My take on the word universe... When i hear theoretical physicist and astrophysicists use the word, they are most always (from what i've observed) referring to our universe. The one created by the big bang. The word universe meaning is and has evolved and will probably continue to evolve in the future. Really depends on who is using it. Seems to me many laypersons use it different than those who study it. Always important to be on the same page regarding words meanings when trying to discuss such topics. Also i'm no pro, just a fan

Here's a hilarious bit of news you might enjoy.....

LONDON (The Borowitz Report)—The theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking angered supporters of Donald J. Trump on Monday by responding to a question about the billionaire with a baffling array of long words.

Speaking to a television interviewer in London, Hawking called Trump “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” a statement that many Trump supporters believed was intentionally designed to confuse them.

Moments after Hawking made the remark, Google reported a sharp increase in searches for the terms “demagogue,” “denominator,” and “Stephen Hawking.”

“For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail,” Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said. “If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.”

Later in the day, Hawking attempted to clarify his remark about the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, telling a reporter, “Trump bad man. Real bad man.”

German Channel ProSieben - Galileo featured Miroslaw Magola who promotes Telekinesis. Real Magneto, X- Men, Miroslaw Magola's telekinesis is achieved by projecting a portion of his consciousness in the object that he want to move.

Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku : THE FUTURE OF THE MIND: The scientific quest to understand, enhance, and empower the mind.” And his quest to promote: “Telepathy. Telekinesis. Mind reading. Photographing a dream. Uploading memories. Mentally controlled robots.”

Kaku claims all of “these feats” have already been achieved. “These feats, once considered science fiction, have now been achieved in the laboratory, as documented in THE FUTURE OF THE MIND,” Kaku’s website declares.

Kaku notes that his “book goes even further, analyzing when one day we might have a complete map of the brain, or a back up Brain 2.0, which may allow scientists to send consciousness throughout the universe.” Miroslaw Magola alias "Magnetic Man," ( Magnet Mann ) known form Stan Lee's Superhumans - MInd Force who allegedly exhibits telekinetic powers aired on History and Discovery Channel born in Poland and now living in Germany. He claims he can lift objects off the floor, transport them through the air and force them to stick to his body - all using the power of his mind .

He was investigated by Prof. Dr. Dr. Ruhenstroth-­Bauer and Dr. Friedbert Karger of the Max Planck Institute and Dr. David Lewis (psychologist), a neurophysiologist at MindLab, one of the United Kingdom's leading neuro-research centers and Dr. Konstantin Korotkov, professor of Physics at St. Petersburg State Technical University in Russia and Alexander Imich from USA. More [url redacted]

I have a bit of an issue with Dr.Naku and his musings about biology, especially after seeing him butcher and mangle the theory of evolution and say that humans have "by-and-large" stopped evolving. Which is bullshit. (http://bigthink.com/ideas/26647)

I'm sure Dr.Naku is an excellent theoretical physicist, but he has shown that he doesnt really master biology all that well. I have a feeling he does the same thing here. There are all sorts of problems that might not be solvable here. Animals are more, biologically speaking, than a DNA "recipe" that you can simply "put into an egg", there are all sorts of evo-devo that comes in to complicate this tremendously. It is not at all clear that simply sequencing a genome (assumming its a complete and 100% accurate sequencing, which I'm pretty sure it isnt for the neanderthal and mammoth) that comes into play here. In other words, the limitation might not be our technology. Its a bit like the zoom-in-and-enhance-it problem you have in Hollywood movies. it doesnt matter if you have a billion-dollar computer from the year 4350 if the original recording is an old VHS tape of a CCTV recording.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^charliem:
....why didnt the big bang need a cause?

The theoretical physicist who most recently takes this question head on is Lawrence Krauss, you can see him do a lecture on this topic here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
He has also written a book about this subject since the video drew a lot of attention: http://ww
w.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Nothing-Lawrence-M-Krauss/dp/145162445X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337434114&sr=1-1


Quantum mechanics is still a cause, even if the universe itself was born from a quantum strangeness, its still SOMETHING. This is vastly different from no cause at all.

Krauss' talk is to lamen understanding of nothing....ie apparently empty space with still yet something there (the laws of nature have particles and anti particles popping in and out trillions of times a second!!!) This is still not nothing.

Still havnt explained it well enough to qualify that as saying - there was no need for a cause. QED is still a cause.

>> ^charliem:

....why didnt the big bang need a cause?

The theoretical physicist who most recently takes this question head on is Lawrence Krauss, you can see him do a lecture on this topic here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo
He has also written a book about this subject since the video drew a lot of attention: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Universe-Nothing-Lawrence-M-Krauss/dp/145162445X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337434114&sr=1-1

George M. Whitesides (b. August 3, 1939, Louisville, Kentucky) is an American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in the areas of NMR spectroscopy, organometallic chemistry, molecular self-assembly, soft lithography, microfabrication, microfluidics, and nanotechnology.

Whitesides is also known for his "outline system" for writing scientific papers. As of November 2010, he has the highest Hirsch index rating of all living chemists.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Whitesides

The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other people's publications. The index can also be applied to the productivity and impact of a group of scientists, such as a department or university or country. The index was suggested by Jorge E. Hirsch, a physicist at UCSD, as a tool for determining theoretical physicists' relative quality[1] and is sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_index

This shows two points quite clearly. Firstly, irrational arguments can confuse pretty much anyone, even theoretical physicists. Secondly, the physicist should have spent more time researching Deepak's philisophical viewpoint, so he could at least sound intelligent when faced with counter arguments.

Can we get a theoretical physicist in here to confirm all this? My brain is scattered on the ceiling above me from the explosion...

Well how dare you remove it from the science channel , this is a gr8 documentary piece on how theoretical physicists solve hard problems.

If anyone is interested, here is an answer from a theoretical physicist.

Hubble discovered that the Universe is expanding. Hence, as you go backwards in time, there are two options. Either all matter (and space) collapses to an extremely small region at some finite time in the past, or it does not. Hawking showed that it does. This is called the Big Bang. At this point in time, the description furnished by the theory of general relativity breaks down. The idea is that a better understanding of how general relativity and quantum mechanics work together will explain what happens at this point in time, and before. However, this work is ongoing and a final answer is still lacking. Ask me again in 50 years.

>> ^mentality:

No, this is another common mistake. You're assuming that without time, there is still an order to events. What we perceive as time flowing in the forward direction is simply the direction of increasing entropy. We say event A happened before event B, because event A happened at a time of lesser universal entropy than event B. There is no before without time and the universe.

I'm a bit confused about some things you said. You're using the concept of entropy to define the concept of time. Doesn't entropy require time to be defined? Because that would be problematic.

One other thing that I find curious is when you mention the universe without time, as you said, it's very difficult for people to understand. To me, I think it's as hard to imagine universe without time as it is to imagine the universe without space. It's not like pressing the pause button on a movie. Without time, all physical properties that rely on time would collapse, the universe would make no sense, equations would go haywire.

So maybe it's more accurate to say there is no universe without time?

I'm not a theoretical physicist, so please be gentle.

>> ^gwiz665:
^"Rocket Scientist!? You might as well call me a toll booth operator. I'm a theoretical physicist!"


Well, I get the BBT reference

^"Rocket Scientist!? You might as well call me a toll booth operator. I'm a theoretical physicist!"