Is Stephen Hawking right or not?

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Saint, Jun 16, 2011.

  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    Diode-Man:

    Please explain. Are you referring to Hawking's disease, or are you insulting his intelligence? What is the significance of 2D?

    If this is an empty insult, then I think you should retract it.
     
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  3. universaldistress Extravagantly Introverted ... Valued Senior Member

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    Is this strictly true? After you have rejected someones belief as being untrue, you inevitably invite someone to ask you to provide reasons or evidence why you would reject that "truth". If you can't provide valid reasons for rejection then you show you haven't thought it through. Providing reasons to support rejections of theories is paramount within the scientific process? Can you avoid the burden of proof here?
     
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  5. jaboo Registered Senior Member

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    I believe that God, Satan and demons actually exist and are real. I also believe the supernatural, the paranormal and spiritual reality are not less real. I'm also a strong believer in the afterlife.

    In other words, Hawking has no idea what the fuck he is talking about. Seriously, Hawking thinks he's a God or something.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2012
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  7. wlminex Banned Banned

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    o-o-o-o-h-h-h-h . . . Them thar's "fightin' words!! . . . . to SM advocates
     
  8. Reiku Banned Banned

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    He's not right. Stephen has made a complete arse of logic concerning his thoughts on God not existing. Plus, he has chosen a theory which isn't even science.
     
  9. Pincho Paxton Banned Banned

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    I don't believe people who use donkeys as transport. I mean the Bible came from Jerusalem Hillbillies

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  10. Reiku Banned Banned

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    diode man, you may as well call Hawking a brain in a jar... your type sicken me.
     
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    No they don't.

    In other words, Hawking doesn't know what he's talking about because he contradicts your belief system.

    An hypothesis is also science. The multi-verse theory undermines a key argument in favor of God, the fine tuning argument.
     
  12. Reiku Banned Banned

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    A true science is something you can test. If you can't, then it is not a science.

    Period.
     
  13. Reiku Banned Banned

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    And the multiverse is a false type of science alongside string theory. they are equal in my eyes.
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Why is this theory not science? Don't tell me because it's unproven.
     
  15. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Because it cannot be tested.
     
  16. Reiku Banned Banned

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    Especially multuple universes. The laws consistent do not allow us to do such a thing. A science is a thing we can measure directly. THE same goes for string theory.
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    What if two universes were to collide?
     
  18. Reiku Banned Banned

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    That means there should be more universes. You are allowed atleast \(10^{500}\)

    No.

    There cannot be two universes alone.
     
  19. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    And that statement is scientific how?

    I suggested a way in which the multiverse model could be tested. If it happened in the past that our universe collided with another, then there might be evidence of that. If there is one other one, there is the possibility of more.
     
  20. Pincho Paxton Banned Banned

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    Nothing wrong with Multi-verse, it's just another boundary. We are used to scaling spheres up, so what's wrong with a higher scale than a sun? (Or a galaxy if a Galaxy has a sphere around it.)

    We have..

    electron sphere
    Quark sphere
    Atom sphere
    Bucky Ball type sphere
    Moon sphere
    Planet sphere
    Sun Sphere

    Possibly some Dark matter sphere

    so no need to stop.
     
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2012
  21. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    He isn't really a string theorist, more a general relativist.

    There's a difference between being fundamentally untestable, like the proposition 'God exists', and being untestable due to technological issues. We can't test plenty of things in QCD yet but it's still science. String theory does say things about phenomena we can test. For example, string theory says specific things about the behaviour of gravity, specifically that gravity should be carried by massless particles and obey the Einstein field equations at large distances. If string theory had spit out any equations other than the Einstein field equations it would be immediately falsified.

    There's no 'laws' against multiple universes.

    As pointed out, your statement is unscientific because it's baseless. And your \(10^{500}\) number comes from string theory, which you don't consider science either. And the \(10^{500}\) number isn't how many universes string theory says exist. I've already explained it in this thread, it's the number of possible solutions to particular equations space-time structures in string theory have to obey, just like cubic equations have 3 solutions. There's infinitely many different metrics which obey the Einstein field equations but that doesn't mean GR predicts infinitely many universes. Furthermore, while there's \(10^{500}\) possible vacuum states which solve the relevant equations under a naive counting that doesn't mean they are all different physical systems. Many of them are just rewritten versions of one another under dualities, in a more complex but conceptually similar notion to changing coordinates in GR doesn't change the physics.

    You have absolutely no grounds to say "2 universes is not allowed, there should be more" or to use the \(10^{500}\) number from string theory in that manner.

    Furthermore, if you talk about 'alternative universes' in the context of 3 dimensional slices (ie D3-branes in string theory) of some larger space then if those can have signatures. Branes near to one another can exchange gravitational effects so you can see a gravitational signature of material not in our universe. Or the branes can even collide, causing a very obvious signature in the sky. In fact people have even constructed cosmological models where our 3 dimensional 'slice' is formed in the decay products of some things much larger and higher dimensional colliding in a 'larger universe'. String vacuum dynamics and brane cosmology are considered as interesting areas of research for cosmologists because they naturally incorporate components otherwise shoe horned into cosmological models like inflaton fields, reheating, flatness and dark energy. Even in models where it is obvious it isn't going to be how the real world works they provide useful insight into otherwise difficult to examine processes.

    String theory has done that in other areas. Gluon-gluon processes are some of the most dominant processes in the LHC right now but they are difficult to do using Feynman diagrams. Within string theory someone (Witten) developed a method to resum pure massless gauge field processes, which led to a method called MHV. The string theory origins then fell away and left a method no one would have otherwise constructed. It's a completely different way of computing gluon dynamics from Feynman diagrams. Or an even bigger contribution to our understanding of gauge theory is gravity/gauge duality. Motivated by string theory examples it's now seen as something independent of string theory, something which string theory provides examples of but which can be explored even if someone killed string theory tomorrow. It's told us a lot about how gauge theories work in strongly coupled regimes like those at the centre of neutron stars, ie quark-gluon plasmas.

    As always Reiku, get your facts right before opening your mouth.
     
  22. wlminex Banned Banned

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    . . . Remember . . . It will take ALL OF US . . . . to root-out the 'true' scientific truths . . . this includes Pincho, Farsight, AN, Origin, Stonphi, AlexG, etc. . . . yes . . . and even ME! It's NOT a 'pissing' match to see who is the worthier, most educated, most intelligent, etc., etc. . . . EVERYONE has an ante in this game (and it's NOT strip-poker <--humor here)!! Re: "Civility, Please!" thread
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2012
  23. brucep Valued Senior Member

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    This is truly mind boggling. I never thought I'd be reading about the ...

    First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation
    http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.1995

    Go Planck experiment.
     

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