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MonsieurMonkey

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Okay, I had the idea for this a while back. But I dunno, I just didn't know how well received it would be. Basically, I think a lot of the time, but create more than I remember. In the sense that I hate formal education and I need a more creative environment, but within Science. And I wanted to throw some ideas out there to be shot down, commented on, etc. Basically I want this thread to be a think tank of cool ideas, they don't need to be something you came up with, just anything new you read or work you're doing. Proper learning as I call it, discussing the ideas you have with people and finding out why they're right or wrong.

Anyway, I've got a few, but this is currently my favourite idea so here we go.

No-one really knows what happened before the Big Bang, assuming that's correct, but I thought that maybe as our Universe is currently expanding, and will eventually collapse. Maybe that's the life cycle of what we call our Universe. It expands to the point of almost tearing, then contracts back down. But this contraction compresses everything we know into such a small space, eventually the force creates another "Big Bang".

Like I said, I don't do Physics, and haven't since I was at school, so if someone could tell me why this was impossible, or if it was possible, it'd be pretty cool. Especially if it's your field.

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This is a quality idea for a thread. So I'll help get it rolling :)

Basically the other day I was thinking about this whole '2012 end of the world' thing, and although we're all fairly sure that the world won't physically end. I reckon that it could be a point in time in which the world comes so corrupt that it's not worth living in. Events such as the Croyden riots, footballers wages, Euro crashing, people like Gadaffi, sort of steer me to believe it.

Would be interested to see your views on what the 'end of the world' might mean, aside from the fact most people say it's bullsh*t.

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I'm glad someone else has joined in. I think your idea is just a current coincidence. If you think about the calendar that suggests the world will end in 2012 (Is it the Aztecs?) they have long since died out and their calendar has been replaced. (Think about how currency changes, it changed completely here in 1971, I have no idea what it was before, shillings and all that shit.) So there calendar is basically just that, something that, some people used to use, and it coincides with our current calendar and because that's as far as they want with their calendar, (Aztecs have been dead as a "society" for a long time, not only that, they were hardly scientists) we just assume they saw something we didn't.

Like I said, the world has started going to shit, but it's a blip in the grand scheme of things. As soon as China catches up Tech wise to the rest of the world, that's it, welcome to the new world.

Again, that's my opinion.

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The thing that annoys me about the whole 2012 thing is that the Mayans didn't predict the end of the world, it's just that their calendar just happens to be coming to an end, just like ours does on December 31st and no one being around to start another one on the 1st of January.

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Ah I see, I hadn't considered past money problems. Looking at the much larger picture, it seemed to me like the 'story' in which life is meant to follow (if you believe that) has gotten to a point where all countries have made alliances that they won't break. So there's no chance of a huge war to change life as we know it, as I see it the world will continue to become more and more populated until eventually havoc breaks out. There couldn't be a one child per family rule here, there would be a riot about human rights!

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The expanding and contracting universe is one of the well known theories I believe. It makes the most sense to me, all mass has a gravity so eventually everything has to pull back together. Black holes will suck in other black holes becoming even more dense, eventually there's going to be just two inconceivably dense blackholes that'll merge and make the singularity and then boom, new universe.

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Suggested reading; The post above yours :P

Cheers, I already did.

all mass has a gravity so eventually everything has to pull back together.

I don't follow that theory because surely the small amount of gravity in space will never increase? And so objects in space will never attract any more than they do now.

The black holes sucking in other black holes sounds possible but just seems very unlikely to me.

These are just my thoughts, I don't claim to know much about space.

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So does the fact that the Universe is actually still expanding at an increasing rate mean that the timescale for this is simply beyond our concept of time?

I can envisage an infinite number of individual Universes existing outside our own, each existing independently and unaware of each other (i.e. not parallel as such).

As another point of discussion, the potential of neutrino's to go faster than light? I call bullshit (well, I call limitations of experimental equipment/experimental error/unclear beginning of the neutrino's journey from CERN).

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I don't follow that theory because surely the small amount of gravity in space will never increase? And so objects in space will never attract any more than they do now.

Nobody knows for sure, that's the beauty of it :)

Even a tiny bit of gravity is still a force though, remember.

Imagine if you had a car creeping forward slowly (say, the handbrake was off and it was on a very gentle slope) and you were pushing against it. The force you are providing may be tiny in the grand scheme of things and have no effect early on, but over time it could be enough to slow things to a halt or in the extremes go the other way. That's the general thinking behind it (Y)

Dave; I'm pretty sure that the whole "speed of light > *" thing holds on the most part, but there is that little 0.01% of me that wonders "what if?"

Would make for some pretty tech reading in a few years, that's for sure!

Electrons do some funky stuff, why not other subatomic particles?

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I don't follow that theory because surely the small amount of gravity in space will never increase? And so objects in space will never attract any more than they do now.

The black holes sucking in other black holes sounds possible but just seems very unlikely to me.

These are just my thoughts, I don't claim to know much about space.

Gravity is not something that exists like a substance, it is a force which is exerted on everything with mass in the Universe. Following from that yes, the total mass in the Universe is constant but if the Universe were made up from many similarly sized objects and nothing else then your theory would hold (probably) but the point is that things collide, masses join and supermassive stars collapse creating black holes. These black holes (which have effectively infinite mass at their centre I believe) therefore attract everything in the area towards them and 'swallows' it up. I guess in the case of two black holes, the larger one will win...

RE: Neutrino>Usain Bolt: It's the way the experiment is carried out which doesn't stand up for me though. I'm quite happy to accept that something may be able to go faster than light, hell why not? However, this experiment relies on CERN being able to tell exactly when an individual neutrino leaves their collider in order to determine when it arrives in Italy, correct to billionths of a second. They aren't even measuring the same particles but are using some convoluted probability to determine what they're measuring. I think in this instance no one will ever be sure.

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1320266938' post=2351180']

RE: Neutrino>Usain Bolt: It's the way the experiment is carried out which doesn't stand up for me though. I'm quite happy to accept that something may be able to go faster than light, hell why not? However, this experiment relies on CERN being able to tell exactly when an individual neutrino leaves their collider in order to determine when it arrives in Italy, correct to billionths of a second. They aren't even measuring the same particles but are using some convoluted probability to determine what they're measuring. I think in this instance no one will ever be sure.

You have got that completely right. Thought this article might be of interest to you.

Click me

Jed

Edited by Hessy
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I can't remember where I heard this, maybe back in the physics a-level days, but if neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light, and therefor can travel though time, the entire universe could possibly be made up of one single neutrino traveling though time and replicating it's self an inconceivable amount of times.

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Basically the other day I was thinking about this whole '2012 end of the world' thing, and although we're all fairly sure that the world won't physically end. I reckon that it could be a point in time in which the world comes so corrupt that it's not worth living in.

So what you're saying is that it's not as corrupt yet, but in a few months it will be? You've got a pretty pesimistic attitude man, a bit early for someone who's probably going to be on this earth for the next half a century.

I've always had an attitude of just getting on with my life rather than panicing about global social/political/economic problems. These we can't change so we should prepare to face them rather than stand aside and complain.

I'm fairly worried about what's going to happen with the Euro zone and Europe next year and am pretty anxious to get going if that makes sense. I'm pretty sure both the currency and zone will survive, it's backed up by some of the largest economies in the world and is strongly based on export thanks to Germany and France. However, the way things are currently going and with that idiot prime minister, I can see Greece going bankrupt deeming all bonds issued by Greece absolutely worthless. This will be a huge blow to banks all over Europe but I do have faith in some leaders and believe they will not allow bankrupcy of financial institutions to spread throughout the Euro zone. Essentially, I belive we're about to see a slight role reversal in Europe with the emerging economies taking over and China possibly starting to play a more important role on our continent. We've seen it 60 years ago with the Marshall Plan where the US rebuilt Europe because they considered it a good long term investment. Perhaps China won't go so far as to fix us up, but they are going to help and want something equally or more beneficial in return. I could talk for ages about this but those are the key points I think will happen.

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So what you're saying is that it's not as corrupt yet, but in a few months it will be? You've got a pretty pesimistic attitude man, a bit early for someone who's probably going to be on this earth for the next half a century.

I've always had an attitude of just getting on with my life rather than panicing about global social/political/economic problems. These we can't change so we should prepare to face them rather than stand aside and complain.

I was thinking of another way to interoperate the 'end of the earth', this was admittedly a semi-drunk thought, I'm a positive person really!

I like to understand what's going on, not necessarily worry about it. I agree, but how can we prepare to face what we don't know?! I'm starting to sound like a seriously crazy person, so I'll stop being negative! :P

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Well, yeah, things don't just move by themselves, but there's friction to slow stuff down.

How about this, sound isn't radiation, it's a wave. Waves, as in the thing you get in the beach, can be slowed down. Why does the speed of sound, which is the movement of physical particles, remain constant? You can apply friction to particles.

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