sciam.com — The evolution of the universe is described by the physics of general relativity, which was discovered by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century. When compared to Newtonian physics, this theory provides a radically different framework for the physical description of the gravitational force.
Feb 5, 2007 View in Crawl 4
kineticabstractFeb 6, 2007
@moduc -You have a "basic premise is wrong" issue. The Big Bang theory doesn't state that the universe sprang into being from nothingness. Please do at least some basic research into the thing that you're arguing against, then we can have a rational discussion abou it.
datastorageguyFeb 6, 2007
"The old chicken and the egg philosophy. If god created the universe then who created God?"Perhaps there is no such thing as time and that time is a human made concept. Perhaps there is no one single "time" that indicates the event of the big bang. Vonegut's slaughterhouse 5 has an interesting take on this.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse_5">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse_5</a>
ramtechFeb 6, 2007
hmm i read something a while back that every galaxy has a black hole... with this in mind.. if they alllllll end up in a trillion trillion years suck each other up.. than you know what... its one GIANT black hole, no space, no time,... so much density.. ... and BOOM... the big bang... all over again... because a black hole eats... then explodes and lets all the "food" right out into space again... history repeats itself...
steviebabyFeb 6, 2007
We live in Michael Jackson's pet monkey? Whoah - I never would have guessed that in a million years. Science is great.
m2ys4uFeb 6, 2007
Tthe faster you move the *more* mass you have, thus it requires more force to accelerate you, reaching an upper limit at the speed of light (at c, any body's mass is infinite, thus requires an infinite force to accelerate it).
en7ropiaFeb 7, 2007
<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity#Gravitational_effects">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity#Gravitational_effects</a>
mickoesFeb 7, 2007
So now you can tell us!!
voxelFeb 7, 2007
@moducSpecial relativity states that any inertial (not accelerating, constant velocity) reference frame is as valid as any other inertial reference frame. Because the speed of light is constant, no matter how quickly you are moving you always observe the speed of light as being the same. So when "one" (let's say, a light bulb turning on according to a 'stationary' observer) spacetime event occurs, two observers moving at different velocities *relative* to each other (and the spacetime event) will certainly not agree on when the event occurred. However, if two observers are traveling at different (constant) speeds relative to each other AND they are both standing the same distance from the light bulb, they WILL agree on the time it took the light signal to reach them from the light bulb because they will both measure the speed of light to be the same! (distance/velocity = time)Your statement that "time does not change" is a little awkward and ambiguous. The *passing of time* is measured differently for observers moving at relative speeds to each other, so the measurement of time itself is completely relative, even though both observers are completely correct with respect to their reference frame!I highly recommend checking out AP French's book (from the MIT Introductory series) on Special Relativity. I used it in my special relativity course last year and it was great! There are numerous examples and diagrams that really help explain the mathematics involved@onezerozeroone - The Elegant Universe is a great book btw :)