Re: is perpetual motion possible ?

On Jul 6 2008 10:21 PM, Rob wrote:


I guess it's those vibrating strings?

String theory is TTBOMK completely untestable and unlikely to be otherwise
in the forseeable future. It is pretty, though.

The matter that becomes energy in the Sun, if we are going to REALLY go
back, used to be energy right? Best we can tell, at the beginning of this
whole mess, there was no matter at all. Everything was packed so densely
that matter could not exist at all, just energy.

We don't have a description for the state of the universe prior to the big
bang, since the universe did not exist. The physical laws that determine how
this particular universe works were shaped at the time of its creation.
There are theories as to what was going on shortly after the big bang,
including the symmetry breaking which set the relative magnitudes of the the
four basic forces, but I don't think anyone can say what the exact state or
composition of the universe was at zero hour.


Okay, I guess I'm assuming too much about what might have happened before
the Big Bang. It's clear that somehow, we ended up with a ***-ton of
energy, really fast. You could trace everything back to that, if you
wanted to. My speculation on there being some force that caused that
initial condition is basically bull*** though.


No, we are running off of the energy released at the time of the big bang.
We have no knowledge of how the primordial singularity came into being, nor
in fact whether it was a singularity at all, under the physics in play at
the 'time' of its existance
Bear in mind that under current physics, if the universe started as a
singularity, it still is one. From memory, astronomers haven't found enough
matter in the universe to close it yet, so maybe it wasn't a singularity.


Right, so, we can't ever know where it came from! It's fun to think
about, however.

I guess this is where (insert your favorite diety) comes in. But can't
gravity do that?

Do what?


I meant set the initial conditions for a Big Bang, but yea, that's all
bull***.

The whole concept of the laws of the universe somehow getting "set" at
some early point in its history is interesting to me, but I don't
understand how we can propose to know something like that. Isn't it all
just something somebody makes up? And the forming of the forces at
certain times, what is the evidence for something like that? I am
skeptical. When I was first learning science in middle school and such
they told us that they were going to soon join all the forces into one but
I guess we are still waiting. I don't know if the Universe existed
previous to the Big Bang or if it functioned with the same physical rules,
but hey, maybe! Seems more likely than anything else..

This is utter digression but I know that you know your ***, and I like to
poke brains around here to see what comes out. I appreciate your time
posting here. I haven't been taught Physics in like 10 years - I was
good at it in high school and early college, but I really couldn't get
myself to dig through the math to do something like major in it.

PS - Can you tell me if the force of gravity has ever been shown to travel
at some speed, like c? That one always bugs me.

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