Strange

Doh.

Hadrons are particles made of two or more quarks, such as protons, neutrons or muons mesons. If you are thinking of the LHC, then the hadrons are protons.

The only thing less interesting than my own dreams is hearing about other people's.

I don't think you are stupid. But you are young and there is a lot to learn.

You can talk about single neutrinos. They are detected as single events (because they interact so rarely with detectors). But there are a lot of them out there; hence plural.

True. But the general principles are the same in most countries (especially with copyright where it is largely defined by the Berne Convention). But software is one of the major points of difference between patent laws in different jurisdictions.

The mathematics is part of the theory; you can't have a scientific theory without maths. But if you mean pure maths (as opposed to maths just used as part of a theory) then that is different: that is proved exactly. The behaviour of chemical reactions is not made up - they are facts. Similarly evolution, gravity and the behaviour of electric charges are not made up, they are facts. What is "made up" is the theories or models that describe how they work. Be careful: "made up" does not mean the same as making up a story. They are not just random imagination. They are precisely defined (i.e. mathematical) models that describe how things work. Different people have different theories and models. They will argue about which best explains the evidence, which one makes predictions that can be tested, etc.

Scientists are not 100% sure of anything! But there are good theoretical reasons to think that black holes exist. And things have been observed which are consistent with (and, perhaps, can only be explained by) black holes. General relativity is extremely well tested in many different ways, for many different situations.

In some countries but not others.

You cannot copyright ideas, only the representation. So there is nothing to stop you writing a story about a young boy living with his uncle and aunt, who then discovers he is a wizard and goes to a special school to learn magic ... Scientists get recognised because their work is published in journals. If their work is sufficiently groundbreaking, they may win various prizes and awards, appear in the media, become famous. But it is claimed that: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy

You could start here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html Exactly. The "big bang" is the description of an expanding universe evolving from an earlier hot, dense state. So the expansion IS the big bang. The trouble is that invoking an unknown has no value. You might as well say, what if it is flying unicorns pushing the galaxies away. What if it is a mass delusion created by aliens with a sense of humour. What if ... it is something unknown. That isn't science. Science looks at the evidence, builds models, tests them and, if necessary rejects or modifies them. We have a very good model. If you want to replace it, you need a lot better than "what if".

Neither. I will say: "show me the evidence". And it isn't something unknown. We have (overwhelming) evidence for the origin of the CMBR. So without (new) evidence or theory, there is no value to saying "it could be something else".

Not necessarily. The universe very obviously does not fit a steady state description, but we have no evidence yet about if (or how) it "began". The first part is true. But the existing explanation will only be modified/replaced when there is a better theory - probably based on new evidence. Without evidence, there is no point just making up "something unknown"; you might as well say Santa Clause did it.

Entirely possible. Probable, even. But why invoke an unknown when we have a perfectly good explanation already. Also, this has nothing to do with your first question. There are some theories along these lines. For example: http://www.stanford.edu/~alinde/ http://www.insidescience.org/content/every-black-hole-contains-new-universe/566 This is all pretty speculative though. I'm not sure it counts as science.

All physics theories are just "made up" models that describe some aspect of the world. These models allow us to do useful things like predict the motion of planets, describe black holes, create formulas for electrical engineering, and so on. Science is not about "truth"; just about better explanations and descriptions. I'm not sure what unresolved issues you are referring to....

The problem is not really one of accuracy. For many applications, Newtonian calculations will be more accurate than you could possibly measure. It is more about "domain of applicability" - once you get to certain velocities and energy (or mass) levels, then purely Newtonian calculations will start to give the wrong answers. Exactly where this cut off point is depends on what you are trying to calculate and how precisely.

I never looked (Nor at your signature.) We start out learning the simpler models that are "good enough". If you want to solve the sort of problems you will encounter in real life, then Newton is good enough. Expecting people to do several years of advanced (post graduate) math before they can calculate how fast a stone will fall is probably unrealistic. The same is true in all subjects. At school you learn that certain chemicals combine in certain ways. At university, you start to learn about how this explained by quantum theory and electron orbitals. This is sometimes known as "lying to children" but I think that is unfair; it is essential to start out with the simple models.

I had not realised that. I think you are doing very well. But, while it is great to have imagination and ideas, always rememebr that the first step for a scientist (or an engineer) is to test the idea. This can be as simple as a quick calculation to make sure it is in the right ballpark, or maybe a search for evidence that contradicts it (*) or, as you have done, discussing it on a forum like this. (*) Note: you can usually spot the "crank" theories because they will only look for evidence that confirms their idea. A good scientist (or engineer) will start out looking for things that will break their idea.

Except that light does not propagate by distorting space-time. However, the speed of light is determined by the permittivity and permeability of free space; I suppose you can think of these as defining the rate at which electric and magnetic fields can be changed. Only time will tell if there is some underlying reason why they have the values that they do. Actually that is only approximately true. In reality speeds do not add linearly like that (which is why nothing can accelerate to the speed of light). However, at these speeds, the difference is immeasurably small. It is important to realise that speed can only be measured relative to something else. So you can say the Earth is stationary (when calculating the orbits of satellites, for example) or that it is orbiting the (stationary) Sun. Or that the sun is moving relative to the galaxy. But these are all just arbitrary choices; there is no "real" velocity.

I don't think anyone is saying that. As ajb says, there needs to be an element of trust, though. Understanding why scientists believe the things they do, helps. In other words, understanding the basics of science, the evidence supporting current theories and, perhaps, the history that led to the currently accepted models can all help. Also, if you study science at university, you get to repeat a lot of the basic experiments (and your own variations on them) and see that they do produce the results you have been told. At some point, you have to extrapolate from knowing that these experiments work to accepting that the LHC (for example) actually does what is claimed. I will mention Sundance Osland Bilson-Thompson's work (if for no other reason than it is such a great name) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundance_Bilson-Thompson

Yes, the two object would both move - they would both "fall" towards their common center of gravity. This can usually be ignored but, for example, the Moon does not really orbit the Earth, both the Earth and the Moon orbit their "barycenter". (This is nothing to do with relativity, by the way. Except in the most general sense.) This makes no difference to Galileo's point. If you measure the rate of fall assuming the the Earth is stationary, then it makes no difference what the mass of the object is. If you analyse it from a different frame of reference, you will see the Earth move more towards the heavier object but the closing speed between the object and the Earth will still be independent of the mass of the object.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis

Ho do you propose to do that with no maths?

Most fundamental constants are, as far as we know, the same everywhere and at all times. (Note that g is not a fundamental constant, it is just a function of the size of the Earth.) Not sure why you are focussing on 1 here; it is just there because it works out that Coulomb's constant is inversely proportional to [latex]\displaystyle {4 \pi \epsilon_0}[/latex]. There are other representations that don't include 1; for example: [latex]\displaystyle \frac{c^2 u_0^2}{4 \pi}[/latex]. A more interesting question might be: why does Pi turn up in so many of these equations? I think the only reason that this value is often shown as 1/137.03... is because it was once thought to be exactly 1/137. They are. But only if you use Planck units. In the usual units we use (kilograms, meters, seconds, etc) then they are not equal to one. And note that it is the "reduced Planck constant" ([latex]\hbar[/latex]) that equals 1 in Planck units; h = [latex]2 \pi[/latex] (there it is again).

Good question. I think the answer is that it would lose mass. After all, raising a photon from the surface of the Earth lowers its energy (red shifts it). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound%E2%80%93Rebka_experiment But, of course, that change in energy (mass) is relative to an observer on Earth - someone travelling with the mass would see no change.