to not care about the structure of the universe?

[SethStarkaddersMum]

DH thinks I am being parochial and anthropocentric.
I think I have got more pressing things to worry about, like how to get more vegetables into DS1 and make DD do her reading and when DS2 is going to let me get some sleep.

AIBU to not care how many dimensions it exists in or what sort of stars are out there or any of that crap?

had to get some sustenance.

It's a strange way of thinking. I shall try it out on dh. Hope he doesn't know it but he's one of those people who seems to know everything about everything

strange to me I mean

YANBU not to care yourself but YABU to dismiss such things as 'crap'.

I'm glad that there are physicists engaged on trying to understand the universe(s) even though I can't follow the maths well enough(I have 2 maths A levels but a long time ago) and some of the stuff I've tried to read boggles me totally.

There may well be aspects of the cosmos that are simply beyond anyones comprehension with the limitations of our apey brains but heck its wonderful to try - and quite nice that along the way they casually invent the web.

That's quite clever Molly. I will have to think about that.

Look at the tour bus bit

I'd just been reading up on it boffin and come a cross the bit where an infinite number of guests arrive and you get the guests to move up to the room double their room number thus freeing up all the uneven numbers for the new arrivals.

I don't know if I can really get my head round it tbh

Still working on it though

sorry to be thickbut where does the last guest already in the hotel go? Or are all the guests eternally shifting rooms and moving all the time?

Urgh, my head is spinning a bit now (but maybe that's the point...). I agree with this from the "Infinity is not a number..." article:

Infinity is not a number, and trying to treat it as one tends to be a pretty bad idea. At best you're likely to come away with a headache, at worst with the firm belief that 1 = 0.

But I am pleased that you think my dad's idea is clever, Boffin. I won't tell him though, he might get (infinitely) big headed...

They are eternally shifting rooms.

But only because it would take an infinite amount of time.

Ooh I thought I was the only one who fancied Brian Cox
I would soooooo check into an infinite hotel with him

Now the Higgs Bosoms Bosuns

Hadron Rap

He is fit

He can be on my beach in the parallel universe.

But maybe not the 'other' Brian Cox, Praelector of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

T'other Brian

no no it's the parallel universe where we're being highbrow

inbetween the toe fumblings etc

Time for another eh? I was getting a bit lost reading about how an infinite nnuber of guests arrived wearing positive fractions in their lowest terms on their shirts and I'm afraid I didn't the solution to that one.

So let's move quickly on then...

Or t'otherest Brian Cox

I don't think there's an infinite number of them though.

nice rap, I like her, so now I am looking up Higgs boson fgs

"that a trip to Mars might have immense benefits to the human race in that respect"

I'd have to say I agree with that - and glad it has the potential to increase the number of students, too - but it also goes a little towards confirming my point that since the Moon landing there hasn't been all that much achieved. Oh, a few 'robot vehicles' have crash landed (or just crashed, I don't store such detail in my head) over the last, what, 30 years, when they could have been making their plans for more adventurous undertakings.

They've done daft things like get the Hubble telescope up and then twigged that they (bunch of apparently dumb scientists) didn't do the measurements properly. Inexcusable.

Oooops - sorry, 40 years. Wrong number was 'cos I am getting old and remember watching it...
'live'... before some of you were born.

some of the kids had to ask grandparents for their memories when doing Neil Armstrong in history - my DD didn't!

I'm sure there's been a lot more than a few crashed landings since then though, having recently watched some of the solar system series recently. (the crash caused by some 'rocket scientists' not using SI units was truly appalling). Remote probes have got us a lot more knowledge of other planets and their moons than manned missions could have.

"Now tell me that doesn't blow your mind ..."

No, sorry, fuse is still intact. What next ?

.....

"It's part of our humanity, being curious, ... We don't know what we don't know."

Well, in my view, it's still not a sin to not give a damn about the stuff "we don't know", as you so eloquently put it.

.....

"I don't think it should be considered normal or acceptable not to have a passing interest in the universe and other things outside the domestic sphere"

Not acceptable ? I say, ladies, someone strap me into this chair and put that thick cable onto this metal helmet thing, oh, and do remember to stand well clear when generator is started, or it will give you all a nasty jolt, too!

.....

I don't think it's a crime, or extraordinary, or even unusual to learn about and (mostly) enjoy what's going on in your locality, the country, the world...

without questioning whether there are other life forms "out there", or how the universe was created or will end, and whether there's some omnipotent ...

I think the 'very small' is very interesting.The way particles 'know' if they are being observed and change their behaviour accordingly.

Grimma, remote probing

Now that's my kind of science.

I've always loved all this sciency stuff. I've got loads of lectures on DVD on just about everything, including astronomy/astrophysics. I keep watching them in the hope that maybe some of that dark matter/dark energy and superstring theory will actually lodge somewhere relevant in my brain.

But then I've got the time, seeing as my offspring are grown up and living elsewhere, I'm retired with a reasonable pension, and my DH does the shopping and cooking ...

But way back when my DCs were little, the only science was figuring out what caused them to puke, and remote probing was examining a filled nappy held at a distance.

Anyway, why start off with colliding large hadrons - wouldn't it have been better to start with the small ones and work up?