AFAIC, this IS the major obstacle for us being able to prove String theory (or at least how fundamentally true it might get).

It's generally accepted that space has multiple dimensions (11, to be exact as postulated by M-Theory and mentioned plenty above by Mumblefratz - thks for the links, btw), some of it even belong to our reality (including TIME, btw)... as to an actual demonstration of everything above or below this plane of existence, one would have to be quite ingenious.

Assuming SoL threshold (by warp or otherwise) is a fact, accessing or returning from alternate Dimensions (exposed by a valid String Law & not theory, again - the distinction is important) is simply a matter of perspective or better yet, perception AND interpretation.

I'm not honestly sure how you could have researched the topic for years without coming across evidence supporting the big bang, short of a fundamental misunderstanding of what the theory is trying to convey (which is quite understandable.  The common perception of the big bang is just as much a simplification as saying that the earth revolves around the sun, as opposed to saying that they both revolve around a common center of mass).

The big bang is not a theory of the origin of the universe.  Its a theory that explains why the universe is the way it is.  According to the big bang theory, the universe "expanded out" (again, simplification, but thats unimportant) from a singulartiy, ~14 billion years ago.  The theory says nothing of why that singularity was there, how it got there, or what made it.  The universe, as we know it, came from this singularity.

So yes, if you're looking at the big bang theory as a theory for the origin of the universe, you won't find any evidence.  To my knowledge, there are no theories with any concrete evidence that currently suggest a universal origin.  However, the big bang does explain why the universe is the way it is, and there is plenty of evidence for that.

Its the possiblities of having multiple universes that is really amazing i mean; if the Universe is infinte then we must have parrell universes because of the very fact that it IS infinite. But for the Universe to be infinite it has to be flat and both ways are impossible to think about. I mean look at it if the universe is not flat then it is donut shapped (we think) then how amazing is that i mean is there some sign that says Universe ending 3 lightyears. How is that possible? And how is it possible for the Universe to be infinite and Flat i mean the ramifactions of what we are talking about in relatve calmness is truely amazing.

Lets say the universe is infinite then mathamatically speaking there is another EXACT copy of earth and everyone on it. I mean can our minds actually process what that means and if there are are multiple demensions then there would be infinite copies of the earth with copies of all of us. And thats not all each of us would live every life possible under those terms. Also it could be possible to go to a diffrent demension how? Well if we focused ALOT of Very powerful lazers on 1 very small spot of space yes it would take massivve amounts of energy but this is a concept not something that will ever happen probably. You could tear a hole in space and time creating a wormhole yes they are real just rare and rather not the things you see in movies. Now we could probably not go through it because we would be torn to shreds by the gravational pull and such and but lets say a human could even then you wouldn't be able to return since everytime you went in you would end up in a diffrent parrell universe and there is a possibility that you could end up in the middle of a planet or something.

Now Membranes that was possibly the most important theory ever in science for me probably not for many else. I mean what this means is imagine String theory as a Cello player or Gutair player and imagine adding drums to that. Drums add a base to the Cello or gutair and deepen the sound. Membrane Theory is like that basically taking in the assumption that the Universe is flat since it has to be for the universe to be infinite. Now if that is true then and there are diffrent deminsions the diffrent demensions would be no more then a millimeter apart in most cases and would act somewhat like the surface of a drum. Now that creates another Theory could have 2 of these demensions collided together and caused the big bang? Thats another question that we don't know and i don't know much about it and would have to do some reasearch on it.

Well this is some of my views and something for people to discuss this is the basis of String and membrane theory, i think lol, i need spell check and some more time if i were to actually write something that was somewhat coherant lol! Well i hope people can read it somewhat.

Cheers- Attila

Edit: mainly for Athena so you have been studying this for years and have spoken to hundreds yet you see no proof for the big bang well i guess you closed your eyes and put your hands over your ears to do that since after your intensive study of the history of the universe you did not uncover 1 piece of evidence supporting it. The biggest evidence ive seen is the fact that the closer you get to the center of the universe the colder it gets and the less energetic everything is the fringes are the hottest and the most energetic this suggests that 1 event triggered expansion since that is still happening. If you want an arguement you got one.

Maybe not concrete evidence, but if you read Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe" you get an idea as to how, according to String/M-Theory the singularity and hence the known universe were "formed".

Btw.: If there would be proof for those theories, they wouldn't be a theory anymore.

As a little side note concerning creationism:

I always find it highly amusing that creationists always ask scientists for proof of concept, while when being asked for the same they simply state: "I need not proof. I have faith that things are the way they are because "God" wants it that way." And when asked why then he lets bad things happen:"God walks in mysterious ways."

Edit: I deleted this because it wasn't proper and didn't add anything.

The theories are still just mathematical and speculative though, aren't they?  I haven't heard any evidence supporting any origin theories (doesn't mean it isn't out there, I just haven't heard it).  In fact, I've heard its pretty near impossible to determine anything pre-big bang beyond just a mathematical theory, just based on how wildly different the universe was back then.

Any you can always get theories with proof that still count as theories.  Big bang theory has a whole bunch to back it up.  Theory of relativity is pretty much proven.  I don't think there's much proof (yet) for String/M-Theory.

This is because there are empirical observations/experiments to back it up.

For String/M-Theory this proves a bit more difficult, to say the least.

As long as we don't stumble over magical timetravelling bunnies I guess we'll have to stick to mathematical models (if you get the reference ).

The competeing theory for the big bang was steady state and not necessarily creationism. Steady state said the the universe is the same now as it always was and as it always will be, in its nature that is, things move of course and stars go nova etc. but its not getting any bigger or smaller. I just always saw the big bang as being evidence of creation and not a contradiction of it. That is that there was nothing and then there was something. That there WAS a begining to everything that now exists. Other than trying to say that it took only 7 days (I mean without a planet to go around the sun, what IS a day?) , I don't see why a big bang can be so accepted but having that bang happen by design is such a hated idea. People can accept that all matter in the universe, an unphathomable amount of matter was once condensed into the size of the head of a pin, yet they will not entertain the notion that there could be God who made it all happen. Its easier to believe that it just happed, no reason, just one moment the speck went Boom... or bang or maybe it went "Pffffft".

But as to your point I essentially agree, even though I think it's not neccesarily probable, there is nothing in the big bang, steady state or even multiverse models that disprove the existence of a god/designer/whatever. I do believe that the genesis creation myth taken in any kind of literal sense is disproved by evolution and any modern cosmological model, however nothing precludes the existence of a creator who created an initial state and then guided/nudged things along in the manner that science has discovered. If this is what people refer to as intelligent design then I have no issue with it, however when intelligent design is used to justify other purely religious beliefs then I'm more skeptical.

As I've said elsewhere, my biggest concern about religion is that it usually involves someone telling me that *they* know how god wants *me* to act, in particular what they mostly say is that god wants *me* to give *them* money. Somehow this just doesn't seem to inspire me.

So back to my initial comment. Perhaps the big bang was merely the fart of god.

I really wish there was a way to merge threads... The 'Age of the Universe' thread would fit so nicely with this one...

Also, it didn't actually go 'bang,' thats just a term used to describe the explosion of energy. Since there was no matter at the time (I think), there was no sound.

Somewhat like how the media has dubbed the Higgs particle the 'god particle' due to misquoting a physicist... If I remember correctly he said something along the lines of 'finding the higgs particle would bring us much closer to understanding the mind of god.'

If the theists are right and there is an alpha-deity (with or without pantheon), I pray with every fiber of my being that It has a Grand Sense of Humour. Rhetorically speaking, there is no other reasonable way to explain the sheer silliness of It All. Love, murder, head cheese, sex, politics, mosquitoes...I could only forgive an omnipotent god those things if their creation entailed a Celestial Tongue Firmly In Cheek. Alright, maybe I'll blame head cheese on human moral failings, but that's just an exception to prove a rule...

Friends - thank you for a stimulating argument, in which some ideas were presented I did not hear before (and will research when I can). I regret that I do not have the time to do this extremely intensive topic justice and do not want to dishonor your very well-thought-out replies or my position with a hasty response. My busy schedule holds me back; I unfortunately cannot continue this debate.

I salute you all and can't wait to look into some of the points you've made. In lieu of anyone else who wants to argue in favor of Christian creationism, if you're interested, I encourage you to check out the Answers in Genesis page. I'm not out to convince you - just make sure you're well aware of both sides of the issue, so you can understand your own position as best you can. It's only scientific. : ) And don't worry - AIG doesn't appeal to faith. It's all scientific evidence/analysis.

Paradox

Any concept, idea, theory or hypothesis will eventually be disproved.

This idea disproves itself, but I feel that it may be correct in the majority of cases.

M theory is supported by mathematics alone.

One interesting thing about this theory is that; if you assume that there are 11 dimensions rather then 10 like in normal string theory, all 5 versions of string theory combine into one theory.

Well, I have to admit that it IS hardly imaginable that intelligent life is just an accidental alignment of carbon-oxygen groups, amino acids, biochemical reactions, electrical impulses and whatnot, and that it ceases to exist after death. But on the other hand ID is even harder to imagine.

Still, IRRC it was at the end of the first MiB movie when they showed that the universes are just marbles some big aliens are playing with.

No science involved here just pure speculation.

Yeah, same here.

Though into the micro direction I think things end when you reach the level of the strings.

 Maybe the strings are made of fibers wrapped around each other!

Yeah, I guess you're right.

Metaphorically speaking this would also mean that there is no "Final Frontier".

This post is simply because I can't resist pointing out your out of context use of the second law of thermodynamics. Really, the important part of the law in this case is, "...an isolated system which is not in equilibrium..." Now, the universe is effectively finite (even if it is really infinite, it's effective thermally connected extent is limited by the speed of light and the age of the universe) so it is an isolated system which is not in thermal equilibrium - meaning that the entropy of the known universe must increase over time. Any decrease would violate thermodynamics. However, if you take any proper subset of the universe, you are no longer talking about a truly isolated system, and so the 2nd law is at best an approximation.

For example, let's take the subset of the universe that is the Earth. It is not even remotely an isolated system - there is a constant energy exchange between the Earth and its surroundings (an influx of energy from the sun, energy loss through mostly infrared radiation into space, etc). This means that you cannot apply the second law of thermodynamics to Earth as a whole. There is no contradiction between thermodynamics and life or even evolution. Earth is not an isolated system, and it has a constant influx of energy, so it's entirely possible for the entropy of all of or parts of Earth to decrease.

To go even farther, let's assume that Earth really were in perfect isolation from the rest of the universe. Life and evolution would still be perfectly consistent with the laws of thermodynamics. How, you ask? Well, let's say life develops and evolves in one place - which means a local reduction in entropy; as long as entropy rises by a greater extent in the rest of the system (Earth), then everything is in order (pardon the pun). This isn't infinitely sustainable (but really, nothing is) because eventually the system will reach equilibrium.

And, now that I'm posting anyway, I may as well throw in my opinion of M/String-Theory. I think they're extremely interesting ideas that are worth exploring, for several reasons: they somehow manage to intrigue more of the general population than most of physics/science does, and that's a great thing in my opinion. Also, even if they turn out to be wrong or we can't prove them, their development has resulted in mathematical tools that can be applied to a lot of other questions in physics, and have allowed us to solve previously unsolvable problems. Another reason is that even if we cannot really search for evidnece for them now, we can in theory - and hopefully will be able to in the future. It would be shortsighted of us to only research what we can test now. The Higgs Boson was proposed as a solution to the mass problem well before we had any way of testing its validity - its first real test will be the collisions in the LHC once it starts running. No one will build the next multi-billion dollar science experiment if no scientists can intrigue politicians with what we might find, or why it might be useful.

@pigeonpigeon - very nice comments. I happen to firmly agree with them.

On a side note, karma given to other informative posters as well.

The universal entropy must increase, but local entropy can decrease. For this example, assume you have a peice of ice and a glass of water in an isolated system. When you put ice in the glass of water, the entropy of the water decreases. The entropy of the ice increases by an amount slightly higher than the amount by which the water decreased. So there we have a simple example of decreasing entropy on a local scale. Other examples would include the sun giving off radiation (sun's entropy decreasing), an air conditioner lowering the temperature in a room, or just about any situation in which an object is cooling.

Cooling is not the same as a reduction in entropy - big misconception. The radiative cooling of the sun is actually a loc al entropy-increasing process. 

Godammit, PP. I can't give you more karma so soon. You'll have to settle for a hug.