Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on March 31, 2012 at 12:35pm

It's gravitational lensing that help scientists find the MACHOs.  Just the simple concept of space/time warping due to an object floating by and making light change its path to get to its destination is fascinating to me!  I know, so silly, right?  lol

Permalink Reply by Tony Carroll on March 31, 2012 at 1:09pm

No, it's not silly. I also find it endlessly fascinating. Just the concepts alone make me crawl under the bed and whimper (lol)! Can't stop reading up on them, though. Or watching lectures on utube. Which, one I recently saw, (totally off subject) was one by Brian Cox on an idea espoused by Feynman, that all electrons are actually the same electron (wha...?) and what we see is just the same electron, but in a different energy level manifestation (double, no triple wha.....?) and by applying energy to any electron will cause all electrons everywhere at once to manifest a change from a lower state to a higher state, or the opposite. And when he says all, he means every electron in the entire universe at once, and possibly the multiverse (Okay, now monkeys are flying out my butt, and probably yours also. Don't mean to be rude, but wha......!!!). All joking aside NC, it is ideas like this that keep me coming back, whether I call bs, or not. So now, who's the silly one. lol. Thanks for the stimulating conversation. Be well.

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on April 2, 2012 at 7:40pm

Just...wow...

I'm gonna have to let that sink in.  String theory is so WEIRD!!  I haven't watched any Brian Cox yet really, but the clips I've seen are fascinating!  I'll have to look into him some more.  Thanks for the monkeys! lol

Permalink Reply by Tony Carroll on April 2, 2012 at 8:42pm

NC, Jessica sent me a link awhile back, and I've been trying to view them as I can, but life seems to be conspiring against me lately. Haven't had chance to watch as much as I want. It is for courses at Yale online. Not accredited, of course, but alot of science lectures from the professors. At oyc.yale.edu. Some great stuff. Thanks again, Jessica. You rock. As do you, NC. Peace.

Permalink Reply by Nontheist Central on March 31, 2012 at 1:00pm

My eye will be on the person who comes up with the craziest hypothesis.  It's pretty well known that the crazy theories have just as much chance to be correct as the not-crazy ones.

Actually, Vera Rubin was called crazy when she introduced the concept of dark matter in a paper she published.  People started trying to prove her wrong and ended up proving her right.  There is a lot more out there than we see.  

The solar wind model posed by Eugene Parker was ridiculed for years before they were able to send a probe up that ended up proving him right.  Scientists before him concocted the hypothesis, but it didn't go very far as they didn't have the means to test it at the time.  Parker posed his model and stuck to his guns.  People told him not to feel bad that his hypothesis was wrong and that lots of ideas fall flat on their faces.  He responded with "We'll see what falls flat on its face!"  If you want to hear him tell the story himself, watch the Sun episode of the BBC series The Planets.  He tells it in such an awesome way.  You can feel how satisfied he feels that he kept belief in his hypothesis.  That's one of my favorite "vindication" stories.

Got totally off the subject.  Sorry!  lol

Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on April 3, 2012 at 4:19pm

The craziest theories do often wind up to be the reality. When dealing with an unknown phenomenon the “known” science is not necessarily the best starting point – and may be the worst. The 11 dimensions (10 plus time) of space/.time posited in string theory gives me brain cramps – I've got 4 of them down pat the other 7 not so much, if at all.

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