What do you believe happens when we die

monara wrote: »

Yes there are lots of things we cannot see which might be true. And then again, they might'nt.

True.

Often everything the experts say is taken as gospel and fact, when in fact it is only a theory.

I will neither assume there ever was nothing, nor will I assume there always was something.

But at least we do all agree that there is something now. Just in case some of our posters might be thinking they did'nt exist after all.

Infinate monkey theorem!


see below


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem


Implies that anything is possible with an infinity to do it.

monara wrote: »

Thanks. Very interesting. Does this mean that with an infinity of time we could make gods of ourselves?:pac:

Hail Monara!

Apologies to any supreme being.

saabsaab wrote: »

Infinate monkey theorem!


see below


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem


Implies that anything is possible with an infinity to do it.

So are you saying if I had infinity to do the lotto twice a week, I would eventually get 3 numbers?

saabsaab wrote: »

Hail Monara!

Apologies to any supreme being.

No apologies necessary. I forgive you.

At that point no one knows.

monara wrote: »

And I understand from physicists that the elements from which our bodies are composed began formation at the Big Bang, 16 billion years ago or so; so we were a long time coming. And physicists assure me that if we were reduced to these elements only, we would be microscopic particles invisible to the naked eye; and that the particles of all the people on earth would fit into a cube the size of a cube of sugar. I am not a physicist but take it for what its worth.

Aaaagggghhh! Pop-science overload!

The big bang is estimated to have occurred 13.8 billion years ago - close enough I suppose!

Hydrogen (the simplest element, atomic number 1) formed within minutes of the BB along with very small quantities of other very light elements. Helium (atomic number 2) made up about a quarter of the mass of the early elements, lithium (atomic number 3) only a billionth.

Hydrogen and helium clouds can collapse under their own gravity to form stars. All heavier elements - including the basis of life, carbon - had to wait until these stars reached the end of their lives and exploded into supernovae until they could be formed. Even for the largest (shortest lived) stars, this is tens of millions of years. (Our sun is estimated to have a 10 billion year lifespan and we're about halfway through.)

Elements vs. molecules is a question of chemistry i.e. atoms bonding electronically together. The atoms themselves don't change. Confusion can arise because the word "element" describes both a fundamental type of atom (i.e. a unique atomic number), and a pure sample of a substance composed of atoms all with the same atomic number. So if you changed all the molecules in your body into their elemental form, your body would no longer exist but all of the atoms which made it up would remain entirely unchanged.

Now it is true that atoms consist almost entirely of empty space - but the only way to squash away this empty space is within an extremely dense object - a black hole or a neutron star which both can arise from the core of dying stars. When the star stops "burning", depending on its mass there is no longer enough energy to stop gravity collapsing it to the point where atoms can no longer exist within it. Gravity on the surface of a neutron star would be about 100 billion times greater than on Earth. 1cc of neutron star would weigh about 400 million tonnes. If the average weight of a human (including children) is 50kg, and there are 8 billion of them, then total human mass is about 400 billion tonnes.

So you would need about a litre of this super dense neutron star stuff to fit in all the particles of all the people on earth

What have I done? :eek:

smacl wrote: »

A number invented by the Mesopotamians and employed by the Persians to create the jebra (algebra) used in the maths above. God had sweet FA to do with it, Allah for the win :pac:

Surely mathematics is a way to describe the workings of the universe and its processes and predates any invention and is more of a discovery of the laws of the cosmos.

smacl wrote: »

It's obviously open for debate, but I personally go with the notion that mathematics is a very succinct and precise language for describing ideas. As such, it is a human construct which is evolving with us as we explore and refine abstract notions. Much like other human languages, there are multiple ways to describe or express the same thing. e.g. we can define relationships between points in space geometrically, trigonometrically, using vectors, using matrices and using quaternions or various mixtures of the same. We can describe the same objects in space using Cartesian coordinates, polar coordinates, barycentric coordinates etc... and most likely someone will come up with other ways of describing the same thing more eloquently.

I personally don't hold that mathematics need have any relationship to the physical universe and is better thought of in the abstract.

It may not need to have a relationship to the universe but the physical universe needs a relationship to it.


Interesting extract below..


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis#Observability