QQC 4

Quote: "His evidence was based on alchemy-natural, spontaneous, scientifically credible, and wholly non-occult, but alchemy nonetheless."

Question: What evidence? What was so convincing about it that had not been as convincing in previous debates? What was so amazing about it?

Comment: This line made me really curious about what the evidence was, exactly. I understand that it has a lot to do with alchemy, but it really gets my mind reeling when I try to imagine how another human being's mind works around all of these hypotheses and such, using all their logic to the point where they're sure that it is true. It's interesting to me because some people figure these sort of things out, and so many others can't wrap their minds around it--much like me.

QQC 3

Quote: “Today, scientists have at their disposal machines so precise they can detect the weight of a single bacterium and so sensitive that readings can be disturbed by someone yawning seventy-five feet away, but they have not significantly improved on Cavendish’s measurements of 1792.”

Question: Why is it that they haven’t improved? Because it’s so complex? Because they don’t feel it’s very important? How did they make these machines?

Comment: The part about someone yawning from 75 feet away reminds me of Chaos Theory, since it’s such a small change that changes a reading drastically, like what happened when they rounded a number to predict the weather. Seems like chaos theory connects to a lot of what I’ve been reading.

QQC2

Quote: Now the first thing you will likely realize is that space is extremely well named and rather dismayingly uneventful. Our solar system may be the liveliest thing for trillions of miles, but all the visable stuff in it-- the sun, the planets and their moons...--fills less than a trillionth of the available space.

Question: How many stars would we see?

Comment: I'm aware that our solar system doesn't take up much space at all, but when they call space uneventful, I wonder what you would see, if not the constant asteroids. Wouldn't there still be the gorgeous stars all around of various colors? Although, I guess that could get boring pretty quickly. It seems like a long journey like that is impossible, unless we can make our rocket ships somehow go a billion times faster.

QQC 1

Quote: "When the universe begins to expand, it won't be spreading out to fill a larger emptiness. The only space that exists is the space it creates as it grows."

Questions: How could that be possible? How do we even know this? Where did this idea come from? How can something possibly grow further, when there's nothing to grow in, on, or around? How could there not be any extra space that allows the universe to grow? How quickly does the universe grow, and how often? What is outside of existence? If something is outside of existence, then how could it come to exist? Whatever happened to 'matter cannot be created or destroyed?'

Comment: So, whatever happened to that rule that I've always learned in just about every science class I've ever been in? "Matter cannot be created or destroyed." That doesn't seem to fit that rule. Or does that rule only apply to what already exists? That doesn't really make sense either, because that would mean that nothing more could be created, including the universe.

Whenever I pictured the universe growing, I pictured the black spot filled with stars expanding in empty white space. I'm not sure why. Nothingness just seems to be represented by blank white. However, I would see how that would make sense, since if there was nothing, then there would be no color, no place for the spot to be, or anything. All in all this whole statement has got me wondering just how these scientists got this idea that the universe just keeps on growing. Did they just pull it out of their ears, or what? Or is there some way that they can prove this theory to even be possible? How do we know that the universe is 'infinite'? How do we know it's not just too big to explore? Well, the more I think about it, the more questions I have, even though I'm pretty sure they're impossible to answer.