AlphaBeta

Hey, I've been upgraded to quark status... cooooooooooooooooooool.

Thanks for the post, Martin - I'll google that ted talk - and also... you edited my last post at 7:37 and you posted your reply at 7:39... world's fastest typer?!!! lol

"as long as you can see examples from various stages of its existance." that's my entire question - how do we know what the stages look like, since we've never seen a full process carried out... like we have with a human - how do we actually know what the beginning stages of a star formation looks like, we have nothing to compare it to - and we'll never see this stage develop into a star... so, how could you confirm the claim - see... it's circumstantial. it's not a direct oberservation and I think maybe they are making claims they can't really put to the test, but that's why I'm here to find out what others say about it. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedto further clarify, if we had a time lapse video of the entire process of a star formation from start to finish than we would have the ability to recognize intermiediate stages before something is to become a star... but since we have never seen anything close to an entire start to finish formation of a star, how could we ever know what the first steps look like or some of the intermediate stages... it just seems like they are working from a conclusion backwards to me. they are using very superficial, circumstantial evidence to try and piece together the stages, but that doesn't seem all that scientific to me.

yea, but we have directly observed the entire process of an zygote developing into a human - so it's still a false analogy... we haven't directly observed the entire process of a star, because that is basically impossible given the time it would take... so what I'm saying is that it's not directly observable like the claims would lead you to believe... there is a lot of inference and filling in the gaps... and I'm just not too convinced that these claims can be substantiated in any scientific way... the gaps are simply too big in my opinion, to say we know what sequences of a star formation looks like since we never actually directly observed gases turning into a star... because it doesn't happen overnight - so it's really just educated guesses to me... even though they might be correct - I think it's deceptive to say we have observed the formation of a star... but I'm more interested in galaxy formation at this point.

i don't think the human analogy works because it's always teh form of a human just at difference sizes... a star being formed means stages where it is in no way a star or resembles a star - it might just be a gas cloud. so, i still want to know - how we can claim something is the formation of a star, at a point where it in no way resembles a star. but, if martin replies - I would rather know how we can tell a galaxy is forming, because I am incredulous that we can see anything like this... I think that it's just educated guesses, but there is no way to verify it or falsify the claim. if something resembles a galaxy, that's one thing - I'm talking about viewing something that in no way is a galaxy and saying this is a step in the formation of a galaxy and this will eventually be a galaxy - I'm referring to claims like that.

saying that we are looking back in time, makes no sense when talking about events that are going forward from present day and into the future... sure, if you are talking about a supernova than, it really doesn't matter... because we are talking about something coming apart. but, I still don't understand how we can claim to know what we are looking at... you agree it is highly theoretical, yea? meaning we can't actually verify it 100% directly, we are just taking educated guesses based on observations but we can never know if we are actually right or not wouldn't you agree.

hi, it seems as though I have read claims that we can see a galaxy or star form, but how deceptive is it to say that when it takes tens of millions of years at the very least for an event like this to happen, yes? so, how would we have any idea what we are actually looking at, that is to say if we have never seen a star being born how do we know we are looking at one of the stages in the birth of a star when the amount of time we have to view the process wouldn't even be equivalent to watching one still frame of a movie. they say we have seen a star being formed as if it's like watching a video of the event, but as I just explained we are basically watching a still picture of an event that occurs over millions of years so it's not actually possible to say we know what we are watching or that in 50 million years this event will produce a star. we can't even predict the weather more than a week away but we are to believe that we can predict cosmological events millions of years into the future. please explain.

Well, if space isn't made of anything... I want to know what gives it shape... that's how it was related to the thread.

Okay... say I just bought a goldfish and I had it in one of those clear, plastic bags filled with water. And let's say the sides of the bag represents the walls in a room... and the water in the bag represents the area in between the walls. If I remove the water from the bag, the bag will close in on itself, because the water is what gives the bag shape and holds the sides apart. So in the room... what is holding the walls apart?

"All space will have alot of neutrinos and photons in it." You are saying these things are IN the space... they're not the actual space itself. I'm talking about just the space. Space doesn't contain anything in and of itself, right? Also... look at the room you are in. Notice the space in between the walls. What is holding that space there i.e. what keeps the walls from closing up til there is no space inbetween them? If I said... what keeps an object from flying into the sky, you would say gravity... so what keeps things from moving side to side and eliminating space? How can space expand? Is that saying, new space is being created?

What maintains the distance? Why doesn't space collapse in on itself?

Aren't atoms only in matter? If so, what does space consist of? I know there are gases, but that's not the actual space itself. I mean, does space contain anything in and of itself? I'm referring to outer space and/or any space you may experience on Earth. If you look out into a room and observe all of the empty areas without objects, what does that space consist of? Besides any gases, the space itself is just nothingness, right? There are no atoms etc. contained within empty space, correct? I know this may sound like a dumb question, but it's something I've ever thought of before.