Dekan

This is a good question. And the answer is found, by looking at it from the viewpoint of the speck of dust. The dust-speck is not moving, relative to anything in its close-by environment. It's just floating in space, calmly. It has a natural rest-mass. Which is not increasing, or doing anything, except staying the same mass always, peacefully. The puny speck doesn't know about an approaching interstellar spacecraft, such as Fanghur's inspiring AM-powered Centauri Ship. This ship, travelling at 0.5c, will have gained huge relativistic mass. Which will enable it to smash a mere dust particle aside! Like a rolled-up New York Times swatting a fly on the wall. So small specks of interstellar dust won't present any problems to future starships.

Thanks michael. But doesn't BB Theory state that everything in the Universe started from a tiny original particle? Which was smaller than any particle known today. Smaller than an electron, for example. Yet this sub-electron-sized speck, somehow contained within it trillions of trillions of trillions of electrons. Not to mention quarks and gluons. And these all burst out, and created the massive structures that we see today. Like the Earth, Jupiter, the Sun, the whole Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, all the other Galaxies - billions of them - huge arrays of matter - and all from a tiny BB seed smaller than an electron? It does sound a bit unlikely, don't you think? I mean, really! I hesitate to mention angels dancing on pinheads, but that's what it looks like. Not Science, but Theology.

Well, they had to find it. Because otherwise all their work, and the public expense of building the LHC, would a waste of time and money. Big projects like the LHC have to produce results. So they don't get shut down. "If Higgs did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it." Didn't some old philosopher made a similar point?

Well, even Einstein didn't accept the Big Bang, that's why he introduced the Cosmological Constant, so I think he and I are right.

Obviously, the absurd "Big Bang" theory has been a passing idea. Destined to be laughed at by future astronomers. You wanna bet that a modified "Steady State" theory will be orthodox in 2030?

So if there's no centre of the Universe, how can the Universe be expanding? Won't it always be the same size?

But isn't that idea only valid, in a "Steady State" Universe. In which there's no central "universal" point of origin. And therefore, no central reference point, from which to make "universal" temporal and spatial measurements. That makes good sense in a Steady State Universe, which has always existed, spread out evenly and uniformly, through Time and Space. With no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end. However the currently fashionable Big Bang theory is different. It claims that the Universe started suddenly at a specific point in time, and from a specific central point. Shouldn't this point provide a base, from which to make measurements?

India seems an abnormal state. Consider: it contains 1.2 billion people. These people don't support themselves. They rely on food and medical assistance from Europe and the US. Without such assistance, what would happen to India. Wouldn't it quickly collapse. Then, in its death-spasms, fire nuclear missiles at Pakistan, before disintegrating into an orgy of cannibalism. Such incompetence wouldn't happen in Europe, even in Hungary.

You raise a deep question - what is enlightenment? Modern religions seem to involve the reading of sacred texts. Like the Bible, Koran, and Talmud. These texts may give rise to valuable thoughts and feelings. But do the texts give the readers "actual powers", to use your phrase. Must an enlightened person display actual supernatural powers?

I've studied the above posts, as best I can. Yet they don't dispel this feeling: That right now - at this exact moment - an event is happening on Earth, and an event is happening in the M.31 Andromeda Galaxy, and the two events are simultaneous.

Could that explain why the media, and government, made such a hoo-hah about the trivial Boston incident. Is it the excuse, or justification, for increased governmental control?

Perhaps "silly" isn't the right word. A better word might be "human". As that includes all the absurdities of human behaviour. I mean, a US President goes to Boston, and sheds crocodile tears about a few innocent people who got blown up by a couple of improvised explosive devices. While the same President, is accompanied always by the famous nuclear "football". This contains the codes for a nuclear attack on Russia. It enables the President to order the death of millions of innocent people. By blast, burning, or radioactive poisoning. Entire cities incinerated, Russia scorched and ruined. Death and destruction on a scale unprecedented in human history. Given this huge destructive power available to US politicians, doesn't worrying about a few improvised guns or bombs seem a fairly minor matter?

I think it is silly, for obvious reasons.

Suppose you're right. Then you must be a genuine alien. As such, you can give valuable information to us mere simulated Earth people. Please provide this as soon as you can.

Human show free-will, because they can choose to commit suicide. No animals do that. I mean, can you give an example of an animal that willfully kills itself? (Lemmings have been sufficiently debunked already.) Animals are controlled by instinct, which would never allow an animal to commit suicide. Only humans can do it. Doesn't that prove we have free-will, and ultimate control over our actions?

The US President is prepared to order thousands of nuclear bombs to be fired at Russia. Each bomb would incinerate thousands, or millions, of innocent human beings. Is the President a psychopath? Or is this discussion too silly for words. When a war starts, every man does his duty, destroys the enemy, and gets a medal, when we win.

Isn't that the wrong way round? More likely: - Emotionally, they want to believe the person is in a better place, ie heaven. - Intellectually, they know the person is extinct. This encapsulates the essential distinction between Religion and Science. One is based on wishful thinking, the other on hard facts. Mind you, nowadays the distinction seems to be getting less clear-cut.

Point taken - Speculations is more appropriate. I appreciate such a courteous telling-off, thanks!

It's possibly how our memories work. They enhance beauty, and pleasure. Please consider, if you will, this passage from C S Lewis's book "Out of the Silent Planet". A Martian hross, Hyoi, is explaing to Ransom: "A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered...when you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it..." Ransom says: "In a poem, does a hross never long to hear one splendid line over again?" Hyoi replies: "The poem is a good example. For the most splendid line becomes fully splendid only by means of all the lines after it; if you went back to it, you would find it less splendid than you thought." I've usually found that to be true. Fond memory brings the light of other days around us, but the remembered light is brighter and more beautiful, than it actually was at the time.

Sorry, I didn't realise the Higgs cannot be questioned, I suppose it's an article of faith, like Global Warming?

The Higgs "particle" has a short name. It'll have a short life-span. In 50 years, it'll be history, like Q-Rays, Protoplasm or the Currant-Bun Atom.

The above posts are very valuable. They seem to show that in order to explain "Gravity", we must get back to the neutron - which is not a positive particle, like the proton, nor a negative particle, like the electron. The neutron is halfway between them. It joins two opposites together. A binding force, if you will. Consider: suppose the Universe contained only protons. They'd all fly apart from each, repelled by their mutual positive charge. And, if the Universe contained only electrons, they'd do the same, repelled by their mutual negative charge. In either case - you'd never get "Gravity", which allows protons and electrons to cohere into atoms, and so make planets and stars. So "Gravity" must be caused by a third particle. Is it the neutron?

Can you clarify that please, if there's more space between them, aren't they further apart?

Very interesting posts. Reminiscent of two books by Dennis Wheatley: "They Found Atlantis", and "The Devil Rides Out".

Don't the above posts show that we want a nuclear bomb to explode, and are gagging for it?