Arch will probably howl about this, too

[Guest]

(not really sure what this whole thread has to do with archaeology

the reason this topic exists is because minimalist wanted to take another potshot at me. though in reality, without the beginning of time, there would be no archaeology.

And with everything inside the "marble" there would have been no time outside

it was nice of you to try and slip this in. Since 'time' was not even mentioned nor addressed this answer has nothing to do with the questions and is irrelevent.

For the entire universe to be condensed down to the size of a marble the conditions for everything would have been those of a black hole

but the question remains, how could the different articles contained in the 'marble' expnd? especially when we see that mass cannot expand today. then how could each exploding material form into different varieties of members of the universe along with throwing gravity and rotation into the mix?
nor can this theory support the explanation of why only one planet has an atmosphere that is conducive to life. nor can it explain why only this planet got life. there are just too many holes in the theory to be valid.

It represents a slice of the sky

i have problems with the picture as the shutter was opened for months, which seems to be a fairly long time and allows for a misrepresentation to take place. I don't think it represents anything but what takes place inthe universe over that time period and cannot indicate anything from the origin of time.

The big bang theory postulates the entire universe started out in just this state

then you are still left with, where did the black hole come from? how did it exist when there was nothing to begin with? how would the inhabitants of the black hole know when and how to explode?

how would they form in the beginning and be part of this 'black hole'? you can never come up with the answer if you leave God out of the picture. you leave people in a state of wonderment, confusion and instability as they ponder the purpose of their existence.

By keeping God in the picture, you remove the wondering, the confusion, and the instability while inserting the purpose of our existence.

[FreeThinker]

Any consideration of the big bang has to address the question of time as the big bang was the beginning of time. There can be no time before the beginning of time by definition. Remember, there is not absolute clock counting down the minutes from the beginning of time to the end of time. Time is no more than a continuum of rates of change relative to one another. In many areas of the universe time has already come to an end (black holes). One of the most difficult questions, still unanswered, is how could conditions in the initial universal black hole (timeless as all black holes are) produce the expansion that is now called the "big bang" (an unfortunate name really). This is a good question. A very tough one that the best minds we have have yet to solve. I sure would be eager to hear an answer to it!

"especially when we see that mass cannot expand today. then how could each exploding material form into different varieties of members of the universe along with throwing gravity and rotation into the mix?"

The big bang theory does not say that the mass of the universe expanded. As Einstein pointed out matter and energy are interchangeable (e=mc2...sorry, don't know how to do a "squared" raised 2) but there is no net loss or gain of mass. What was expanded with the big bang was space, not mass. The entire mass of the entire univers was bound up into that super dooper dense "marble" and has not changed since the big bang began.

Rotation is easy to explain in Newtonian terms. An object in motion stays in motion unless acted on by an outside force. Picture a bll pitched in a baseball game. Suppose the pitcher managed to throw a ball with absolutely no spin on it. Now imagine the batter taking a swing at the ball. Now, if the batter swung the bat with the exact same force as the ball had flying through the air and he managed to hit the ball perfectly dead on both the bat and the ball would cancel each other out. If he swung with more force the ball would move back towards the pitcher (maybe a home run if enough force is used). Let us suppose though that the batter only grazes the ball. This grazing would upset the ball's no spin trajectory and rotation would be introduced. There have been uncounted numbers of impacts all across the universe since the big bang. Lots of opportunities for rotation to be introduced! The gravity part of this is a little harder to explain (well, alot harder). Of all the forces known, gravity is one of the least understood. We can measure the effects of gravity very precisely and understand that gravity affects time but we are not truely sure the exact nature of gravity itself. It has been postulated that gravity has a wave/particle nature like that of light, and it might very well, but up to now no good experiment has been devised to put this to the test. There are several in the works so I look forwards to hearing the results of those experiments.

"nor can this theory support the explanation of why only one planet has an atmosphere that is conducive to life. nor can it explain why only this planet got life. there are just too many holes in the theory to be valid."

The big bang theory does not address these questions at all, but is concerned with events at the very beginning of the univers, long before the formation of any stars or planets. That said, it is far and away way too premature to come to the judgement that ours is the only planet in the entire universe that has a life sustaining atmosphere or for that matter that harbors life. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. We have not even given all the bodies in our one tiny solar system an examination for life let alone all those billions and billions of others! The vast, vast majority consensus amongst scientists today on the qustion of life in the universe outside of our planet is that life does exist out there. I agree with this assesment although as of yet I concede it has not been proven.

"i have problems with the picture as the shutter was opened for months, which seems to be a fairly long time and allows for a misrepresentation to take place. I don't think it represents anything but what takes place inthe universe over that time period and cannot indicate anything from the origin of time."

I am not sure how a prolonged exposure using the most precise telescope ever made would "allow for a misrepresentation to take place". The instrument just collected the light in a totally passive way. What is known about the light that it did collect is that the source of light was very far away (close to 15 billion light years away) and thus very old (close to 15 billion years old). We know this because of the red shift of the light, the guage used by astronomers to determine relative distance from us in space. That pic is not of stuff nearby and does not record recent events. It shows just what it shows...galaxy after galaxy close to 15 billion light years away and close to 15 billion years ago. This pic (and others like it) prove that the universe is vast almost beyond comprehension...galaxy after galaxy...hundreds of billions of them...each with hundreds of billions of stars. Very humbling stuff. Amazing!

"By keeping God in the picture, you remove the wondering, the confusion, and the instability while inserting the purpose of our existence."

I am not even talking about any gods or religious topics here.

[Minimalist]

the reason this topic exists is because minimalist wanted to take another potshot at me

Now, you're learning!

[stan]

Quote:
The reason this is on an archeological forum is because archie started critizing science from the standpoint of creationism...and RS (I think) tried to straighten him out by posting the recent article on the big bang.




And, frankly, academicians do a bad enough disservice to knowledge by compartmentalizing things into specific 'sciences.' It's a mistake we do not wish to repeat on this board.

Actually, is was you, Minimalist, who introduced the article on the Big Bang into the forum.
I don't follow your point here. I don't like "hardening of the categories" either, but I am not sure who or what your comment was aimed at here.
Certainly, archaeology is composite of other disciplines:
geology, biology, chemistry, history, art history, history, and so on.
BTW, I think you are the hardest worker on the forum!

[Minimalist]

Certainly, archaeology is composite of other disciplines:

Is it? Really?


This could be a whole other thread in and of itself.

My first reaction is that it works both ways. Archaeologists will lean on other disciplines IF it backs up their point of view. However, if other disciplines contest the findings of mainstream archaeology I think there is a pretty fair chance that archaeology will want nothing to do with them.

I'll always remember how quick Egyptologists are to embrace astronomy and geology when it does not back up their little version of Egyptian history.

Anyway, arch is right. It was a shot at him and his genesis-theory of creation.

[stan]

My first reaction is that it works both ways. Archaeologists will lean on other disciplines IF it backs up their point of view. However, if other disciplines contest the findings of mainstream archaeology I think there is a pretty fair chance that archaeology will want nothing to do with them.

Right. You're to be talking about the political world inside the archaeological establishment.

But to define archeology in a dictionary sense as well as a practical sense, it would have to include other disciplines such as geology, anatomy, history, metallurgy, and so on.

see ya tomorrow!

[Guest]

Any consideration of the big bang has to address the question of time as the big bang was the beginning of time

i would engage you more in conversation if you didn't respond in a manner that sounds like you are talking to 2 year olds.

you haven't said one thing inthat post that i did not already know and can refute.

the big bang has to deal with those questions or it makes no sense what-so-ever. to say things just exploded is an incomplete theory and says what i have been saying all along; you don't know.

stephan hawkings in his book, A Brief History of Time" said that he discovered scars inthe universe that indicated an explosion or something similar. When i read that, i wrote him concerning my thinking on that admission.

I said that it is possible that such scars were evidence left by God as the clue to His working in the beginning. which is consistent with what we find here on earth. i moved shortly after that letter and do not know if i got a reply.

I am not even talking about any gods or religious topics here.

i understand that and i am only pointing out what stanis illustrating here that without God in the picture, all you get are questions, no logical or coherant answers.

so i am not turning this into a religious debate or discussion but illuminating the weakness of the big bang position. It is easy to see that yo can no more explain the origin of the uiverse than you can explain the origin of life through evolution.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Some people have selective perception, Bob.

[Guest]

Some people have selective perception, Bob.

that is a comment that goes both ways.

i think that non-religious scientists use their bias nature against religion to influence their thinking. because they do not like something or feel that it isimpossible, they won't even try to explore it thus rendering their own work invalid.

their arrogance and 'superiority' is their undoing.

[Minimalist]

Your's is having your head firmly up your ass.

[Rokcet Scientist]

It represents a slice of the sky

i have problems with the picture as the shutter was opened for months [...]

Shows how much you know about photography and astronomy: if the shutter remains open for any length of time (over 1/15 sec) you get light-stripes where you would expect light-points from the stars. This is because the earth moves. It revolves 24 hours a day! Thus the camera moves relative to the stars.
The only way to prevent this is to take that photo with a camera mounted on a 10-million-dollar astronomy telescope that compensates continuously for the earth's movement.
Which is where this photo came from.

[Guest]

Shows how much you know about photography and astronomy

i forget wgich book it was where i read: the night sky is fairly stark when it comes to actual photography but to get the nice colors and and the pretty designs they leave the shutters open.--paraphrase.

kind of keeps the pictures in perspective when you know they ar going for what looks good and not what it really looks like.

if the shutter remains open for any length of time (over 1/15 sec) you get light-stripes where you would expect light-points from the stars. This is because the earth moves

a person could have more respect for your contributions if you did not insult everytime you wrote.

i guess the price tag means something but what would a $10,000,000 telescope do that a $5,000,000 couldn't? price tags don't impress me nor do random shots of the universe as they can easily be used both ways in a debate. iwill stick to my pojnt, that what you all are discovering out there is just the evidence left by God for all to find. but the arroganc of the 'experts' gets in the way.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] iwill stick to my pojnt, that what you all are discovering out there is just the evidence left by God for all to find. [...]

Very appropriate, Arch, because a 'pojnt' is infinitely small.
About the size of the bible's veracity.

[Guest]

Very appropriate, Arch, because a 'pojnt' is infinitely small.

typical--go after a typo

[Rokcet Scientist]

Very appropriate, Arch, because a 'pojnt' is infinitely small.

typical--go after a typo

indeed typical: a textbook example of selective reading.