Alan McDougall

Sorry guys I did not see that a thread had already been posted on the subject and started my own thread.I will remove it if you guys want me to do that. Alan

Hi why put this question here, because it is a philosophical question not a religious one. Religions all believe in the existence of God! Can the existence of God be proved or disproved. My idea is that there is more evidence albeit circumstancial, for the existence than for the non-existence of God. I am open to your ideas! Alan

Something instead of nothing? Why is there something instead of nothing? The interesting conclusion of this ultimate puzzle is that, we can be sure of, it that at least something exists. There is a Universe, we see people, and things, and light, and while we may debate what it means, how it came into being, and how it works, we can be sure that there is at least `something'. Many physicists search for the most elementary laws of physics, and believe that a law is more likely to be true, when it is simpler, more elementary. Some think that at some moment, humans will understand how the Universe and everything works, and, even more, that we find out why the Universe is necessarily as it is. (I my opinion this is nonsense). I cannot believe that we will find “A fact of Everything” scientifically; I believe humans cannot ever give a satisfactory scientifically answer to this final most profound of questions, ultimate of all questions. “Why is there something instead of nothing?” But, lets us try? By nothing, I mean the un-existence of everything or the absence of all existence. No people, no earth, no milky way, no universe, no laws of nature, no space, no time a total non-existence of everything. A mind-boggling, brain-, brain-numbing and brain- twisting overwhelming concept, terrifying, frightening, too awful to contemplate and impossible think about, without going insane and totally beyond understanding of any human genius. Making a mathematical model of nothing is actually easy. (Take an empty set, with no operations on it, and nothing else.) Nevertheless, one thing we can be sure of: this nothing is not correct: we do not have “nothing”, but definite and absolutely do indeed have ‘SOMETHING’. Remember by absolute nothingness I don’t mean just an empty void left but the absence of the infinite void as well. This shows that the simplest model is not always the correct one. The universe is almost infinitely complex and to me this points to the simple logic that it is the creation by an infinite, intelligent power. Nothing is the very most basic of all concepts and if there were ever a nothing, there would be no creator, of course. Some people may argue that the universe was created in the Big Bang ( but whom and what pressed the button of the big bang in the first place, so to speak?) , and that positive matter and positive energy are actually negated by the simultaneous creation of negative matter and negative energy. However, this doesn't answer the other question, where do matter, energy and laws of physics then come from in the first place? Does this question have an answer? If something exists because it either was a modification of something or else, Something or Somebody else created it, then what caused that to exist? It seems that our logic is unable to deal with the question; indeed, I think the question shows there is a limit to our understanding of things by the very best minds of the human race. There are simply mysteries out there that will never ever be solved by mere mortal man. You see the universe has a strange Goldie locks condition about it, i.e., it cannot be too hot, or too cold etc, etc, etc, but it has to be just absolutely correct, precise and right or life would not have come into existence and we would not be around to contemplate, debate or dialog on this ultimate enigma. We would not exist. Life hangs on and depends on this knife- edge of harmonies conditions that have to be sustained over countless billions of years, for us to have come into existence and continue to exist. Makes one think, does it not? An uncaused Cause must exist and to me am an inescapable fact of logic, call this entity God if you like. By Alan McDougall 11/6/2007

Hi What is time? Some say it is just measure of movement or an aggregation of events. Time is not a constant and I would like you guys to put forward your own ideas on the topic before adding my peace to the story. Alan

We are close to agreements lets just guess Total freeze of entire earth right down to inner core. A million years? A hundred million years? A billion years? A trillion years? Unimaginably longer? trillions of trillions of years?........"my guess" Alan

Why is our universe asymmetrical instead of symmetrical of which it should be due to the fact that equal amounts of antimatter and matter were created in the Big Bang. These two opposites’ states of matter should have annihilated each other in an explosion of unimaginable proportions leaving a dead universe seething with gamma ray energy But luckily for us somehow this did not happen and we now live to pose this enigma one to the other. What are your thoughts? Alan

Thanks for the reply but it does not really answer my question, I know absolute zero is unreachable, thus I said in my post 'Almost Absolute Zero", please read it again. In the theoretical totally void universe in which I put the earth , absolute zero is possible, of course "until you put our earth into it", which then will become its only heat source. Given infinite time the earth in this universe the avarage temperater of the earth would and must approach as close as the 3rd law of thermodynamics allows but in countless trillions of earth years. But it must in the end freeze solid or reach equilibrium in the proposed hypothetical universe.

Let’s try a thought experiment; of course you can use mathematics if you want to also. Let’s remove the earth and place it in another universe that is absolutely void and lacking energy of any type, absolute cold at absolute zero. How long do you think it would take the entire earth from atmosphere, oceans, crust right down to the very core to freeze solid (This might not be the right expression) or put another way, reach the now almost the absolute zero of the empty universe it now inhabits? Alan

I agree you moment is an expression of time but I had to use this word to express what I mean in my question, you are right the sigularity point when time did not exist because gravity was infinite.

In physics they speak about the "Arrow of Time" time moving from the past into the future of maybe just from the present into the future.Time is intertwined with movement and entropy, one cannot exist without the other. So I dont agree that time does not flow because it does, just look at your clock to confirm this fact. Of course time is relative and subjective and a non-constant. Thus how could the universe emerge out of the singularity without time?, emerging means moving and thus leads to the start of entropy of our universe. How could this happen if time did/could not exist then in the infinite gravity field that was present at the moment of the Big Bang?

Hi, I am very interested in the subject of spinal injury cord regeneration, because this would be a huge blessing to thousands who are handicapped by spinal injuries. I know I could look this up on the net but I would like the views ideas of this forum! Alan

Hi All, The Arrow of time at the moment of the Big Bang. As it is well known and proved time slows relative to the force of gravity surrounding the object on which it is measured. Thus time moves a tiny bit less of Jupiter with a heavy gravity field than it does on earth with a lighter gravity field My question is at the moment of the Big Bang "gravity was infinite" because the singularity was an "infinite mass", thus according to the known laws of physics time should have stood still but luckily somehow it did not? What are your ideas or answers to this question? Regards Alan

They do not know that was a wild guess. The figure should be infinite or absolute zero entropy If we are to believe our universe comprises everything in existence then at the moment before the big bang the supposedly infinitesimal tiny singularity it also was infinitely large. I mean at that point before time with no other object in existence to compare itself to the point particle we call the primordial singularity could be considered for all purposes to be both infinity small and infinitely huge, size then like time and space was meaningless The same can be said of the temperature it was not hot or cold, it was the coldest place in existence, but also the hottest, thus using terms like temperature for the singularity is utterly meaningless, because there was no other thing in existence to compare this primordial state to. Alan

Hi, My question is based on redshift and the expansion of the universe, So if we could somehow measure the distance between the earth and the extremely remote quasar"AT THE SAME INSTANT IT TIME". Would the quasar by exactly where it should be, based on its redshift. My question is easy to resolve if it were based on a steady state static universe, my difficulty is how can we ever know for sure how far an object like a quasars actually is at any moment, from the earth. Can I use another analogy please? A baseball player throws a ball at you and at the same time is running away from you. The quasar from 13.5 billion light years away from you throws a photon at the earth, and also races away from earth like the baseball runs away from the you. but unlike the baseball is receding from you but at almost redshift C. The quasar is embedded in the fabric of space time, space is stretching, as soon as you measure the quasars reshift it is no longer where you thought it was, so where exactly is it at any moment in relation to earth We are in fact looking at a very very ancient object, as it was when it was still extremely young Much like someone taking a photo of me when I was a baby, with the photo only arriving when I am very old indeed at its destination. I might be dead and my ashes thrown into the sea, but the person looking at my photo will think I am still a baby etc. Hows my logic guys? Alan

Thanks Martin! Yes I was referring to a red shift of 6, if that is correct some quasars are receding relative to earth at greater than the speed of light. Not 6 times c sorry for that! I am/was an amateur astronomer but even so I have difficulty with these enormous time spans and distances. Perhaps if I phrase my dilemma a little differently. If we could use a hypothetical ruler and place it on the earth and the other end on a distant quasar , and the red shift indicated the quasar should be 13.5 billion light years from earth, would our very hypothetical ruler measure it off as 13.5 billion light years also. I know this is a really silly way to approach my question, but all I really want to know if a photon hits or CCT camera on the Hubble telescope with a red shift indicating it left its source 13.5 billion years ago, is that object, the quasar in question, actually that far from the telescope at the exact moment it hit the telescope CCT camera?? http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/star2bir.jpg Regards Alan

Hi People, I know that astronomy has estimated that they have picked of light from the very early universe, and some quasars are said to be receding at 6.0 c or greater than the speed of light relative to us on earth. I can accept that as a truth, but what I cant rap my brain around, how the heck do we on earth see objects from the beginning of time?. When we target our telescopes at these unimaginably distant objects, they might have already ceased to exist. Some Quasars are extremely energetic primordial galaxies living and dying in less than a billion years or so. Our earth is about 5 billion years old and was born some 5 billion years after the creation of the universe. Therefore our telescopes look out at the cosmos 10 billion years after the big bang. But we are supposed to be observing light back from just after the big bang some 0.5 Billion years in fact. Therefore the primordial quasars must have radiated energy into the universe for at least 10 billion years for us to notice it in our optical instruments Or am I wrong and were these very young quasars (now extremely old) slow radiators of energy (to me this must be the case or we simply would not observe them or the calculated age of the universe is wrong) Can you guys help, this is a real puzzle to many people and a simplified explanation would be much appreciated? Regards Alan

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RiR7L_dyCLI/AAAAAAAAAdU/2COTRQtZAk8/s1600/Ladies%2BHome%2BJournal%2BDec%2B1900%2Bpaleofuture%2Bpaleo-future.jpg A great read really great

I know that that matter come energy will never vanish from the universe if we discount a black hole, what I meant the far away quasar is right before the near of the moment of the big bang (of course in cosmological terms) thus we see it as it was when it was "young" and maybe this "old quasar" has vanished as a composite object What are we doing out here in the grand somewhere looking at an object that is no longer?? By the way my physics goes only up to that needed for my Mechanical Engineering Degree

Farewell so soon you have hardly got to know me, if you hang around you might find me an interesting old gripe http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/three_distant_quasars_found_at_edge_of_the_universe During the past year, members of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey team obtained further spectra of the quasars with the 10-meter (400 inch) Keck Observatory in Hawaii, the 9.2-meter (368 inch) Hobby-Eberly telescope in west Texas and the 3.5-meter (158 inch) Calar Alto Observatory telescope in southern Spain. "The spectra show unambiguously that the three quasars have redshifts of 6.4, 6.2 and 6.1," said Don Schneider, a collaborating Sky Survey astronomer at Pennsylvania State University. "Only one quasar had been previously known to have a redshift larger than six." The previous record-holder, at redshift of 6.28, was discovered in 2001 by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey consortium. Cosmologist Robert Becker of the University of California-Davis and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, noted that "the Sloan Survey has now discovered the seven most distant known quasars." "The Sloan Survey has generated a sample of quasars which stretches through all of cosmic time, from 800 million years after the Big Bang to the present," said James Gunn of Princeton University, and the project scientist of the Sloan Survey. "These data will be invaluable for the next major effort of the Sloan Survey quasar team, namely to characterize the evolution of quasars from their formation to the present." (A complete list of people contributing to the discoveries of new, more distant quasars is posted on the NEWS Section of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey web site at Are those quasars we see in our scopes still there??

Yeh I am!! but the question remains is the quasar really the distance "the red shift indicates" at the "exact moment" measured by out best astronomical telescopes etc? The earth is some 5.9 billion years old , so for us to see the quasar it must have radiated energy for at least as long or it would/could have vanished into a black hole by now. You might be surprised how many people have difficulty understanding this question and its solution It must be somewhere else to my limited mind!!

Thank you Martin, I looked it up I have some knowledge about asrtronomy and astrophysics because my hobby is that of an amateur astronomer If we took the instrument below and put one point on the earth and the other on the receding quasar would the distance equate to actual according to red shift etc etc http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Scranton-OrnamentalDesign-VolI/pages/011-drawing-a-circle-with-the-compasses/011-drawing-a-circle-with-the- compasses-q75-447x500.jpghttp://www.fromoldbooks.org/Scranton-OrnamentalDesign-VolI/pages/011-drawing-a-circle-with-the-compasses/011-drawing-a-circle-with-the-compasses-q75-447x500.jpg

Acknowledged , fission fusion what ever the source of energy lets keep it simple and go from there Geothermal, and other heat also originates from the mantle, crust, oceans, core all these store colossal amounts of heat Maybe we should narrow the thread down a little, how long could we survive if the sun went out tomorrow?? Peace to insane Alien

Thanks guys you have given me much to think about, I hope to return with an intelligent response Alan

Lets ignore nuclear heat and consider only geothermal heat for the time being If we bring nuclear generated heat, think about how long the huge USA aircraft carriers can run without refueling, it is about twenty years, and of course the waste plutonium could also be utilizes later For the earth to use all its nuclear fuel extrapolate that into eternity

Einsteins Theories did not reflect reality until they were proved correct by the eclipse of the sun in 1919? where the astronomers observes planet Mercury in front of the sun instead of where it should have been nicely hidden behind the sun. Gosh space which was considered an empty void could bend , what a silly thought is that The assumption was a solid earth, but what about the huge mass at the two sides of the hole and the increasing mass above ones head?? Would it cancel out nicely as some say in response?