Greta wrote:uwot, I again enjoyed your perspectives.
Thank you.
Greta wrote:I like the idea of each particle being a different kind of ripple in the stuff of the universe.
Well, that's basically the idea behind quantum field theory.
Greta wrote:It makes sense and feels right, although the stuff itself has always been a mystery.
Actually, most physicists have a pretty good idea. I usually quote Nobel Prize winner Robert Laughlin at this point:
"It is ironic that Einstein's most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise was that no such medium existed [..] The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity.” Laughlin says the resistance to aether: “is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum…The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo."
As someone has already commented: "ether be damned."
I was quite pleased with myself for realising that if the universe is made of stuff that was created in the big bang, then there is no reason to think has stopped expanding, but like all good ideas, someone else had it first; it is essentially eternal inflation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_inflation
Greta wrote:What makes our ripples so interesting is their persistence, which allows them to build upon themselves rather than quickly dissipating like water ripples.
Not always. You might want to check out solitons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliton
Greta wrote:The latest is that, even if the Earth is enveloped by the Sun in 5 bill years...
Yeah. Hope I don't live to see that.