Strange

For example, a better model is that the Sun and the Earth both orbit a common point, the barycentre. And then ... we might consider that they both orbit the centre of the galaxy. But then we have to start thinking about dark matter, otherwise the model is not accurate. But then we have to ask what dark matter is ...

But that is not what the OP said.

Is it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox In other words, the coast is model-dependent.

Or maybe, no: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele–Keating_experiment

It is certainly way better than Windows 8. To be honest, I wondered what you were talking about when you said this. But apparently it is a thing: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/windows-10-receives-full-linux-command-prompt/ I use cygwin to get access to a lot of tools that are not readily available on Windows. It isn't clear that they will be available via this new compatibility layer though.

Citation needed. But that isn't what the thread is about. Unless you are also saying that nature is energy.

Some people seem to trust their instinct more than data. They seem willing to dismiss highly accurate and powerful theories as "vague" (*) or wrong, simply because it doesn't "feel right" (for some vague reason. This often leads them to assume that the only reason that the ideas are accepted is because "Einstein said" or because "it is written in a book" or it is "atheistic" (or similar; there is a right-wing Anti-Wikipedia which claims that black holes don't exist because they are a left-wing invention). And from that they conclude that there is no evidence for the theory in the first place. So they may refer to it as "just" a theory, not realising that "theory" means it is strongly supported by evidence and well-tested. Ho hum. (*) The OP just referred to GR as "vague" in another thread (which I didn't want to derail further). To dismiss one of the most mathematically complex and highly accurate (and well tested) theories as "vague" simply because you don't like it (for vague, undefinable reasons) is the height of .... what ? Hubris, is perhaps the politest word I can come up with.

Redefining words to mean something else, especially when that something is is itself poorly defined, is rarely useful.

Please present your idea here so people can respond to it. I watched a few seconds. It looks like some assertions made with no supporting evidence or theory. I assume that is because video is a crap medium for such things. Now that you have come here to engage in a discussion, you can present the evidence and the math behind your ideas and we can discuss it.

You could try PM'ing Micehl123456: http://www.scienceforums.net/user/19758-michel123456/ Good luck. (Love the Irish accent in the first post)

1) Equation 1 is incomplete and not applicable to things with no rest mass (i.e. light / photons). 2) The assumption in sentence 2 is contradicted by evidence. 3) Therefore, equation 2 is meaningless because of (1) and (2) 4) The "solution" of equation 2 is mathematically nonsense, physically meaningless and contradicted by evidence. I don't think it is worth going any further. But please feel free to answer Bignose's challenges.

Not take part in beta decay. Not have mass. Not have half-integer spin. Remind me again, what characteristics did you say they have in common?

What characteristics do you think they have in common?

What characteristics do you think they have in common?

Why do you keep mentioning factorials? How is that connected? The efficiency of RLE depends on the structure and patterns in the data. Which is true for all compression algorithms.

Exactly. It is very, very hard to come up with a useful definition of "real". And everyone has their own internal model of what it means. I am not sure that using instruments is any different than using our senses. They are just instruments for observing the world. If you have to wear glasses to make your observation, does that make things less real? (Are glasses "instruments"?) What about a microscope? An electron microscope? An atomic-force microscope? Are microwaves less real than light, because we need an instrument to detect them? And what if those microwaves started out as visible light (e.g. the CMB)? Did that light become "unreal" at some point? It's tough.

It doesn't say non-expanding. It says, for example: "Using the quantum-corrected Raychaudhuri equation, Ali and Das derived quantum-corrected Friedmann equations, which describe the expansion and evolution of universe" The presence of the CMB killed that idea a few decades ago. It isn't. It makes no real difference to the big bang model if the universe is finite or infinite. (And note that when I say "big bang" I am not referring to some (possibly non-existent) moment of creation. It is a model (or family of models) that describes the evolution of the universe from a hot dense state.)

I apologise. Its been a bad day. That's weird. Try this one: http://www.livescience.com/49958-theory-no-big-bang.html '"Our theory suggests that the age of the universe could be infinite," said study co-author Saurya Das, a theoretical physicist at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, Canada.' It is either infinite (and therefore, by definition, unbounded) or finite and unbounded. They seem to be the only possibilities in current models. Yes, the number 250 is based on the measured flatness (more accurately, perhaps, the error bounds on that flatness). Giving a lower limit does not exclude infinity (I think we can all agree that infinity is larger than 250 ) Yes you can. Lets take the infinite set of odd numbers. Now add the number 4 to that set. The set is still infinite. Now add to that the rest of the infinite set of even numbers. The size of the set is still infinite. Expansion is a scaling effect. It is easiest to consider this constant in time and space (which is close enough for the moment). Consider a number of galaxies separated by the same distance (far enough apart that the expansion of space is significant and the same between all of them). At time 0, they are 1 unit apart: A.B.C.D.E.F After some time they are 2 units apart: A..B..C..D..E..F After the same time again, they are 3 units apart: A...B...C...D...E...F And so on: A....B....C....D....E....F Now, if we look at the distance between B and C, for example, it increases by 1 at every time step. But the distance between B and D increases by 2 at every step. So the distance between B and D is increasing twice as fast as the distance between B and C; i.e. the speed of separation is twice as great. Choose any pairs of galaxies and you will see that apparent the speed of separation is proportional to the distance between them. Take two objects far enough apart and the speed of separation will be greater than the sped of light. We can trace back the state of the (observable) universe and calculate the radius at various times in the past. For example, when the CMB was released, the radius was about 4 billion light years. That is about 360,000 thousand years after the (notional) time zero. Off the top of my head, I don't know what the size was at the earliest times we can model but as they are fractions of a second rather than thousands of years it is going to be pretty small.

The first sentence is: The universe may have existed forever, according to a new model that applies quantum correction terms to complement Einstein's theory of general relativity. Indeed. This is an initial attempt to include quantum effects. It is, however, consistent with all the evidence we have. What you are describing is the alternative to infinite in size: "finite but unbounded" (the usual 2D analogy is the surface of the Earth). That is the observable universe, not the whole universe. The whole universe is expected to be many times larger than that (or infinite). It is also possible that the whole universe is smaller than the observable universe! No that is NOT what they say. 250 is a LOWER BOUND. Of course it isn't. Take the natural numbers; there are infinite number of them. Now multiply them all by two; you have "expanded" the number line but it is still infinite. Or look at the Hilbert Hotel paradox. Or ... Sigh. Expansion is not a speed. Expansion is not a speed. Expansion is not a speed. ... I don't have the time (or patience) to explain the difference between scaling and speed right now. I'll come back to it ...

That isn't what he said. And that isn't what GR says. All (modern) models of an infinitely old universe are based on GR.

That is not what commutative means. That makes absolutely no sense. Maybe you should study compression algorithms. You might be surprised to find that a lot of work has been done on this already. You could start with run length encoding as one of the simplest (and still useful) techniques. Whether you can (on average) compress 8 bits to 4 depends on the data.

Here is a recent example: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html (This has prompted some of the worst examples of science reporting ever.)

"Before" (in the current model) is a meaningless word. And, while the idea of an infinitely old universe is currently hypothetical, it is solidly based in science and is not "metaphysical speculation".

Indeed. However, the big bang model describes the evolution of the universe from a hot dense state. It doesn't go back to any notional time zero, nor does it say anything about the creation of the universe.

There are various models that involve an infinitely old universe. If we are talking about the classic big bang model then there is not before (the question literally has no meaning, like :what is north of the north pole). Other answers depend on the nature of the model. It could be that the universe is cyclic, or the singularity is an infinite time in the past, or our universe is only one inflation among many, or ... The word "look" in this context is purely metaphorical. We can talk about what the universe "looked like" 13.7 billion years ago even though it is impossible there was anyone to see it. What is meant is "what was [will be] the nature of the universe at that time". Also, much of what we "see" in the universe involves infra-red, ultraviolet, gamma rays, radio waves, neutrinos, gravitational waves, and many other things we can't see with our eyes. We can talk about what the universe "looks like" in any of those forms. The word "look" is not intended to be taken literally. It is a METAPHOR.