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   On Wed, 2 Apr 2025, Richmond wrote:   
      
   > D  writes:   
   >   
   >>> I read up about measuring the properties: Millikan’s Oil Drop   
   >>> Experiment (1909-1913) – Measuring e. But what he actually measured   
   >>> was an oil drop, and he did the rest by theory, calculation, and   
   >>> assumption.   
   >>   
   >> Surely, since then, technology has advanced enough for us to be able   
   >> to measure the effects of electrons? We can measure electricity,   
   >> fields etc.   
   >>   
   >> But I bet you are the scientists of the two of us, so maybe you know?   
   >>   
   >   
   > I am not a scientist, I am just reading about quanta. But I checked for   
   > the various ways which the mass of an electron has been measured, and   
   > the latest one seemed even less plausible than the drop of oil. They   
   > have a thing like a mouse trap "Penning Traps" which is supposed to trap   
   > the electron, then they weigh it. This is all pure theory of course,   
   > begging the question. What is in the trap? Nobody knows, they just   
   > theorize that it is an electron.   
      
   Makes sense. It is "X" that has a measurable property. Fascinating! Thank you   
   very much for looking this up. =)   
      
   > And the mass is only a stationary mass. When the electron is moving,   
   > it's mass is uncertain. The less certain the mass, the more certain the   
   > direction or location or something like that. Crazy stuff.   
      
   Agreed! Which makes it even more interesting! ;)   
      
   >>> But I think God is defined to have created the world, which is quite   
   >>> definitely an empirical event.   
   >>   
   >> We do have a theory about the big bang, but, assuming that the big   
   >> bang was in turn, caused by something else (god?) that is something we   
   >> will never know, since by definition, the cause was outside   
   >> time/space, so that is forever unknowable to us. I remain agnostic   
   >> about that. As per your questions and arguments, I admit that we have   
   >> a theory about big bang, also we can never be sure about it.   
   >   
   > What they have done is looked at the evidence, i.e. the microwave   
   > background radiation, and puzzled over the fact that it is not   
   > uniform. They then theorize backward, i.e. not a prediction but an   
   > explanation, that before the big bang there was energy which contained   
   > quantum fluctuations. And these fluctuations meant that the universe did   
   > not cool uniformly but formed random patterns and so galaxies. This   
   > explains the observed phenomena in the same way electrons explain   
   > phenomena. When the universe reaches heat death it will be uniform   
   > again, but there will still be quantum fluctuations, which given enough   
   > time, which of course there is, will cause another big bang.   
      
   I don't remember when or where, but I read about an article trying to explain   
   how something could come out of nothing. The idea was that the energy of the   
   system (our universe) would balance out over time to a nice 0, but based on   
   copious amounts of math and equations they showed that in theory a positive or   
   negative excess of energy could exist, as long as over time it balanced out.   
      
   Very far out, and I very much doubt I will ever be able to learn that much math   
   to understand it. ;)   
      
   > But as regards being outside time, in fact time and space are inside   
   > space-time, time and space aren't the true nature of reality.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)