casualdeyna said:Once interesting thing I have seen recently is that some scientists believe the Universe is circular and what is outside of this circle "doesn't exist" (until the expanding universe enters it) so if you could travel to the edge of the Universe and step across would you come out at a corresponding place at the opposite side of the Universe, so like a computer game when you go off the edge of the screen you come back on opposite side. If this is true presumably if you had a powerful enough telescope you could look at the back of your own head! (but have to wait billions of years due to spacetime!!)
Bill Bryson short history of nearly everything is a must read if this kind of thing interests you, don't be put off by its size it is an amazing read and what got me in to it. I believe I have a decent grasp on things but still can't get my head round quantum mechanics at all as essentially gravity doesn't exist, it's what this search for the Higgs Boson and particle accelerators are all about.
Also an electron, that "orbits" a neutron and proton, can exist everywhere at once and nowhere at the same time?!? Best way to explain is basically it is that "fast" if you were to "watch" it, it would seem instead of it travelling in a path it just disappears and reappears somewhere else. So "fast" if you were to take pictures on some pictures there would be more than one electron (even though it is the same electron) and in other pictures none at all. Partical physics is a very mind bending science!!
casualdeyna said:Bill Bryson short history of nearly everything is a must read if this kind of thing interests you, don't be put off by its size it is an amazing read and what got me in to it.
mekonmcfc said:couple of questions for the braniacs here
1. If most living things were wiped out with the meteor hitting earth, what did Humans evolve from ? what was left that gave rise to us ?
2. i was walking the dog through the woods the other day and looking at all the rotting leaves on the ground, and thought would the earth keep getting bigger with all this vegetation over millions of years ? as it is new matter and not reused ?
No, because it goes back into the earth and continues to be part of the cycle, e.g. providing nutrients for plant matter to grow and later being consumed.mekonmcfc said:couple of questions for the braniacs here
1. If most living things were wiped out with the meteor hitting earth, what did Humans evolve from ? what was left that gave rise to us ?
2. i was walking the dog through the woods the other day and looking at all the rotting leaves on the ground, and thought would the earth keep getting bigger with all this vegetation over millions of years ? as it is new matter and not reused ?
mekonmcfc said:couple of questions for the braniacs here
1. If most living things were wiped out with the meteor hitting earth, what did Humans evolve from ? what was left that gave rise to us ?
2. i was walking the dog through the woods the other day and looking at all the rotting leaves on the ground, and thought would the earth keep getting bigger with all this vegetation over millions of years ? as it is new matter and not reused ?
TCIB said:mekonmcfc said:couple of questions for the braniacs here
1. If most living things were wiped out with the meteor hitting earth, what did Humans evolve from ? what was left that gave rise to us ?
2. i was walking the dog through the woods the other day and looking at all the rotting leaves on the ground, and thought would the earth keep getting bigger with all this vegetation over millions of years ? as it is new matter and not reused ?
The little rock pools filled with amino acids that heated up and were (as one theory suggests) catalyzed by lightning and we think we developed in this manor (that is a very basic example though). Comets and asteroids will have hit after the earth cooled and calmed again thus delivering the basic ingredients.
Small mammals also survived these ele's underground so we could equally have come from them.
Advanced life may have been stalled a few times in this manor.
This vegetation just rots and gets reabsorbed by the tree which will eventually get cut or burned etc etc.
It is just energy transforming from one form to another. The tree has potential energy in the form of heat for example if you burned it.
The oil we burn is just very old leaves and dead stuff again getting transformed. It is just a big cycle really bud using the same stuff.