Something from Nothing

[Interference]

Does any of the people involved have a ping-pong bat?

[skeptical]

Sorry RJ
That ball aint a gonna move.

[RJM Corbet]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

42.....

42? The meaning of life? Greenland?

[Vertigo]

Nah... Scandanavia, with all the nice wiggly bits along the coastline.

[RJM Corbet]

Yah, those are the best bits ...

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by Heck Tate

That's why some of the extra dimensions/multiple universes theories have always seemed like a cop-out to me. If there really is absolutely no way to detect or perceive something, then for all intensive purposes it doesn't exist.

Foghorn Leghorn in Little Boy Boo: "I better not look. I just might be in there."

Chrispenycate wrote: as Heinlein mentioned in “The number of the beast” a mathematician can write an equation describing anything...but just because it was mathematically consistent didn’t mean it had any relationship with “reality”

Bingo. Math is merely a language, not a gateway to "truth" or Platonic reality. It cannot "prove" anything. If a mathematical model does not dovetail with reality, then it is the model that must be changed.

Physics Has Its Principles

Creation ex nihilo is forbidden in physics because it requires a miracle. Everything that exists comes from something that existed before, that has grown, or fragmented, or changed form.

And while people are tripping out on the same bong the theoretical physicists are smoking, the wild and exotic anti-matter (responsible for evil twins and particles that travel backward in time) is spawned in mundane, everyday lightning storms:

Thunderstorms on Earth Hurl Antimatter Into Space

"Just a year or so ago, it wasn't at all obvious that something like this should happen," Dwyer said.

[RJM Corbet]

Good stuff. Let's hope Obama doesn't reduce NASA's funds ...

[Metryq]

Originally Posted by RJM Corbet

Good stuff. Let's hope Obama doesn't reduce NASA's funds ...

It wouldn't matter. Their primary objectives now are the useless task of landing people on an asteroid (minor planet/small Solar system body), and making Muslims feel good about themselves. Forget the science.

Anyway, private companies like SpaceX will be stepping in to supply NASA with vehicles after the shuttle fleet is retired.

[Interference]

Perceiving something and proving to someone else that you have perceived it can be tricky. Paranormal events are unprovable because so many of them are personal, some extremely so. And I use "proof", in this case, in both its ancient and current senses.

I think there are many through the ages who are adamant that they have experience of other realities, but these can never be explored with science. However, mystics and philosophers have explored them, but not to the satisfaction of mundane science.

However however, science seems (at last) to be catching up - finally

[RJM Corbet]

Yah, that's the point -- and the problem is that when someone like Buzz Aldrin sees a 'UFO' (for want of a better word), following the Apollo on its way to the moon -- he doesn't dare report it because he knows that the lunatic fringe and a whole lot of silly new agey types, are going to grab it, fondle it up all spiritually spiritually, and make him look ridiculous...

[Interference]

Have the last twenty years of science fiction and super-hero films been a preparation for us? Are we being readied for acceptance of the Ultra Strange?

Bring it on, I say

[Ursa major]

Now if you could just define what beyond strange means....

[Interference]

Something so strange that even the strangest strangeness you could ever suspect of being strangely strange isn't strange enough to describe the strangitude of the stranger-than-that before you.


Hope that clarifies

[Ursa major]

Strangely, no.... Not at bottom.


(And to top it all, and when it comes down to it: if you'd used more charm, you'd have upped your chance of success.)

[Interference]

Now you're jus' stringin' us along ....