Hawking has last laugh

[Mantrik]

So, before his death he changed his mind again:

''Hawking’s “no-boundary” proposal became a metaphor for courage in The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne.

The new paper, published in the Journal of High Energy Physics, ditches that hypothesis and states that there is a boundary after all. It also makes for a simpler set of alternative universes.

“The idea of the ‘no boundary’ is gone again,” Professor Hertog said. “At some point 13.8 billion years in the past we had a boundary, where our familiar notion of time ceases to be meaningful and we are left with a kind of timeless state. [Beyond it] there is nothing. No space. No time. Absolutely nothing.”

The science behind all this leaves me cold, but it amuses and saddens me a little that such a wondrous mind was used on such a trivial pursuit, and even he couldn't make up his mind.

[Grigoris]

The Ancient Greeks believed in the complete lack of any restraining conditions "in the beginning". They were "personified" in the figure of the primordial (pre-Titan) deity Chaos.

[Mantrik]

The Ancient Greeks believed in the complete lack of any restraining conditions "in the beginning". They were "personified" in the figure of the primordial (pre-Titan) deity Chaos.

When it comes to the ancient creation theories and deities I have a soft spot for Brahma....hardly anyone bothers about him any more, one of his heads chopped off in various tales, and then abandoned, poor quadracaputous chap. I went to see him in Pushkar - didn't look happy. Perhaps he wonders why he bothered.

[Grigoris]

The beauty of worshipping a god like Chaos is that they will always be present, hanging out in some corner somewhere, ready to pounce.

Eris is another one that will always be around.

[Mantrik]

The beauty of worshipping a god like Chaos is that they will always be present, hanging out in some corner somewhere, ready to pounce.

Eris is another one that will always be around.

Is there a belief in the ancient Greek pantheon, that the universe or world has a balance to which it returns - discord balanced by harmony etc. ?

In creation stories I can't recall any starting out with a world where all is in perfect balance, or one where the world is predicted to always return to a balanced state. I guess it would have to lack humans, or Eve at least. lol

[Grigoris]

Is there a belief in the ancient Greek pantheon, that the universe or world has a balance to which it returns - discord balanced by harmony etc. ?

Nemesis was considered the deity of universal balance.

[Mantrik]

Is there a belief in the ancient Greek pantheon, that the universe or world has a balance to which it returns - discord balanced by harmony etc. ?

Nemesis was considered the deity of universal balance.

Interesting. So many terms from Greek deities, probably used incorrectly.

I wonder to what extent that various religions use Hawkins and other scientists to validate their myths.
Can't be easy when he changed his mind twice.

First there was a boundary, then no boundary, then there was......

[Grigoris]

Interesting. So many terms from Greek deities, probably used incorrectly.

Not necessarily incorrect, because Nemesis was about retribution, or reaction, to hubris.

[MiphamFan]

According to Max Tegmark, the prevalent theory in cosmology today is actually eternal inflation.

As far as I understand, it means that a kind of substance expands very rapidly in a short amount of time before collapsing to the matter and energy we see around us in a particular part of the infinite inflation. What we call the "Big Bang" is this process of the substance collapsing and matter forming in our own local part of the multiverse.

It sounds very interesting to me, and compatible with Mahayana cosmology of an infinite amount of universes.

[A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha]

infinite amount of universes.

DO you think they got galaxies mixed up with universes ?

[DharmaJunior]

Well, it's like saying an infinite amount of skittles or infinite packets of skittles.

Either way, it's an endless supply.

[Queequeg]

“The idea of the ‘no boundary’ is gone again,” Professor Hertog said. “At some point 13.8 billion years in the past we had a boundary, where our familiar notion of time ceases to be meaningful and we are left with a kind of timeless state. [Beyond it] there is nothing. No space. No time. Absolutely nothing.”

I preface what follows with the admission that I failed out of high school physics and couldn't complete calculus.

I read an article on this and this seems like a misstatement. Actually, this mistaken assumption of "nothing" will be familiar to folks here.

Its not nothing... but what there is, is incomprehensible to our experience. Our experience is dependent on time, which is dependent on space.

What the theory suggests is that all the matter/energy in the universe is concentrated in an infinitely small point just before the big bang. There is no time or space, simply because there is no space in an infinitely small point.

Its not nothing - its just incomprehensible.

[Queequeg]

infinite amount of universes.

DO you think they got galaxies mixed up with universes ?

They mean universes. With different physical laws, even.

That's not even the really weird stuff. There's theories that our universe is a hologram and is actually two dimensional on the surface of some event horizon of a black hole.

Check out the movie Interstellar.

My wife's parents are physicists and they recently saw this. They said the science checks out.

[Mantrik]

“The idea of the ‘no boundary’ is gone again,” Professor Hertog said. “At some point 13.8 billion years in the past we had a boundary, where our familiar notion of time ceases to be meaningful and we are left with a kind of timeless state. [Beyond it] there is nothing. No space. No time. Absolutely nothing.”

I preface what follows with the admission that I failed out of high school physics and couldn't complete calculus.

I read an article on this and this seems like a misstatement. Actually, this mistaken assumption of "nothing" will be familiar to folks here.

Its not nothing... but what there is, is incomprehensible to our experience. Our experience is dependent on time, which is dependent on space.

What the theory suggests is that all the matter/energy in the universe is concentrated in an infinitely small point just before the big bang. There is no time or space, simply because there is no space in an infinitely small point.

Its not nothing - its just incomprehensible.

I get the incomprehensible - it is the daft assumption that it is somehow comprehensible that I find funny.......that and the fact that the greatest genius of our lifetime seems to have found it so, then not so, then so, as well.

[Queequeg]

“The idea of the ‘no boundary’ is gone again,” Professor Hertog said. “At some point 13.8 billion years in the past we had a boundary, where our familiar notion of time ceases to be meaningful and we are left with a kind of timeless state. [Beyond it] there is nothing. No space. No time. Absolutely nothing.”

I preface what follows with the admission that I failed out of high school physics and couldn't complete calculus.

I read an article on this and this seems like a misstatement. Actually, this mistaken assumption of "nothing" will be familiar to folks here.

Its not nothing... but what there is, is incomprehensible to our experience. Our experience is dependent on time, which is dependent on space.

What the theory suggests is that all the matter/energy in the universe is concentrated in an infinitely small point just before the big bang. There is no time or space, simply because there is no space in an infinitely small point.

Its not nothing - its just incomprehensible.

I get the incomprehensible - it is the daft assumption that it is somehow comprehensible that I find funny.......that and the fact that the greatest genius of our lifetime seems to have found it so, then not so, then so, as well.

I don't think you give physicists enough credit. Physicists I've met generally are not so arrogant that they think they understand everything, or that they can. They're very aware of the limitations of math and physics to describe reality. What they get excited about is when their theoretical predictions can be verified with experiments.

What is remarkable here is that Hawking so readily changed his mind on major aspects of his life work.

[A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha]

Check out the movie Interstellar.

Yes...i saw it...will watch again...
Makes me kinda sick that all we have is theories. ...are there any Enlightened scientists?

I guess all these questions we have are irrelevant anyways....considered the imponderables. (By Buddha )

They can drive you crazy
I don't have far to go...

[A Ah Sha Sa Ma Ha]

Its not nothing - its just incomprehensible.

Yes...even "nothing" is "something "

[Queequeg]

This is a physicist finding out his theory has been confirmed with data. The subject of his theory relates to Hawking's theory.

[Mantrik]

I don't think you give physicists enough credit. Physicists I've met generally are not so arrogant that they think they understand everything, or that they can. They're very aware of the limitations of math and physics to describe reality. What they get excited about is when their theoretical predictions can be verified with experiments.

What is remarkable here is that Hawking so readily changed his mind on major aspects of his life work.

I think it is fine to work in a theoretical way.
But to do so you need an assumption or two, as a starting point, whether you believe in them or not.

I've seen lots of debate on 'how' something called 'creation' of something called a 'universe' took place, much of it in various religious contexts.

Go back a step - Hawking assumes there is a 'universe' and then flim-flams about whether there is a boundary to it. Then we assume some of it is comprehensible, but beyond that is incomprehensible, and that somehow there is a point at which that difference arises.

The more you accept the original premise, the more you can spin off wildly into the journalistic favourite quests of who, what, where, how, when and why; and that means you forget all about 'IF'.

Let's imagine the conversation with Hawking.
I'd like to investgate how the universe was created and how it formed and test various theories.'
'OK. You have no evidence that it was ever created so you can forget that.'
'Oh, right, well I'll focus on how it was formed then.'
'You assume it was formed, but all we have evidence of is a continuum of energy.'
'Bugger. Maybe I'll investigate solving the world energy crisis instead then.'
'That'd be useful.'

[Queequeg]

Makes me kinda sick that all we have is theories. ...are there any Enlightened scientists?

Hopefully we get to the point that the perceived incompatibility of dharma and science gets resolved and we have bodhisattvas on the science faculties of leading universities.

I guess all these questions we have are irrelevant anyways....considered the imponderables. (By Buddha )

Has the poisoned arrow been invoked too quickly in the East? That's a rhetorical question, but I do wonder if the scientific revolution could have happened where questions about the world around us are strongly discouraged by one of the main religious traditions of the region.