Strange

This is still a science forum. If you have a new idea that is based on solid evidence and/or a mathematical basis, then you can discuss it in the Speculations area. If it is just stories you made up, with no basis in reality, then you need to find somewhere else.

This seems the obvious category. I would say possible (because it is impossible to disprove) but not plausible (as there is no supporting evidence nor any need for such a hypothesis). There would need to be specific, objective evidence to support the hypothesis. Evidence that could not be explained any other way. That evidence would probably have to include several, or all, of the forms you mention (any one of them alone would not be sufficient). As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. (Although several items in your list are pretty meaningless.)

In Russia, the cat puts you in box.

There is no evidence that it is an external process. And the laws of physics work fine without it.

Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?

If you aren't read and able to explain your idea, then why did you start this thread.

No one said that. Where do you get the idea that antimatter is like a black hole? That is just nonsense.

So space is not a form of matter. Why did you say it was? You haven't yet provided any evidence for these "space pockets". In fact you haven't explained what you mean in a coherent way. It almost sounds like something you made up. Please show the mathematics behind this model. Please show how the predictions of this model differ from other theories so that it can be tested. If you can't do that, please explain why we should take this seriously.

The universe seems to have existed for several billion years without anything being aware of it. I assume it is quite happy to exist without external validation.

It seems it was a lot less dense than the sun. Much less dense than the atmosphere, even. A reasonably good vacuum, in fact. Which I find rather surprising. And not even that hot (about 3000K). I assume it was just the fact it was fully ionised that made it opaque.

Only Mike can say ...

The conditions before the CMB were not particularly extreme. I think we can reproduce similar conditions on Earth. As ajb alluded to, there was a much earlier period when the weak field and the electromagnetic field separated out from the electroweak field. So, if you like, there is the origin of the electromagnetic field. But that just pushes the question back to: where did the electroweak field that permeated all of space, come from?

At the risk of being branded an elitist again, Mondrian? Rodin is the sculptor who does representational stuff - the thinker, the kiss, the gates of hell, etc. (When I saw The Kiss in real life, it is an incredibly powerful piece.)

The paper is here: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=7436649 And the news story: https://www.csail.mit.edu/parallel_programming_made_easy So it doesn't sound like there is anything very novel here, in terms of concepts. Similar methods have been implemented on standard hardware before . But with modern technology you can put a lot of these processors (and a lot of memory) on one chip. Because in parallel programming there is typically a large overhead for creating tasks, synchronizing and scheduling tasks, communication between tasks, etc. Also, explicitly parallel programs are more often more complex because they have to handle splitting the work or data up, and then recombining the results. Where a processor has hardware support for these things, then you can write much simpler code.

Who knows. How would you tell the difference?

What?

It is a good programming exercise. And there are plenty of applications where more precision is required than can be provided by ints or doubles. Well, you wouldn't use Javascript for a real application ... From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_size Which implies the need to handle 1,000 digit numbers. (More if you are worried the NSA might be after you...)

You mention the Higgs field - do you have a similar problem with that existing everywhere? And all the other fields?

No. As ajb says, the CMB is just radiation so it required the field to be there. We are also confident that there was electromagnetic radiation for the 350000 years before the CMB was released.

You could start here: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=brain+plasticity+simulation Or, if you want a model to play with: http://www.nest-simulator.org Or, if you have supercomputer lying around: http://bluebrain.epfl.ch Note that plasticity does not change the "shape" of the brain. From the Blue Brain site: Plasticity: The ability of a synapse, a neuron or a neuronal circuit to change its properties in response to stimuli or the absence of stimuli.

This is a handy calculator for finding out the characteristics of black holes: http://xaonon.dyndns.org/hawking/ You can enter any parameter (mass, temperature, etc) and find out all the others. (I was planning to create a page like this, then found this one.)

Good point. Eventually the universe will be cold and sparse enough that even large black holes will evaporate slowly. Really, really slowly. Have you heard the Buddha's description of eternity, where he asks you to imagine a large mountain that is wiped gently with a soft cloth once every thousand years until it disappears? That is nothing compared to the lifetime of a black hole!

Oh, very good. I guessed 0 (because why else would you ask...) http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp

The trouble is that for a hole larger than about 1/100th the mass of the Earth, it will gain more mass from the cosmic microwave background than it will radiate, even if we ignore inflating gas and dust. Such a black hole would be fractions of a millimetre in size and have a lifetime of billions of years (even if it didn't absorb and mass or energy. So the only black holes that will explode are minute and almost certainly non-existent.

You can regard it as the medium for electromagnetic radiation, but it is not "space itself". The distance between tow points (you and your beer glass, for example) is "space". It is just a measurement. You don't need a field for that. I am a little surprised that, as an engineer, you have not come across the electromagnetic field before. Also, there are multiple fields that permeate all of space. There is one for each type of fundamental particle and interaction. The electron field, the Higgs field, etc. No, gravitational waves do not travel through the electromagnetic field. They travel through space-time. Which can be treated as another field.