Yes or No. Is the universe 12,000 years old? Dont hide behind your bible. No but

[nlm]

I don't pretend that the web site I gave a link to ( http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm ) is anything more than a place to spark questions in the minds of some people that may never have known such questions were there to be asked. And, I hope, any that ask such questions will seek more than the content of that web page for the answers to those questions.

Critical thinking requires information. Blind faith requires an avoidance of information. Faith, on the other hand, is a completely different story than blind faith. But blind faith is the calling of many.

[MODU]

Critical thinking requires information. Blind faith requires an avoidance of information. Faith, on the other hand, is a completely different story than blind faith. But blind faith is the calling of many.

Might be of "many," but it definitely is of "most."  Most people question what they hear and read, be it in church, in the office, or at home.  There are very few people in our society which are literally lambs to the slaughter.

[nlm]

The lambs to the slaughter are beyond help. But even for the curious, it's hard to know which questions to ask without the knowledge to build those questions, and "many" don't have that foundation of information in this case.

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm is just one of many such places to start building that foundation.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

And if you find that "foolish"...GOOD...because that is exactly how God intended it to sound.

Well, if it was in fact the plan of an omnipotent being to provide only for fools - than your religion does fit the bill.

1Cor 1:18-25  "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: (Paul quoting Isaiah 29:14) 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'...For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. "

---

Have fun giving praise to the Easter Bunny

good bye

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The evidence from facts that 1)the universe exists and 2) its laws state that entropy can’t decrease and that energy can not be created or destroyed by natural forces…testify that the existence of the universe itself requires a God.

This again? This is you jumping to conclusions to satisfy your own beliefs, not empirical proof of the existence of a god. It could simply be explained by natural forces which we don't currently understand.

The fact remains that every single experiment and/or process ever observed in the history of man has supported the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.  Even the newly discovered Dark Energy supports them.

So, I wish you good luck finding a way to invent yourself.

[nlm]

The lambs to the slaughter are beyond help. But even for the curious, it's hard to know which questions to ask without the knowledge to build those questions, and "many" don't have that foundation of information in this case.

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm is just one of many such places to start building that foundation.

1Cor 1:18-25  "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: (Paul quoting Isaiah 29:14) 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.'...For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. "

Circular logic isn't a substitute for knowledge, though the lambs may disagree.

[Inverted Things]

The evidence from facts that 1)the universe exists and 2) its laws state that entropy can’t decrease and that energy can not be created or destroyed by natural forces…testify that the existence of the universe itself requires a God.

This again? This is you jumping to conclusions to satisfy your own beliefs, not empirical proof of the existence of a god. It could simply be explained by natural forces which we don't currently understand.

The fact remains that every single experiment and/or process ever observed in the history of man has supported the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.  Even the newly discovered Dark Energy supports them.

So, I wish you good luck finding a way to invent yourself.

How many times do I have to tell you? The 2nd law of thermodymanics just says entropy will PROBABLY increase. It can decrease, it's just not terribly likely.

[John Dibble]

The evidence from facts that 1)the universe exists and 2) its laws state that entropy can’t decrease and that energy can not be created or destroyed by natural forces…testify that the existence of the universe itself requires a God.

This again? This is you jumping to conclusions to satisfy your own beliefs, not empirical proof of the existence of a god. It could simply be explained by natural forces which we don't currently understand.

The fact remains that every single experiment and/or process ever observed in the history of man has supported the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.  Even the newly discovered Dark Energy supports them.

So, I wish you good luck finding a way to invent yourself.

I never denied either of those, but the truth is we know absolutely nothing about the behavior of the universe before the Big Bang, so you are simply jumping to a conclusion with insufficient data.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is another invalid argument. The Second Law of Thermodynamics only states that total entropy tends to increase. Nothing in the laws of science suggests that "entropy can't decrease."

You wrong!  Send MUON2 an email or something.  Total entropy can NOT decrease in a closed system.  Period.  This is the single most important law in science.  Heat cannot pass from a cold body to a warm body in a closed system.  Perpetual motion is impossible.

Total entropy can remain the same, but if it changes, then it always increases, it can not decrease.  dQ/dt can NEVER be less than zero in a closed system.  Anyone who has ever taken Themo 101 knows that.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

I never denied either of those, but the truth is we know absolutely nothing about the behavior of the universe before the Big Bang, so you are simply jumping to a conclusion with insufficient data.

Well, since science believes space/time didn't exist prior to the Big Bang, you're going to have a hard time finding "data".

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

How many times do I have to tell you? The 2nd law of thermodymanics just says entropy will PROBABLY increase. It can decrease, it's just not terribly likely.

Terribly unlikely?  You mean like "never"?

[nlm]

Question

Does the entropy of a closed system always increase, or could it possibly decrease?

Answer

The standard answer to your question from the laws of thermodynamics is that entropy (disorder) will increase, but there are at least two ways I believe entropy can decrease in a closed system.

First, you used the word 'possibly'. The laws of probability allow a closed system's entropy to decrease, but with such a low likelihood that the odds would make it very unlikely. Making the system small enough, however, by decreasing the number of its possible states can help improve the odds.

Take, for example, a movie of a billiards game 'break' shot. The ordered arrangement of balls becomes disordered, but running the film in reverse would show each individual collision obeying the usual physical laws. The time reversal would be apparent, however, when all the balls ended up in an ordered collection. Although that result could conceivably occur by chance, it is very unlikely. Reducing the example to just two balls would make the odds of an orderly arrangement occurring more likely.

For a second example of decreasing entropy, start with a closed system large enough to allow significant gravitational forces among its components. Gravity provides a 'negative energy' that can take a completely disordered system and organize it into a radically symmetric arrangement around a common center of gravity.

Answered by: Paul Walorski, B.A. Physics, Part-time Physics Instructor

[nlm]

In traditional thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of the amount of energy in a closed system that is no longer available to effect changes in that system. A system is closed when no energy is being added to or removed from it, and energy becomes unavailable not by leaving the system, but by becoming irretrievably disordered, as a consequence of the laws of statistical mechanics. But even though the total amount of energy that is irretrievably disordered will increase, this does not mean order cannot increase somewhere else in that same system. This is where confusion arises. Of course, entropy can be measured in an open system, too, but this introduces additional variables, and of course the Second Law then no longer applies. But even when the Second Law applies, it is still possible for a closed system to produce order, even highly elaborate order, so long as there is a greater increase in disorder somewhere else in the system.
__________________________________________________________

Additionally, a closed or open system is still an unknown factor when the origins of the universe are the topic.

[Inverted Things]

Imagine a universe which has reached the "heat death" stage. We can describe it as a completely disordered closed system. Time, however, is still ticking by. The odds of a spontaneous converging of everything to a single point is very very small, but not non-zero. When you have an infinite amount of time to work with the nearly impossible must happen simply on the basis of the fact that it is not impossible.

Thus, the converging of everything to a single point must happen at some time.

[John Dibble]

I never denied either of those, but the truth is we know absolutely nothing about the behavior of the universe before the Big Bang, so you are simply jumping to a conclusion with insufficient data.

Well, since science believes space/time didn't exist prior to the Big Bang, you're going to have a hard time finding "data".

No, science simply doesn't know what the universe was like at that time.

Because the universe as we do know it has a finite age (~13.7 billion years) we can only see a finite distance out into space: ~13.7 billion light years. This is our so-called horizon. The Big Bang Model does not attempt to describe that region of space significantly beyond our horizon - space-time could well be quite different out there. Pre-big bang we might suppose that space-time as we currently know it did not exist, but we can not know for certain(at least not yet) that space-time in some different form did not exist.

Our understanding of the workings of the universe is too full of unknowns for you to be jumping to conclusions.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Take, for example, a movie of a billiards game 'break' shot. The ordered arrangement of balls becomes disordered, but running the film in reverse would show each individual collision obeying the usual physical laws. The time reversal would be apparent, however, when all the balls ended up in an ordered collection. Although that result could conceivably occur by chance, it is very unlikely. Reducing the example to just two balls would make the odds of an orderly arrangement occurring more likely.

Complexity does not decrease entropy.  Each individual collision caused heat which increased entropy.

---

For a second example of decreasing entropy, start with a closed system large enough to allow significant gravitational forces among its components. Gravity provides a 'negative energy' that can take a completely disordered system and organize it into a radically symmetric arrangement around a common center of gravity.

You are increasing kinetic energy, but decreasing potential energy, so entropy does not decrease.  If this were a gas, you would be heating up the gas which would radiate and thus you would be losing energy and increasing entropy.

---

Answered by: Paul Walorski, B.A. Physics, Part-time Physics Instructor

I'm sorry you wasted your time in school.

[nlm]

That was a short good bye.

My post was off of Paul's Board, so you can take your bashing of his education there, all knowing one. I'm sure he'd love to hear some of your rantings about entropy.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae213.cfm?CFID=21051280&CFTOKEN=31918197

I'm sure he could improve your understanding of the topic. Hehehehe - as if, the mind of fundamentalists is a closed system.

[Emsworth]

The fact remains that every single experiment and/or process ever observed in the history of man has supported the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.  Even the newly discovered Dark Energy supports them.

The existence of an omnipotent God is inconsistent with the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. You cannot insist on using the laws of thermodynamics to prove the existence of an entity that violates those very laws.

[Gabu]

Hehehehe - as if, the mind of fundamentalists is a closed system.

Well it is true that it is impossible for external forces to act on it.

[J-Mann]

I never denied either of those, but the truth is we know absolutely nothing about the behavior of the universe before the Big Bang, so you are simply jumping to a conclusion with insufficient data.

Well, since science believes space/time didn't exist prior to the Big Bang, you're going to have a hard time finding "data".

No, science simply doesn't know what the universe was like at that time.

Because the universe as we do know it has a finite age (~13.7 billion years) we can only see a finite distance out into space: ~13.7 billion light years. This is our so-called horizon. The Big Bang Model does not attempt to describe that region of space significantly beyond our horizon - space-time could well be quite different out there. Pre-big bang we might suppose that space-time as we currently know it did not exist, but we can not know for certain(at least not yet) that space-time in some different form did not exist.

Our understanding of the workings of the universe is too full of unknowns for you to be jumping to conclusions.

Indeed, there are interesting possibilities for the edge of the universe.  I think the cyclical theory is particularly interesting -- you couldn't actually reach any "edge" of the universe because if you got close enough to it, you'd find yourself going back in the other direction!

It's amazing that when we look up at the stars, that we're staring into the past -- four years, 20 years, thousands or even millions.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The fact remains that every single experiment and/or process ever observed in the history of man has supported the 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics.  Even the newly discovered Dark Energy supports them.

The existence of an omnipotent God is inconsistent with the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. You cannot insist on using the laws of thermodynamics to prove the existence of an entity that violates those very laws.

The 1st and 2nd Laws relate to the natural forces, not supernatural

[Gabu]

Indeed, there are interesting possibilities for the edge of the universe.  I think the cyclical theory is particularly interesting -- you couldn't actually reach any "edge" of the universe because if you got close enough to it, you'd find yourself going back in the other direction!

One theory that I heard is that the universe's shape is actually four-dimensional without a center in three dimensions, which is a lot like the cyclical theory you stated.  It sounds like a weird idea, but imagine the following:

Take a one-dimensional universe - a line.  Then, connect its ends to form a circle.  The universe is still one-dimensional, but its center is in a second dimension.

Or, take a two-dimensional universe - a square sheet.  Then, connect its ends to form a sphere.  The universe is still two-dimensional, but its center is in a third dimension.

The theory is that our universe is the exact same, only that it's in three dimensions connected to form a four-dimensional shape.  The only problem is that, given that we live in three dimensions, it's not possible for us to visualize what the universe would look like (even though we can describe it mathematically very simply).

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

That was a short good bye.

My post was off of Paul's Board, so you can take your bashing of his education there, all knowing one. I'm sure he'd love to hear some of your rantings about entropy.

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae213.cfm?CFID=21051280&CFTOKEN=31918197

I'm sure he could improve your understanding of the topic. Hehehehe - as if, the mind of fundamentalists is a closed system.

Well, considering your friend's impressive credentials, why would I dare disagree with him?  After all, he does hold an undergraduate degree in Physics, and is a part-time professor.   Heck, he is almost qualified to be a TA at a major university.

[nlm]

Yes, yes. I'm sure your creditials in physics are much more impressive.

[Gabu]

Well, considering your friend's impressive credentials, why would I dare disagree with him?  After all, he does hold an undergraduate degree in Physics, and is a part-time professor.   Heck, he is almost qualified to be a TA at a major university.

Pretty much the only difference between someone with an undergraduate degree and someone with a graduate degree is that the latter person has done some form of research or study that led to a thesis or a dissertation, which uncovered some heretofore unknown fact.  Additionally, the latter person will likely have studied some topic to a larger depth than the coverage topics receive in an undergraduate program.

Anyone with an undergraduate degree in physics can be reasonably expected to have learned all or at least nearly all of the knowledge available with regards to general physics, including electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics, and general relativity.