RJ, what does your cosmology think of this:

Originally posted by twhitehead
Thats not what I said.
Try it like this:
"A tremendous explosion has occurred nearby in the town."

[b]By the way, I substitued the word 'town' for 'universe' the way it appeared in the original quote... "A tremendous explosion has occurred in the nearby universe..."
Which is incorrect. The difference is that in this context, 'town' is seen as an ...[text shortened]... ion has occurred in the nearby atmosphere..."
Does this mean it occurred on Mars?[/b]

Try it like this:
"A tremendous explosion has occurred nearby in the atmosphere."

Or how about this:
"A tremendous explosion has occurred nearby in the universe."


"A tremendous explosion has occurred in the nearby atmosphere..."
Does this mean it occurred on Mars?

It depends. Are you talking about "a" nearby atmosphere, or nearby in "the" atmosphere... or in the atmosphere nearby? In either case I would assume you meant the atmosphere I am most familiar with and is nearest to me.

How many universes are we assuming?

Originally posted by lemon lime
How many universes are we assuming?

If you read the article in the OP, it is quite clear that they are not making any assumptions about multiple universes but are talking about our universe.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Its perfectly correct in the English I grew up with. It may be different in your part of the US, the dialect over there is quite different. But I suspect it is simply a phrasing you are not familiar with - which doesn't make it incorrect.

Okay, as long as it is clear that they are not claiming there is more than one universe, I will accept that usage.

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Okay, as long as it is clear that they are not claiming there is more than one universe, I will accept that usage.

The Instructor

Well, to put your mind at ease, I am claiming there is more than one universe, based on recent math showing the inside of black holes do not crunch down to infinite density but only goes so far and then an internal explosion takes place that says it is just like the way our universe was born, out of what in our universe is supposed to be from nothing but of course that is impossible, our universe came about because of what went on before and that before looks like it was a black hole inside an even larger parent universe that begat ours.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well, to put your mind at ease, I am claiming there is more than one universe, based on recent math showing the inside of black holes do not crunch down to infinite density but only goes so far and then an internal explosion takes place that says it is just like the way our universe was born, out of what in our universe is supposed to be from nothing but of ...[text shortened]... hat before looks like it was a black hole inside an even larger parent universe that begat ours.

I'm assuming the newer universe does not appear in our universe, but what happens to the black hole? Does all of it go into making the new universe, or only part of it?

It seems to me that unless any parent universe is infinitely large, and by that I mean containing an infinite amount of material (whatever that material is), isn't it safe to assume the universes that follow would contain less and less of that material?

Originally posted by lemon lime
I'm assuming the newer universe does not appear in our universe, but what happens to the black hole? Does all of it go into making the new universe, or only part of it?

It seems to me that unless any parent universe is infinitely large, and by that I mean containing an infinite amount of material (whatever that material is), isn't it safe to assume the universes that follow would contain less and less of that material?

That is a pretty deep question and it shows you are actually thinking about it with your own mind. It might be that scale changes as you get different sizes of black holes and each universe would be internally consistent.

If the multiverse theory is correct, considering the fact there are millions or billions of black holes in our universe and if our universe was begat by a larger universe then it would appear the mass in our universe gets diluted. But the mass of a black hole is still internally contained, it has the mass that made it a black hole and whatever mass it can eat during its lifespan.

I get the feeling black holes might have to be a certain minimum size to squeeze out a new universe, because lighter black holes can evaporate, explode where all the internal mass turns into a burst of energy when it can no longer sustain itself.

The larger the black hole, the longer it exists in our time frame anyway. So there must be a balance where a new universe can't form until the black hole gets to a certain size. That is just my own supposition. That is also assuming black holes form universes at all. The whole idea may turn out to be bonkers. But the latest math at least says the idea is not bonkers, there may be some truth in it.

What if it turns out that ALL black holes, no matter what size, makes some kind of universe? That would mean some of those universe would be destroyed in a burst of energy because it has been shown that black holes can loose mass and the smaller the mass the quicker they explode, returning all that mass and energy into the universe that begat the black hole in the first place.

Also, it might be that the laws of physics inside each black hole might be different depending on the mass it started with. Just me speculating again.

The diluting of mass issue might be dealt with by internal conditions making a daughter universe THINK it has more mass than we would see if we could peer inside it. It might be like bubbles on a staircase where each level of the staircase contains a certain mass and the higher ones gets squished down to the same apparent mass and the lower rungs get expanded up in apparent mass. Just me speculating of course.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That is a pretty deep question and it shows you are actually thinking about it with your own mind. It might be that scale changes as you get different sizes of black holes and each universe would be internally consistent.

If the multiverse theory is correct, considering the fact there are millions or billions of black holes in our universe and if our un ...[text shortened]... arent mass and the lower rungs get expanded up in apparent mass. Just me speculating of course.

You are wasting your brain power for nothing, because there is only one universe.

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
You are wasting your brain power for nothing, because there is only one universe.

The Instructor

I'm not so sure about that. Take weight lifters for example. Weight lifters don't seem to be moving those weights very far... up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down, and then those weights just end up back where they started, sitting on a rack alongside other weights.
There has to be SOME good reason for all that activity.

Originally posted by lemon lime
I'm not so sure about that. Take weight lifters for example. Weight lifters don't seem to be moving those weights very far... up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down, and then those weights just end up back where they started, sitting on a rack alongside other weights.
There has to be SOME good reason for all that activity.

Not really.

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
Not really.

The Instructor

Well its a better activity than a wino continuously lifting a bottle to his mouth at his place of residence by the railroad track.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well its a better activity than a wino continuously lifting a bottle to his mouth at his place of residence by the railroad track.

I bet the wino would disagree with you on that one.

The Instructor

Originally posted by RJHinds
I bet the wino would disagree with you on that one.

The Instructor

I don't think a dedicated wino would be able to articulate the issue one way or the other. There is a great song by a great songwriter by the name of Tom Paxton, Bottle of Wine:

Ramblin around this dirty old town, singing for nickles and dimes,
Times getting tough, ain't got enough to buy a bottle of wine.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine, when you gonna let me get sober?
Leave me alone, let me go home, let me go back and start over.

Little hotel, older than hell, dark as the coal in a mine.
Blankets so thin, I lie there and grin, I've got my little bottle of wine...

It's a pain in my head, bugs in my bed,
Pants are so old that they shine,
Out on the street, tell the people I meet,
buy me a little bottle of wine.

Bottle of wine, fruit on the vine, etc.

A preacher will preach, a teacher will teach.
a miner will dig in the mine,
I ride the rods, trusting in god,
and hugging my bottle of wine.

Bottle of wine, fruit on the vine,
when you gonna let me get sober?
leave me alone, let me go home,
let me go back and start over!

Great song.

Originally posted by sonhouse
I don't think a dedicated wino would be able to articulate the issue one way or the other. There is a great song by a great songwriter by the name of Tom Paxton, Bottle of Wine:

Ramblin around this dirty old town, singing for nickles and dimes,
Times getting tough, ain't got enough to buy a bottle of wine.

Bottle of wine, fruit of the vine, when y e get sober?
leave me alone, let me go home,
let me go back and start over!

Great song.

If that wino was very smart maybe he could find a way to travel to other multiverses and kill off all of those other wino versions of himself so that the power that was divided among them would all be his which means he could have the stamina to drink as much as inhumanly possible and still be articulate enough to address the issue of whether or not lifting weights is a better activity than continuously lifting a bottle to his mouth at his place of residence by the railroad track.

Originally posted by lemon lime
If that wino was very smart maybe he could find a way to travel to other multiverses and kill off all of those other wino versions of himself so that the power that was divided among them would all be his which means he could have the stamina to drink as much as inhumanly possible and still be articulate enough to address the issue of whether or not lifti ...[text shortened]... han continuously lifting a bottle to his mouth at his place of residence by the railroad track.

You know, it's funny, you talk about diluting your power being split into multiple universes. There is a theory about the strength of gravity that is similar to that. For instance, a refrigerator magnet holds onto the steel of the refrigerator door in spite of the fact that the gravity of the entire earth is pulling it down, so gravity is much much weaker than magnetism or electric fields. They say the reason for that is gravity is being shared between dimensions and if it was all concentrated in our universe, our 3 dimensions, it would be immensely powerful, everything would be sucked into a black hole immediately, even a piece of cotton candy. It looks to me like gravity could be thought of as the glue which holds dimensions together. Thought I would throw that one in.

Originally posted by sonhouse
You know, it's funny, you talk about diluting your power being split into multiple universes. There is a theory about the strength of gravity that is similar to that. For instance, a refrigerator magnet holds onto the steel of the refrigerator door in spite of the fact that the gravity of the entire earth is pulling it down, so gravity is much much weaker t ...[text shortened]... d be thought of as the glue which holds dimensions together. Thought I would throw that one in.

I stopped reading about all the new theories that keep showing up a few years ago, but I do remember reading about that one. Gravity leaking into other dimensions or something like that.

IMO the problem of why the force of gravity is so much weaker than magnetism or electro-magnetism isn't a problem at all. Similarities between these forces doesn't mean they are so closely related we must assume they should be equally strong. We still don't know enough about gravity to assume anything about its strength. Discovering what causes gravity is still the holy grail of physics. Actually, I think there is more than one holy grail now... the higgs boson for instance. I keep hearing it was found, but then no it wasn't and then it was... what's the latest word on that?

One physicist working on a project to find the higgs said if the theory predicting the existence of the higgs boson is ever disproven, then you can expect to see many physicists jumping from second story windows.