posted July 16, 2003 02:29 AM         

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...one could work out all the laws that govern the universe by pure thought: it was not necessary to check by observation.

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posted July 16, 2003 02:31 AM         

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Just as an infinite tower of tortoises supporting the flat earth is such a picture, so is the theory of superstrings. Both are theories of the universe, though the latter is much more mathematical and precise than the former.

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posted July 16, 2003 02:31 AM         

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The question remains however: How or why were the laws and the initial state of the Universe chosen?

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posted July 16, 2003 02:33 AM         

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The second law of thermodynamics has a different status than that of other laws of science, such as Newton's law of gravity, because, it does not hold always just in the vast majority of cases.

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posted July 17, 2003 02:44 AM         

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Could quantum mechanics have an equally dramatic effect on the big bang and big crunch singularities?

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posted July 17, 2003 02:45 AM         

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I personally find it hard enough to visualize three dimensional space!

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posted July 17, 2003 02:46 AM         

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Isaac Newton was not a pleasant man

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posted July 17, 2003 02:46 AM         

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It is impossible to imagine a four dimensional space.

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posted July 17, 2003 02:47 AM         

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God abhors a naked singularity

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posted July 17, 2003 02:48 AM         

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The Universe starts at the North Pole as a single point.

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posted July 17, 2003 02:49 AM         

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Some people never admit that they are wrong and continue to find new, and often mutually inconsistent arguments to support their case.

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posted July 18, 2003 03:05 AM         

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The ideas about scientific theories outlined above assume we are rational beings who are free to observe the universe as we want and to draw logical deductions from what we see.

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posted July 18, 2003 03:05 AM         

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Why was the early universe so hot?

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posted July 18, 2003 03:06 AM         

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These implicitly assume either that the universe is spatially infinite or that there are infinitely many universes.

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posted July 18, 2003 03:07 AM         

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And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it!

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posted July 25, 2003 03:59 AM         

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Now at first sight all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:00 AM         

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Einstein's general theory of relativity on its own predicted that spacetime began at the big bang singularity and would come to an end.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:01 AM         

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The uncertainty principle had profound implications for the way in which we view the world.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:01 AM         

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There were only three people in the world who understood general relativity.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:02 AM         

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The new inflationary model is a good attempt to explain why the universe is the way it is.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:04 AM         

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The increasing disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called arrow of time, something that distinguishes the past from the future, giving direction to time.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:04 AM         

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The laws of science do not distinguish between the past and the future.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:05 AM         

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We find ourselves in a bewildering world.

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posted July 25, 2003 04:06 AM         

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Newton's law of gravity also tells us that the further apart the bodies, the smaller the force.

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