Still struggling with the concept of 10 to the-37 seconds after the big bang (that's a Trillionth, of a Trillionth, of a Trillionth of a second). My personal take on 'time' is that it's just a concept, understandably invented by humans to make sense of the mysterious situation we find ourselves in, and doesn't actually exist! Fascinating program.
I'm certainly no physicist. I have thought about the concept of time a lot though. My ideas have come about as a result of experimenting with altered states of conciousness.
It's meant as a term to describe those who believe that their God will answer their prayers, whatever they may ask, if they pray long and "hard" enough - as in they are bothering God by their insistence on asking for things, rather than having the will to go out and change their own life for the better all by themselves. But then I'm sure you already knew that.
...and if you'd read the rest of the sentence and kept it in context, you would see that it was exactly the point I was making - "still just a theory that fits/solves some of the problems but does create others"
Antonye: I did read the whole post and i do take it in context and the word "Just" gives it the context of diminishing what theory actually means. A theory is true. Gravity is "just a theory" i invite you to test its power and measure "just" how fast you hit the ground from any reasonably challenging height.
Did anyone else see the "gravitational waves" programme last night? 14 years of research at the south pole and all they found was that what they were looking at was probably dust...
What's the problem with time? Seems all quite reasonable to me. You might meet a friend in a place which has 3 spatial coordinates, but last week, he wasn't there. If you wanted to meet him, he'd have to show up in 4 coordinates where you were expecting him. If he was there at the right time, but a mile off the ground, you still wouldn't find him. It's all the same stuff really, isn't it? Except that time isn't something we can move around freely in.
Horizon - 'Dancing in the dark' BBC2 now - doesn't say it's a repeat. be prepared to have your current beliefs challenged all you budding scientists 'machos' and 'wimps'.. lucky this didn't go out on April 1st.
Great programme, I thought. All this stuff is pretty exciting, is it not? Although I can't imagine having the resilience to spend 30 years of my life underground to try to prove a theory and in that time not gather a shred of evidence. When the guy says "we can expect one interaction in a ton of liquid per year" - well, watching grass grow or paint dry would be a lot more interesting. And you can't help but look at CERN and be amazed - at everything. Digging the Channel Tunnel was pretty amazing, but the this is something else. How does that stuff all work? Astonishing. I don't think they explained the rotational speed of galaxies very well though. Did they mean that all elements in the galaxy are travelling at the same speed, regardless of their distance to the centre, or did they mean that the thing is like a big disc and that the outside travels proportionately faster to keep its place relative to the parts nearer the centre (as on any spinning thing we know)? Is this different to what happens in the Solar System?
^ not qualified to give an anywhere near accurate reply - am still reeling at the Haydon Collider's ability to capture 40,000,000 images per second.
Glid Do the images of spiral galaxies that we see on such programmes look like straight spokes or curved ones ? therein lies the answer to the speed question
