[Frances]

I know for a fact that the most brilliant mind on the planet is not a member of this forum (unless that person is "read-only").

Hi Fran, ... I know how you meant the phrase and I am attacking the thought/idea and not you. The word brilliant is really a loose term here.

bril-liant adj. 3. extremely intelligent.

Simply put. Simply meant. Whoever that person is on this planet who has the greatest potential of really understanding the concepts of a boundless space (oxymoron if you ask me), is several steps down on the evolutionary ladder away from being biologically capable of the comprehension required.

Feel free to attack the concept of brilliance. It doesn't apply to me anyway.

[ivox3]

Understanding space w/out end isn't difficult once your doing it.

[Hervé]

what's behind the wall Dad..? shut up, and eat your waffle... hehe

[Miles]

Did someone say "waffle"?

[pluMmet]

My .0056 cents:

I think of the creation of this universe more as “the chicken and the egg” as the creature evolved into a monotreme then eventually laid what we call a chicken so many occurrences happened until the action that caused our area of existence. Be it a bang or what have you.

As far as God and all I have a strange view, as I’ve never heard anyone else with it. I consider it a touch scientific with a dash of crazy. I believe that the sun (SOL) is the god of this solar system and that there is a god (conscience) at the center of the galaxy then universe. The universal god seems to be the one most religions point too. The Bhagavad Gita, Gnosticism and Kabbalah point to yet another god “that wears universes like clothes” and has it’s own center. All of these stated gods according to all religions are in a state of upheaval. It would seem the only question for these religions is what or who is to blame. I prefer to think that these “Gods” are all part of yet other centers which for whatever reason have yet to correct this problem but are not involved in it’s errors.

And just to mention it: According to the bible 1 day for God (of this universe) is 1000 of our years. According to the Bhagavad Gita 1 Cycle (day) for the God who wears universes like clothes is “a hundred fifty thousand billion earth years.” So it would seem that some sort of time dilation is occurring in that if there are centers beyond “the god who wears universes like clothes” then this error we are experiencing might be yet un noticed.

[tom]

...the very ones responsible for introducing to us the very real reality of mass extinction...

Ivox, I agree 100% and I find your mind free enough.

[Maxer]

Here are a few questions I'd like you guy's to think about:

-NASA expected 54 feet of dust on the Moon, assuming a 5-billion-year age. Oops! They found only 13 feet at the Apollo 11 landing site, 2 to 3 feet at Luna 16, and 11.5 feet at Apollo 12.

-The Poynting-Robertson effect slows down small particles in orbit and makes them fall into the sun. In only 2 billion years, all particles less than three inches across clear out to Jupiter's orbit should have been eliminated. Oops! There are huge quantities still out there (they show up during the Perseid meteor shower every August).

-The earth's magnetic field decays exponentially, with a half-life of 1,400 years. Projecting in reverse, the earth's age comes out as -- surprise! -- 10,000 years or less.

[aitraaz]

-The earth's magnetic field decays exponentially, with a half-life of 1,400 years. Projecting in reverse, the earth's age comes out as -- surprise! -- 10,000 years or less.

Holy shit, so the vatican was right on this one, give or take a few thousand years lol... ...you got any more info on this one bro?!?

[misterasset]

-The Poynting-Robertson effect slows down small particles in orbit and makes them fall into the sun. In only 2 billion years, all particles less than three inches across clear out to Jupiter's orbit should have been eliminated. Oops! There are huge quantities still out there (they show up during the Perseid meteor shower every August).

This one is easily explained. The comet Swift-Tuttle, who's tail we pass through every single year, is responsible for the tiny pieces of dust that hit our atmosphere between late July and early August.

Just because the Sun is constantly clearing out the dust doesn't mean there isn't some other body constantly putting dust back in. Just look at your house.

[Maxer]

I think your forgetting one thing; comets have a life expectancy of less than 10,000 years because they simply burn out or evaporate. If the universe is as old as it's supposed to be this comet shouldn’t be there.

[Thomas An.]

-The earth's magnetic field decays exponentially, with a half-life of 1,400 years. Projecting in reverse, the earth's age comes out as -- surprise! -- 10,000 years or less.

Correct, but incomplete, observation that led to an incorrect conclusion.

The magnetic field decays and then flips (swaps north - south polarity).
There is also a period of no magnetic field during the transition.
The process repeats indefinitely. We are due for another flip in the next few hundred (or a thousand years) if I remember correctly.

[Maxer]

Thomas I assume you are talking about the dynamo model, then how do you explain the Moon and Mercury which don't have molten cores like the Earth but still being able to generate a magnetic field? Also from what I understand the dynamo theory doesn’t adequately explain the origin of the magnetic filed or how it could it could feely fluctuate over millions of years.

[jdp]

thomas I must admit that this thing is making me mad: it has a so wide range of implication that I am highly tempted to cough up my philosophy and science school books from the shelf.

Anyway, about time, I understood there is a reason to consider it linear; what I am wondering (because I don't know the demonstration itself) if there's no reason to consider it linear but with an infinite oscillation. this comes to my mind thinking of continuity based on the principle of line as a circle of infinite radius. what I am trying to say is that if it has been proven that the universe is expanding, thus it was smaller, nothing prove it is wrong to imagine time, and so space (or the opposite), are oscillating with an infinite period. But I am probably messing around here, for sure I am showing my math and my physics (and so my english) are a bit weak...

[thomas lacroix]

i saw a debate with astrophysicians the other day and they were claiming that we only had merely a glimpse at 1% of what the universe is made of, 1 % is what we call energy, gravity, magnetic field, matter and whatsoever, the 99% rest being so called dark matter, 1 % of things we can sense, 1 percent of things we can perceive and conceptualize, and still 1 percent of things we can explain with words (wich are also concepts ) that makes a lot of processing state we're not even sure of

i presume some of you are misleading themselves with sophism, and are merely confonding the receptor with the computer, computer that is still stuck in its primal grid of analyse made of 1 and 0 , we are still trying to assume that maybe there is something in between 1 and zero, or that 1 and zero doesnt even exist...

all i can say is that at the time beeing i'll assume that i seems to exist, that i dont know when where or why i'm here ( or not) that i'll wont that long, or not but i'll deal with that...

and yes i dont believe in any "god" or whatsoever sentient entity, we are here because...the because we say to childrens when we dont know or cannot find words that could fit with concepts they could understand based on what they had known, perceived, learned, memorizd and understood themself in there way

ho by the way we call ourself sentient, but we "think" that an amoeba isnt, it doesnt mean that the amoeba isnt sentient, nor that the amoeba doesnt exist, nor that we do or dont...

so my real answer is

[giacob]

frankly sounds to me a bit grottesque discussing about big-bang and other theories about the origin of the universe with the same easiness as we were discussing about the last football game .... while , most of us, has none or very few knowledge about astrophisic and mathematic...