bait.

11/19/2009 10:12:32 AM

Currently what comes to mind is "The Origin of the Feces"...by Type O Negative

11/19/2009 11:02:08 AM

Quote :

"I'd rather stay and enjoy what entertainment you no doubt will provide. You're just too dense that its not even worth taking the bait."

I mean I have no idea what you're doing but I'm destroying these people here.

11/19/2009 11:05:08 AM

11/19/2009 11:05:23 AM

Quote :

"I mean I have no idea what you're doing but I'm destroying these people here."

Yeah, from the looks of it, you're totally winning this e-argument!

(stick with me, I'm trying to find just the right level of sarcasm for this post)

11/19/2009 11:27:04 AM

I'm the greatest.

11/19/2009 11:28:04 AM

Quote :

"If someone has a valid theory on the creation of life or the universe that's backed by evidence, I'd gladly read it."

William Lane Craig's Kalam cosmological argument is an entirely valid theory backed by as much evidence as any other.
http://www.amazon.com/Kalam-Cosmological-Argument-William-Craig/dp/157910438X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258650469&sr=8-1

11/19/2009 12:11:49 PM

I don't know how the universe works, therefore, I know it was god.

11/19/2009 12:19:37 PM

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory.

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 12:24 PM. Reason : notjustatheory.com]

11/19/2009 12:22:08 PM

In that case, I theorize that God is easy to get worked up.

11/19/2009 12:39:35 PM

Quote :

"I don't know how the universe works, therefore, I know it was not god."

don't be a fucking idiot.

11/19/2009 12:44:59 PM

^^ You'd be correct

11/19/2009 12:57:14 PM

I was really excited about this thread because I thought the title said Origin of the Spices

11/19/2009 2:34:26 PM

ibt dune pics

11/19/2009 2:46:00 PM

11/19/2009 2:47:49 PM

I'm not really sold on spices. I know some people believe they make food taste better, but where's the proof really?

IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN SPICES MAYBE YOU SHOULD READ A COOKBOOK

11/19/2009 2:51:19 PM

11/19/2009 4:26:43 PM

Quote :

"I mean I have no idea what you're doing but I'm destroying these people here."

I'm eating popcorn, drinking a soda, and laughing it up at this obvious comedy you're putting on for us. bravo!

11/19/2009 4:31:15 PM

Quote :

"I think comparing Big Bang Theory to the theory of Gravity is a fair comparison. One does not have more evidence than the other. Sure, we see the effect of gravity all around us, but by the same token we see the expansion of the universe, redshift, and cosmic background radiation. Just because you don't understand the fancy physics behind Big Bang doesn't mean it isn't true. I know dropping shit and watching it fall is a lot easier to grasp."

LOL, I knew someone was going to say something to this effect. Some of you people are more delusional than the folks blindly supporting creationism. We can actually apply theories about gravity to produce the results we want (like gravity assists [see sling-shotting around the moon]). When was the last time someone got a big lump of matter to spontaneously explode outward (and I'm talking about without some outside force...so don't come back to me with these experiments where they launch atoms at each other or some such thing).

11/19/2009 7:47:17 PM

Quote :

"aha, you really don't...you have it "figured" out as much as they do...unless you have EVIDENCE detailing exactly how the universe came to be (heck, i'll settle for some evidence of how LIFE came to be, forget the universe), you have NOTHING figured out you both have your OPINIONS on how it all started, but since neither of you have any EVIDENCE, your viewpoints are equal in validity i am constantly amused by all the "enlightened" souls coming out of universities these days...your asinine and arrogant belief that your hypothesis is correct and free-standing is just as ignorant as a creationist's belief...but you scream "science!" and expect your OPINION (again, please note the lack of evidence on your end) to be given more weight than theirs "

wat?

are you saying creationism has as much evidence as evolution does?

11/19/2009 8:31:44 PM

Quote :

"When was the last time someone got a big lump of matter to spontaneously explode outward (and I'm talking about without some outside force...so don't come back to me with these experiments where they launch atoms at each other or some such thing)."

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 9:38 PM. Reason : heh, smaller]

11/19/2009 9:32:42 PM

i read something to other day about the theory of gravity having MAJOR flaws in it....pointing towards the idea of a time-space fabric being much more plausible.

im gonna have to find that.

and for the record i believe in evolution.

11/19/2009 9:36:09 PM

Quote :

"i read something to other day about the theory of gravity having MAJOR flaws in it....pointing towards the idea of a time-space fabric being much more plausible."

Well, no, it's just that Newtonian mechanics really only works for regular sized objects on planet Earth.

For things like... say... a planet or an atom, the laws of gravity don't apply as well. In fact, they tend to break down. That's why we have quantum mechanics, astrophysics, and grand unification.

11/19/2009 9:37:29 PM

but does astrophysics explain them?
aren't a lot of things still a mystery?
like black dark matter?



i'm not disagreeing (wow that is NOT how that is spelled) with gravity.

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 9:42 PM. Reason : you know more about astronomy than myself, i'm sure.]



[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 9:43 PM. Reason : there we go. maybe im thinking black holes?]

11/19/2009 9:41:31 PM

dark matter

11/19/2009 9:42:10 PM

Quote :

"but does astrophysics explain them? aren't a lot of things still a mystery? like black matter?"

Sort of. We know how planets move. Every object is affected by gravity, and most macroscopic objects in the universe are affected by other masses (hence the Earth orbiting the sun), but there's a lot of really cool and weird phenomena in space that we're still trying to figure out. That's what makes space so goddamn awesome.

We can only measure things in space through observation, and some objects aren't really visible, but we can tell something is there because we see objects being affected by certain things that we can't readily see, like light refraction, gravitational pull, radiation, etc.

It would be like if I was invisible and standing on a grass field. You couldn't see me, but you could see the imprints of the weight of my body on the grass. And then if you shot a sound wave, you could hear it return back after the waves bounced off me. You'd be able to tell that something was there. That's how scientists discovered what they think is dark matter.

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 9:48 PM. Reason : ]

11/19/2009 9:48:27 PM

I think that people misunderstand the way that theories work.

If they're "good" and predict things well, then for most cases, they never become "wrong".

One of the best cases for when a predictive theory goes bad is the replacement of the Ptolemaic system and epicycles with the Copernican theory (which was actually less predictive at first), Kepler's laws (which fixed the problem of circular orbits by introducing elliptical ones), and finally Newtonian Mechanics (a full theory of motion and gravity).

But this is an unusual case. Newtonian Mechanics will NEVER go bad. It's highly predictive and in most senses physical correct. In the same way Relativity will NEVER go bad. It too is highly predictive and very physical correct. Certainly there are issues and lots of fun new things are in the future, but the discovery of new truth does not cancel the goodness of the earlier mostly truths.

The only chance that a modern theory may go the way of the epicycles is Quantum Theory. But... I would highly doubt that the insight and generally "rightness" of Quantum Theory will ever be incorrect. And as for being predictive, you really can not get much better than Quantum Mechanics. It IS the way that nature works, as far as we can tell.

11/19/2009 9:49:43 PM

Quote :

"But this is an unusual case. Newtonian Mechanics will NEVER go bad."

Well until we started wondering how things began moving at the atomic level. Then it went bad real quick.

11/19/2009 9:51:01 PM

im guessing the science community will care about that the instant QED stops being a fairy tale told by disgruntled chemists

11/19/2009 9:53:16 PM

well... yeah

but Newtonian Mechanics is very good with trying to knock down a wall, or put up a shuttle into orbit or any other number of things that you or I would deal with on an everyday basis.

11/19/2009 9:53:31 PM

^^ certainly you know near ZERO about quantum electrodynamics

11/19/2009 9:54:08 PM

ok. goal for the next few months.


im gonna read about half of the shit you two posted because i am a little lost

11/19/2009 9:55:31 PM

you don't have to read anything

there are a lot of great documentries that you could watch that would give you a bit of insight about any number of these topics

assuming that you're interesting

11/19/2009 9:56:59 PM

very. very very.

any suggestions?

11/19/2009 9:57:30 PM

Quote :

"you know more about astronomy than myself, i'm sure."

/facepalm...you give him far too much credit.

11/19/2009 9:58:24 PM

here you go

Carl Sagan on Epicycles, Ptolemy, and Kepler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faqjmAoXpM4&feature=related

11/19/2009 9:58:37 PM

^^no i'm not

belive it or not i do talk to some of these people outside of tww

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 9:59 PM. Reason : ^sweet. i will be watching this while everyone else watching twilight.]

11/19/2009 9:59:19 PM

it's good stuff

there's a reason why everyone "made fun of" the way that Carl Sagan said things like "billions and billions of stars" in Cosmos

it's because everyone watched it at the time

11/19/2009 10:02:15 PM

Quote :

"very. very very. any suggestions?"

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Cosmos_The_Complete_Collection_Disc_1/70061729 (Instant watch!!!!)

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Universe_Season_1_Disc_1/70082483

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 10:03 PM. Reason : ]

11/19/2009 10:03:22 PM

if you google

Carl Sagan

Stephen Hawking

or

Brian Greene

you'll get a basic idea about the neat physics

these people are the showman of physics (and kind of treated that way by the physics community at large...)

11/19/2009 10:05:05 PM

11/19/2009 10:08:00 PM

Brian Greene is the only name i'm not really familiar with.

after finals i think i may go on a documentary binge


thanks guys

11/19/2009 10:11:33 PM

He wrote this book, which got me into the whole "theoretical physics" binge:

http://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Universe-Superstrings-Dimensions-Ultimate/dp/0393058581/

I have it if you want to borrow it.

11/19/2009 10:12:31 PM

^^Brian Greene is awesome. He's honestly the most fun to read I think. He came and spoke at NCSU one semester (maybe 4 years ago?) and he has a great way of making complex ideas understandable.

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 10:13 PM. Reason : ]

11/19/2009 10:13:26 PM

^^^

that's fine, he and Michio Kaku are the new showman of physics

They both work in String Theory, which is scoffed at as useless by most physicists.

but, bringing physics to the world and especially kids is really never a bad thing

I loved watching the documentaries by Stephen Hawking.

[Edited on November 19, 2009 at 10:16 PM. Reason : .]

11/19/2009 10:15:07 PM

Stephen Hawking actually has a children's book out, which I really enjoyed (I worked at a Toy Store and we carried it). George's Secret Key to the Universe Explains all kinds of neat physics things in a manner that introduces kids to black holes and radiation and possible time travel, all the while in a very villain vs. hero plot line.

11/19/2009 10:19:18 PM

that's great

also, a thing that sometimes happens is that we get books on serious topics done in a dumbed down manner

they are usually complete, but done in a highly descriptive manner with lots of explaining and examples

good examples of these are the "cartoon guides" to various subjects (physics, statistics, etc...)

they are AWESOME

I'm surprised I don't own any of these. I feel incomplete.

11/19/2009 10:22:18 PM

a

[Edited on November 20, 2009 at 12:33 AM. Reason : a]

11/20/2009 12:32:20 AM