From: dnomhcir@gmx.com   
      
   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.   
      
   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.   
      
   >> 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.   
      
   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)