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thanks all (and some more Qs) imlad Send a noteboard - 14/10/2012 07:30:04 PM
I didn't quite follow the math there, but I think I understood enough.

I'll tell you, after watching the other 3 episodes in the 4 parter, my brain feels like it has melted (the one on the illusion of time was the one that almost hurt LOL).

It isn't as if most of what Greene talked about was new to me, but he put so much in a clearer way than any other science show I'd seen, better even than some of these ideas have been put across in science fiction. But the whole thing on the Casimir effect really puzzled me.

For a lay person who has never taken mathematics above Pre-Calculus, and my highest physics course I've taken was a high school physics class, I do think I tend to understand cosmology, string theory and theoretical physics pretty well (at least as well as can be done without the mathematical understanding). But sometimes some ideas just go past me, and this was one of them.

Another one I have a hard time wrapping my head around deals with the whole accelerating expansion of the universe (space itself getting larger). I have several questions about this:

1) If all the galaxies are moving away from each other, will the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxies still collide in the distant future?

2) Is the expansion of space effecting the space between star systems within each galaxy? If not, why? Is the Dark Energy effect only occurring to the space between galaxies? Will it at some point effect the space between stars, planets, asteroids, or even the space between my atoms and molecules?

3) Couldn't the acceleration of the expansion of the universe be explained in another way? My idea has to do with the fact that they say spacetime is curved. This leads me to imagine our 3 dimensional world (not counting T here) as the surface on a 4 dimensional sphere/globe. Let's call the north pole of this globe the point of the Big Bang. As the universe expanded, it expanded southwards on our imaginary globe. The way I visualize this, it seems that after passing the "equator" everything would seem to be moving away even faster. The thing is, I also see it as not just expanding, but actually moving towards itself, to a big crunch as it arrives at the "south pole" of the globe. I realize I am probably very off on this, but would someone explain to me why (I figure the why is pretty simple actually, but I'm missing it).
Death to the Regressives of the GOP and the TeaParty. No mercy for Conservatives. Burn them all at the stake for the hateful satanists they are.
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Science Question - 13/10/2012 09:01:08 PM 621 Views
What channel was this on? - 13/10/2012 10:44:29 PM 423 Views
It was an episode of Nova from PBS - 14/10/2012 06:50:24 PM 551 Views
thanks all (and some more Qs) - 14/10/2012 07:30:04 PM 430 Views
You're welcome and some more A's - 15/10/2012 01:40:01 AM 451 Views
Then I have another question - 16/10/2012 05:52:33 PM 422 Views
You can rest easy. - 16/10/2012 08:46:37 PM 462 Views
the part that bothers me actually is - 16/10/2012 11:16:04 PM 388 Views
He's talking about the Andromeda Paradox - 17/10/2012 07:11:01 AM 399 Views
well, I feel a bit better LOL - 17/10/2012 10:58:18 PM 389 Views
Re: well, I feel a bit better LOL - 18/10/2012 04:06:26 AM 395 Views
I saw Brain Greene speak last year. It was pretty cool. - 16/10/2012 04:15:00 AM 595 Views
only two scientists I'd like to meet more - 16/10/2012 05:53:20 PM 416 Views

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