Jeremy Mallin

Love what everyone wrote above. Didn't have enough time to read every word, but most of you are spot on with what I've been irritated by for years - innacuracy, watered-down reports, partisan commentary instead of facts, etc. I think most of this is due to the fact that in America ratings and profits rule everything. That leads to the passing off of entertainment and pandering as news - weather it's pandering to particular corporate interests or to particular political interests. Either way it's a similar dilution and corruption of news reporting. On a related note, most of the American outlets don't even do investigation for their own reports; they reair and repost reports from news outlets like the Associated Press and Reuters, which on average DO actually do a better job of reporting facts instead of commentary. I've found that's it's often easier and quicker to cut out the middle man, go online, and get the original reports straight from the sources. Plus, you generally get reports on a wider range of topics covering more of the world. News isn't just politics; it's technology, culture, art, science, health, education and so much more. Also... ever since I became more interested in social media I've learned far more and been exposed to far more real news stories than I've ever seen on any televised broadcasts.

Thanks. Sounds great. I'll start with these.

Hello. I'm new here. I'm a mechanical engineer and an artist. I've worked professionally in both fields. I've read many books on theoretical physics and cosmology by authors including Brian Greene, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Lisa Randall. Beyond engineering school requirements, I have not taken any advanced or theoretical physics courses. Can anyone recommend any other good authors and titles to read on cosmology and theoretical physics? I'm particularly interested in higher dimensional geometry/cosmology. Maybe something just a bit above lay person on the technical level for now. I have a fairly good intuitive grasp of mathematics but have not gone much beyond calculus and differential equations on the University level (and that was twenty years ago). Thanks much.

I've heard many physicists put forward the second law of thermodynamics as an explanation of the vector of time. Can someone explain to me why that is not circular reasoning? It seems that it merely says that entropy increases with time therefore time must increase with entropy. How is that not circular? Isn't a better proposal needed for an explanation?

I want to thank everyone who posted a reply for your answers, mathematic, Anubis-UK, Alpha2cen and Iggy. Your answers helped me a lot, especially the reference links and the Eddington quote. The more I learn, the more questions I have, but I suppose that is a good thing. One thing I don't understand from a theoretical point-of-view (Iggy and Eddington make it perfectly clear from an empirical point-of-view) is why "the little things don't expand with large intergalactic distance". If no one minds another question... Is this a question that there are any good answers for or is it still in the hypothesis stage? Is one of the ideas something to do with forces that act with different strengths at different scales? or do physicists thing curvature of space (due to mass or dark matter, dark energy, whatever else) has something to do with different expansion at different scales? I appologize if the reference links above already address some of these questions. I will check out the links too. Thanks again.

New here. A physics school teacher recommended this forum on Twitter. In the last century astronomers and cosmologists have put forward evidence that space itself is expanding -- not just that matter is moving away from other matter, but that the space itself in between is expanding. Questions: (1) If space itself is expanding, is that expansion homogenous with respect to all four dimensions, x, y, z and t? In other words, is that expansion uniform throughout the universe? What does observation and evidence suggest? (2) Is the expansion of space necessarily the same at all scales? Should the same effects of expansion observed on a grand cosmological scale also be theoretically observable at very small scales (Planck and above)? Why or why not? (3) Which precise definition of space is generrally used when trying to explain the expansion of space, especially expansion greater than light speed? I realize that many physicists have gone back and forth about what space actually is. --- Because I'm new here I'll tell a bit about my background. I'm a mechanical engineer and an artist. I've worked professionally in both fields. I've read many books on theoretical physics and cosmology by authors including Brian Greene, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Lisa Randall. Beyond engineering school requirements, I have not taken any advanced or theoretical physics courses. Recommendations for other authors to read are greatly appreciated as well.