pywakit

'Wakit you have a lot of mistakes here. You sound so sure of yourself that no one is likely to want to try to correct you.

 

In cosmology we don't assume that the universe is exactly homogenous and isotropic. That is assumed to be true only as a largescale approximation.

Moreover it is not an assumption about empty space devoid of matter. It is an assumption about distribution of matter.

 

The distribution of matter is assumed to be co-extensive with space and to be approximately uniform (homog. and iso.) in the largescale average.

 

That's one mistake.

 

Another mistaken idea you have is that homog. and iso. imply infinite.

 

There are many cosmo models which satisfy the uniformity principle which have space be a finite volume, with a finite circumference. They have been studied for years and are well-known. That case has not been ruled out and NASA published an estimated lower bound on the size just this year.

As I recall it amounted to a circumference of about 600 billion light years.

That was a blue-ribbon NASA report from the WMAP mission.

 

So it is ridiculous to claim that uniform implies space infinite. It is not rational. Counterexamples abound!

 

If you don't already understand this, then you need to be asking questions at this forum, not making statements.

 

Sounds like DeGrasse-Tyson was trying to explain, but couldn't take the time to hammer it in. He probably had to oversimplify and leave out part of the message, but he gave you the important part. We don't know whether space has finite volume or infinite volume. We assume matter is coextensive with space, distributed approx uniformly (the structure looks cob-webby at smaller scale and clustery at even smaller, galactic, scale).

As new data comes in, it is analyze and the results are tabulated using both the finite and infinite models because we don't know yet.

 

But we are getting closer to knowing, so stay tuned.

Lol. Martin, I am reminded of all the 'blue ribbon' reports that have come down the pike in the last 500 years. Like the Vatican's trial of Copernican theory. Once you science guys get a mind set there's no stopping you. Especially when a knothead like me challenges 'conventional wisdom'.

Why the disrespect? 'Wakit? Hmmm. This sends a subtle message to others that I am a little 'whacked out', does it not? Yes. it does. Shame on you.

Ok, then. Lol. Not to point out the obvious, but since you have opened the door .... Having a picture of Alfred E. Newman as your thumbnail does not exactly instill confidence in your statements. Lol. I will be back after dinner to rebutt the 'lots of mistakes' you claim I made.

Moontanman wrote:

 

Point of fact. we did not "invent" all our complex social structures until a few thousand years ago, we were not much ahead of Neanderthals until after they become extinct. in fact the last of the Neanderthals were displaying the same behavior as us in distinctly different ways. We had an advantage but intelligence wasn't necessarily it.

Yes that is true. But irrelevant. You are ( I am afraid ) not looking at the big picture. Number 1. Life will make every effort to continue existing. Do you think neanderthal failed to notice they were going extinct? For whatever reason, they failed. And the conditons under which they existed were not appreciably different than homosapiens. Number 2. The neanderthal had an extra 200,000 years to get their act together. Number 3. I'm sorry to restate this, but at the time of homosapien's great migration out of Africa 50-60,000 years ago, Man was beating on drums, and tending goats. Those that stayed behind are still beating on drums and tending goats ... after 50,000 years. ( except for those we have introduced technology to ) Number 4. There is no 'we' in our present technological skill set. It was accomplished by .000000000001% ( approximately ) of homosapiens. The rest of us are just good at pulling the lever ... 99.99999999999% of homosapiens are clueless about how any of the things they use are made, or work. They are clueless about chemistry, or physics, or EM.

You wrote:

 

No, you are assuming intelligence is somehow a goal the goal is survival, many animals have evolved unique ways of survival, just because they did it with out large brains and opposable thumbs doesn't mean they were some how late in the game or losers.

I assume nothing of the kind. That would be your misinterpretation of the facts I have laid out. I must be at fault for not making myself clear. I am sorry. The goal is to survive. Period. Intelligenge is simply another 'tool'. Virtually every species that has existed has enjoyed existence far longer than us. Why would I consider them losers? They are incredibly successful. Intelligence is only valuable to us. Animals, and all other species couldn't care less. As far as 'late in the game', again you are assuming I think intelligence is the goal.

You wrote:

 

Today, it is not exactly well known, lots of things that were assumed to be true 50 years ago have been found to be misleading. The most important is that listening in on a civilization equal to ours even from 4.5 light years away might very well be impossible. unless we intentionally beam a signal (and even then in some cases) all our signals are absorbed by the upper atmosphere and or interstellar dust and gases. the old idea that in the radio spectrum the earth would outshine the sun is false and very misleading. SETI, for the most part is looking for signals intentionally being sent out on a specific wave length that is not absorbed by interstellar dust and gases.

The accurate word is 'incorrect'. And you are incorrect, too, I believe. Sorry. We are not looking for signals on a 'specific' wavelength. We are looking at about 500,000 wavelengths, soon to get boosted to around a billion. We have computers that can very effectively filter out the stars' radio output. They have no problem finding the 'needle in the haystack'. We have examined millions of stars, if not billions, and come up empty. When we aim our telescope at a given star group, there will either be a signal coming from that area, or there won't. There is no reason ( to my knowledge ) to linger for months on it. And that is what SETI knows too. Photons travel at 300,000 kps. If we can see a star, we can see any other photons that left at the same time. SETI has no intention of admitting the Drake Equation is screwed up. Frank Drake is the 'founder' of SETI, and very much active still. Seth lied for a reason. If you can't see it, I'm sorry.

You wrote:

 

Possibly you need to look a little deeper into the problems of detecting radio signals form space. If indeed EM is the only way to communicate then we need to examine the ways we are doing it and yes detailed examinations are far more difficult than just listening in with a radio. If there are 1000 advanced civilization in our galaxy spaced more or less equally apart most would not be detectable unless they had existed for many thousands of years. Yes the light speed limit limits both us and them. If there was a civilization on the other side of the milky way that was 50,000 years ahead of us we would still not be able to detect them nor they us. Light speed is much like tracer fire, it works both ways.

You must have memorized the Drake Equation. Another ridiculous assumption on Drake's part is that civilizations will 'kill themselves off'. So there will just be a tiny window of opportunity. Of course what kills off a species is ignorance. If conditions for survival become intolerable, the species either learns to adapt, or dies. Drake based his assumption on the failed societies of earth's history. What he ignored was that species ( and societies ) can be re-born. Over billions of years, if it happened once, it can ( and will ) happen again. Anyway, at the time he made this determination, we were in the middle of the 'cold war' where everyone who could was building bomb shelters and carrying out atomic bomb drills. ( DUCK AND COVER! ) All the ignorant people were quite certain that nuclear war was not only inevitable, but that it would very likely wipe all humanity off the face of the earth. Religion got very popular.

Of course, technology is not centrally held. We could suffer very serious damage from anything now and survive as a species. Asteroid, or atom bomb, and humanity would stumble a little but that is all. It is ridiculous to think we will have killed ourselves off in the next 50,000 years ... or the next 50 million. The only thing that can truly stop us is the sun exploding, or getting turned inside out by an impacter.

What you are failing to realize is that the numbers are beyond astronomical. Photons will bend around stars. If there is a signal to be had, we would detect it. And it is notable that Seth Shostak does not appear to share your view, or he might have mentioned it in the somewhat lengthy article I have referred to. I think it is on the SETI site. Instead, he deliberately made 'misleading' statements. He somehow forgot to mention the cursory search of millions of stars.

Technically, I am not sure if the Drake Equation qualifies as 'mathematical model', but there is no question it is seriously flawed.

It assumes life will form from molecular combinations other than the ones that produce DNA. It also assumes all life will become radio-capable at some point.

There is a mountain of evidence that DNA can be created from the basic building blocks that exist here, and apparently across the visible universe. There is no evidence that something other than DNA exists, other than a mathematical 'probability'.

Homosapiens is a fortuitous accident. A lucky mutation, and extremely good timing. If the Drake Equation were to incorporate what we actually KNOW versus simply relying on what the mathematical 'models' say, we would find the potential number of intelligent species in our universe significantly lower. I think it's a safe bet we are the only intelligent life ( radio-capable ) in the MW.

Hope I am wrong.

Merged post follows:

Oh I don't suppose i should explain my self. Morals and such were initiated into our thought process by our religion, even those who proclaim themselves atheist still believe in these guidelines set by religious teachings. the simplest example would be to compare American morals with those of African tribes, or Indian morals. a removed example would be comparing what Americans eat compared to what Indians eat, then replicate that model to morals.

I am non-theist. I have never taken another human's opinion as 'truth'. I will consider it, of course, but I also consider the 'source'. The possible agenda, or motivation of the person expressing the opinion, whether verbal, or in written form, or in any media.

Believers, in my experience are seemingly incapable of rational logic. They make all reality a 'belief system'. I have been told I am satan's child. I have been told I can have 'no' morality. These statements of 'fact' are nothing more than silly, ignorant opinions, and have no basis in reality. I hope this does not offend anyone.

I look at issues of morality from a standpoint of simple observation and logical conclusions.

We all exist. We all want to exist. ( I am generalizing here ) We all experience the human condition. We suffer. We feel joy. We have hopes.

My life is no more, or less important than any other. I don't see it as 'morality' to understand logically that it would be 'wrong' to do something to another that I would not want done to me.

The only logical exception to the 'do no harm' rule is the exchange of ideas. This is bound to cause us discomfort at times, but it is necessary.

Michael wrote:

 

Ah, something else. Language does not serve only for communication. The main purpose of language is identification of people inside a community. In many cases, language is a barrier to communication. There are plenty of examples. You may find inside communities barriers made from special language. The one who don't know the language will remain out. (as in this forum for example). on the other hand, import a russian dog in L.A., and he will communicate without problem with his new friends.

Valid point. Language is to all practical purposes exclusionary. Whether human or animal. However,on your point about the russian dog ... he will communicate with other dogs just fine, because he uses 'dog' language. But he will be required to learn simple english words to understand what the human in L.A. is telling him. Interestingly, if he is highly motivated ... by hunger, love, etc. he will learn those words rapidly ...

All domesticated animals are 'bi-lingual'. Lol. In the case of your russian dog, he will be tri-lingual. I doubt he will ever forget the russian word for 'sit'.

Merged post follows:

Speaking of language, there are many ways humans convey information beyond the written, or spoken word. Case in point would be the Shakira black and white video 'No'. Truly a masterpiece. She beautifully and eloquently conveys her heartbreak, strength, and hope across all language barriers.

I have a very difficult time in seeing anything humans do as "different" that sets us apart from any other animals. Yes there are differences but only in degree. There is nothing humans do that an animal doesn't do in some way to a lesser extent. Humans are obviously more complex in many ways than most animals and at this time that complexity is unique, but I see no reason our level of complexity could not be evolved by other species, Neanderthals would seem to indicate it can happen.

And sharks would seem to indicate that it does not. They have existed nearly unchanged for 350 million years. Our form, homosapiens, accomplished everything in 300,000 years. Neanderthal ( if I am not mistaken ) existed in various forms for possibly 500,000 years. I don't think there is much evidence that they went beyond crude tools, and crude social structures.

It is important to remember that we have not 'invented' physics, or chemistry. The laws existed prior to us. So any species could have accomplished exactly what we have ... had they the cognitive ability to do so. But they found their niche, and that is as far as they got. Their evolution stopped 'cold'. And we have possibly as many as 7 billion species who existed prior to us ... many with up to hundreds of millions of years to achieve cognitive function equal or superior to ours ... and they did not.

Merged post follows:

DH wrote:

 

This is very similar to the question of whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. The answer to that is almost certainly yes. There is no way to tell, however, if the odds against are enormously large.

I don't think that is an accurate statement. We have a plethora of evidence to 'tell' in ...

1. our own fossil records ...

2. our observations of our solar system ...

3. our ( somewhat limited ) observations of the universe ...

4. our knowledge of chemistry and failed attempts to create life ...

5. and most notably, the deafening silence from SETI for 50 years.

They fully expected ( unless they were lying - I was listening to their words with rapt attention 50 years ago ) to detect a signal in the first few years ... with their very primitive ( by today's standards ) technological abilities.

The odds against ARE enormously large. It's a damn good thing there is so much real estate. And because of that I agree with you. The answer is almost certainly 'yes'.

Merged post follows:

Regarding SETI:

Not too long ago Seth Shostak ( in defense of SETI's lack of success ) made a disingenuous and deliberately misleading statement. ( at least in my opinion )

He said that we have " ... carefully examined less than 1000 stars." Key word ... 'carefully'. We have examined far more than that. Millions more. By the way, that is under 20 per year. At his rate we could look for several hundred thousands of years without any expectation of stumbling across 'intelligent, radio-capable life'.

Additionally, he said that it was 'possible' that all those 'intelligent' species out there might be transmitting using much more sophisticated methods than we have the ability to detect. SUPER PHYSICS! Amusing that everyone else in the universe leaped from 'fire' to FTL technology .... I guess we are the stupid ones.

The only half-way intelligent thing he said in the article was that "Maybe we have it wrong. Maybe we need to re-think our assumptions. Maybe in another 40-50 years if we still haven't recieved a signal ...."

I'm thinking .... maybe the time is now, Seth.

Zolar V wrote ... in part:

 

I really dont see any differences between us and any other creature, However it would seem to me that the foundation of this question is actually based in religion. I say this because it was religion that taut us that we are different that we are better. If you take religion out of the question you find that we are just another species that evolved to inhabit our niche in the world.

 

Toasty wrote:

 

Are we the example of the ultimate goal of evolution?

 

Zolar wrote:

 

No, we are not the ultimate goal of evolution we are just another point on it. We are still evolving, you could lead an example of this by looking at our species in the medieval age as compared to our present age. we evolved from sticks and stones to steel and plastic.

 

From what i can see our next step in evolution is "cyberization", as in human integration with computer technology. If we did the research our brain could adapt to a new form of information processing. I discussed this topic in my thread "Cyberization", I could easily continue the topic, but no one wants to play ball

 

Anyways i rave, to answer the question- What makes us the ultimate goal? what makes us NOW the endpoint of evolution? is there not more time? if there is then is there not more evolution that we have not experienced?

Sorry for butting in again.

Zolar, I think you are not looking at all the evidence. You make the flawed but understandable assumption that because we have 'evolved' this far in (x) years, we will continue to do so over the next (x) number of years. And the evidence was clearly in front of you. You say that we are " ... just another species that evolved to inhabit our niche in the world."

Yes, we are. And this is where it ends. In our niche. Just like bacteria, or viruses, or plankton, or t rex, or crocs, or birds, or ants, or squirrrels, or sharks, or, or .......

Let's look at sharks. I use them a lot to illustrate my point. We know they have existed virtually unchanged for around 350 million years. They have no technology. And they never will in that form. They are content in the evolutionary sense to cruise the oceans and kill stuff. It will never change as long as the oceans exist. They will never build radios. Ants will do the same. As long as they have no need to evolve further, they won't. Whether the 'mutations' simply stop, or mutated babies die immediately. I don't know. But ants are not going to build a radio. Ever.

You may have not noticed something else. America is a perfect example. We are fast turning into a bunch of ignorant sloths glued to our tv's or computers, focused on nothing but the mundane. Check the different forums at facebook, or myspace ... or any number of sites. Look at the numbers of people on the goofy stuff, versus the number on serious. This site is an exception because it focuses on science. But compare numbers from this site to all the non-science sites. 50 million talking about ghosts and near death experiences and American Idol, and Tiger Woods ... and God. A few thousand talking serious science. You do the math ....

The fact is, we are not the strong, and healthy DRIVEN men and women of our recent ancestors. The brave pioneers are dead. It is no longer survival of the fittest. It is survival of everyone, no matter how flawed. Our test scores continue to drop nationally, and school boards keep lowering the bar, no matter how much money is thrown into education. The joke is "No child left behind." A more accurate assessment is "EVERYONE left behind."

You talk of cybernization as the next great 'evolutionary step'. I don't agree. Technological step, yes. It may make us think faster ... crunch bigger numbers ... and 'repair' damaged pieces ... and allow us to live longer ( hopefully, thousands of years longer ), but we will never be able to change the laws of physics. We will never develop into some 'super' race teleporting around the house, or the universe. We will never develop telkinesis or telepathy either because the real universe in which we live doesn't allow such things to occur. Should we develop technologies that allow electronic transmissions of our thoughts to machines or other humans, the situation will only worsen for us, as it will only make us lazier.

We are now 'devolving'. Our race has found it's niche, entirely on the backs of about 1000 homosapiens ( out of maybe 100 billion so far ) .... and we will devolve until we no longer fit comfortably in our niche. Then that will cease ... and we will just 'cruise the ocean killing stuff'. Lol. For as long as we have a niche to exist in. Hopefully, if we are very lucky ... we will be as successful as the shark, and last for 350 million years in this form.

So we ARE the peak of evolution. At least for this planet. Oh sure, we will invent lots of cool new things ... but none that violate physics.

But this is not a bad thing. It's no worse than the sharks, or the ants. Life is good.

At the risk of annoying anyone, I would like to weigh in here. Mind?

Last winter, when I was discussing my model with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson ( name thrown in to lend credibility ... lol ... but I actually was ) I made the comment that 'space was infinite'. His response was "It is assumed to be so, but we have no proof." My rebuttal ( roughly ) was "We have Einstein's math, corroborating experiments, and observations. Einstein said space is uniform, unless disturbed by mass. Logically it makes sense that our 'local' universe would exist in curved space because all that mass/gravity is curving it. But why would anyone think that space only exists for the pleasure of our 'local' universe?"

He said ... "Because we can't see it. If we can't see it we cannot logically claim it to be fact. But, as I said, most scientists assume it to be so." ( infinite )

So at least Dr. Tyson and I agree in 'opinion'. Lol. But I think we have more than enough evidence to claim infinite space as a reasonable conclusion ... and a good part of a working model of the universe.

It seems so clear to me. Space Is Uniform. That means it is 'the same'. Homogenous. Isotropic. I see infinity as a 3 dimensional straight-line grid with all lines extending to infinity. There is no shape, because shape has limits.

I was 6 years old when I read this 'space is uniform' thing. I was very curious about the universe, and from what I already knew ... it seemed obvious that the universe would have no end. So Einstein's math just 'confirmed' what I already knew. It was a little distressing when I kept seeing 'the' universe described as a 'curved' finite structure. The very idea that space would simply cease to exist because 'our' local universe wasn't there to 'occupy' it seemed completely irrational.

It assumed therefore that our little home was the only universe that has ever existed. That nothing else exists except for 'us'. That when we are gone, nothing will ever exist again. This isn't logic. This is religion.

"We are special. We are here for a reason."

"Oh really? Says who?"

"Uhhhh. Well, 'we' do."

"Ohhhhhh. Sure. I get it."

Space is uniform. We can twist logic to placate our 300,000 year old ego, but it doesn't change the fact. We have mountains of evidence that space is uniform. Isotropic. None that space ends at our borders ... whether or not we can see it.

Within our local universe, our straight lines are an illusion, because gravity is curving space. So to say we can go for infinity in a straight line yet never go beyond the finite bubble is also an illusion. The lines in our local universe aren't 'straight'. They just look straigtht.

( edit )

To take the weakest possible stance we can rationally and logically say ... "Infinite space is inferred, while finite space is not."

Merged post follows:

Thousands of years ago, when Man began to seriously contemplate his universe, he wondered how big it was. There were a host of reasons to come to the conclusion that the 'physical universe' ... the one 'he' could see must be finite. Meta-physical? Not so finite.

The ego gene was a great survival trait. We could plainly see that we were far superior creatures to all other species. A strong piece of evidence for our 'special' status. But the ego gene has it's drawbacks, too. It clouds reason, and allows us to formulate concepts ... like logic ... that we unconsciously shape to suit our desires.

Now, many thousand of years later ... 'science' ( being less than a few hundred years old ) has royally decreed ... that our current scientific methodology is a 'perfect' tool for scientific inquiry. And we have never looked back. Why would we? Look how well it has worked! This logic is flawed, of course. Look how badly it has failed, too.

The point I am trying to get across is ... we have never had a good reason to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe, or that our universe is finite, or the only one. In fact, true logic ... unadulterated by ego ... says that if it's possible for us to exist, then it's equally possible 'we' ( and I do mean we. Exactly the same as us ) could exist other places. That other universes could exist in other places.

There never WAS a good, scientific reason to believe that our universe was finite. We looked around us and just 'decreed' that it was. I mean, it had to be. Why else would we be here? There HAS to be a reason. We are so SPECIAL! Just Ego. Lol.

When I was a kid, the 'universe was 'closed', like now. It consisted of the MW with around 250M to about 2B stars. There were maybe a 'few thousand' other galaxies, and a few things we couldn't identify. And science took the 'logical' stance that this could be 'all there was'. On the otherhand, there could be all kinds of 'anything is possible' stuff.

As the universe threw it's arms open to us, we realized that our thinking was a mite small. And incorrect. Not only was it obviously bigger by several orders of magnitude, but all those 'possibilities' turned out to be non-existent. The universe was essentially the same wherever we looked. Just like it was when we looked 50 years ago ... when anything was possible. And even though we can see 'infinitely' farther than we could before, and found none of these fantastic 'possibilities' ... the mantra remains the same.

ANYTHING is possible beyond our field of view. And here is the really amusing hypocrisy. We claim ( chaos theory, Heisenberg principle ) that anything is possible because the math says so. There's a CHANCE. Lol. Our universe has INFINITE possibilities. So all things can happen!

Funny. How did you get infinite possibilities from a finite universe?

It's past time we change our thinking. It's time to come to the rational conclusion that we exist in a finite, expanding bubble of gravity within a universe that is actually infinite ... until proven to be finite. Not the other way around.

Moo, you said this is to be a debate, not a lecture. I hope I am not crossing the line. I just thought making some reasonable observations might be in order. I think all my statements have been truthful and accurate.

Could be wrong, though. Lol.

Wish I was more eloquent.

At the risk of annoying anyone, I would like to weigh in here. Mind?

Last winter, when I was discussing my model with Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson ( name thrown in to lend credibility ... lol ... but I actually was ) I made the comment that 'space was infinite'. His response was "It is assumed to be so, but we have no proof." My rebuttal ( roughly ) was "We have Einstein's math, corroborating experiments, and observations. Einstein said space is uniform, unless disturbed by mass. Logically it makes sense that our 'local' universe would exist in curved space because all that mass/gravity is curving it. But why would anyone think that space only exists for the pleasure of our 'local' universe?"

He said ... "Because we can't see it. If we can't see it we cannot logically claim it to be fact. But, as I said, most scientists assume it to be so." ( infinite )

So at least Dr. Tyson and I agree in 'opinion'. Lol. But I think we have more than enough evidence to claim infinite space as a reasonable conclusion ... and a good part of a working model of the universe.

It seems so clear to me. Space Is Uniform. That means it is 'the same'. Homogenous. Isotropic. I see infinity as a 3 dimensional straight-line grid with all lines extending to infinity. There is no shape, because shape has limits.

I was 6 years old when I read this 'space is uniform' thing. I was very curious about the universe, and from what I already knew ... it seemed obvious that the universe would have no end. So Einstein's math just 'confirmed' what I already knew. It was a little distressing when I kept seeing 'the' universe described as a 'curved' finite structure. The very idea that space would simply cease to exist because 'our' local universe wasn't there to 'occupy' it seemed completely irrational.

It assumed therefore that our little home was the only universe that has ever existed. That nothing else exists except for 'us'. That when we are gone, nothing will ever exist again. This isn't logic. This is religion.

"We are special. We are here for a reason."

"Oh really? Says who?"

"Uhhhh. Well, 'we' do."

"Ohhhhhh. Sure. I get it."

Space is uniform. We can twist logic to placate our 300,000 year old ego, but it doesn't change the fact. We have mountains of evidence that space is uniform. Isotropic. None that space ends at our borders ... whether or not we can see it.

Within our local universe, our straight lines are an illusion, because gravity is curving space. So to say we can go for infinity in a straight line yet never go beyond the finite bubble is also an illusion. The lines in our local universe aren't 'straight'. They just look straigtht.

( edit )

To take the weakest possible stance we can rationally and logically say ... "Infinite space is inferred, while finite space is not."

Merged post follows:

Thousands of years ago, when Man began to seriously contemplate his universe, he wondered how big it was. There were a host of reasons to come to the conclusion that the 'physical universe' ... the one 'he' could see must be finite. Meta-physical? Not so finite.

The ego gene was a great survival trait. We could plainly see that we were far superior creatures to all other species. A strong piece of evidence for our 'special' status. But the ego gene has it's drawbacks, too. It clouds reason, and allows us to formulate concepts ... like logic ... that we unconsciously shape to suit our desires.

Now, many thousand of years later ... 'science' ( being less than a few hundred years old ) has royally decreed ... that our current scientific methodology is a 'perfect' tool for scientific inquiry. And we have never looked back. Why would we? Look how well it has worked! This logic is flawed, of course. Look how badly it has failed, too.

The point I am trying to get across is ... we have never had a good reason to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe, or that our universe is finite, or the only one. In fact, true logic ... unadulterated by ego ... says that if it's possible for us to exist, then it's equally possible 'we' ( and I do mean we. Exactly the same as us ) could exist other places. That other universes could exist in other places.

There never WAS a good, scientific reason to believe that our universe was finite. We looked around us and just 'decreed' that it was. I mean, it had to be. Why else would we be here? There HAS to be a reason. We are so SPECIAL! Just Ego. Lol.

When I was a kid, the 'universe was 'closed', like now. It consisted of the MW with around 250M to about 2B stars. There were maybe a 'few thousand' other galaxies, and a few things we couldn't identify. And science took the 'logical' stance that this could be 'all there was'. On the otherhand, there could be all kinds of 'anything is possible' stuff.

As the universe threw it's arms open to us, we realized that our thinking was a mite small. And incorrect. Not only was it obviously bigger by several orders of magnitude, but all those 'possibilities' turned out to be non-existent. The universe was essentially the same wherever we looked. Just like it was when we looked 50 years ago ... when anything was possible. And even though we can see 'infinitely' farther than we could before, and found none of these fantastic 'possibilities' ... the mantra remains the same.

ANYTHING is possible beyond our field of view. And here is the really amusing hypocrisy. We claim ( chaos theory, Heisenberg principle ) that anything is possible because the math says so. There's a CHANCE. Lol. Our universe has INFINITE possibilities. So all things can happen!

Funny. How did you get infinite possibilities from a finite universe?

It's past time we change our thinking. It's time to come to the rational conclusion that we exist in a finite, expanding bubble of gravity within a universe that is actually infinite ... until proven to be finite. Not the other way around.

Moo, you said this is to be a debate, not a lecture. I hope I am not crossing the line. I just thought making some reasonable observations might be in order. I think all my statements have been truthful and accurate.

Could be wrong, though. Lol.

Wish I was more eloquent.

Klaynos wrote:

 

If you want it more massive than the sun I'd suggest you look into the mass limit before blackhole callapse, and for that much iron you'd need more than two stars, stars really don't produce that much compared to their total mass.

Lol. Very good. Shall I plead artistic license? It doesn't have to be more massive than the sun to cause a reaction big enough to vaporize the nearby planets, does it? One thing I didn't catch here was the release of kinetic energy. Or is it impossible for it to be moving at 220 kps? Or am I just not understanding how kinetic energy is released?

Klaynos wrote:

 

I'd suggest not trying to make it apply to the laws of physics then, because it is frankly too complicated and probably not worth it. Mass is fundamentally important in astrophysics.

Would a neutron star work better? What would it look like as it approached our solar system?

And are you telling me that if an object 20 times Jupiter's mass struck the sun at right angles to the sun's trajectory through the galactic arm ... coming in from the sun's north pole ... that this impact would simply be absorbed by the sun with little effect? Seems to defy logic. My logic, anyway.

Klaynos wrote:

 

Very massive, it will have a VERY dense atmosphere, and it will pick it up as it travels through space

My bad logic assumed the Rogue would either have sufficient internal heat to burn off any atoms of hydrogen/helium as they were picked up. Or ... if that doesn't work ... if this is possible ... another way to accomplish the 'visual' would be for the hydrogen/helium ( and other gases ) to be held in liquid form ( 99.999999999% transparent? ) so the mirrorized nickel surface would reflect the stars back to the observer. The desire is to have this massive object appear invisible against the backround of stars ... except for it's perimeter.

And thank you for the calculations. This is exactly the kind of help I need. It is my stated goal that all basic principles of physics be followed ... at least for the original story line. Later, it is acceptable to drift into physics 'theory' ... then later still ... fantasy.

The 2 most important things are 1. The sun takes a big enough hit to vaporize the nearby planets, and 2. It is possible within the laws of physics ( the mechanism and sufficient fuel supply for that mechanism ) to spiral away from our sun and toward Alpha.

Again, my more knowledgable friends, and my ex-NASA engineer neighbor told me that in 'theory' it is possible to move the Earth in this fashion. Are they all wrong? If you think that is true, then would you have an alternative way to move Earth out of the solar system? Within a 200 year time-frame? Or is it simply impossible? If you think it is impossible, please explain your reasoning.

I would prefer not to concede to Moo just yet. Lol.

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So my understanding of relative mass is way off. Hmm. Ok. The sun is roughly 1000 times Jupiter's mass. My Rogue is at minimum 20 times Jupiter's mass. That makes the sun at most 50 times the mass of the Rogue. If your calculations were a little more precise ( lol ) we could possibly pare that down some. Does not the Rogue's compression seriously alter your calculations? Is it possible that the Rogue could be as high as 50 times Jupiter's mass? If it could be that high ( within the bounds of physics ) then the sun would be about 20 times more massive. The kinetic energy released is still bothering me, too. But even at your low estimate, even at 1/50th of the sun's mass wouldn't the impact have serious consequences?

I guess I look at it like I look at impacters on Earth. Relatively small objects ( just a few meters in diameter ) travelling at much slower speeds ... say 16 kps ( around 58,000 kph ) cause some pretty serious reactions to our planet.

I also look at the damage done to Jupiter from very tiny ( comparatively ) and relatively slow impacts ( Shoemaker-Levy ). As I recall, the astrophysicists were very surprised at the effect on Jupiter. Didn't they expect significantly less damage?

When I compare the size ( mass ) of the S/L comet(s) to Jupiter, against the Rogue's mass to the sun's, it seems that the effect would be to ( at the very least ) cause a temporary expansion of the sun's outer atmosphere that would easily engulf the inner planets. Am I looking at this wrong? It would not surprise me if I was.

Furthermore, the new, more massive sun, once it settled back down, would have a seriously deleterious effect on all objects that were in orbit prior to the collision. True? And how much mass would it require for the sun to go 'nova'?

Moo, I have a small confession to make. I know I said originally that I had written a short story about this. That was true. But I failed to mention that the story was just a fun side effect of my actual purpose.

When Armageddon came out, I had a thought. What would we do if something way worse was going to happen? Thinking big, I thought .... well, everyone knows our sun will last another 3 billion years. So what would it take to change that? Then I thought of Orpheus. It's happened before. Why couldn't it happen again? Man thinks so small. Asteroids, and comets. But those are not the only things out there that will kill us.

So it was really a mental exercise to see what the best possible solution was to Earth's impending ... very real, and total annihilation. If there was one at all ...

I thought very long about the 'send the cream of the crop' scenario. I tried to be optimistic about humanities 'inherent?' altruism. But even if we sent 1 billion to Alpha, that leaves 6 billion behind to die. Families torn apart. Envy. Jealousy. Fear. Suspicion. Hatred.

Our planet would dissolve into utter chaos. It just was not going to work. Maybe in the movies, but not real life.

I thought of the logistical problems too, and they were just ridiculous. We would be sending hundreds if not thousands of rockets up every day. Think of the support network tens of thousands of 'space workers' would need. Where are you going to house all these workers? How are we going to feed them? And working in zero G? I don't think so. It would have to be that way in all likelihood until the outer hull is done.

And I thought of the law of diminishing returns, and realized by the time our space-farers got to Alpha things would be pretty bad. And if there was nothing at Alpha ... we were screwed. Since the likelihood of a suitable planet was very slim ... as in extremely so ... the ship scenario just was not going to be a viable solution.

So the only alternative was to move our whole planet. I set about to see if it would work. Not being a physicist, I had to ask questions of people I know who are relatively bright in that field. I studied underground 'cities' like Mt. Weather ( as much as I could anyway ). I watched the head of FEMA being interviewed in the 90s ( on CNN, I think ). He was asked about underground facilities that were in place around the country ( that had been built to survive a direct nuclear hit ) for the 'special' people in our country. Caught off guard by the question, he admitted they existed, and that the 'special' people all had access to these facilities. He said "We have given them a number to call in the event of nuclear attack." He was fired right after the program aired.

When the cold war ended, that Russian site was opened up to inspection, because the Russian economy underwent implosion, and they were appealing to the American government ( as I recall ) for funding fot their underground 'nuclear facility'. I think it was CBS that went on a little train ride into the mountain. Cold and damp? Not at all. Beautifully lit ... totally modern. Quite astounding. I think 20,000 people went by train each day into the mountain from a city close by.

One by one I went through the problems ... and soon realized that we could handle them all. Difficult to be sure ... but within our technological capabilities. My physics friends told me that my theory of speeding earth up would do what I thought it would. We are not locked in orbit. They wanted to know how I would propose to do this, and of course they said there would be a host of problems ... but they didn't think they were insurmountable. They were more concerned with the Moon than anything ... Lol. But they did say that we could escape from the Moon. Carefully.

Actually ... when I told them how I planned to push Earth, they seemed a little blown away. They were not so sure we could build those hydrolasers at first ... but they decided it was not an insurmountable challenge either.

Ok. Now I'm going back and address the points you made that are not coverd here ...

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For what it's worth, I firmly believe that all good science fiction stories are allowed one good break, or set of generally-related breaks with reality, and the author can do anything they want with that so long as they are utterly consistent on that one break. You want FTL communication, fine, just don't tell me later that your whiztalker can, oh by the way, beam the hero up from an about-to-be-destroyed planet. I know a deus ex machina when I see one, and I also know an early setup when I see one ("don't push that button, we haven't figured out what it does yet"!).

 

 

 

 

 

Just on the remote chance that you're interested (grin), Space:1999 was a late-1970s SF show starring Martin Landau (fresh from Mission:Impossible) as the commander of a permanent base on the moon. Their job is storing Earth's spent nuclear fuel which explodes in the first episode catapulting the moon out of Earth's orbit and into the heavens (quick, how many objections did you come up with?). Each episode involves the wayward moon arriving in a new solar system (wow!) and encountering aliens in rubber suits, black holes, etc -- the usual suspects. Basically Star Trek, right down to the red shirts and phasers, with the amusing twist of the "ship" continuing on its merry way by the end of the episode whether they got back to it on time or not.

Yes Pangloss. Quite familiar with it. Never really cared for it. I guess because I didn't care for Landau's eyes. Too weird. Lol. Wasn't it his wife, Barbara Bain who starred with him?

I'm in my 50s.

Moo! I am not enjoying this. You are making me work to prove my case.

Lol. Ok. Maybe I enjoy it a little.

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Moo wrote:

 

For one, to be perfectly honest and pessimistic, I don't believe that all 7-billion will be saved.. If you face imminent danger and you want to save the human race, you don't need to save *all* humans. Not that I would totally support such decision, or be willing to make it, but I am not too sure it's all that obvious. Big ships carrying lots of people from various countries are enough... but that's a whole different issue. Also, as a TV show, it was done before

Who is this 'you' you speak of? You are talking in abstract. There is no 'you'. There is 'we'. And we all have an opinion. And we all want to live. And we all are not going to like the selection process. And we all are going to do anything we can to survive. It's the most basic of human traits. Given a choice between trying to move our planet and dying or surviving together ... or sending a few 'lucky' ones to their very likely deaths while the rest of us CERTAINLY die .... I'm thinking the vote is going to come down heavily on moving the planet. But I'm sure there will be 7 million ( lol ) voting against it.

 

But my point is this: In order to build the technology you are offering, we would need such a production going on that I am not sure it will be more than building a few humongous ships. Especially if we decide that we don't care stripping the planet off. I'm not sure, and I am not sure you can calculate that, but what you're offering is "OMG!" too

Ok. Compare an unlimited supply of manpower, supplies, machinery, logistical support and genius transforming our planet into a stellar ship, to sending a few thousand up to work in zero g. Bet we finish our work before the space guys do.

Don't you dare ask .... "Well, who's going to PAY for this?".

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Moo wrote:

 

Not remotely close to how big the Earth is, though.. so they will be much more maneuverable, easier to take care of and take less fuel. In the long run (and the trip is long), it sounds like a much better alternative.

At the speeds your ship will need to go ( or our planet ) one hit and your ship is gone. From something as small as a grapefruit. Think you can really out-maneuver every rock? Every chunk of ice? Never happen in a million years. Our planet will take hit after hit like that and do just fine.

Easier to take care of? I'd much rather work under pressurized conditions, with normal gravity. Gonna take along a few spare ion drives? That will be fun replacing in space. What if there is an accident and you lose your fuel? Uh oh. But you will run out even if you don't lose it. We won't. Ever.

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Moo wrote:

 

I don't know if "tough luck" would be it, but, yes, kinda. I have a more pessimistic view of the future and the money-holders' interests, I guess

Yes, me too. And I should point out that I am anti death penalty. But I think we have plenty of evidence in our histories that if the 'money people' go too far ... they end up dead. "Let Them Eat Bread". I think that is what M. A. actually said. Not cake. could be wrong.

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Moo wrote:

 

Maybe, but would your solution (building underground, self sufficient cities to house *ALL* of humanity, build the pyramids to stir, build something to control the stirring, build something to make proper observations, and make sure you cooperate with all parts of the world without satellites and without the ability to walk on the surface) be less "Yikes"? I'm not sure.

Hmm. Just think. If we put all the world's military personnel on this. All the civil engineers. All the physicists. All the manufacturing facilities. All the rest of the world's work force. Seems to me they might be highly motivated to get the jobs done under budget, and ahead of schedule. Who says we don't have satellite communication? We will, and we will have back-up fiber optics too.

Ever gone spelunking? Most of the time you are walking ... Lol. BTW. We won't be precluded from surface travel ... it will juist require more and more specialized vehicles. Ever driven on ice before? Got studded tires?

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Moo wrote:

 

You would get all the above on the Earth too. Those are problems you need to solve either way. By the time we get to Alpha, the Earth won't be "good planet" to land on either.

I wrote:

And again ... what if we get to Alpha ... nearly dead from lack of water ... horribly mutated from radiation ... and low on every resource .... and there's NO good planet to land on? What do we do then? I'm thinking ... die.

Moo wrote:

 

You would get all the above on the Earth too. Those are problems you need to solve either way. By the time we get to Alpha, the Earth won't be "good planet" to land on either.

Oh so wrong. In fact, it would be better than when we began the journey. You think we hit the 'go' button, then crawl into our caves until we get there? Not a chance. We will all keep doing what we have been doing. Improving our habitations. Improving our technologies. Our EVERYTHING.

Once the initial fear subsides ... and we are well on our way .... humanity will drift back to killing each other pretty much like we always have done. There will be wars. Squabbles big and small. But we will easily adapt as a species to living underground. Very easily.

And whatever problems do arise, we have a whole planetful of willing workers. When we get to Alpha, the problem will be getting people to go back to the surface. The underground life will be the 'norm'. But it will happen in time ... especially when people keep coming down and telling everyone how beautifully rugged the earth is. There will be the hardy ones who want to live topside. And when we heat earth back up .... we will have plenty of atmosphere again. Landscape will have changed, of course ... but it will be a brand new world to explore, and enjoy.

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Moo wrote:

 

I think you're guessing that the Earth will "resurrect" after reaching Alpha centauri. That's not quite how things work. I don't see how Earth will regain atmosphere after it being lost for an entire trip for 4.3 light years.

The Earth won't just be "unrecognizeable" it would stop being habitable. Unless we "terraform" it, that would be permanent.

 

Since we're talking about science fiction, you could invent a technology that "reignites" the atmosphere (hence, terraforms the planet) but without it, it isn't going to happen.

Moo, the only way we could 'lose our atmosphere' would be if we lost our gravity. It's not like it's going to be stripped from us. We will lose a little from our thrusters, but not much. A little more from impacters, but we are going to be accumulating mass the whole trip. We will place our lovely little planet in a perfect orbit that heats us up to just the right temp. We can control this. If we need to adjust, we will have the ability to do so.

And you say 'it' won't be habitable. You mean the wonderful cities we have underground? ?????? Lol. The Earth will have a fresh 'skin'. Glacial action will have rearranged everything. But the new sun will heat us up. The oceans will get all toasty again. It will be quite spectacular. Sure it won't happen overnight ... but it will happen quickly ... relatively speaking.

We will be out there planting stuff like mad. Letting animals loose. Birds. We will have retained genetic samples of species that died out, and re-birth them. Ever seen a salmon hatchery? Insects will do just fine, too. )

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Moo wrote:

 

If you mean trying to take the entire planet for a ride, no, I don't think there's a point in trying because I think there are more viable solutions.

If we take our planet we live. Most of us. If we send a few in ships, it is extremely likely they don't survive the journey. And the rest of us died while the happy space farers were halfway across the gulf. What do you think it would do to their collective psyches to know that they abandoned the rest of humanity?

And it is extremely likely they will not find a planet they can just immediately exploit. They will remain stuck in ships that are falling apart at the seams. Out of food. Out of air. Out of water. The odds of none of these scenarios coming true are ridiculously small.

Ships suck. You have grown up thinking they are cool. They are. If you are a machine that can't 'die'. Lol.

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Moo wrote:

 

Woah, we're talking MUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH MUCHMUCH stronger force, here, pywakit.

 

There will definitely be Geological implications, and I am quite certain we can calculate them. I did that with my professor in terms of tidal forces -- and those are tiiiiny compared to what it would take to increase our velocity and get us out of orbit around the sun.

You are incorrect, I believe. We don't need to leave the solar system in 1 or 2 orbits. If we have a 200 year 'heads up', and if we get it all done in say 50 years then we could take 150 orbits ( or more) to climb out of the solar system. Piece of cake ... Yes. Tidal forces. Not that big, though. We are not 'accelerating' in such a manner that our planet is torn asunder.

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Moo wrote:

 

Cramped atmosphere underground, lack of sunlight, problem with ventilation and heat, reaction with chemicals underground, waste management (for the ENTIRE world, yes?) and taking care of the animals you want to keep down there.. and those are only problems off the top of my head. There are lots more.

Cramped? Why? Only one underground 'digger' for the whole planet? How sad. Couldn't figure out how to build more machines? Ever see how big that underground site is in Nevada? I think it's Nevada. For the spent uranium? We have cool technology that will assist us in picking geologically sound areas to create the underground cities. Ventilation? You are joking, right? How do all those skyscrapers in New York do it? Think they keep all the windows open? We will have plants. We will be piping oxygen down. We will have a/c going to keep us cool. Carbon dioxide scrubbers.

What chemicals? You mean the ones we live with every day, anyway? Awww. Poor baby. The animals will be just fine. We will recycle like mad. Very little will go to waste.

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Battlestar Galactica is cool.

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Moo wrote:

 

I might be a pessimistic hardass

Yes. You are. Lol.

---

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Consecutive posts merged

I am not sure that the energy from all the hydrogen on Earth will suffice to move the Earth and keep it warm enough to Alpha Centauri (for reasonable amount of time). Distances in space are really huge.

 

I am not concerned with 'keeping it warm'. It's own core temp is going to last an awfully long time. There is much going on inside Earth to keep the heat on.

 

However, I you may be right about moving Earth. Want to figure out how much hydrogen it would take ... applied in the manner I have described ... to double our current velocity? And a rough guess as to how long it would take to do it?

 

Remember, we are doing this just like ion drive. Very little thrust. Just very steadily applied.

 

If we are on the planet, we can take as long as we need to get to Alpha. The most fuel efficient route ... If it took a few hundred ... or even a thousand years, that's fine.

One more.

Moo wrote:

 

For one, to be perfectly honest and pessimistic, I don't believe that all 7-billion will be saved.. If you face imminent danger and you want to save the human race, you don't need to save *all* humans. Not that I would totally support such decision, or be willing to make it, but I am not too sure it's all that obvious. Big ships carrying lots of people from various countries are enough... but that's a whole different issue. Also, as a TV show, it was done before

 

But my point is this: In order to build the technology you are offering, we would need such a production going on that I am not sure it will be more than building a few humongous ships. Especially if we decide that we don't care stripping the planet off. I'm not sure, and I am not sure you can calculate that, but what you're offering is "OMG!" too

Moo, if we just sent say 7 million people on this journey to 'save' the human race ... and somebody ... ANYBODY ... took it upon himself or themselves to decide who gets to go and who gets to stay behind and face certain death .... there is going to be a big problem. You are leaving 1000 people behind for each person who gets to go. I can assure you, those 7 million aren't going anywhere. And if you think they could somehow 'trick' the remaining doomed people by withholding the truth ... that would be impossible. People will find out. This secret could never be kept. Guaranteed. Some people have a conscience. And some people would try to cheat the system. But the bottom line is ... we just ain't that altruistic. not even close.

And the people who would have been left behind will slaughter every single one of those 7 million for trying to leave them behind to die. Think they won't?

And your point about arriving at Alpha with a bum planet. It would be a 'bum' planet perfectly capable of continuing to support us.

Did you know that there is rather strong evidence that earth was once a 'snowball' in the past? It recovered before. Certainly, we have had ice ages, have we not? And we will again. The caves will not be cold dark damp places. Good heavens. And we DON'T need the sun. We can create artificial sunlight. Come on. Grasping at straws .....

Every good thing that can be engineered into these habitats will be in play. How many live and work right now ... essentially underground? In your latitude, and mine, we get up in the dark. Go to work inside an artificially lit building. Get off work after dark. If we are lucky ... if it is not raining, or heavily overcast, we might get 10 minutes of sunlight. Doesn't seem to be killing us yet.

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Of course, if your mind is already made up and you don't care to debate this anymore, just say the word ....

Hope that's not the case.

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Moo. Check this ....

Yamantau: A Future Armageddon?// Viewzone

http://www.viewzone.com/yamantau

And read the Congressional record link.

Moo. You are killing me. Lol. I am going to make some dinner. Then I am going to logically rebutt all your points. You are in New York, so read it tomorrow.

But if you guys would just come up with a 'scientific' reason this wouldn't work, then I will be happy to shut up.

One quick point. I am sure you are aware that Earth does not maintain a 'steady' velocity in it's orbit around the sun. If I am not mistaken, tidal forces and our elliptical orbit speed us up and slow us down all the time. And did you feel a little queasy when we hit the winter solstace? That annoying 'tilt'. Bugs the hell out of me.

Well, first off, the amount of energy and effort it would take to move the entire world, it sounds to me it would be easier to just build a fleet of more maneuverable, better controlled, smaller ships to carry everyone to safety.

 

The word starts from the moment the star is detected, right? I don't think building what you suggest will take any less time, and the fleet of ships is just a lot more practical, for the reasons that were raised in the thread, the least of which is utilizing fuel properly.

 

Second, I am not sure I see how this works without obliterating life on Earth. Our planet doesn't react too well to "movements" -- to forces from the outside. The movement is one thing, but accelerating the Earth out of orbit (plus ability to maneuver, which means applied force again, etc) will, seems to me, shake the mantle and core in a way that will result in HEAVY geological damage. Underground or no, we won't be too happy, to say the least.

 

So, I don't know. I am not sure if it is totally impossible, you don't seem to violate any laws of physics (or at least you seem to have answers to how not to), but I don't see how we would ever actually do such a thing.

 

The drawbacks of taking the ENTIRE planet (the planet is HUGE! controlling it, maneuvering it, making sure we have observations all around it at real-time to avoid collisions, etc... wooh!) seem to me to outweigh the benefits (what, saving our "home"? but it won't look/feel and be our home, really afte what it'll go through).

 

And you can get a better result by building a fleet of ships that are much more maneuverable and predictable, and have no chance of weird unpredictable geologic catastrophes wiping out large portion of the population at a time.

 

 

I don't think you should take this stir as a bad thing. If anything, you should take it as a sign that people think the idea is interesting. Seriously, you should see the discussions we've had about startrek technology, and that's a show that was clearly successful.

 

Fantasy isn't meant to be 100% realistic, so we give it leeway for imagination. It's a good thing.

 

 

Again, I'm not too sure it's impossible so much as impractical. Read up for some of the reasons.. You might be able to move the planet, but it will be easier, take less time and prove more useful to build a fleet of ships, instead. So.. why bother?

 

Anyhoo, don't discourage. I think it's a good idea for a show and the fact you care so much about the science behind it gives it even more credibility, even if it won't have perfect realistic science. We all need to step out of the bounds of reality a bit and fantasize

 

~moo

You are a very patient scientist. I like you already. But your response to our predicament is ( forgive me please ) not very rational. Please explain ( or calculate ) how many ships we would have to build to transport SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE! OMG!

I'll try ... Let's see. How many could realistically fit on each ship? Shall we say ... 10,000? That means you have to build SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND SHIPS. Ooooops. WE need more ships. Unless we are not bring any animals with us. Triple it. Wait. We need to bring reserve supplies. Food. Water. You know we can not recycle 100% of these things. Close ... but we will lose some every year.

How big must these ships be to carry 10,000 people safely? A mile or 2 in diameter? They will have to be huge rotating cylinders, since we must have artificial grav.

How will we transport all the materials to space for these ships? Will we build them in space, or will we go to the Moon and build them there? I think I'd rather work in Antarctica.

How are we going to transport all the aged, and infirm to these ships? Or do we just say ... "tough luck"? How about transporting all the animals? What about all the sea-life?

To do it your way, we will have to build AT LEAST THREE MILLION ships at MINIMUM! Out in space! Yikes!!!

What are the energy costs trying to lift that much mass OFF our planet? And you still have not dealt with the 'killer' radiation problem. Energised particles will rip through those ships as if they aren't there. I'm thinking some serious cancer levels, and mutations. For every biological creature.

And again ... what if we get to Alpha ... nearly dead from lack of water ... horribly mutated from radiation ... and low on every resource .... and there's NO good planet to land on? What do we do then? I'm thinking ... die.

Really, if you think the whole process through, buildng ships just is not 'realistic'. Not for a million 'lucky' lottery winners, or all 7 billion.

Yes. You are absolutely right on one thing. Earth would not be very recognizable .... for a long, long time. But we will have learned by necessity to be much better stewards of our planet. We will have an extremely energy efficient society world wide. We will have learned to work together like never before. And we will still have all the resources of an entire planet.

Yes. Lot's of people won't make it. But most will. Most species will survive, because we will be able to provide technological ways to help them.

I understand this idea must seem crazy. But trying to move our entire population in ships is way crazier.

I think this is more than a good show. I think it is the very possible future of Mankind.

But ... of course ... if it's IMPOSSIBLE, then no point in trying.

Have I made a good case here?

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Mooey wrote:

 

Second, I am not sure I see how this works without obliterating life on Earth. Our planet doesn't react too well to "movements" -- to forces from the outside. The movement is one thing, but accelerating the Earth out of orbit (plus ability to maneuver, which means applied force again, etc) will, seems to me, shake the mantle and core in a way that will result in HEAVY geological damage. Underground or no, we won't be too happy, to say the least.

Hmmm. I guess you don't live on the salt water. Our planet is subject to quite severe tidal forces 24/7. You just don't pay attention, because it is 'normal'. We are not 'suddenly' accelerating. You would never feel a thing. No different than switching on your ion drive. Our planet would be subject to LESS tidal forces the farther we got from the Moon, and the rest of our solar system. We will never have to make any 'sudden' changes in direction. We couldn't if we wanted to. But we won't NEED to. We will have a million 'eyes' mapping out the best path on an on-going basis. Our changes will be well planned and very very slow. Remember, the worst effect on the mantle will be the thrusters. But they don't just have an on/off switch. They can apply thrust from zero to max, and anywhere in between. DEPENDANT on stresses on the crust, which will be monitored constantly.

We will build fantastic futurized cities underground. Almost all the comforts of home. Never have a shortage of ANYTHING. Just no real sky to look at. Each 'city' could have a light source that tracks across the ceiling, approximating the sun's movements. You would be very surprised how quickly we would get used to this. We could have a 'virtual' Moon, and stars too. We can build all this stuff right now if we wanted to. Ever look at a diamond screen at a football game?

No more monsoons killing people. No more hurricanes. No more starving people dropping like flies. Excellent health care and controlled immunizations. Sports. Academics. Tv. Movies. Internet. Hot rod mag-lev cars. Lol. But probably less flying, and no more ocean cruises. Sort of. We could still cruise the oceans in submarines.

I live on the water ( Puget Sound ) in a house I designed and built in 1995. I would miss it terribly. But I would not have the slightest qualms about embarking on this fantastic journey! Maybe I could rate a little ( underground ) lakeside cottage ... Lol.

I know. I'm out of my mind, right?

It's ok. I understand.

Mooey wrote:

 

I just don't think it's completely realistic

Please define 'completely realistic'. Do you mean 'physically impossible'? Or just a serious challenge? Do I violate any laws? Am I forgetting something basic? Hydrogen is a bad propellent? Can't extract the hydrogen? Can't pipe oxygen underground? Can't increase Earth's orbital velocity? Can't slowly pick our way out of the solar system?

Lol. Anyway, thank you ... I think. I didn't intend to make a federal case out of this. I only mentioned it because of Genecks 'tag line'. But you kind of invited me to elaborate, so I did. And apparently caused a bit of a stir.

So as long as I am here, and this IS a science forum, why don't you all apply your actual knowlege to this project and tell me why it is 'impossible'.

Or do a few of you think you already have? I'm guessing this has never occurred to any of you before. ( And why would such a stupid idea ever occur to us? ) But you never know what may be heading our way someday, and it might be a good idea to decide if things got desperate enough, we could actually have this as a last-ditch option ....

These questions are not so important but ... Rogue planet could never take out the sun? Or us? Rogue itself 'impossible'? Seriously ... take it apart. And let's see if I can properly defend it. If my story ever gets off the ground, I want it to follow science to the 'T' if possible.

I am not convinced on the amount of energy someone thinks is required. I think he was thinking in terms of turning Earth toward Alpha's expected position and 'blasting off'! I really think all it takes is a slight increase in velocity. I also think that we would essentially spiral north of the plane of the ecliptic ... still in orbit around the sun, but each successive orbit would take us farther, and farther away. Am I wrong?

Could we not 'gently' tilt Earth with our hydrolasers? Slowly steer our our palnet?

Strictly from a cinematic viewpoint, by the way, Earth would be an incredible site from space. And on the surface of the southern hemisphere. A total snowball, the intense blue lasers would light up the ice of the southern hemisphere .... The northern hemisphere would be in shadow, of course ... only faintly lit through photons refracting through our dense atmosphere. Picture it from the Moon ...

And working around the lasers would be like being on an inhospitable alien world. Harsh, but beautiful. How impressive would 3000 mile-high pyramids look? No doubt the vibrations would be pretty serious, but of course, the hydrolasers could be shut down for maintenance.

The lasers would be a brilliant green 500 foot diameter beam reaching into space ... then turning cobalt blue as the hydrogen is injected. Makes for a spectacular visual, don't you think?

Anyway, if you are already tired of this 'mental exercise', it's cool. Thank you all again for your interest, though. At least, I might have given you something new to think about!

I've a quick question, what is the mass of "The Rogue"?

I have never tried to calculate it. I couldn't if I wanted to. I describe it as a castoff from 2 colliding stars. 3x Jupiter's diameter, and comprised entirely of iron and nickel ... the nickel being the outer layer. It is lighter, isn't it? Gravity has crushed it to a near perfect sphere. It's atmosphere ( if it has any ) would be about a billionth of a meter in thickness.

My sincere apologies for not having the skills to calculate its mass.

Anyway, this object does not contain the correct chemicals to radiate anything but infrared. It does not have the mass to collapse further. My offhand guess is it actually exceeds the sun's mass. Maybe several times the sun's mass.

My goal was to make it beautiful, mysterious, and deadly. And it had to be massive enough to take out our sun and give us no other reasonable alternative but to try moving Earth ...

Incidentally, it was discovered ( of course ) entirely by accident. Rather traumatizing for the young astronomer at Mt. Palomar ....

So do you hate this too? Lol.

More to the point ... does this ( any of it ) violate physics?

Well, maybe Mooey still likes the idea.

I'm not upset pywakit, I just asked for more than grandiose claims and subtle insinuations. i doubt very much we have the technology to move the earth via the methods you suggested much less with the power sources you suggested. And yes I know the Earth could be moved in tiny increments with asteroids but thats not part of what were talking about now is it?.

Ouch! I think our thrust engines ( 3000 ) would exert more constant force on our planet than a tiny asteroid. And if I am not mistaken, this forum is 'speculations'. I have not interjected anything magical, metaphysical, or supernatural into this endeavor.

Don't like geothermal? Ok. Let's go nuclear then. Each pyramid gets it's own powerplant. Can you think of a fuel that would be better ( or less polluting ) than hydrogen? Are you suggesting that lasers can't excite hydrogen atoms?

By the way, my story was copywritten with the Library of Congress in 1999, and registered with WGA-W in the same year ( #761682 ), which predates Larry Niven by a few years. I did a lot of searching to find a similar story and found none. I suppose it's possible that someone did prior to me, though. I don't want to come across as appearing grandiose.

Sisyphus wrote:

 

No, not acceptable. It's just a matter of magnitude. I'll repeat my calculation above, that the minimum energy needed is 900,000,000,000 times our current yearly capacity. 60 times the age of the universe worth of energy consumption at our current rate, to frame it another way. And "realistically," it would probably be a lot more than that. There just isn't anywhere near enough energy available, not in the entire Earth.

 

That's the main problem, but there are others. Have you figured out how much thrust you need per acceleration, taking into account the Earth's own gravity pulling exhaust back? And have you figured out how much acceleration is possible without, for example, earthquakes big enough to kill everybody?

______________

Wow. You seem to be kind of angry about this. Sorry to upset you. It's not my fault our sun is going to blow up! Lol.

Ok. One thing at a time. I have no doubt your calculations are correct, but correct for what? Launching Earth like a rocket? Ion Drive ( Cassini? ) produces a nearly negligable thrust, but it is continuous. Are you suggesting that Earth's velocity can not be increased? We can apply that much 'force' against our planet, and NOTHING will happen?

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Isn't this a basic tenet of physics?

Hmmm. Exhaust. Well, hydrogen atoms will leave our pyramids at pretty extreme velocities. I am kind of hoping we will get a lot of them back. Don't really want to blow off our whole atmosphere. We are not fusing them into helium, thankfully.

Thrust per acceleration. Nope. Can you figure that out for me? As far as earthquakes go .... certainly we will cause them. Big ones. In fact, we just might lose an underground city or two. But maybe you didn't read the part about millions of sensors planted around ( and in ) the earth. Monitored in real time by computers, the pyramids would constantly be adjusting thrust to prevent causing total collapse of our crust.

And I am going to take a guess and say that our engineers will be doing their best to create suitable new 'building codes' for the underground cities. Don't we know how to make structures that can withstand serious earthquakes?

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You have said this a lot, care to elaborate on this?

 

 

 

I know of no existing technology that is capable of moving the planet or even coming close to moving the planet. Your idea about geo thermal is flawed as was pointed out by Sisyphus but having the energy required doesn't mean you have the ability to direct it the way you want.

 

Please let us know what current technology can be used to move the earth, hard work or not.

Hmmm. You seem a little upset, too. Do we already have these machines? No. Could we build them? I think so. Do we already have laser technology? Do we know what hydrogen atoms will do when excited? Do we know how to deal with extreme heat? Do we have super-computers? Do we have motion sensors?

I never suggested this would not be a challenge ... but how does any of it violate laws of physics, motion, and gravity? Are you suggesting that we are not bright enough to calculate the best path for our exit from the solar system? Or tough enough to build these pyramids on the antarctic continent?

Would it be better if we just sat here and waited to die? At least working on this project would give humanity hope ...

And really, astrophysicists have theorized about changing our orbit by shuffling asteroids around and using their meager gravity to accomplish it. I don't think it's 'impossible' at all to increase our orbital speed. But it will take longer than 8 minutes to do it.

But I guess you think it's a terrible idea. I am sorry for offending you.

Shoot. I was kind of proud to be the first guy in the history of Man to write a story about moving our planet to another star. *sigh* So much for having an original thought. My bad.

Hm, it seems you might have some misconseptions about radar. its is quite nearly impossible to use it for what you say due to both velocities of the object and the planet and its transmission power loss over distance. For instance a 1kw Radar signal might reach flight level 10.. or 10,000ft and bounce back to the station. by the time it gets there it is around .001w total power and you have to factor in the time and doppler effect.

 

i do have a question tho, why would the sun annialhate? if you have our sun (a relativly light density star with a high gravitational field-and realy hot) and had a collision with a planet that is relativly heavy in comparison but the same size, the gravitational field is greater than the suns but is also cold-traveling at extreem velocity. would your sun and planet smash each other but then due to the gravitational fields and the impact would it not smash, lets say the sun and a piece of the sun stays and the planet while the rest of the sun folows the planet and altering its trajectory. depending on the velocity would it not follow an eliptical trajectory and slowly rebuild the sun in the center of the solar system? i have seen a similar thing happen to 2 galaxies, where the star slowly crashed into another star and eventually merged.

Perhaps I do have misconceptions about radar. Ok. What would you suggest as a good alternative? Or is there no way to detect potential EI's ( Earth impacters )? Next question. Can't computers do the 'heavy lifting' when it comes to plotting trajectories?

Did I forget to mention the velocity of Williams Rogue? Let's call it 220 Km/sec. I think there is going to be some serious kinetic energy released. Yes ... things would settle down after a few million ( or billion ) years. But I suspect that the entire solar sysyem will take a rather large hit from this impact. This object is going to knock the sun off it's galactic path. Maybe the outer planets will survive this, but I doubt it. Earth most certainly would be initially reduced to a loose pile of rubble ( at best ). Sure, things would settle down here, too. But I don't think even bacteria deep in the Earth would survive this one.

And most certainly our orbits would all be affected by a sun with almost double it's original mass and accompanying gravity. This would not be a pretty thing to watch. Well, it would be if we were at a safe distance. Lol.

Not to give plot lines away ( as if I haven't already ), but even with all our efforts .... and our planet being beyond Pluto's orbit when this happens ... we are still going to suffer some serious damage. The story wouldn't be much fun if bad things didn't happen ... ( both macro, and micro scales )

that doesn't solve the problem, though. And don't get me wrong, btw, I'd *DEFINITELY* watch such series. It sounds like an AWESOME idea for a tv show, and, quite honestly, I would watch it even if the science was not extremely accurate. That's what stories and TV shows are for -- fantasy.

 

But since we're talking science, it should be mentioned that there *are* realistic problems with actually doing this... If you *want* to solve them artistically, you can try and find a way to maneuver the earth while in transit.

 

I mean.. the entire planet is moving .. what's one more stretch, no?

Lol. First, it's not a 'stretch'. It is within our technological ability. Everything I have suggested can be done ... now. Second, I don't think you are visualizing this fully. Those pyramids are CONTROLLED. We can actually ( if not slowly ) STEER Earth. Third. We will turn our planet around and approach Alpha BACKWARDS using our mighty thrusters to slow us to the exact vector necessary to get 'caught' by the star. It will work just fine.

And thank you very much. If you would please get a campaign going and bombard Goepp Circle Productions with 'fan mail', maybe they will get off their asses and help me finish the screen play. Lol. Just kidding.

But I have to say I am very disapponted in myself. I came up with this great idea, and fell on my butt. You have no idea how hard it is to get an original story in front of people like this. ( Thank you for contacting us, but we can NOT even look at your submission due to copyright laws ... Thank you for considering our production company and good luck with your story .... whatever it is .... because we didn't look. ) Lol. Frakes told me ( through his assistant Daisy ) that if they liked the script as much as the treatment, he would go to bat for me with Paramount. They also thought it would make a great series, and asked me for 2 years of future episodes ( thumbnails ). I have that and a lot more. But they were not willing to spend a half million to hire a good screenwriter. *sigh*

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PS: The planet is already moving. We are just going to move it somewhere else!

)

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Ok Mooey. I start out my story as a 'real life' - real science adventure. I have a retired NASA engineer for a neighbor, and he loved the story, too. Couldn't find serious fault, but didn't really want to go to Alpha ... Lol.

Later in the story ... a few decades in the future, ( and by the way, this story is like "Law and Order". We could have several different series going simultaneously, following different characters ) as we head out of the solar system we make a rather amazing discovery.

50 miles down, as we continue to increase our underground living space, we come across an artifact imbedded in the Earth's crust. A very special building, actually. As it turns out, we were not the original inhabitants of this planet. This building was a calling card from the race who used to live on Earth.

The kicker? Earth wasn't native to our sun, either. They moved it. When their sun was dying. They lived under this 'new' sun for a few hundred thousand years ... and ended up abandoning Earth for reasons unknown .... long before Earth was struck by Orpheus ...

But they left a treasure trove of technology for whoever found it. And this will change everything we know about ourselves ... the universe .... and where we end up going.

Like it? No?

Anyway, you may have forgotten the original premise in all this excitement. Our sun is going to take a direct, unavoidable hit. We can't stop this thing because it's real! And magic ISN'T! Lol. Rogue planets exist. Our sun could be in the path of one right this minute. 2-300 years down the road. We have no idea if something is on it's way toward us. Didn't Orpheus whack us 4 billion years ago? Isn't this why we have the Moon?

So when the sun blows ... Earth gets blown to smitheroons with it. So let's build an interstellar ship. Ok. How many people we going to fit on this ship? 7 billion? I don't think that will be feasible. 1 million? Wow! Big ship, considering all the stuff we'd have to take with us to survive. So how are we going to choose who gets to go? Lottery? No. I think all us lessor folk would have to 'bite the bullet'. For the 'Good of Humanity'. They'd pick the best of humanity to start our new life at another star. And I suspect the WORST of humanity would make damn sure that the ship never left orbit.

By the way .... what are you going to do when you get to Alpha, and you find there is no planet suited for human habitat? Terraform it? Doesn't seem very likely. Unless you want to hang out for another 10,000 years on the ship waiting for the planet to become fit for habitation.

So maybe you should just head on to the next closest star. It's only about 6 light years farther out.

So why do you want to leave a perfectly good planet behind?

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It's not about 'comparing the damage', though, pywakit - if a single object big enough hits the surface of the Earth it can do *massive* damage even to underground cities.

 

True, the damage from an exploding sun is bigger, but they will both result in death to humanity, underground or not. There should be either a plan to maneuver the Earth away from passing objects or to protect it from hits.

 

The shuttle example isn't too good of an example for a few reasons: First off, it's relatively small and maneuverable. They are able to move (and indeed *ARE* moving) when objects get too close. The ISS did that a few months ago to avoid some space junk.

Second, the shuttles move in the space between the Earth and the moon. These are expanses that are *RELATIVELY* clear from space crap because of the orbits of the moon around the Earth and its gravity. Same, more or less, goes to the solar system -- the orbits of the big planets cleared out the majority of real junk that could potentially hurt us (or shuttles) but those are still being factored in the calculations when new shuttles or probes are sent to the outer planets.

 

Also, it's VERY hard to detect incoming objects because they are rarely visible until it's too late - specially with the lack of a star to supply light to reflect. We have this problem today (depending on angle, we are likely to miss objects until it's VERY late) so I don't quite see how we will be able to spot objects soon enough when we're moving through space with no star light to show us these objects. By the time we spot them, we are in trouble. We will need to either move away or make sure they aren't hitting the surface.

 

This is a problem that will just be worse outside the solar system. Either we need to maneuver or find something to protect the Earth from being hit.

Hmmm. Ever heard of radar? No light needed. Yes, I realize this is a bit hard to grasp. I'm sure you have never thought of Earth as an actual spaceship. But you of all people should know. IT'S A SPACE SHIP NOW! Stuff hits us constantly. Our magnetic field, and atmosphere do a fantastic job of protecting us.

Where do you think we will build these undergound cities? Certainly NOT on the northern hemisphere. The sun exploding will VAPORIZE Earth. That will undoubtably kill us off ... lol. I won't lie to you. Earth is going to take some serious hits on the way. Millions ... perhaps BILLIONS will die from massive cave-ins. But our species will not lose it's technical knowledge. We are at a unique moment on our development. We ACTUALLY have the technical ability to do just what I am suggesting.

Now what do you prefer? Total annihilation? Or a rough journey? I'll take the rough journey hands down.

Anyay, using radar, and high powered lasers, we can nudge those bad boys out of our way. That will be much easier than trying to change vectors every 2 days. The objects that are big enough to turn Earth completely inside out , we will nudge ourselves out of harms way.

Also, space thins out rather nicely outside the Oort Cloud. There will be little to cause us concern until we approach Alpha.

I hope I am not annoying you. You seem rather nice. Merry Christmas.

You know what is semi interesting, there is a general consensus that if there was to ever be a deepspace spacecraft, aka one traveling between solarsystems and beyond, that it would be spherical in nature and have a slow steady application of thrust.

 

but however the spherical idea is fundimentally flawed due to intersteller stuff left over from star and solarsystem formation and the damage done by collisions with the particles. If such a collision were to occur wouldnt we just end up as asteriods/comets/meteores to other worlds? Interesting thought that some of the comets/asteroids/meteors that we have seen could be the byproduct of such collisions.

 

There is a much deeper discussion in my thread in speculations called "Deepspace spacecraft" or something of that ilk.

We have something going in our favor. Controlled flight. Not instantly controlled, but then we would have many eyes in orbit looking for just such problems, giving us lots of time to make minor adjustments to avoid the bigger objects. We can CHANGE direction. We will still have our magnetic field protecting us. We will still have an atmosphere. It will be much denser than what we have now.

How are you going to protect your spacefarers from highly energized particles? I think you are going to have to build a ship with very very thick walls. And even then you will all have to get used to seeing flashes inside your eyeballs constantly. Something that is a real concern for any astronauts heading for Mars. Those babies will rip right through 6 feet of lead. That's why 'envisioned' interstellar space vehicles usually incorporate a cocoon of heavy water.

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How long would the dynamo effect that causes geothermal heat last after we leave the solar system?

Well, I don't know exactly. Certainly in excess of a billion years. We still have our 'spin', and we would want to maintain that to keep our magnetic field going. Radioactive decay will go on for many billions of years, of course.

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Also, space isn't really empty - there's lots of stuff in it. If we do take the entire Earth for the ride, we need some sort of plan on how to maneuver out of the way of objects that - if hit us - will totally kill off whatever's left alive, even underground.

Thinner atmosphere will produce less protection, too... and we will have to go through the astroid ring at some point..

See above. And we would NOT be going through the asteroid belt. That exists on the plane of the ecliptic. We are heading due north of that plane, to avoid them, and Jupiter, and Saturn, etc. The real problem will be getting past the Oort Cloud. But again, all objects in orbit around our sun have collected along the plane. Not so much the Oort Cloud, but still, much thinner top, or bottom, than along the plane. We will have a nervous journey until we are outside that radius, and we will take some hits. But compare the damage we would sustain with an entire PLANET protecting us versus an interstellar space ship. You will be subject to the laws of inertia. Think you can handle all the necessary vector changes? Or will you have sufficient fuel necessary to make those changes?

Think of this too. We can have literally thousands of sharpshooting satellites in orbit around us ... powered by both nuclear, and microwave transmissions from earth. We could nudge MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of objects out of our path. Could an interstellar ship do that?

And how long would you like to remain cooped up on this ship? 4.3 light years to Alpha. Unless you get some serious velocity, you are going to be on this journey for a thousand years.

50,000 kilometers per hour equals 13.8 kilometers per second. Our shuttles do about half that at 23,000 kilometers per hour. Your nuclear powered Ion Drive will steadily accelerate you over a few years to a few THOUSAND kilometers per second. 3000 kps equals 10,800,000 miles per hour. I don't think you are going to want to change vectors. Lol. And I guarantee you will wish you had that nice thin blanket of atmosphere, that magnetic field, and several miles of rock between you and the surface when you have that inevitable collision with the grapefruit sized chunk of ice, or iron.

How am I doing? )

We'd never run out of food. We'd never run out of air. We'd never run out of fuel. So our planet takes a few hits. So what? Once we get settled in our new orbit around Alpha, and get warmed back up ... in a few thousand years you won't know the difference! Lol.

Toasty wrote:

 

It is good to note that there is a rather large dearth of intermediate sized black holes. If you are implying that the black holes merge it would incline that all black holes form the same way and continue to grow. You would have to find a way of formulating your theory to fit the fact that most black holes are either relatively small or extremely massive.

From Cosmos July 2009:SYDNEY: Astronomers have detected the first strong evidence for a new class of 'mid-size' black holes that could help prove how supermassive black holes form.

Until now, black holes have either been supermassive – millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun — or stellar mass black holes, small black holes that form from the death of stars.

Now, astrophysicists from the Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements in Toulouse, France and the University of Leicester, UK and the have found a middle-mass black hole, dubbed Hyper-Luminous X-ray source 1 or HLX-1.

The black hole, which is 290 million light years away, is at least 500 times the mass of the Sun.

Missing link

The find, reported today in the journal Nature, may be the missing link to theories on how supermassive black holes form. No-one knows how supermassive black holes, such as the one at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, are created. One theory is that they grow from the merger of smaller black holes.

But until now, no one had found any direct evidence of the intermediate-mass black holes thought to be the building blocks of supermassive black holes.

...........................................................................................

Much more to cover, but I have not had much time today. Hope your day is going well. And thank you for the apology, but it was not necessary. You haven't offended me at all.

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Toasty wrote:

 

Actually, relativity implies that a black hole would have a limited rotational speed. As expressed by the equation:

 

Jmax < M2G/c.

 

"Whether a particular star has J over or under the limit depends on its mass, rotation speed, and spatial extent. Since real stars tend to have most of their mass concentrated near their centers, the internal distribution of mass, rather than just the optical diameter, is important. The Sun, due to its rather slow (25-day) rotation, has an angular momentum of about 1.63x1048 gm-cm-2-s-1 (assuming uniform rotation throughout, and standard models for the interior mass distribution; Allen 1970), which is only 0.185 of the maximum value allowed were it to somehow collapse to become a BH. But a rapidly rotating massive star will typically have an angular momentum exceeding its Jmax, and such stars must shed angular momentum and some mass before they could form BHs." Link

Cambridge MA (SPX) Nov 17, 2006

The existence of black holes is perhaps the most fascinating prediction of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. When any mass, such as a star, becomes more compact than a certain limit, its own gravity becomes so strong that the object collapses to a singular point, a black hole. In the popular mind, this immense gravity well is a place where strange things happen.

And now, a Center for Astrophysics-led team has measured a black hole spinning so rapidly - turning more than 950 times per second - that it pushes the predicted speed limit for rotation.

"I would say that this regime of gravity is as far from direct experience and knowing as the subatomic world itself," says CfA astronomer Jeffrey McClintock.

Applying a technique to measure spin developed jointly by McClintock and CfA astrophysicist Ramesh Narayan, the team used NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer satellite data to provide the most direct determination yet of black hole spin.

McClintock and Narayan led an international group consisting of Rebecca Shafee, Harvard University Physics Department; Ronald Remillard, Kavli Center for Astrophysics and Space Research, MIT; Shane Davis, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Li-Xin Li, Max-Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Germany, in this research. The results are published in today's issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

"We now have accurate values for the spin rates of three black holes," says McClintock. "The most exciting is our result for the microquasar GRS1915+105, which has a spin that is between 82% and 100% of the theoretical maximum value."

"The black hole spin frequency we measured is the rate at which space-time is spinning, or is being dragged, right at the black hole's event horizon," says Narayan.

The high-speed black hole, GRS 1915, is the most massive of the 20 X-ray binary black holes for which masses are presently known, weighing about 14 times as much as the Sun. It is well known for unique properties such as ejecting jets of matter at nearly the speed of light and rapid variations in its X-ray emission.

Note that the spin is measured at the event horizon. Not at the near-zero ( presumed ) surface of the singularity itself. If the event horizon is spinning at 950 times a second, do you think the singularity is spinning slower?

................................................................................

More in a bit ...

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From The Age.com.au

After 29 years of thinking about it, Stephen Hawking has decided to admit he was wrong about the digestive habits of black holes.

The renowned Cambridge University scientist presented a paper today arguing that black holes, the celestial vortexes formed by collapsing stars, can eventually reveal details about the objects they swallow up.

Hawking, a leading expert on universal dynamics, had previously insisted black holes destroy all molecular fingerprints of their contents and emit only a generic form of radiation.

But today at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, Hawking presented a series of mind-boggling new calculations that suggest black holes are able to cast out their contents "in a mangled form" - and that there's only one way in and one way out.

Hawking, 62, said he no longer believed a 1980s theory that black holes might offer passage into another universe, a rival explanation for identifying where matter and energy go when consumed by a black hole.

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Hawking is not infallible.

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From Curious About Astronomy:

Has there been an experiment that measured speed faster than the speed of light in vacuum?

Is that true that in some experiment was measured a speed, faster than the speed-of-light in the vacuum?

Yes.

If the answer is YES, what kind of particle was used for that experiment: a photon, a neutrino or other particle?

Photon.

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Toasty wrote:

Hawking radiation is released by black holes and it can be recorded and observed at times. This would make it hard for a black hole, in your theory ever to reach it's critical mass limit.

From cosmology.berkeley.edu:

How do black holes evaporate?

-----------------------------

This is a tough one. Back in the 1970's, Stephen Hawking came up with theoretical arguments showing that black holes are not really entirely black: due to quantum-mechanical effects, they emit radiation. The energy that produces the radiation comes from the mass of the black hole. Consequently, the black hole gradually shrinks. It turns out that the rate of radiation increases as the mass decreases, so the black hole continues to radiate more and more intensely and to shrink more and more rapidly until it presumably vanishes entirely.

Actually, nobody is really sure what happens at the last stages of black hole evaporation: some researchers think that a tiny, stable remnant is left behind. Our current theories simply aren't good enough to let us tell for sure one way or the other. As long as I'm disclaiming, let me add that the entire subject of black hole evaporation is extremely speculative. It involves figuring out how to perform quantum-mechanical (or rather quantum-field-theoretic) calculations in curved spacetime, which is a very difficult task, and which gives results that are essentially impossible to test with experiments. Physicists *think* that we have the correct theories to make predictions about black hole evaporation, but without experimental tests it's impossible to be sure.

.......................................................................

Again, black holes may very well leak. This does not affect my model.

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Toasty wrote:

Essentially the more mass "m", the less density is needed to create a black hole. As seen by the equation by Schwarzschild which was derived from relativity.

 

R = 2GM/c^2.

 

As you see the mass directly effects how large the radius of the black hole will be. This means the larger the black hole becomes the less dense it becomes. This would make it hard for a limit to exist.

We may be talking at cross purposes here. I am not talking about the 'size' of a black hole being the Scharzschild Radius. I am talking about the mass of the 'object' at the center. There is some dispute as to whether it is an infinitely dense, 'zero' volume singularity, or a finite density with a measurable surface area. Either way, we have a small paradox. How can gravity escape from a black hole? But it does apparently. And this little fact is critical to my model.

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Thanks again Toasty for your input. I meant to post this first. Sorry.

I always claim that I am unafraid to admit mistakes, so allow me to offer evidence of this. You are absolutely right about GR not predicting speeds faster than light. Every time I screw up like this I think I should be taken out and shot! But then I go back and read my favorite guys' mistakes. Einstein, and Galileo.

I feel better already!

Ok. I think I can CYA on your points. Let's see if I can stop you from throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Lol.

If I am not mistaken, GR breaks down at the singularity. Einstein asserted that although GR predicted such objects, they could never actually occur due to angular momentum ( centrifugal force ) of a rotating body ( such as a collapsing star. I don't remember him addressing static black holes though, even though GR predicted both.

Also, I have been unable to find evidence for a static BH, and it seems as if all the new discoveries are of rotating ones. And if I am not mistaken here, too ... it has just been in the last few years that rotating BH's were discovered at all.

I really don't think there is such a thing as a non-rotating BH, no matter how it was originally formed. Any matter dropping in will form an accretion disc ... a spinning accretion disc ... which would lend it's angular momentum to the singularity. Another point which I may have already made. The only rotational 'drag' on a singularity would seem to be anything in orbit around it. If that is gone, if there is no more accretian disc, there should be nothing left to slow the spin down.

Regardless, Einstein made a case for the 'impossibility' of their existence. Current observational evidence would strongly contradict that 'impossibility'.

I have made the assertion that at the point of singularity, space is so broken that the normal restrictions imposed by the properties of space no longer are in effect. And this would apply to both spin, and your 'gravitational anchor' ... meaning the black hole is NOT tethered by it's own gravity, but rather by any mass ( accretian disc, stellar companion, galaxy ) orbiting the singularity in 'normal' space. Once that mass has been consumed, there would be no restrictions on movement. Even if both these hypotheses are wrong, the model can still function. The black hole will always gravitate toward mass.

Understanding what we do about star/galaxy formation, and angular momentum, it seems unlikely that galaxies and their attendant black holes would ever be on intersecting paths. But I may be wrong on this too.

Btw, sorry for jumping around. I will hopefully not miss any of your objections. I also appreciate your observations regarding the model's preamble, but it doesn't want to let me edit. It is a difficult and delicate balance between humility, and confidence. I obviously failed to accomplish this. I wanted everyone to know I was willing to be proven wrong, and at the same time lend credibility to my model through 3rd party 'verification'. Regardless ... all statements at the beginning are true.

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I wrote in an earlier post:

 

What this means is ... if our local ( finite ) universe can exist, there is no logical reason why an INFINITE number of ( finite ) universes can exist ... in an INFINITE universe.

 

Unless you have reason to believe somebody created us, and only us, and made this universe just for us.

Should read ... CAN'T.

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Toasty wrote:

 

Several questions here:

What kind of sub-elemental hydrogen? Why not even more elemental particles?

Are these black holes rotating black holes or Schwarzchild non-rotating black holes? Both of which are predicted by relativity.

You are correct. They could be more elemental. The point is the singularity is homogenous in form. And when the BB happens, the released mass immediately transforms into hydrogen, and helium.

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Toasty wrote:

 

Also this it is good to keep in mind that the more massive a black hole the less dense it becomes. This is why the Hawking Radiation theory is so widely accepted. It predicts that black holes will eventually dissipate and spread apart.

I think you might be wong here. You speak of it being 'less dense' but the singularity itself is ( nearly ) infinitely dense and contains all the accumulated mass. And see the previous post on this.

Toasty, it is worth noting that in 1975, when Hawking first proposed 'evaporation', there was no evidence of supermassive black holes. No one at that time was seriously considering their existence. In fact, it wasn't until several years after Einstein's death ( in the early 60's ) that science really started to look at BH's at all. Einstein said they couldn't exist in reality, so everyone ... or mainstream, anyway, went along with it. Another problem Hawking was unaware of in 1975 was that BH's merged. Look, it took him 29 years to admit his mistake on black holes 'shunting' mass to another dimension. ( information irretrievably lost ) It's not like there wasn't any evidence in all that time ..... He just couldn't see it, or accept it.

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Toasty wrote:

 

I would ask what force would be causing the black hole to move faster. Also keep in mind the more mass in a black hole the less dense it becomes. It could be inferred that the more massive the black hole gets the more it becomes gravitationally tethered down by itself because it loses so much density.

First, clearly ... black holes are not tethered by their own gravity. If it were spinning at high frquencies, you would think it even less likely to be moving anywhere at all. A spinning object 'wants' to remain at a fixed point in space. Just like a spinning top on a table. If you have ever tried to change the position of something containing a gyroscope, you would know how hard it is to move it from it's resting position.

So what makes it spin faster is accreting more mass. What makes it change it's position in space is either inertia, angular momentum of orbiting mass ... or gravity from somewhere else.

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Toasty wrote:

 

M87, which is considered by many astronomers to be a super-massive black hole is estimated to contain several billion solar masses, but its about the size of the solar system. While, V616 Monocerotis, is only about 11 solar masses, and it is only about the size of the distance between Venus and Mercury.

The 'it' you refer to is not the gravity well of the singularity. Your implication is that the more massive a black hole gets, the less gravitational force it exerts. This is incorrect.

 

 

 

 

Essentially the more mass "m", the less density is needed to create a black hole. As seen by the equation by Schwarzschild which was derived from relativity.

 

If I am not mistaken here ... that should read " the more VOLUME , the less density is needed to create a BH."

 

R = 2GM/c^2.

 

As you see the mass directly effects how large the radius of the black hole will be. This means the larger the black hole becomes the less dense it becomes. This would make it hard for a limit to exist.

Again, you are not speaking of the actual singularity. You are speaking of the Schwarzschild Radius. This has no bearing on the gravitational attraction. The more massive, the more gravity.

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Toasty wrote:

 

Essentially the rotational speed of the black hole is limited by its gravitational power. If the rotational speed becomes to great the angular momentum will cause the black hole to dissipate. This is because the angular momentum of the black hole is greater than the gravitational force. Plus the tidal forces of the surrounding matter would rip the black hole apart.

Ok. First .. there is no evidence to date that such an event has occurred. And we can look a long way back in time. This is/was Einstein's argument against black holes existing at all. He was wrong. If you were correct, then what is the upper limit? If I am not mistaken we have evidence of a supermassive weighing in at 18 BILLION sols. Think it doesn't have a spin? The more mass it accretes, the heavier it gets, and the faster it spins. How could this, or any other supermassives exist at all? We know that the supermassives studied so far have spin from the accretion discs. Stellar compaions? Spin. How big must it get before it flies apart ... or dissipates? 100 billion sols? 500 billion?

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Toasty wrote:

 

 

Again, this does not correlate with observations. The larger the black hole the less dense it is. The observations of black holes to date completely contradict the fact that a black hole, with all the mass of the visible universe, would become smaller than it originally was .

No. The more massive a black hole gets, the denser the singularity gets. But even with all the mass of our visible/local universe, it would still not be 'infinitely' dense, because the properties of space, and matter won't allow that. The Schwarzschild Radius will increase with mass. Again, correct me if I am misunderstanding you.

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Toasty wrote:

 

Why would space snap back. What force would cause this? Also what would cause this force to stop once it has started?

The inherent energy in space itself. It tries to maintain straight lines. If it did not, there would be no 'curved' space. "Space is UNIFORM unless disturbed by mass ( gravity )." How can you 'disturb' something that doesn't exist?

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Nothing would make it 'stop', but there is a direct relationship between the CONCENTRATION of gravity, and whether or not space collapses. Clearly something like our own body and it's gravitational force will 'displace' space without totally collapsing it. So space must have a 'stretchy' quality. More evidence that space is 'something' as opposed to 'nothing'.

Toasty wrote:

 

Please specify. Classical physics often views black holes as a point of no size with no observable physical properties, while quantum physics views black holes as objects with physical properties and specific temperature.

Both. Neither contradict the processes involved in the model. ( to my knowledge ) Both disciplines break down at the singularity. That is not a contradiction. It is a failure of the those disciplines to adequately explain those processes.

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Toasty wrote:

 

A singularity where there is no size would imply that there is no temperature, which is impossible according to the final law of thermodynamics.

 

The third law of thermodynamics, which concerns the entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero temperature, and implies that it is impossible to cool a system all the way to exactly absolute zero.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. ALL energy from the 'original' BB is recaptured. So the processes of thermo dynamics, and entropy are irellevant. Nothing escapes. Who says we have to cool anything to absolute zero? I don't care if the singularity is running a high fever. It doesn't change the process of black holes merging into one.

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Toasty wrote:

No it does not, it simply implies that the mass has existed forever either in the form of energy or matter.

Not following your logic. All I am doing is explaining where OUR BB got it's mass. From the previous finite universe. Other explanations have it 'spontaneously' materialize from nothing. Or branes. Or packets. Or time reversal.

I am not making a serious attempt to explain eternity. I don't know how the process began. I just have reason to believe, based on all available evidence, that this bang wasn't the first one. And I further contend that there are many reasons why a closed loop makes more sense than the other models out there ... as I have already explained ... and it doesn't require a complicated and contorted solution. It doesn't require non-existent super-physics. Not to say we won't ever 'invent' them. It doesn't require non-existent branes, or strings. It really is a very simple solution.

With all due respect, I don't think you have pointed out anything that falsifies my model. Unless you are aware of observational evidence to contradict it, or where mathematics precludes it, or where physics, or quantum mechanics prohibits it.

A singularity is NOT infinitely dense. It is NOT infinitely small. To be either would require an infinite amount of mass, and it would have to be 'shunting' mass to another 'dimension', because space won't allow those shenannigans in THIS dimension. If it did, everything would be stuck in a black hole. Everything in the INFINITE universe would be stuck in ONE black hole. Remember, Hawking is no longer on that page.

Wouldn't using geothermal energy result in cooling down our planet's interior, especially when its heat is used to such a massive extent?

 

Also, if we could move Earth, then it'd possibly be simpler to (instead) move the rogue planet just enough so that it doesn't collide with the sun

Good questions, but no. To both.

Radioactive decay, and tidal/stress forces on the core would keep the heat going for billions of years.

The Rogue is 3 times Jupiter's diameter. It is the by-product of colliding stars. A small 'dollop' of core material was expelled from the collision. It is all nickel and iron. Quite beautiful by the way. Crushed into a flawless sphere, it is essentially a perfect convex mirror, reflecting back the stars. Watching it travel through space ... from a safe distance ... it would appear nearly invisible, except for the edge of it's horizon where reflected stars are stretched and distorted before they 'fall off'. It would appear as a 'ring' of distorted light.

There is no way to stop this thing. It's mass is near that of the sun. Anythng we sent it's way .... even if we pushed the moon at it ... it would simply absorb it and not budge a billionth of a meter from it's course.

To the other guy ... moving the solar system would require magic. This just requires existing technology and a lot of hard work ...

Oh, and another thing. This is not blowing up some bomb on antarctica. This is a slow and steady application of force. You would not feel a thing when the pyramids began thrusting. And the oceans would not slosh over their banks.

But this doesn't mean a lot of bad things are not going to happen to our hapless inhabitants of earth. A lot of people will die ... sadly ... but better a lot, than all. Yes?

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Pangloss wrote:

But I can't think of any examples of "the adventures of the traveling human race", per se. I can see some good dramatic angles there -- you could run some interesting twists on the old "first contact" scenarios (e.g. aliens land in Central Park, but we actually came to them).

______________

Sad ( pathetic ... lol ) really. I had a great opportunity. Had the pilot all storyboarded out. But writing the screenplay was just too complex for me. I am not a good writer.

I would begin by describing infinite space as a 3 dimensional straight-lined grid with all lines extending to infinity. I have no reason to think it has not always been here. The physical properties ( laws ) of infinite space would appear to have finite restrictions. If not, there is no reason to think a photon would be limited to 300,000 kps.

If space was truly a 'void' there would be no lines to warp. Space would not be affected by anything. It could have no laws, no properties. But we know mass/gravity warps those lines. To have 'properties' at all suggests an energy of some kind to enforce the laws. That energy would exist universally, and homogeneously.

This force would affect matter in the exact same way as 'dark energy'. Indeed I think this force IS dark energy. As I have said, I think this is a property of space rather than a separate force acting on space.

And I further assert that 'space' is not expanding ... so much as 'smoothing'.

How our local universe came to be originally, I can't say for sure. But I would guess that it is the macro version of those particles that manifest themselves, then are annihilated. Essentially akin to a build up of static charge. ( chaos ) Energy can neither be created nor destroyed ... and unless the particles are popping in from another dimension, it would have to be one of three things. God playing with particles, particles borrowing energy from space itself, or manifestations of a force completely separate from space. So-called Dark Energy.

We know ( or think we know from GR ) that a black hole breaks space down. To our perception ... mathematically curving the lines to infinity ... completely. But we are not comfortable yet with such large scale objects, and obviously we are not in a position to really step outside our local universe and watch the process. So the breakdown may not be complete at all.

We speak of objects, or matter being 'within' the black hole. I don't see it that way. I just see it as a very dense point. There is no 'within'. We don't drop INto a black hole. We drop ONto a black hole. The surface area is just too small and it's below our ability to detect it.

Let's talk matter for a moment. We know that the properties of matter preclude it fom becoming infinitely large in volume. Gravity will collapse anything if it gets too massive. Yet, because the math tells us with 'certainty' that it's possible, we speak of a singularity as 'infinitely' dense. I don't think the properties of matter allow this either. Very dense indeed. But not infinitely so.

Anyway, we have no problem accepting that matter has it's own limitations, without the need for some outside, distinctly different force acting upon it. The foremost property of mass is gravity. It's 'inherent' property. Yet when we look at the manifestations of space's properties, we arbitrarily attribute those manifestations to an outside force. That is because it has apparently never occurred to us that space is anything other than 'nothing'.

Now you are asking me to describe what happens at the point of critical mass ( or the BB ), which physicists have pondered for 90 years. I can only surmise, and I am probably wrong. But I think a big bang is space and matter reaching their physical limits. Matter has become so dense, so gravitationally strong that it finally butts up against a finite limit. Matter's limit, and space's limit. And I think they are both actually just 'space'. Different only in form. Since energy can be neither created nor destroyed, matter is simply borrowed energy from space. It makes sense that their conversions would be ruled by the same laws.

You may have noticed that I tread lightly on dark matter/dark energy on my main model. I merely say the model is unaffected by either. Technically this is accurate, although perhaps misleading. It was deliberate on my part because Dark Energy is the darling of the cosmo universe. But in fact, the 'closed loop' is NOT affected, although dark matter adds it's mass ... and dark energy ( or space's inherent energy ) adds it's mass, too.

When space 'completely' collapses just before the BB, all that energy stored in that collapsed ( finite ) area is added to the singularity. I think that the deciding factor to the BB is likely the near infinite spin. Einstein was probably close to right about a collapsing star spinning so fast that it would fly apart from angular momentum before actually collapsing 'all the way'. Well, the BB showed us that there is no 'all the way' ... meaning all the way to infinitely dense. So it would appear that Einstein was just off by a little. The rotational force ... the kinetic energy built up ... finally overcomes the gravitational force. So really it doesn't matter if the 'critical mass point' is an actual 'reaction' or simply flying apart. The effect is identical.

Either way, space is taking back all that 'borrowed' energy. Or at least as much as it can. It is also entirely possible that the last black hole does not fly apart ( or react ) totally. It is possible that it retains a good portion of it's mass, falling back 'in'. Anyway, as space snaps back to 'straight lines' or as close as gravity will allow it, it carries matter from the BB with it. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that this process ... this expansion of space ... is limited to C. ( this would be no different from a singularity exceeding light speed rotational velocity due to space being 'broken'.) This would explain much about the isotropy. Explain much about hydrogen/helium levels. Explain CMBR. Explain space's 'temperature'.

As far as extracting 'all' energy, in this I am referring to all physical matter/energy originally manifested from the big bang. There is no reason to think that space must give up all its energy too. I would think that a direct result of distance. The closer ( and more curved ) space is in relationship to the singularity, the more energy it gives up. I don't think there is a hard and fast cut-off point here. This 'fudge factor' would allow for Heisenberg's Principle.

If the singularity did not drag all normal matter/energy in ( as opposed to stored energy from space ) and then be forced to release it, then the universe would be a one-way deal. Everything would end up entombed forever in the black hole. The process could not be duplicated. I wonder how long it would take for a black hole containing all the matter/energy of our visible/local universe to 'evaporate'. According to Hawking ... correct me if I am wrong ... the escaping particles, full to the brim with kinetic energy pair up and go on to live long and happy lives ... heading out of the universe. If other universes exist in infinite and eternal space, and underwent the same 'evaporation' we would be bombarded with similar particles having made the eternally long trek across the voids between universes. Literally a solid 'wall' of them. What's the expected life span of a photon? If left alone? Eternity?

And the alternative is that nothing ever existed before our universe. And nothing will again. This is totally and egotistically illogical. If ours came to be, what in the world would make someone think that others wouldn't too? God? Not a rational conclusion.

Matter and gravity are the creation of the BB. We can be fairly certain of this. Time and space? Not so certain. There is no reason to believe they were not already there. And there is no evidence that would contradict this. And no evidence to support time and space being created along with matter and gravity. This is pure supposition.

So to answer your last question. Yes. Sort of. Space and matter are distinguishable only in form, and how the laws treat those forms differently. But ultimately, at point of conversion, they are essentially the same in that they are now subject to overlapping laws.

Whew!

I hope this doesn't just make it all the more confusing ....

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Oh. I compare my model to the generally accepted BB model, and to other models such as Greene's, Turoks, Frampton's, and any others that can not explain the structure and function of our universe without resorting to 'new physics, or eseentially 'metaphysical' phenomena.

How do we get the hydrogen out of the water?

Electrolysis powered by geothermal production of electricity.

Acceptable?