So the sterilised, pasteurised, homogenised, commercialised, air-conditioned modern lifestyles many lead are in fact bad for health. Who'd thunk that being a couch potato could be bad? :shock:

Of course the doctors love it. They can "protect" us from those scary bugs and then reap the commissions from overpriced drugs.

From a few weeks ago: [URL]https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/19/health/bolivia-heart-disease-chasing-life-gupta/index.html[/URL]

[QUOTE]Nearly everyone who lives there has some sort of parasitic infection such as hookworm, roundworm or giardia, according to the Lancet article.[/QUOTE]

[URL="https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-debate-hawkings-idea-that-the-universe-had-no-beginning-20190606/"]Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning[/URL]

[URL="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbressan/2019/06/06/geology-as-a-factor-in-the-battle-of-normandy/?utm_source=TWITTER&utm_medium=social&utm_content=2387715312&utm_campaign=sprinklrForbesScience#639d3a5a7df3"]Military Geologists Played A Big Role In The D-Day Invasion[/URL]

[URL="http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190603-the-surprising-story-of-the-basque-language?ocid=twtvl"]The Surprising Story of the Basque Language[/URL]

[URL="https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/stone-age-chewing-gum-reveals-history-of-scandinavia/"]Stone Age chewing gum reveals history of Scandinavia[/URL]

[URL="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/science/frances-arnold-caltech-evolution.html"]Frances Arnold Turns Microbes Into Living Factories[/URL]

[URL="https://www.fastcompany.com/90359341/air-france-klms-radical-new-plane-design-could-change-air-travel-forever?partner=rss&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss"]Air France-KLM’s radical new plane design could change the way the world flies[/URL]

[URL="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-05/18/c_138069590.htm"]China unveils Brain-Computer Interface chip[/URL]

[URL="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2205795-bizarre-pentaquark-turns-out-to-be-a-new-kind-of-subatomic-molecule/"]Bizarre pentaquark turns out to be a new kind of subatomic 'molecule'[/URL]

[URL="https://theconversation.com/we-taught-bees-a-simple-number-language-and-they-got-it-117816"]We taught bees a simple number language – and they got it[/URL]

[URL="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/05/26/723983713/beer-archaeologists-are-reviving-ancient-ales-with-some-strange-results"]Beer Archaeologists Are Reviving Ancient Ales — With Some Strange Results[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;519195][URL="https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-debate-hawkings-idea-that-the-universe-had-no-beginning-20190606/"]Physicists Debate Hawking’s Idea That the Universe Had No Beginning[/URL][/QUOTE]

Interesting, but while reading it I kept thinking about the trope of medieval theologians debating about angels dancing on the head of a pin. Fittingly, folks form the Perimeter Institute, whose other big area is string theory, dominate the article.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;519202]Interesting, but while reading it I kept thinking about the trope of medieval theologians debating about angels dancing on the head of a pin. Fittingly, folks form the Perimeter Institute, whose other big area is string theory, dominate the article.[/QUOTE]

I'm with Stephen.
Let me start by making it clear that I have absolutely no proof and no advanced Physics education beyond high school; only intuition.

While I believe that there is adequate evidence of a "Big Bang" 14ish Billion Years ago; I cannot wrap my head around the concept that this Big Bang came out of nothing and nowhere; the stuff that Banged had to come from somewhere.

I can, however, wrap my head around the possibility that what Banged 14 Billion Years ago was actually a massive Black Hole or massive Super Nova which is actually part of an immensely larger Universe than we can observe. We just can't see past the vastness of space between the full extent of this explosion to other parts of the actual Universe; in the same way that a few hundred years ago humans couldn't see anything in the sky beyond our own Milky Way.

I still cannot imagine an explanation as to if, how or when the universe started in the first place.....long before our Big Bang.

Again this is nothing more than an intuition that I can make some sense of ... I will not be the least bit offended by any contrary discussion by the actual learned Physicists.

My own angels/pin musings are along these lines: There is some kind of "primordial field" whose physics are different than those of our universe, but allow for spontaneous creation events like that which gave rise to the latter. To use an analogy, our universe's "empty space" is at the quantum level not empty at all but pervaded by virtual particles which can briefly pop into measurable existence in form of particle-antiparticle pairs, existing on borrowed energy, and winking back out unseen unless they happen to interact with something from the real-verse in a way that allows their existence to be inferred. So maybe there is something analogous in the primordial field, by which our universe popped into existence, in a way which is causally separated - at least from our perspective inside it - from that which gave rise to it. But of course, as with the Perimeter Institute wonks trying to derive "the wave function of the early universe", this is arguing from the universe as we know it, and perhaps that which gave rise to said universe is in fact completely incomprehensible to us. Again, at that point things get theological, "can we even presume begin to understand the almighty?", that sort of thing.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;519210]Again, at that point things get theological, "can we even presume begin to understand the almighty?", that sort of thing.[/QUOTE]

In the beginning, there was nothing. Which exploded.

Bring the anthropic principle to bear, and it is clear why we wonder... :smile:

Looking at Gary Larson cartoons was more enlightening for me on this topic than the Hawking article was.

[url]https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1RLNS_enCA739CA739&tbm=isch&q=gary+larson+cartoons&chips=q:gary+larson+cartoons,g_1:god:EgAcBzKOzeA%3D,g_1:creation&usg=AI4_-kTTJBmw971WtqUPacqSrAyyuf0q2w&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjy_qnmveXiAhVDcq0KHZ0fByUQ4lYINCgJ&biw=1600&bih=789&dpr=1[/url]

Hm... you mean like didn't god created the light, electricity, gpgpu's and all the stuff in seven days? ... :shock:

[QUOTE=petrw1;519209]While I believe that there is adequate evidence of a "Big Bang" 14ish Billion Years ago; I cannot wrap my head around the concept that this Big Bang came out of nothing and nowhere; the stuff that Banged had to come from somewhere.[/QUOTE]
One approach is to realize that the canonical BB created not only matter and energy but also space and (crucially) time itself. There was no before that version the BB. If you want a simple picture, think of us living on the positive real number line at the point 13.8. The line terminates at zero in one direction but continues indefinitely in the other.

Another approach is that the universe is flat and infinite in time and space. It spends almost all (in a measure-theory sense) its existence as a quantum vacuum. Very occasionally a zero-point fluctuation is big enough to lead to interesting consequences for a short time --- perhaps somewhere between a google and a googleplex years or so.

There are other models proposed by serious cosmologists. Roger Penrose's cyclic cosmology is one; eternal inflation is another.

As a point of order, can we please all stop using the ridiculous and antiquated term "Big Bang" (BB) for the general-consensus cosmology and switch to the current accepted term with the field, "[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horrendous_Space_Kablooie]Horrendous Space Kablooie[/url]" (HSK)?