Re: objections to QTI

From: Jesse Mazer <lasermazer.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 06 Jun 2005 12:05:56 -0400

Norman Samish wrote:

> If the universe started contracting, its entropy would get smaller,
>which nature doesn't allow in large-scale systems. This seems to me an
>argument in support of perpetual expansion.

>From what I've read, if the universe began contracting this would not
necessarily cause entropy to decrease, in fact most physicists would
consider that scenario (which would mean the 'arrow of time' would reverse
during the contraction) pretty unlikely, although since we don't know
exactly why the Big Bang started out in a low-entropy state we can't
completely rule out a low-entropy boundary condition on the Big Crunch.

> And where did this mysterious Big Bang come from? A "quantum
>fluctuation of virtual particles" I'm told.

Whoever told you that was passing off speculation as fact--in fact there is
no agreed-upon answer to the question of what, if anything, came before the
Big Bang or "caused" it.

Jesse
Received on Mon Jun 06 2005 - 12:07:29 PDT