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Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by ImaFungi
You were right up until the "mathematically infinite behavior." I'm not really sure what that means. But, regardless, you were right about the quantum particles...nothing in quantum mechanics physically exists. Wavefunctions aren't physical, and virtual photons (virtual wavefuncions) certainly aren't physical.
Fields are, at their most basic, an exchange of momentum. The word "field" doesn't really describe something that's actually there, it describes the magnitude of the change in momentum that one object produces in another object. When fields are mediated by specific particles, they're always bosons, which, again, are non-physical wavefunctions. None of this is affected by universal expansion.
Originally posted by CLPrime
reply to post by ImaFungi
Yep, that would be a decent way of putting it.
You're welcome.
Originally posted by ImaFungi
thanks for the reply,, and that does help,.,,.
But I still dont comprehend how photons can be physically non existent,,. I was under the impression that all phenomena are material/physical,.,..,.,
So to comprehend how massless, non physical quantom particles can construct a massive physical universe,,, one needs to assume things like the higgs field?
Unless you can explain how that's on topic, I'm not sure if it is.
Originally posted by MamaJ
I have a question...
Does light encompass all things?
This truly matters, right?
When we look in the sky now it appears mostly black but that black is dotted with light from billions of stars. In the future there will be less stars and less light, until, eventually, there's nearly no light at all, if our current theories are correct.
eventually the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. And as existing stars ran out of fuel and ceased shining, the universe would slowly and inexorably grow darker, one star at a time.
But measuring the evolution of the density variations in the universe still does not answer the most important question: why does the universe contain these differences in density in the first place? To answer this question, astronomers and astrophysicists must understand the nature of the density variations and construct theories of the origin of the universe that predict how these variations should occur.
Originally posted by swan001
reply to post by MamaJ
Density variations refers to matter, which is not exactly the topic of this thread. But I will explain the density variation to you:
You see, we still try to figure out why galaxies even exist. It is believed that when Big Bang occured, there was some variations in the density of matter in the early universe, which, in laymen's words, means there were lumps of matter. We think those lumps became the galaxies, but we still try to see how these lumps got formed in the first place. It meant the Universe wasn't perfectly smooth...edit on 27-8-2012 by swan001 because: (no reason given)
I don't see any date on that, but what they suggest needs to be done has been done to some extent by George Smoot using tons of supercomputer power so I think that's slightly dated. He won a Nobel prize for related work. You can see his excellent TED presentation on Youtube but it's better to download it from the TED site where you can see it in higher resolution.
Originally posted by MamaJ
Here is a good read for anyone interested. skyserver.sdss.org...
To answer this question, astronomers and astrophysicists must understand the nature of the density variations and construct theories of the origin of the universe that predict how these variations should occur.
Who knows whats going on out there.... We sure dont, not yet.
Originally posted by MamaJ
How does matter not come into play with the expansion theory topic here?
Confused! Lol I get the feeling this is a club and y'all don't want me here.
Matter in my opinion is nothing but a projection of light manifested in the material world. This is where I begin to see the Universe expansion in a different " Light" I guess.
There's a difference between understanding the definitions of words, and understanding complex ideas like scientific theories. We should all be able to do the former while even the brightest minds struggle with the latter.
Originally posted by MamaJ
Ha! Naw.... I don't want to correct something for which I still do not understand.
Some critics claim the multiverse idea is not even a scientific hypothesis because it can't be tested. So it's pretty low on the scale of scientific ideas since not only has it not been tested, it may not even be testable.
In popular usage, a theory is just a vague and fuzzy sort of fact and a hypothesis is often used as a fancy synonym to `guess'. But to a scientist a theory is a conceptual framework that explains existing observations and predicts new ones. For instance, suppose you see the Sun rise. This is an existing observation which is explained by the theory of gravity proposed by Newton. This theory, in addition to explaining why we see the Sun move across the sky, also explains many other phenomena such as the path followed by the Sun as it moves (as seen from Earth) across the sky, the phases of the Moon, the phases of Venus, the tides, just to mention a few. You can today make a calculation and predict the position of the Sun, the phases of the Moon and Venus, the hour of maximal tide, all 200 years from now. The same theory is used to guide spacecraft all over the Solar System.
A hypothesis is a working assumption. Typically, a scientist devises a hypothesis and then sees if it ``holds water'' by testing it against available data (obtained from previous experiments and observations). If the hypothesis does hold water, the scientist declares it to be a theory.
Nobody said theories are facts. Using the example above, theory says the sun will rise tomorrow. It's not a fact that will happen. But it does seem pretty likely, wouldn't you agree? Predictions of solar and lunar eclipses are also very accurate. They all seem to happen precisely as predicted, so with this theory, it seems pretty darn accurate as a predictor. But that doesn't mean someone won't come up with a better theory, so that's one reason it's not called fact. Newton's theory made great predictions for centuries until Einstein's theory came along and made slightly better ones, regarding the precession of Mercury. Even though Newton's theory was ever so slightly wrong, it was still very much right because it was supported with lots of evidence.
Theories are not something I consider fact.
Originally posted by swan001
What are you two arguing about? Theories are not fact, they are theories. Stephen Hawkins said, "A good theory is a theory one can't disprove. If you can disprove a theory, than the theory fails. But if you can't disprove the theory, then, (however silly the theory may seem), the theory can't be rejected and hangs around." Why do you think there is so much new agers out there? Their theory are completely ridiculous, yet we still can't prove them absolutely wrong.
New age ideas have not been repeatedly tested and therefore aren't theories from a scientific perspective, so I have no idea where you got that misconception from.
Theory: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Originally posted by swan001
reply to post by MamaJ
reply to post by Arbitrageur
What are you two arguing about? Theories are not fact, they are theories. Stephen Hawkins said, "A good theory is a theory one can't disprove. If you can disprove a theory, than the theory fails. But if you can't disprove the theory, then, (however silly the theory may seem), the theory can't be rejected and hangs around." Why do you think there is so much new agers out there? Their theory are completely ridiculous, yet we still can't prove them absolutely wrong.edit on 27-8-2012 by swan001 because: (no reason given)