Recent content by thegroundhog

Having read this thread, I'm still unclear regarding use of the word infinite. I have been reading Max Tegmark who mentions Eternal Inflation as being infinite, but if it had a finite past this can't be possible. Also, what does spatially infinite mean? If space is growing from a point then it...

I did do an online search, I don't know why you'd assume I didn't. I ask the question because I hear scientists talk about measuring light spectrums etc without going into the detail of how. Anyway, message received that I'm not welcome, and thankyou for the patronising capital letters. I should...

As the stars in the milky way are only ever going to be seen as pinpricks even with the most powerful telescopes, how do astronomers find exoplanets, and further how can they tell their size and atmosphere etc?

As per the summary I don't understand why physicists talk as if gravitons are inevitable, when gravity is just curved spacetime? Why would curved spacetime have a particle?

How did scientists prove the accuracy of Schrodinger's equation to describe the behaviour of subatomic particles, especially in the 1920s? How do you monitor an electron's momentum and position when they are so small? Also, if the Schrodinger equation just describes probabilities, is the...

I read that the LIGO detector in the US was able to detect a difference of less that the length of a proton, or maybe even less than this. How is this possible? The perpendicular arms won't be the same length down to the nearest proton length. Also, at such small lengths the microclimate on each...

I have just finished reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli and From Eternity to Here by Sean Carroll. I feel I finally understand that time is simply thermal entropy, but they both also talk about space-time and how time slows under gravity and at high speed. If time is just an illusion as...

OK, thank you. It's hard but I will accept the reversibility of time and will continue to try to find a way to get my head round it. I loved the Pi joke too!

Thank you Dale and Perok and Vanhees 71. I really appreciate you taking the time to try to explain this to me and apologies if I'm an exasperating student! I hope you don't mind me coming back with a query to your replies. This idea of playing back a recording is a human construct, there is no...

Thank you. I feel halfway to understanding with what you say. I think that I did think that people were trying to convince me time could go backwards. So what you're saying is that it's a quirk of the equations that they don't specify a direction of time but in actuality it's a nonsense? And by...

I've read that before the big bang all the matter in the universe was contained within an impossibly small space. How can you have matter in a smaller space than if all the space was squeezed out of an atom (or probability cloud if you want to be pedantic). Also, how does it fit it with Pauli's...

I understand negative numbers and even complex numbers, I've studied maths at university. My point was whether the reversal of time was a similar abstract concept, that had no place in the actual universe, whether with humans or not.

Thanks for all the answers, I appreciate it. I accept that I'm wrong in my thinking, and that were I to understand the underlying principles I would have a better grasp. I wish someone could explain it better in layman's terms, though. None of the many books I've read have convinced me, I still...

I understand that the fundamental laws of physics could still be valid if time is reversed but this is just theoretical. In the example of the ball, the reality would be the ball dropping from the high point, but still forward in time. It doesn't make sense to have something happen backwards in...

I don't see how you can compare distance and direction to time. How can the direction of time be arbitrary? Time, by its very definition, is going forward, not backward as it is the order in which things happen. If I go from A to B in space, then that can be in any arbitrary direction, because I...