[kictanet] [Skunkworks] Big Bang Replay

Tue Sep 16 14:03:34 EAT 2008

David et al.,

If I may ask you: *What is the significance of research? *Or more deeply: *What
is the purpose of meaning?* I'll leave you to answer the latter question for
yourselves. I'm a staunch advocate of research for the reason being most of
mankind's greatest advancements wouldn't have seen the light of day if a
certain man/woman hadn't taken the initiative to investigate better ways on
how to execute certain/everyday tasks.

Here are a few of them:

   - *Alexander Graham Bell & his invention of the telephone.
   [Communication]
   *
   - *Alexander Flemming & his discovery of penicillin. [Medicine]*
   - *Thomas Edison & his invention of the electric bulb. [Engineering?]
   *

In the advancement of knowledge:

   - *Albert Einstein & his theory of relativity. [Physics]
   *
   - *Alfred Wegner & his theory of continental drift. [Geology, Geography]*
   - *Charles Darwin & his theory of evolution. [Biology]
   *
   - *Nicolaus Copernicus & his theory of heliocentric cosmology.
   [Astronomy]
   *

Onto the subject of the experiments being conducted at the *Large Hadron
Collider <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider>* situated at *
CERN, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN>* their raison d'être is to
scrutinize The Big Bang Theory. One of science's (& life's) greatest
mysteries is the origin of everything (the universe, life itself etc). There
are two schools of thought that try to illustrate this: Religion & Science.
The former explains that the universe was created by a supreme being, God,
at the beginning of time & took six days with our Heavenly Father resting on
the seventh day. The latter explains that the universe was created in a
cataclysmic explosion originating from the most infinitesimal particle of
matter which has expanded (over the course of fifteen billion years &
counting) to what we observe today through telescopes. Of course, these
schools of thought have their respective weaknesses. Religion can't describe
how God executed the creation process e.g. did he just snap his fingers when
an idea came to mind or did he follow a procedure which culminated in an
entity (star, planet, black hole etc)? Forgive me for offending/insulting my
fellow Christians but what most of them don't understand is that the Bible
is just a chronological series of events & not a biographical-like text.
Picture this: the book of Genesis tells us the world was created in six
days. How supremely confident are we that these are six *Earth days?* My
quagmire is this: *Does time pass at the same rate between us & God?* My
answer: *Time Dilation,* i.e. from the perspective of any observer within
the same frame of reference & without reference to another frame of
reference, time always passes at the same rate. *"According To The Evidence"
* <http://www.legendarytimesbooks.com/product.php?productid=179> by Erich
Von Daniken gives a good case of this. Science, on the other hand, explains
how matter operates (from the atomic level) which answers questions as how
the ozone layer is depleted, how the sun creates its energy that sustains
life on Earth (though partly) etc though it can't explain who kick-started
creation. My school of thought combines both religion & science to explain
the origin of everything. My proposition is this: *Science explains how God
created & Religion explains why God created.* God used science to create the
universe & religion explains why we are here in the first place. Peter,
understand why the physicists are conducting these experiments. They just
want to find answers to questions that have plagued us since time
immemorial. Whether or not they succeed, they'll definitely uncover
knowledge that could be beneficial in our comprehension of the universe.

Mike.

*My blog: http://kipsang.wordpress.com/
*

2008/9/11 David Kago <kago at ultimate-security.net>

>  I have been watching the big bang experiment with interest and was amazed
> when they finally announced on the media that they have been able get the
> proton beam to go all the way into the supercooled (-273C) 27km tunnel.
> While this is a scientific and engineering marvel, the sums spent to set up
> the largest machine on earth together are stupendous, $10 billion is not
> your everyday lump of cash, that's kenya's 2008/2009 budget; all in the name
> of proving a theory... Of whose benefit will it be if they finally prove
> that antimatter and dark energy exists... what will quark gluon plasma and
> bosons mean to the everyday earthling. I believe science should be used for
> the betterment of the human race, not to prove a theory that is infinitely
> larger than us. I can see all those suffering masses in the third world who
> would have benefited greatly from such funds...
>
> On a side note, the data produced in the experiment is being channeled
> through the other internet (the Grid). Who wouldnt want to download
> whole hard disks from halfway around the globe in a few seconds...!!!
>
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*
-- 

"The computer programmer . . . is a creator of universes for which he alone
is the lawgiver. . . . No playwright, no stage director, no emperor, however
powerful, has ever exercised such absolute authority to arrange a stage or a
field of battle and to command such unswervingly dutiful actors or troops."

~ Joseph Weizenbaum...

--*
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