ACCELERATING EXPANSION

I thought the meeting was about the Speaker of the House's desire to stop the expansion and reverse it's direction back to the past.

BBB

They think that the acceleration is due to dark energy, but my theory is it's the effect of all the hot air spewing out of the GOP.

Joe(It's the Stupidity, stupid.)Nation

PS: A recent poll showed that 52% of the members of the GOP couldn't say what the letters GOP stand for. gah

Joe wrote: "A recent poll showed that 52% of the members of the GOP couldn't say what the letters GOP stand for."

Was the problem that their teachers in school were not allowed to teach Darwinism?

BBB

I suspect carbs. The universe needs to go on the Atkins Diet, stat!

Whoa . . . you're gonna need a lot of meat . . .

Don't look at me.

And not only is the cosmos expanding...

On NPR today there was an interview with some scientist that won something relating to dark energy and the expanding universe. If I understood it correctly, it was predicted (Einstein) that gravity can also repel, as well as attract. This has something to do with why dark energy may be doing this reverse gravity thing. Anyway, with an expanding universe that is speeding up, it means that future humans, if they exist by then, may be quite lonely in a very empty neighborhood in space. Someone needs to discover more universes. Or at least a worm hole.

Thank you, Foofie. Finally, someone gives this issue the seriousness it deserves.

You're on to something. I just listened to an interview with one of the scientists involved. He explained things by having us imagine raisins inside a loaf of raisin bread as it was being baked.

No, actually gravity cannot ever repel according to current theory. It is the only force that does not have this capability, which is a good thing since it is by far the weakest of the four forces, in fact it is 1 x 10 -31 times weaker than the strong force. That is 0.000000000000000000000000000001 as strong as the strong force. Not having the ability to repel is a good thing because matter could never clump together otherwise; it would always be separated by one of the other forces overwhelming it.

Where it appears Einstein might have been correct is in his original idea of an “ether” that pervades all space and matter. It was once thought you needed something for light to propagate in. This was shown to be unnecessary by the work of Maxwell. I personally don’t think the ether will make a comeback since it flies in the face of experiments such as Michelson-Morley but since no one has any idea of just what this dark force is everything is potentially open. It may be that what Einstein called his biggest mistake remains just that.

Now who want to talk real science like the eye not being possible by evolution or maybe blood vessels in rocks...you know something more A2K-ish.

I thought it was just the noise they all made.

I hope it was gluten free raisin bread...

Gluten-free bread doesn't seem to rise quite right - at least for his explanation - need good rising so that the raisins keep getting farther apart.

further? farther? hmmmmmmph

mebbe that's my trouble.

I'm gluten intolerant in a white bread universe...

we could argue further, but it will get us no farther...?

hehehehehe

you boys are funny!

best of all .... how do those definitions work in an ever-expanding universe

It's what I've always said -- the Big Bang didn't happen several billion years ago. It's happening right now and we're in the center of it. Why don't astronomers undertsand that?