Strange

I have never heard anything like that. That is the great thing about mathematics, it enables us to model our universe of 4 dimensions (3 space and 1 time). And in string theory there are 10+ dimensions. It doesn't have to make intuitive sense - by using mathematics we can still make sense of it. But mathematics can handle it. Agreed.

There are many, many bits of evidence that lead to these conclusions. A lot of this is based on predicting what the universe would look like if there were conditions like that and then looking to see if observations match those predictions. Most of this is not stuff I know much about but, for example, the proportions of elements that should have been formed initially (given those early conditions) can be calculated and compared with the proportions of hydrogen and helium we see. There are quantum effects that should leave a (very tiny) imprint on the CMB. And so on. Most of this is very complex and requires a lot of expertise to understand and probably won't be mentioned, except in passing, in the sort of sources you have mentioned so far. If the original hot, dense universe were infinite. There are other possibilities: It could actually be smaller than the observable universe (so what we see at great distance is the same thing "wrapped round"). I don't think this is a serious contender but it is possible. It could be much larger than the observable universe. There are varying estimates for the lower limit on the size of the entire universe, ranging from 250 times to 1023 times the size of the observable universe. I don't know. Some people seem emotionally convinced that the universe cannot possibly be infinite. Others are equally strongly attached to the idea that it must be. Currently, the evidence doesn't tell us which it is. More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#The_Universe_versus_the_observable_universe This is a good source for info on the big bang model and cosmology in general: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html If you feel up to it, you could work through his tutorial: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_01.htm This is good too: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/einstein/ It gets mathematical, but you might be able to follow some of the ideas even if you don't fully get the math.

Shakes head sadly and wanders off despairing for humanity...

Maybe you should request the moderators move this to the neuroscience forum...

Citation needed. From wikipedia Moore's "1965 paper described a doubling every year in the number of components per integrated circuit". No mention of clock speed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law You may be thinking of Dennard Scaling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennard_scaling

So, according to your dictionary, these scientists are saying that the world was the size of a proton? You dictionary is not a good source for scientific information. Only the word "entire". I believe there are models where this is possible but I am not familiar with them and, as far as I know, they are not mainstream. The big bang is a model describing the evolution from an early hot dense state. It is equally applicable to a finite and an infinite universe. I agree. Which is why it I assume that the scientists you are citing meant the observable universe. (BTW, I see you mention Michio Kaku: I would take his pop-science stuff with a large pinch of salt. In fact, I would disregard it completely.) As we have no idea how large the entire universe is, how could we know how large it was at some point in the past? Maybe those are not good sources of information. Inflation was proposed to solve some specific problems (http://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_cosmo_infl.html). I don't think it says anything about whether the universe is finite or not. Then you need to try and drop the "I don't understand this so it must be wrong" attitude and embrace the "what have I missed" once. When I hear inconsistencies in pop-sci articles or documentaries, I go back to a more reliable source and try to find out what is really behind it. Wikipedia has some reasonably good articles on the subject. It is not an assumption; it is a conclusion from the evidence.

That's OK. It is fine to ask questions. I'm not sure why you think gravity would have that effect; the bending or red-shift of light by gravity is a very small effect and only noticeable under very special situations. However, the good news is that the same theory that explains gravity (General Relativity) also explains the expansion of the universe; so you are kinda on the right track!

It doesn't. The universe beyond the observable is assumed to exist and be largely the same as what we can see. But you haven't explained why that is relevant to our estimates of the current state of the universe. But the reason it is not observable is (partly) because light hasn't had enough time to reach us. It is only a ,imit of what we can see, not a limit of what "is". I have an invisible pink unicorn in my garden. Anyone with logic skills knows this. As you have no evidence, I see no reason to believe you. Seriously, as there is no evidence for your belief, why do expect anyone else to accept it?

Our galaxy is less than 15 billion years old. After all, the universe is only 14 billion years old! Your claim is not beyond my comprehension, it is just that you provide no evidence to support it and the evidence that does exist contradicts it. Feel free to provide some evidence, but without that, your "fact" is just an assertion. And, as such, can be ignored.

OK. But... 1. Will the speed be proportional to distance? (which is why I would like to see the maths) 2. Does this bear any relationship to anything we observe in the real world? 3. What does this have to do with a contracting universe?

I'm still not clear why an object that is moving towards you would look as if it is moving away. What causes that illusion? Yes, but how is that relevant to apparent motion? Do you mean because it IS going away from you because it is attracted to the more distant object? So is this supposed to be some sort of tidal effect? If so, then I can see this might apply in a very limited case in a single direction (but I would like to see that math that confirms this). I fail to see how it could apply to every object in every direction.

As another example, dark matter does not take part in electromagnetic interactions. But it is still spread out through space.

You don't know that. That is almost certainly not true. Again, you don't know that. Is that true in non-Euclidean space? (That is a genuine question, I don't know the answer...)

You seem to be saying that because we can use light to measure distance, that distance must be defined by light. This seems just as illogical as the claim that because we can use change to measure time, time is defined by change. It is refreshing to see someone apply the same logic to space as to time, even if it is equally wrong. It is, for example, possible to use the Einstein Field Equations to model a universe with no energy; there fore no light and no change. Time and space still exist in such a universe and, without looking it up, I think there is even expansion as in our universe.

I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps you could provide a reference to this theory? There is no evidence that this has anything to do with consciousness. I don't really understand the question. But I don't see why the brain being either based on quantum effects or being fully deterministic has much significance to the way it works to produce confidence, or any other aspect of consciousness.

So why do think there is any similarity between this and entanglement?

And if the movement of minute amount of metals at the surface of the Earth were to have any effect, then I would expect iron to be much more significant than gold: there are many orders of magnitude more of it in use and it is ferromagnetic.

I don't know where you go wrong. They are (I assume, given the lack of context) talking about the observable universe.

1. Why is this in "Science News"? 2. What do you mean by "at the same time"? Do you mean, hit the ground at the same time? If so, they don't. Galileo's famous experiment involved two objects dropped from the same height. Regardless of their different masses, they will fall at the same rate, and reach the ground at the same time. If they are dropped from different heights, then the object dropped from the greater height will take longer to reach the ground. Again, regardless of the weight. Your explanation for this is overcomplicated. You just need two things: 1. the force on the object caused by gravity, which is proportional to its mass (from Newton's law of gravitation) 2. The rate of acceleration due to a given force is inversely proportional to its mass (from Newton's second law of motion) Therefore the mass cancels and the rate of acceleration is proportional to the force, independent of the mass of the object. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newton3laws.html [math]\displaystyle f = G \frac{m M}{r^2}[/math] (where m is the mass of the object and M is the mass of the Earth). [math]f = ma[/math] Therefore: [math]ma = G \frac{m M}{r^2}[/math] Cancelling m: [math]a = G \frac{M}{r^2}[/math] Therefore, acceleration just depends on G (gravitational constant), the mass of the Earth, and its radius.

That would be great. But why are you insisting that people who don't have a particular belief should behave like that? Why doesn't it apply to everybody? So can people who don't wear hats. Again, why pick on people who don't have a particular belief? Should I also be responsible for the attitudes of other people who, like me, don't play tiddlywinks? Why? And what does that have to do with atheism? Not all atheists have given up a belief in gods. It is not clear to me that religion has much to do, one way or the other, with the either the good or the bad things that mankind has achieved. Religious people have done great things. Atheists have done some terrible things. And vice versa. Again, you seem to be setting a large, heterogeneous group on a pedestal for no other reason than that they don't share a belief. This doesn't seem very rational. Do you think that people who don't like football need to make sure that they don't make the same mess of the world as the football fans have done? But if you lose faith, you may also lose many of the benefits that came with it. But if you never had any faith to lose then your point is irrelevant anyway. Again, why are you picking on atheists? And what is your evidence that "many atheists do not respect justice, rational thought, and peace"? And where is the evidence that (more) religious people do? Do you have any evidence for that? There are religious people who support it as well? And do you have any evidence that it is (a) dangerous and (b) an ideology? I wish you would stop using "we" as if atheists were a homogeneous group. I do not wish to be associated with the views you have expressed in this thread. It is against the rules to discuss what happens on other forums. But I will just point out that that idea is not lunacy (and I doubt it would ever be described as such). Many great philosophers and mathematicians have argued for exactly that. (As I think I might have said somewhere ot other ...)

Not all the evidence for the big bang is based on light. If they were moving towards us, they would be blue shifted. If they were moving away they would be red-shifted. They are red0shifted and therefore moving away. I don't see how a contracting universe could produce the same effect. I really don't understand what you are trying to say there. Perhaps you could show us the maths and/or a diagram to explain it?

What makes you think that has anything to do with entanglement?

That is not a "fact". At best it is a guess, or wild supposition. The evidence seems to disagree with you. The universe is all the same age, so that is how it is modelled. What we see is due to the limited speed of light. (And that can, of course, be taken into account) So, yes, when we look at distant stars or galaxies, we are effectively looking into the past. Which is very useful, because it tells us about how stars and galaxies were different in the past. Which means we can model how they change with changing conditions. Which means we can attempt to model how they will change in future. I don't see why not. We can count the stars and measure the mount of matter in our galaxy. We can count the galaxies in our local cluster. and so on. From this we can get an estimate of the amount of mass locally. We can then extrapolate this (to the observable universe and beyond). So what? Why do you need to see them?

1. No one said that. 2. "At" the big bang makes no sense as the big bang model describes the evolution of the universe from an earlier hot, dense state. 3. There is no evidence that the singularity has any physical existence. 4. What do you mean by "the singularity was infinite"? 5. Whatever you mean, it would only be true IF the universe were infinite. And there is no eveidence for that. But apart from that ...

I missed the context of (B). If you absorbed all light you would not be invisible but perfectly black. You might want to look into metamaterials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial_cloaking