26-01-2016, 09:35 AM
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The Reith Lectures
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06pttqf<<Professor Stephen Hawking delivers the first of his two BBC Reith Lectures on black holes.>>
Starting this morning at 9.
(Not sure where to post this.)
26-01-2016, 11:57 AM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
I used to download the Reith Lectures though I haven't for a few years. The best I ever heard were by Dr Steve Jones on Evolution and DNA, after listening to them I either bought or borrowed Steve Jones' books.He was working at the time at the Galton Laboratory in London (Galton was the man who coined the word Eugenics and also created the science of identification by fingerprints). I think Steve Jones writes is far more accessibly than Richard Dawkins.
I once tried to read Hawkins' 'Brief History of Time' but got stuck on about page 4 or 5 and, after reading it about 20 times, gave up.
26-01-2016, 05:27 PM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
Originally Posted by Bruce
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I once tried to read Hawkins' 'Brief History of Time' but got stuck on about page 4 or 5 and, after reading it about 20 times, gave up.
26-01-2016, 11:28 PM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
See, I knew there was something not right about 'The Big Bang' theory. Apparently it has bugged all the great minds who specialise in this type of thing so I'm in good company
.Did space exist prior to the big bang?
http://www.ucolick.org/~mountain/AAA...e_the_big_bang
So my troublesome thought that 'something' cannot expand into 'nothing' is one the scientists cannot agree on. Well, I have sorted it out for them - no it cannot.
Originally Posted by ucolick.org
Very good questions. Some of them have clear-cut answers, but others are very deep and it's difficult to give a satisfactory answer.Did space exist prior to the big bang?
Most scientists would answer “No” to this question. The Big Bang marks the beginning of space and time as we know them, so there was no space before the Big Bang. I say “most scientists” rather than “all scientists” because the Big Bang itself is not completely understood, so it's possible that our understanding of this event will improve over time.
Does not matter create its space?
I'm not quite clear on what you mean here, but if you're asking “Can matter exist without space?” then I suppose that the answer is “No, at least not as we know it.”
Can space exist without any matter of any kind?
This is an extremely deep question, and people have been arguing about it for ~100 years. Albert Einstein's thinking about this question led him to formulate General Relativity! Part of the reason that such a seemingly simple question is so difficult to answer is that there's no way to do an experiment to find out the answer. In order to do such an experiment, we would need to create a whole new universe that contained space but no matter, just to see if it's possible. Unfortunately it's rather difficult to create a whole new universe!
If you're interested in (sometimes heavy) further reading, look up “Mach's Principle” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach's_principle). In discussions of Mach's Principle, people usually use the phrase “inertial reference frame” to mean basically the same thing that you mean by “space” here.
The upshot is that it's completely unclear if one can have a universe with space but no matter, or if one needs matter in order to basically serve as reference points and give meaning to distances.
Greg
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28-01-2016, 12:29 AM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
I've given some thought to 'Time Travel'. This just doesn't make sense to me. Apparently, well until now anyway, nothing can travel faster than light but if something could then time travel would be possible. But why? Say for instance you look at a star. What you are looking at is how the star was so many light years ago, which is the time it takes for the light to arrive. OK, that bit is easily grasped but what if you could travel faster than light? Does that mean you can leave a spot and return to it before the time you left it? Why should it? You are leaving something that is physical so why would traveling at any speed allow you to return to that spot before the time you left it? Light does not have any physical presence, neither does the past or future - surely, as far as anyone is concerned, there is only the 'now'?28-01-2016, 01:04 AM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
Originally Posted by MKJ
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See, I knew there was something not right about 'The Big Bang' theory. Apparently it has bugged all the great minds who specialise in this type of thing so I'm in good company .Did space exist prior to the big bang?
http://www.ucolick.org/~mountain/AAA...e_the_big_bang
So my troublesome thought that 'something' cannot expand into 'nothing' is one the scientists cannot agree on. Well, I have sorted it out for them - no it cannot.
Just needs someone with some common sense is all
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I am immensely grateful that you have used your common sense to prove the existence of a supreme being.
You know, the thing some people refer to as God.
That is the only possible conclusion for the explanation you have posted.
28-01-2016, 01:11 AM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
Originally Posted by swimfeeders
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HiI am immensely grateful that you have used your common sense to prove the existence of a supreme being.
You know, the thing some people refer to as God.
That is the only possible conclusion for the explanation you have posted.
28-01-2016, 03:08 AM
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Re: The Reith Lectures
Originally Posted by MKJ
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Did space exist prior to the big bang?
http://www.ucolick.org/~mountain/AAA...e_the_big_bang
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Even I understood that part of Hawkins book.
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