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********************************************************************Dan, isn't it the case that the galaxies are fleeing from each otherfor TWO
reasons? Now I am stuck for layman language: They are "moving"apart *and"
the distance between them is getting bigger. How does one say thatto a lay
person?
"Moving apart" and "distance between them is getting bigger" are
synonymous, though neither is a "reason" in the causal sense.
Aren't there some first cause theories? -- I forget the names."Quantum
fluctuations" seem to be at their heart. Quantum fluctuation of whatis a
mystery and is usually buried in the hand waving
There are people who claim to have such theories and to understand
these theories, but I am not one of these people. I think it's
fair to say that any extrapolations to the first 1/100 second are
still unverified, and that any theory about the first 10^-43 second
is best called a "speculation", rather than a "theory". If you
enjoy presenting speculations that you yourself don't understand
to beginning students, that's your business; I'm not going to help.
And if we can say something helpful to lay people about the firstit) how
(relatively long) minute or so, (after all National Geographic did
do we answer the question of what happened before that minute -- Isit that
here was NO such thing as time or was it that nobody was around tostart
counting. (:-)
I usually say that I have no idea what happened before that minute,
or whether there even was a "before". My suspicion, based on what
I do know about general relativity and quantum mechanics, is that
the concept of time as we know it breaks down so the question becomes
meaningless, or at least in need of refinement. Kinda like asking
which side of the nucleus an electron is on.
Whether there was anyone there isn't the issue. There wasn't anyone
there during the first three minutes, yet we can talk with some
confidence about what happened then.
Further, ex nihilo also implies that at 10^-42 sec before the 10^-43sec
after creation there weren't nothin' there -- where ever "there" was.
And I have no idea how you could possibly test such a proposition.
In sum, I take it that the language I offered is lacking (at least inpart)
because it actually assumes a "beginning", but do you object to myexpanding
language?
I object to a scientist, who is perceived as an authority by lay
people,
pretending to understand something he doesn't and hiding behind words
that sound good but are actually meaningless (at least to the
speaker).
-dan