do you have some evidence for this or is it just a fallback position so that you have room to place your god in a gap of our knowledge.
time = zero and no time are separate concepts. In the second statement there is not left side of the equation. Also zero has a definition and if used as a place holder or point of departure your definition is clearly wrong. - Your last point seems to be consistent with my speculation. I will think about it more.
Do you have a physics background beyond basic college level intro physics? Have you studied special relativity? First, time is *not constant*. Time is relative. Second, zero, like infinity, are both abstractions. Their philosophical merits are inconsequential and the mathematical merits allow for simplification of the very large and the very small. 1/infinity = 0 and 1/0 = infinity, thats it... there is no profound meaning to this human construct.
I do have evidence. You can find it in the worlds best selling book of all time. Its called the bible. Dont you find it interesting that since 1800 to 2007 about 7.5 billion bibles have been printed and 100 million more are printed each and every year? And dont you find it interesting that the amount of bibles published each year is "coincidently" about the same number as the growth rate of the world? How many books has Darwin sold? And coincidently, in his book he says that if his theorys could not be proven after 100 years that we should disregard everything he wrote. Well, its still not proven.
I made the point earlier on this thread that time is not a constant. I do not wish to go into my background because my knowledge of this subject at age 45 is far weaker than it should be considering my background. (But, I do have an advanced degree but not in math or science.) Your argument is exactly the point I was making.... the singularity is not time = zero. The profound meaning I was getting at is about time and cause and effect. If time began after the big bang - then most likely any thought we have about cause and effect prior to the big bang is going to be deficient. That is profound by any definition. I am glad you stepped in to challenge my statement because the points you were making were superfluous. But luckily them seemed important enough for momo to show that he did not understand a damn thing your wrote.
stu, Thank you for your reply. I am going to make my points and then I will let this topic rest, as it has been a few years since I have studied the matter, and things may have changed. It was my understanding that these are "particles" that never really become verifiable as being in existence, since observation would be a violation of the law of conservation of mass / energy. Every elementary particle is surrounded by these temporary "virtual particles", which if memory serves is a function of "borrowing" and "re-paying" energy from the vacuum state. The "history" of this energy oscillation is what is recorded on Geiger counters, and other means. These "particles" are not free. If something has changed regarding these phanthoms, please point me in the right direction.
If repeating my replies is so bad, why are you repeatedly replying to them. In light of that perhaps you should be embarrassed for yourself. As I thought, you've done more to continue with unjustified carping than offer any substance, appearing to think that there is some contextual definition which somehow suggests nothing and nowhere have no relevance or can be the same thing. Or more likely, mean anything you want. Just like a creationist would.
No , I can't believe particles jump into existence from nothing. I don't have to. However the quality of evidence that they do is so extraordinarily strong , it is quite undeniably the case. The quality of evidence for God is so diametrically opposite (ie: basically crap), I would have to be delusional to accept it and possibly psychotic to supplant it in preference over the evidence of virtual particles. I don't have to believe either one to know which is obviously nearer to true. If as you say, the only difference between us is nothing and God, then they appear to be pretty much the same thing. Anyway, I thought you said you were trying to keep an open mind so you put me on ignore. Or was that some other creationist sounding like a hypocrite?
Hi Barth, I think you are mixing a few things up here. The question of observing particles has nothing to do with a violation of energy conservation. If you want to understand where a particle is you need to look at it. With a point particle like an electron for instance, to observe it you will have to shine light on it. When you do that it alters the electrons location. So the act of observing interferes with a particle's position. So therefore it is fundamentally impossible to measure the movement or the position of a particle at the same time with any accuracy. The more you understand about its position the less you know about its momentum and vice versa. There is however a probability of finding a particle at any given point, which is made by using the Schrödinger wave equation , not by killing his cat. Similarly virtual particles are not directly observed but leave detectable traces of their presence in empty space for the minutest time which is why they are named virtual. For instance virtual photons produce tiny shifts in the energy levels of atoms. The Lamb Shift predicts the energy difference made by the effects of a vacuum on atoms detectable at microwave frequencies to a very great precision. The Casimir effect and Feynman also confirm conclusively that virtual particles exist. The science is overwhelming. The technology used today is further proof of these understood realities. Also in short, virtual particles do not violate what you mention as 'the law of conservation of mass / energy'. Virtual particles obey conservation of energy-momentum in line with quantum mechanics perturbation principles. May I suggest if you are interested you research further? You seem to also be muddling phantoms with real things. God is a phantom, virtual particles are the other.