Phi for All

Moontanman is right, you've misinterpreted what the article said. When it talks about our galaxy being in "the centre of the pattern", it means this particular survey, not the center of the universe. We mapped over 100,000 galaxies around us, so naturally we're in the center of that model. The universe itself has no center.

The gaps in our scientific knowledge continue to close as we learn to apply rigorous methodology to discover the best, most evidenced explanations for various phenomena. God(s) still live in the gaps for many people, and secular education is the best investment overall as a cure for ignorance. Knowledge replaces fear in addition to inspiring us. It allows us to focus our rational minds where reasoned thinking is the best response, and subsequently teaches us how to best apply an emotional response as well. Knowledge and experience helps us build our morality. The more we know, the less we need to guess or hope that something is correct. Science doesn't ask for your faith; it wants to earn your trust by being thorough, reality-based, and worthy. Everything we understand through science is based on the natural world. Anything we can't yet explain we assume to have a natural explanation rather than a supernatural one. If it's outside of nature, science isn't the tool to use. Nothing is outside of the nature of reality, it seems, as we have no evidence to support supernatural explanations. In the end, using the supernatural in your belief system adds an unnecessarily nebulous, malleable, and powerful emotional perspective that's completely at odds with good science. God(s) can never be used in scientific explanations until they all agree to become observable and predictable.

The BB wasn't an explosion, it was a rapid expansion from a previously hot, dense state. Everything everywhere expanded at the same time. The space between matter grew until it allowed for enough cooling to develop everything from stars to planets to elements, and space continues to expand around matter even now.

! Moderator Note This is a science discussion forum. If you'd read any of the rules you agreed to when you joined, you'd know we have mainstream sections (like Astronomy and Cosmology), and we have less formal sections (like the Lounge, Politics, Religion), and we have a section just for people like you who like to speculate (we call it Speculations). We NEED to keep the mainstream sections clear of untested guesswork so students can rely on us for explanations. I hope you can understand why we have these rules. We certainly understand if you are rethinking your membership and wish to leave. There are plenty of places on the web for wild guesswork and rigor-free pop-science what-ifs. This isn't one of them, no hard feelings. ! Moderator Note Be civil, follow the rules, or you'll be banned like anyone else.

The same types of benefits we all get when we deal with well-educated countrymen. Public education means better employees for companies we all deal with daily. It's not a handout, it's an investment in something we used to be proud of. You know, our people. Better education under the GI Bill meant higher paying jobs, more money going through the economy, and more revenue collected. Of course it provided a benefit for those who didn't serve. You just have to look past the whole "giving my tax dollars away so someone else can be smarter than me" perspective. It's about cooperation that advances the society as a whole, not about who you think is worthy.

I think we all naturally know we're more effective when we cooperate and help each other. I'm starting to see it on the roads here in Colorado, people embracing the zipper merge on the highway, instead of zooming to get the best personal position so everyone else has to step on the brakes. Traffic works so well when viewed as a cooperative effort instead of a race. Most things do. When it comes to public funding, we start out pretty cooperative. Let's help everyone who needs it, no more hunger, get these folks some medicine. Then some people start feeling like that's too generous, or that some of those indigents may not deserve our help, may not be worthy. I think that's America's biggest problem, we let our fearful conservatives start putting stipulations on the help we give, the cooperation we show to each other as humans and fellow countrymen. These are the people who can't wrap their heads around what a courageous, hopeful investment free education through college really is. These are the folks who later claim they never got any help when they were bootstrapping their way towards The Dream. The same folks who ignore history, and the fact that our country's greatest times of prosperity were when we fully funded public projects like the GI Bill, the interstate highway system, and NASA's race to the moon. For some reason, the general welfare is of little concern to these folks, or at least not enough to spend their tax dollars on. I think that's a big problem. To me, it's un-American.

Pretty handy to have a physicist working with atomic clocks for the US Naval Observatory when it comes to questions about time, isn't it?

! Moderator Note Our rule 2.1 states that Slurs or prejudice against any group of people (or person) are prohibited. Please don't use terms like this, it's completely unnecessary. Report this post if you don't agree, but don't talk about it off-topic in this thread.

I don't think you know what a dimension is. It's not a place where a black hole can result.

! Moderator Note Hey, jeffellis, this is the mainstream science area. Please don't bring your pet concepts up here, we have students who trust these sections to help them with school. More rigor, please.

We qualified our responses, and made sure to place criticism where it seemed most apt. You, however, have seen fit to offer your own ill-conceived, non-mainstream, wishful thought about something you can't possibly know about. Anything before t=0 is sheer conjecture. Further, you base a conclusion (life in our universe has always existed) on that shaky premise, more bad reasoning. Stars are alive?! Do you have anything to support this statement, other than a tortured definition of life you've cobbled together for this purpose? Actually, don't answer here. Start your own thread instead of hijacking this one, and make sure to put it in our Speculations section. This is a mainstream section.

Why are we "extremely inefficient", though? Is it because we aren't very good at it? Is it because good practices are being overshadowed by bad ones, creating a negative net effect? Is it because for the last decade, the Republicans have tried to put so much distance between themselves and the Obama administration, to try to limit him to a single term and crush his influence, that they've practiced obstructionism and sabotaged good legislation just because it had bi-partisan support?

Scott Mayers has been suspended for 2 weeks, also for abusing the PM system. Folks, the staff here are volunteers. We're happy to discuss just about anything. Please leave the profane abuse in your house, though; we aren't interested in the least.

! Moderator Note melo13, please note that if you EVER start a thread like this in our mainstream science sections again, you will be banned. This horrible, grotesque goulash of religious ignorance, fallacious generalities, rigor-free pseudo-reasoning, and make-believe math holds absolutely zero potential for intelligent discussion. Trash. Total trash.

It seems clear that the preponderance of evidence for mainstream explanations of reality makes the existence of god(s), with its significant lack of such evidence, seem like wishful thinking, hoping something is true without any basis in reality. On my list of perspectives that help me more fully understand the world around me, the theist perspective offers me so little I don't consider it much at all. If it suddenly demonstrated some trustworthiness, or if a god decided to become observable and predictable, I would most certainly revisit my reasoning in the matter. Is that atheistic close-mindedness?

! Moderator Note Any of the ones we won't be talking about here, since this is a science discussion forum, and this is the Modern/Theoretical Physics section (though that may need to change very soon).

david345 has been suspended for two weeks for abusing the PM system.

Science can help, but only mainstream science, something you haven't taken the time to learn so far. The big question is whether you're willing to learn, or if you're wedded to this insane, bastardized approach that forces you to redefine terminology and torture words to make them fit the ideas in your head. Your idea (it's not a theory; theory doesn't mean what you think it means) talks about infinity as if it were a real thing (something that can be found, something that can be seen), possibly even a real number, instead of the abstract mathematical concept it is. You need some basic science, formally taught and designed to cover your foundational understanding. It looks like you've tried to piece together some bits of pop-sci you've read, filling in the gaps created by a lack of education with a lot of word salad and made up "logic". Please, no offense is intended, I'm talking about how your idea can be further developed, not about you personally. I also came up with a theory on unicorns which was said to only need a Princeton backing by a physicist. I never did get it, though.

! Moderator Note Well then, thread closed.

Gore is to climate change what Darwin is to creationists. Arguments using examples like these are basically pretending no new knowledge has come forth since the time of Gore/Darwin.

It sounds like you went on an emotional roller-coaster for a while, so you made some decisions based on those emotions, decisions that would have been made more accurately using reason and rational thought. "Bizarre set of experiences" is exactly the type of events where science is the best tool to use, and religion is the worst. Just remember that faith is asking you to believe very strongly, with all your heart, in something you can't possibly know. Science asks you to trust the explanations that have the most supportive evidence to back them up. You should think hard about how you apply your faith, and your trust.

Disagreeing with you should not be viewed as such a False Dilemma. It's possible you might be wrong as well as being told so in an intelligent, honest, and relevant manner.

! Moderator Note Moved to Homework Help, where we will NOT give you the answers, but if you let us know where you are with the problems, we can guide you to finding them on your own.

In my experience, it seems they avoid learning too much about an idea because the more they do, the more that nagging voice of reason tells them they're probably wrong, and they don't like that. They're banking on other people coming up with solidity for their airy claims, and when no one does, it probably seems like they're some sort of underdog, and they need to fight the establishment no matter what.

Oooh, change of plans! Put a liner in the crawlspace and install a glass floor. Et voila!