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How would they measure that if they can't "see" the entire universe and/or get outside of it, to be an observer?

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The idea of having to be outside of something to be conscious of it is an interesting axiom in some philosophies.

The article on Brane theory is interesting. It brings to mind a lecture I attended a few years ago by an astronomer from Chicago. I don't remember exactly what the theme of the lecture was, but the Q&A period got around to the usual question about the One Time-Only Big Bang:

"If 'The Universe,' along with all time and differentiation began from a tiny point, how is it possible to envision an explosion happening without some pre-existing instability or outside influence?"

As I recall, this astronomer was honest enough to say that we really know absolutely or almost nothing about what "things were like" prior to whatever the tiny part of one second after the Bang is that they've traced the different forces back to. According to this particular guy, even a sort of "creationist" model could still be plausible. Since our entire frame of reference would cease to exist back further than a certain point, who can say?

It reminds of a particular quote that has been made about the limitations on our understanding:

The analogy was made of two dogs deciding that Euclidean Geometry didn't exist, because it wouldn't submit to the "sniff test."

And then there is the idea (more popular in the East) that there always is a unified substratum of being that underlies all form. This substratum would theoretically exist regardless of what happened on the material level, and was the same before The Bang as it is today. That's something that most scientists don't want to talk about, although I would imagine that David Bohm has, as well as a few of the popular authors.

I'm really not as up on modern science as I'd like to be. It's nice to take things this far out once in awhile. Are we atonal yet, or beyond that back into harmony?

[This message was edited by Jeff A. Smith on 21 May 2003 at 09:27 PM.]

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"If 'The Universe,' along with all time and differentiation began from a tiny point, how is it possible to envision an explosion happening without some pre-existing instability or outside influence?"

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the resonant freq based on the earth being 25k miles in circumferance and if it was made of steel.

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universe.... an Eb
....the resonant freq of the earth would be 474.066hz, between Bb and B.

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So only guys playing universals in B6 would be in tune with the earth,
and all D-10s should be tuned to Eb9 and Bb6....
Well at least the sax players would like that!

I haven't found that old article, possibly from Scientific American. But I think the beat frequency was measured by radio atronomers looking at cosmic background radiation that permiates everything.

I will try to warp my brain around brane.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 22 May 2003 at 05:26 AM.]

Big Bang...Big Crunch...Big Bang...etc

[This message was edited by Rick Aiello on 22 May 2003 at 06:37 AM.]

A few years back I remember reading that the once-only theory was winning the discussion. I'm glad the repetitive model has new life. They also pretty much pronounced the Steady State theory dead, although it offered some explanation about where all the dark matter came from that the Big Bang didn't account for. In the Steady State theory new matter is (I believe)infused into the known universe from outside. But, this is from several years ago.

I see this new theory postulates "dark energy" to explain some things. Well it makes sense I guess, dark energy to go with dark matter....

The article ends with this:

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Meanwhile, the new concept is not free of cracks, either: Even the cyclic universe does not address when the cycles began, so "the problem of explaining the ‘beginning of time’ remains," the researchers say.

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At that time the amount of matter for the Crunch to occur was far "under the limit" ... and he was working on calculations involving "Dark Matter".