matter/energy/fields/stuff created or has always existed

oldman said:
Matter and energy have always existed.
Click to expand...
I think so too, but generally, cosmologists don't say that. It's one of those things that we cannot know, at least at this time, but humans need closure and often invent satisfying explanations where there are none.
 

David777 said:
Then we finally end up with the pure question of why there is something rather than nothing – one of the biggest questions of metaphysics...
Click to expand...
I recently read a book titled "A Universe from Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Although he stays away from metaphysics, he contends that "nothing is unstable" and therefore "something" is a natural consequence in the universe. To really understand what he was saying requires a much higher level of mathematics than I am capable of, but his written explanation is cogent.
 

JustDave said:
I think so too, but generally, cosmologists don't say that. It's one of those things that we cannot know, at least at this time, but humans need closure and often invent satisfying explanations where there are none.
Click to expand...
Think about this….The sun is matter, but it also supplies energy.
 
I believe that all that is always ways in some form. It is a dynamic universe, with infinite recombination potential. I don't believe anyone can predict everything that might develop from such interactions. So, did the raw materials always exist or did some powerful being create them? Damned if I know. However, I am fond of the thought that the flutter of a butterfly wing changes everything.
 

Paco Dennis said:
Doesn't matter always "burn" to create energy?
Click to expand...
This is the most common reaction humans experience on earth. Matter is not destroyed, but recombines in a chemical reaction to form a gas, as oldman pointed out. We call this "burning."

But the sun doesn't burn as in a typical chemical reaction. It's a nuclear reaction, where instead of recombining into a gas, matter is actually destroyed and turned into pure energy. And the reason the sun doesn't burn out right away is because a tiny amount of matter when obliterated into pure energy, creates an extraordinary amount of energy with no fundamental byproducts, except radiation (the atomic bomb), but the sun is so hot it creates a different type of nuclear reaction that is even much more efficient called fusion, which ends up making even more energy. from the original matter and energy contained in itself, so that it burns for billions of years, but it does eventually burn out, with quite spectacular and destructive consequences to an area larger than our solar system.
 
JustDave said:
This is the most common reaction humans experience on earth. Matter is not destroyed, but recombines in a chemical reaction to form a gas, as oldman pointed out. We call this "burning."

But the sun doesn't burn as in a typical chemical reaction. It's a nuclear reaction, where instead of recombining into a gas, matter is actually destroyed and turned into pure energy. And the reason the sun doesn't burn out right away is because a tiny amount of matter when obliterated into pure energy, creates an extraordinary amount of energy with no fundamental byproducts, except radiation (the atomic bomb), but the sun is so hot it creates a different type of nuclear reaction that is even much more efficient called fusion, which ends up making even more energy. from the original matter and energy contained in itself, so that it burns for billions of years, but it does eventually burn out, with quite spectacular and destructive consequences to an area larger than our solar system.
Click to expand...
Thanks for confirming what I believed that burning matter will turn it into a gas. I don't remember a lot about physics class from college, (which I only had one year), but I did find some of the things that I learned to be most interesting. Some of the experiments that the students smarter than me performed astounded me.

I do remember one experiment from a high school science class that really was what got me interested in physics. A classmate took a glass milk bottle, (doubt if you can find one of those anymore), put some strips of paper in it and then lighted those strips of paper. Then, she took an egg and place it on top of the bottle in the opening and as the paper burned, it also burned the oxygen inside the bottle, which created a vacuum and that vacuum pulled the egg down inside the bottle. That was back in 9th grade and that started my interest in physics.
 
...so this would seem to mean that nothing is destroyed in nature.....everything simply turns into something else? Pure energy becomes dense enough to become matter, then eventually returns to being pure energy.
 
Lavinia said:
...so this would seem to mean that nothing is destroyed in nature.....everything simply turns into something else? Pure energy becomes dense enough to become matter, then eventually returns to being pure energy.
Click to expand...
So, if I remember correctly, matter has three forms. Liquid, gas or solid. There are different forms (types) of energy, but it cannot be created or destroyed, I believe. Sometimes I get energy confused with motion.
 
oldman said:
So, if I remember correctly, matter has three forms. Liquid, gas or solid. There are different forms (types) of energy, but it cannot be created or destroyed, I believe. Sometimes I get energy confused with motion.
Click to expand...
I think motion is created by energy. Fuel is turned into energy which then causes motion.
 
Lavinia said:
I think motion is created by energy. Fuel is turned into energy which then causes motion.
Click to expand...
That’s correct. When I was at NASA not long ago, there was a propulsion engineer there giving a rundown on how the fuel cells propel the rockets and so on. One fellow asked him how much thrust does one rocket booster that carries a shuttle into space produce. Like some other things lately, I forgot. Here is the answer I found on Google.

“Twin solid rocket boosters generate a combined thrust of 5.3 million pounds. That equals about 40,000,000 horsepower, or the energy of 14,700 six-axle diesel locomotives or 400,000 subcompact cars.” I’m impressed.
 
@David777 said: "Since this thread has run its course..."

i wouldn't be so sure, often side conversations sparked by an OP keep going for while.
Then, too, due to the structure of SF, whenever we get new members who are interested in a topic it can get 'revived'. Sometimes the later 'waves' of responses are even more interesting especially if they read all the previous ones and are responsive (whether agreeing or questioning) to some of those points or they bring a new perspective to it.
 
Lavinia said:
...so this would seem to mean that nothing is destroyed in nature.....
Click to expand...
So far as we know this is true. In our world matter is usually preserved, but in a nuclear reaction it can be converted to energy but it still exists.

What does happen is that things always become less organized or ordered. Entropy increases, that's time's arrow and the second law of thermodynamics. No process, reaction, or event is ever reversible. You can only make one look that way by expending energy and creating more disorder somewhere. Explains things like why your hot coffee always cools, and can only be heated or reheated by adding energy.
 
The Big Bang was mentioned in an earlier post but I’m not sure there really was a Big Bang. From what I have read, proof of the Big Bang is supposed to come from the red shift of light coming from far away stars as they recede from us as the result of expansion. In the path of travel though, is matter in the form of asteroids, space dust and whatever else is out there.The light is bent around that material by the material's gravity and mimics a red shift. In other words, the light travels in a zigzag pattern as opposed to a straight line as the example of a receding train whistle which is usually used to describe the Doppler (red) shift. I'm not an astrophysicist so I am open to other ideas.
 
Chet said:
The Big Bang was mentioned in an earlier post but I’m not sure there really was a Big Bang. From what I have read, proof of the Big Bang is supposed to come from the red shift of light coming from far away stars as they recede from us as the result of expansion. In the path of travel though, is matter in the form of asteroids, space dust and whatever else is out there.The light is bent around that material by the material's gravity and mimics a red shift. In other words, the light travels in a zigzag pattern as opposed to a straight line as the example of a receding train whistle which is usually used to describe the Doppler (red) shift. I'm not an astrophysicist so I am open to other ideas.
Click to expand...
wow i dont understand any of this.

im prolly 99% right brained. left is def the weaker aspect of my brain.
big picture, visuals, colors, overall images, stuff like that is my brain.
technical stuff...like rotation of planets for one...goes right by me. like im not even here. LOLOL.

im bummed lately cuz i cant find Orion in the nite sky. last month it was Right There>>>>>!!!
 
Gaer said:
If the mind is free from the field of relativity and experiences God Consciousness, beyond all energy and all matter, comes a realization of omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, , present everywhere, and that there was never a time this did not exist nor will there ever be a time it shall cease existence. This is pure being, alive in all creation.
That's my feeling.
Click to expand...

agree.

It may be beyond logic, but that is what I sense out of it.
 
Infinity is this,
Infinity is that.

From infinity, infinity has come into existence.
From infinity, when infinity is taken away,

Infinity remains.

- Vedas
(ancient Hindu text)

Hinduism also says that the entirety of creation is like an illusion, that all of creation is "a thought in the mind of the Creator"

Like a projection from a movie screen. The movie screen shows the movie, but it is just light from a projector. The "projector" being God.

There are a couple of books that talk about the relationship between quantum physics and mysticism, if folks want to dive in:


"The Tao of Physics"
and
"The Dancing Wu Li Masters."

Personally, I think presuming that the disciplines of logic and science are sufficient tools to understand the mysteries of the universe...I think that itself is quite a bit of hubris. That is just a blind assertion. We have no idea if the mysteries of the universe can be understood by logic, by science or by the human mind.

It may require something else entirely.
 
Lavinia said:
...so this would seem to mean that nothing is destroyed in nature.....everything simply turns into something else? Pure energy becomes dense enough to become matter, then eventually returns to being pure energy.
Click to expand...
This is what Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 explains. It tells us how much energy (or mass) can be created when mass is obliterated and converts to pure energy. It also tells us the opposite (how much mass we can get from an amount of energy. I think you are right that nothing is destroyed in nature because it just becomes something else, but I never thought about this before.
 
Everything including matter are wave phenomenon of fields termed de Broglie waves, one of the most important foundations of quantum mechanics.

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

That even includes large items like we creatures however the wave nature only becomes apparent or measurable for quantum sized amounts of matter like atoms.

Matter is simply in a vague sense those fields unwound, untangled. Science does not understand the stuff at smallest levels so various ideas like strings have been hypothesized. All matter particles except the most strange Higgs boson have been found to have or are expected to be found to have anti particles. When two such particles, normal matter and anti matter collide, the result in a sense instantly unwinds, untangles into mostly high frequency gamma ray photons plus neutrinos and sometimes other particles that points to matter particles true constituent wave/field nature. For that to happen, it is a clue to the internal field structure of particles like a proton and anti-proton.

Beyond the light expanding 90 billion light year dimensions of the universe, it may be that 3D space is truly empty of even the Higg's field. Or maybe not and unless some UIE or God informs us, we are highly likely to never know.
 

Last edited:

Back
Top