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July 20

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Planetary core gases

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Can gases and plasmas exist in planetary cores? What about in Earth's core? What if the planet had more uranium in it than Earth and it sank to the core in a higher concentration than Earth's core?Rich (talk) 22:16, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not in Earth's core no. I mean there will be some gasses dissolved in the metal that makes up the core, but it's a solid core. I think all planets in our solar system, in fact all bodies orbiting the sun, the same is true. They have a solid core of some sort. We can tell by the mass of the ones we can't see inside that they are more than just gas. Gravity ensures that the heaviest elements sink to the core and rocks, metals are heavier than gasses.
It could be different in other planetary systems around other stars. One reason is the heavier elements needed for solid cores are created in supernovae, by supernova nucleosynthesis. Our solar system had heavier elements for planets due to a supernova that exploded somewhere nearby, billions of years ago. This required our solar system to be both in the right place and formed late enough to benefit from other stars and their systems having gone supernova. Not all planetary systems will be so lucky, so might not have the elements for solid rocky cores in their planets. --2A04:4A43:904F:F005:105F:8478:7597:2C9F (talk) 00:39, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Which substances have the strongest negative buoyancy and sink fastest or furthest is determined by their densities, assumed to be larger than that of the immersing fluid. Density is not a meaningful concept for elements per se. The density of a substance also depends on temperature and pressure, and this dependence is different for different substances, making this dynamically complicated.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:25, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Without the elements for solid rocky cores, you're somewhat unlikely to form any planets. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A high concentration of uranium-235 inducing fission can naturally occur already without the stuff sinking to the core; see Natural nuclear fission reactor. For an explosion to occur, the fission reaction has to occur within a containment; otherwise, the pressure will push the fissile substance apart, resulting in a naturally controlled slow process.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:37, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now I am minded to wonder: if you could collect enough fissile substance and place it in freefall, how much would you need such that its internal gravity would balance its internal pressure, forming a 'fission star'? I suspect that a gaseous body would be so large that fusion would also occur and even take over.
Perhaps there is a range of mass where the body could be merely, but stably, liquid. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.5.172.125 (talk) 10:05, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Without an atmosphere, it would quickly evaporate.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:34, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 22

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Weather questions

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  1. Why so few weather stations are located at downtowns of cities and so many are located at airports?
  2. Is there any place in the US that measures sunshine hours as of 2025? The hours of US are interesting because:
    1. The sunniest place in the world, Yuma is in the US.
    2. The places in northern US with continental climates have higher winter sunshine hours than places in Europe because they are further south.
No US weatherbox that I have found has sunshine data from a period more recent than 1961-1990.

3. How common is it in Europe to use 0°C isotherm to separate group C and D climates in Köppen climate classification?
4. Are there any countries that measure dew points in weather stations?
5. Is there any European country that measures snowfall? --40bus (talk) 07:06, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1: Accurate weather data is important for aviation safety, so weather stations at airports are normally mandatory. Downtown locations suffer from an urban heat island. The temperature they measure, and also the wind, isn't representative for a larger area. Now you might argue that for the people in the city it's nice to know what the weather in the city is like, but in a larger city of about a million people the urban heat effect downtown may be 8°C and in the suburbs only 2°C, so downtown isn't even representative for the city. If downtown has a waterfront, a tiny change in wind direction may cause a huge change in temperature. Finally, data from weather stations are fed into numerical weather forecasts. Those run at a spacial resolution of some tens of kilometres (with faster computers, this is improving), which is too coarse to resolve urban heat islands. A weather station at a location not representative for an area of 1000 km2 will mess up the weather forecast. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:38, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
4: Temperature and humidity are both measured at most weather stations all over the world. How humidity is measured exactly varies; see hygrometer for details. The resulting data can be converted to absolute humidity, relative humidity and dew point. Often both relative humidity and dew point are reported, but given one of them and the temperature, all can be calculated. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:49, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
5: Norway records snow depth on a daily basis at many weather stations, see here. Mikenorton (talk) 15:45, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 23

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22.7 liters per mole

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There is a law or rule that a mole of gas has volume 22.7 liters at STP. Does this law have a name? I think it follows from the ideal gas law and plugging in the relevant physical constants, but that probably isn't how I'd describe it if I were trying to explain a calculation to someone. Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:91F7:D2D1:408F:D563 (talk) 06:41, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is Avogadro's law at standard temperature and pressure. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 08:58, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps more precisely the ideal gas law. Given the value of the gas constant, this figure of 22.7 L / mol at STP is an easily calculated consequence and also easily sourced fact, but does IMO not deserve to be called a law or rule, just like the well-known but nameless fact that 1 litre of water weighs 1 kg at STP is not called a law or rule – although it is a good rule of thumb.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:27, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was 22.4 litres/mole when I was at school, and I was unaware that the mole had suffered from inflation. Thank you for drawing this to my attention. catslash (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The mole hasn't suffered from inflation; temperature has. Climate change, you see. Actually, 22.414 litres/mole is at 101325 pascal and 273.15 kelvin, 22.700 litres/mole at the same pressure, 276.63 kelvin.
BTW, the concept is known as molar volume. For an ideal gas, it's the gas constant times temperature divided by pressure. The gas constant in turn is the Bolzmann constant times the Avogadro constant, but observationally the gas constant was first. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:02, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In 1982, the absolute pressure of STP was changed from exactly 1 atm (101.325 kPa) to exactly 1 bar (100 kPa). This explains the change from 22.414 to 22.7. Using the physical constant values of the 2019 revision of the SI, the current value at STP (273.15 K) is 22.71095464... L / mol.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:56, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we'd grasped that; we were being sarcastic. It's astounding that IUPAC are such imbeciles as to redefine a commonly used term like STP. It's as bad as the IEEE redefining gain. Data that references these terms is now ambiguous, its meaning depending on the date of publication, or the inclination of the author to adopt the new definitions. And nobody even bothered to tell me about about STP, nor most of the Web to judge from typing volume of mole of gas at stp into Google. catslash (talk) 01:12, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They didn't tell me about it, either. Nor did they ask for my permission, which would not have been given.
Other "standards" that became "new and improved" to interject questions when using old references:
Avogadro's Number is now 6.022e23 -- not 6.023e23
Atomic weight is now 12.0 for carbon-12 -- not 16.0 for oxygen-16
Boiling point of water is now slightly less than 212°F 2601:14D:4181:3320:DD29:3BA7:1F7C:EC49 (talk) 12:29, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 24

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Lightning not in the atmosphere

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Could a lightning occur entirely within the earth or ocean?Rich (talk) 01:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not according to the description in Lightning. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots01:13, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't Earth's atmosphere part of "the Earth"? That aside, to get lightning, first you need some process that generates a charge separation between different regions of something. And this process has to be able to get the field strength of the resulting electric field, to exceed the dielectric strength of the medium—upon which, dielectric breakdown happens and the medium begins conducting current. What sorts of processes are going to cause that in rock or in ocean water? Ocean water isn't a dielectric at all; it's electrically conductive. --Slowking Man (talk) 02:19, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that much. Concerning the ocean or a even a lake, i was wondering if the water would acquire a charge relative the earth beneath it, maybe from an ordinary lightning stroke from the atmosphere. As a side note, maybe some form of lightning inside caves or empty magma chambers? But another thing I was wondering if inside the crust or mantle or even core, charge separation could build up, probably much more slowly than in the atmosphere, and somehow get triggered by a cosmic ray or gamma ray from uranium decays. And I don't see that the charge carriers would need to have water droplets in a generalalized lightning.Rich (talk) 03:55, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some related topics:
1. Fulgurites.
2. Electricity at hydrothermal vents.
3. Piezoelectricity/Flexoelectricity/Triboelectricity maybe in connection to earthquake lights if they're real. Also Seismo-electromagnetics: Current research suggests it's dissolved gases that come out of solution when de-pressurized and then ionize to generate the electrical signatures.
4. Telluric currents, which sound like more forteana but are used in Magnetotellurics for serious geology. Geomagnetically induced current (a better article).
I also vaguely remember an old ref desk question about getting electric current for free by ... well it involved sticking poles in the ground, or a cable. But none of this is very much like lightning (as Bugs already told us).  Card Zero  (talk) 07:05, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well for "electric current in the ground" there's this: single-wire earth return. (Also perhaps of interest: [1]) Of course, it's only "free" to you if you're sponging off someone else's SWER system. Depending on soil chemistry, you can do the electric potato thing with suitable rods, but that's only "free" until you deplete it. --Slowking Man (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's an anecdote – whether it's true, I don't know, but it sounds somewhat plausible – of a lightning strike underground in a gold mine in the US, 19th or early 20th century. Supposedly, lightning struck the ground and the electric current passed through a gold vein. The gold vein was interrupted by the mine and lightning jumped from the ceiling to the floor of the tunnel. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:25, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reminds me of The First Sirian Bank -- Verbarson  talkedits 20:09, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is that water in a lake or ocean is itself an electrical conductor. If lightning hits it (which happens a lot, over the 70% of the planet's surface that is water), the current just flows through the water "down" the voltage gradient. There is no visible "bolt" figure in the water: the "bolt" you see in the air is formed by some of the air getting ionized, once the air's breakdown voltage is exceeded, into a plasma. The electric current flows through this conductive "channel" of plasma and superheats it to glowing; thunder is caused by the explosive expansion of the plasma and surrounding air as it's suddenly heated.
Soil is variably conductive (for one it tends to have some water dissolved in it): not extremely well, but enough to use it as a generally-assumed-as-infinite "sink" to use as the zero-voltage reference point for electrical ground. Take a look at that SWER stuff I mentioned above, to see how demonstrable amounts of current can even be conducted long-distance through it! Getting deeper down, I'd have to defer to a geophysicist for details, but I suspect interaction with Earth's magnetic field makes it so a large-scale charge separation can't really form and be sustained. For one the convection currents in the mantle and core get "linked in" with the planet's magnetic field; that's how it's generated, and there's continual chaotic effects back-and-forth between the field and the mantle/core. --Slowking Man (talk) 23:31, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 26

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Can I post the following new information on the GcMAF page based on Wikipedia posting rules? This corrects a glaring omission on this page? It's been so long since I posted that I have forgotten all the rules and need help. I don't want to start a edit war which is common on this page since there are individuals who want the content on this page to remain negative although the science has moved on and is becoming positive. I just want to correct the record on GcMAF. I have outlined a potential post below. Any recommended wording change or reduced content that just says GcMAF successfully completed a Phase 1 Study would be OK. There is content on the web that says that GcMAF has not been studies for safety and this proves there is false narrative that needs correcting. Thanks for your analysis.

COMPLETED FDA REGISTERED PHASE 1 CLINICAL TRIAL IN ISRAEL

In May 2017 the Sheba Hospital in Israel successfully completed a cancer-related GcMAF (under the name EF-022) FDA registered Phase 1 Clinical Trial. Results for Part 1 of this trial were presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held November 5-9, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the Part 1, Phase 1 Clinical Trial GcMAF was found to have an acceptable safety profile and resulted in cancer related disease stabilization in 42% of trial patients. Pharmacodynamics markers suggest a reduction of Tregs and increase of the M1/M2 ratio.

https://mct.aacrjournals.org/content/14/12_Supplement_2/B30

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT02052492 PageMaster (talk) 01:12, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reference desk is not equipped to answer this question. Try the talk page of the article, Talk:GcMAF, but perhaps read the section Talk:GcMAF § Efranat edits first, since this seems to be about the same clinical trial.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:06, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
PS. I see you posted over seven years ago on that talk page, in that very section, so why did you come here now?  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

cytoplasmic streaming

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In today's picture of the day (first video in cytoplasmic streaming) is the video at real time or is it sped up or down? (I didn't know where to ask this, so here seemed the best place.) -- SGBailey (talk) 05:10, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is an implicit rule in science that when media of an observation is altered in any non-obvious way, the alteration is described together with any presentation of the media. This would include altering the time rate of a video. No alteration is mentioned at commons:File:Cytoplasmic streaming.webm.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:24, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the article could probably benefit from some information about the range of speeds for cytoplasmic streaming. The length of onion epidermal cells seems to be in the 0.2 to 0.4mm range, or thereabouts, so the video being at real time doesn't seem unreasonable. Streaming in slime molds can be much faster than that. I didn't realize until quite recently that cytoplasmic streaming is used in modeling e.g. "Revealing the Dark Threads of the Cosmic Web". Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 27

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Fade when turning lights off

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I've noticed that when I turn room lights (LEDs) off, there is a fade to blackness. Are the LED lights fading or is it something to do with my eyes, such as persistence of vision? ―Panamitsu (talk) 08:02, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What color is the fading light? The white light section of the LED lamp article says they typically use phosphor, commonly yellow. This would glow briefly.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:12, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When I look at the bulb there is a whitish-yellowish fade yes, but what I was referring to was the light in the whole room fading to darkness. A weird thing is that I cannot replicate the fade. If I turn the switch off and on there is no fade at all. But there is one sometimes, which makes me think that a) it only happens when the light has been on for a long time or b) it's some eye precondition. ―Panamitsu (talk) 11:03, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If in doubt, ask your doctor. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots11:59, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at a bright light source for a length of time, after discontinuing you will perceive an afterimage due to your photoreceptor cells getting "overexcited". This is a basis for some entertaining optical illusion effects: give the lilac chaser a try! --Slowking Man (talk) 19:39, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wow the lilac chaser is so cool! ―Panamitsu (talk) 22:33, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be leftover charge in smoothing capacitors powering the LEDs? cmɢʟeeτaʟκ 23:14, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And in white LED lights there are fluorescent substances that continue to glow at fading levels for about a second as Card_Zero said above. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It could be interesting to make a video of the situation and see if it matches what your eyes are seeing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots06:14, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea although I had a try and my phone's autoexposure is too slow, giving a fade even when I don't see one. The phone records a fade also when I turn the lights on. ―Panamitsu (talk) 08:05, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
See if the camera app has a manual mode with exposure control. cmɢʟeeτaʟκ 10:55, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 28

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ISO 21482 Symbols

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The ISO 21482 article talks about other symbols that were considered. Do we know where those symbols were? I can't seem to find them via Google. 93.107.224.16 (talk) 06:41, 28 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 29

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Bench seats

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when was the last American sedan to have bench/sofa style seats. Aren't all front seats two separate seats. DMc75771 (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's some information at Bench seat#Decline, which says that in 2013 "it was reported that only one American automobile, the Chevrolet Impala, was sold with a bench seat, and the option was terminated in the next model year". Deor (talk) 02:01, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a 2024 source which says that they are back! See this URL I have no idea how reliable that is. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:56, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New Scientist

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Dear all. Has anybody a subscription to the New Scientist? And could send me this paper? That would be most useful. Thanks. --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 10:16, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like a Non-paywalled version of the same story from Eos (magazine)? Or perhaps the actual paper in Nature?  Card Zero  (talk) 11:29, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. No, the paper I want to read is a 2025 follow up. I want to see how the story develops. --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 12:35, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is doi:10.1101/2025.03.10.642362 the study that New Scientist is reporting? DMacks (talk) 12:42, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is. Thanks. --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 12:51, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Found it : https://archive.ph/zqoNw --Lewisiscrazy (talk) 06:52, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Appearance of Oort cloud

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I suppose that if the Oort cloud indeed exists, it probably doesn't look like this picture. Even though there is a vast number of objects in the Oort cloud, they are spaced so far apart in regard to their size that the cloud is mostly empty space and the objects are hardly visible when viewed at this distance. Rather than being almost impenetrable, like this picture suggest, it should be pretty easy to travel through the Oort cloud without even encountering quite many objects. Am I correct in this reasoning? JIP | Talk 20:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you're right. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much all "solid" matter is as you describe, "mostly empty space". -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 21:45, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is often said, and yet when I tried to travel through some solid matter recently, I broke my arm.  Card Zero  (talk) 05:16, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's weird, since arms are mostly empty space too. Intersecting empty spaces must be like the square root of a black hole. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 07:12, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
* On the other hand, even the most vacuous mind has a density which can not be penetrated by the most scute cerebral energy. I would not be surprised if neutrinos got stuck and just went into hibernation after passing the tin foil. Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Scute"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots15:09, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, 's' is next to 'a' on the keyboard. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.253.201 (talk) 13:55, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

July 30

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Mosquitoes and other flies in northern North America

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could the extremely dense prevalence of mosquitoes and black flies in North America be due to the human-caused extinction of a vital predator of flying bugs? Either by Europeans in the last few hundred years or even thousands of years earlier by First Peoples?Rich (talk) 08:34, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't have to be black-and-white like that. Bats and dragonflies and fish that feed on larvae have taken major hits to their populations. Also, not too long ago the area was covered by a kilometer of ice. Abductive (reasoning) 19:12, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

US and ICD

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Does US still use the ICD (meaning ICD-10-CM), or it has declared that ICD is wholly obsolete in US medicine? tgeorgescu (talk) 13:28, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to ICD-10-CM, then yes. Their relevant link to officialdom is this one updated in June 2024. Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:34, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I used the prompt "Does the U.S. still use ICD-10-CM" in the new Google search that has just been released in the UK and it gave an unequivocal "Yes", for what that's worth! The full answer was "Yes, the United States continues to use ICD-10-CM for diagnosis coding and ICD-10-PCS for procedure coding. These are the mandated standards for electronic health transactions in the U.S. The transition to these systems was finalized in 2015, replacing the older ICD-9-CM." Mike Turnbull (talk) 13:38, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not a reference, it's a string of plausible noises output by a smooth-talking large language model.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:42, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No-one said it was a reference. My first reply gave the relevant reference. I thought that the fact the LLM mentioned ICD-10-PCS was interesting, since my prompt made no suggestion I might be interested in that. Mike Turnbull (talk) 15:03, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

infinite universe

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I've heard two things: 1) the presence of a singularity at the Big Bang or at the center of a black hole is considered unsatisfying from a theoretical perspective. They want better theories that keep the densities finite. 2) the universe (I mean the entire universe, not just the observable part) might be infinite in size.

But, is the infinite size not also a singularity of sorts? Especially if the infinite universe was supposed to have originated from the same big bang? The density of the universe is supposed to stay about the same throughout the infinite space, right? So that makes the mass infinite too. Do they have an explanation for where it came from? 2601:644:8581:75B0:979C:5F82:9ADC:661A (talk) 20:08, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are theories in which the universe did not come into existence because it has always existed; there has not been a "first moment". These theories include the so-called cyclic models and the eternal inflation model. It is debatable whether these are scientific theories, because (at least in their current versions) they are not falsifiable. They have no explanatory value as to how come there is something rather than nothing. None of the scientific theories in which the universe came into existence at some absolute time 0, together with time itself, offers an explanation for this cosmogony.
In this cosmological context, a "singularity" is a state in which the laws of physics as we understand them break down. Since many theoretical physicists are not happy with their theories breaking down, they spend a good deal of time trying to theorize the problems away, with limited success. An infinite universe is not a theoretical problem and does not entail the existence of a singularity in this sense.  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yet all of science's attempts to understand the creation of the universe fail in some way. The very existence of something that either (a) has always existed, or (b) started from literally nothing, is the greatest singularity possible, under the definition you provide. That would be true of a grain of sand just as much as a thing as monstrously large as the universe. To those scientists who say they understand the universe, I quote André Gide at them: "Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it." -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:24, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me that "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" is about as falsifiable as the other hypotheses about the Big Bang, etc. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots02:37, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, kind of. We did once take a picture of the one and not the other. But yes, your two options are equally questionable in terms of answering where "it" came from. Matt Deres (talk) 13:17, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

August 1

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