July 02, 2007

• '...an intrinsic cosmic forgetfulness'. I love living in an age when the scientists sound flakier than the mystics.
• Somebody lit The Big Fuse.
• God said, "hey, pull my finger!"
• A whole lot of bedspring squeaking and cries of "Right there" and "Oh God"
• "Nothing" "happened."
• I vould like to return zis universe - eet is scratched.
• Fuck all. Except for perhaps the previous universe contracting back into nothingness, but that's never been confirmed.
• Well, how would you all know? Were you, like, THERE?? *takes cranky attitude for walk
• You know what they say: there's science, and then there's speculation. Then there's wild speculation. Then there's astrophysics. I can't really take the Big Bang itself very seriously: it's kind of a huge amount of conclusion to rest on basically a tiny snapshot of evidence. And I just feel that in ten years they'll be saying it was all wrong and everything is really down to indescribably tiny 42-dimensional grains of purple spotted ether located behind the Crab Nebula, and if we can just put up a $10 bazillion ionising cosmoscope they'll be able to get a single marginal observation which when interpreted by the experts confirms the theory of Loopy Quantas Gravy and allows some bunch of geeks to make TV programmes explaining how they Know the Mind of God. Or something.
• Honestly, I didn't mean to do it. I was just looking.
• that's okay roryk, things explode all the time. Have a beer.
• Yep, that universe blowed up real good.
• REAL good!
• Mmm, beer. Wheat as a treat!
• Mommy, Roryk touched it!!!
• darling, you seem bitter. Did a physicist pee in your oatmeal this morning?
• it was like that when I got here.
• It is true that Steven Hawking hit on my Gramma once, the smooth-talking sonofabitch: but I try not to let that influence me.
• This is what happened before the big bang: God said let there be light, and there was light; let there be sound, and there was sound; let there be guitars, whoa, there were guitars; let there be rock -- and then it happened.
• I can't really take the Big Bang itself very seriously: it's kind of a huge amount of conclusion to rest on basically a tiny snapshot of evidence. Tiny snapshot of evidence? Harumph! The Big Bang is certainly among the better validated theories in science. (Feast your eyes on the Four Pillars of the Hot Big Bang!) Loop quantum gravity, on the other hand, is the basis of this article, and it's complete pie in the sky: a playground for mathematicians but not a whit of observational evidence as yet.
• What interests me is that no matter what the theory, we can't 'know' - only speculate. No matter how accurate a mathematical model may be! The two free parameters, which Bojowald found were complementary, represent the quantum uncertainty in the total volume of the universe before and after the Big Bang. "These uncertainties are additional parameters that apply when you put a system into a quantum context such as a theory of quantum gravity," Bojowald said. "It is similar to the uncertainty relations in quantum physics, where there is complimentarity between the position of an object and its velocity -- if you measure one you cannot simultaneously measure the other." Similarly, Bojowald's study indicates that there is complementarity between the uncertainty factors for the volume of the universe before the Big Bounce and the universe after the Big Bounce. "For all practical purposes, the precise uncertainty factor for the volume of the previous universe never will be determined by a procedure of calculating backwards from conditions in our present universe, even with most accurate measurements we ever will be able to make," Bojowald explained. This discovery implies further limitations for discovering whether the matter in the universe before the Big Bang was dominated more strongly by quantum or classical properties. Human lives are of such short duration, this very factor limits any real 'scientific' observation. We 'think' from a miniscule 'time line' within such vastness of universal events. Mathematics may find an answer (and "God" is most certainly not it)! We have to question whether that will happen in our lifetime. Observation from a microcosmic perspective (research into how the brain 'works', for instance) may hold more 'clues' than that of the macroscopic. By the very fact of observation, we change the object that is observed. This must hold true of "Big Bangs/Big Bounces" and the like. We are also limited by what we are able to observe, and also by the personalities of the observers. Not only that, calculating backwards (historical observation) as commented upon, remains inaccurate at best (and often wildly so). Speculation and the creation of new mathematical models has to be fun though. Imagine the flight of the minds concerned. Neurons firing like mini-suns. What fun to put them into an MRI and observe their brains sparking all over the place.
• Hey! Stephen Hawking and I did NOT have a "thing" going. He was just someone I knew. A friend. Alright, a close friend. A friend with privileges. It wasn't such a big bang. Just get over it. Yer GramMa's old--she ain't dead.
• The BB is becoming an article of faith in direct proportion to the evidence for dark energy. If it looks like an explosion, and moves like an explosion it may well be an explosion, but it ain't necessarily so.
• There is always a certain element of doubt among scientists about any given theory - that's how science works. The kind of certainty we think of as "certain" as laymen just doesn't exist in science. Without doubt, there could be no scientific method, and no need for it. No theory of anything is 100% beyond any possibility of the shadow of doubt, as no human or group of humans in omniscient. We do the best we can with the observations we can make.
• We do the best we can with the observations we can make. That's a nice concise definition of science.
• I prefer the definition: 'a bunch of clever crazies in white coats mucking about with hubbly-bubbly tubes in labs all day'. Captures the essence, methinks.