Re: Is matter eternal?

[xSilverPhinx]

That is cool, but photons don't have mass, they have momentum. ???

Virtual particals have mass, or something, but apparently it isn't mass that is detectable (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle).

Doesn't say much about whether the energy field that virtual particles come from is eternal though. ???

[Asherah]

I found a documentary by the Discovery Channel on Netflix and it's called How the Universe Works. I've been watching it and have learned a freaking ton!!! I have had all of my questions answered insofar as those things can be understood. They talk about matter, anti-matter, dark energy, black holes, super-novas, hyper-novas, the multi-verse hypothesis, etc, etc. It's so amazing. Now, my five year old son and I have been watching it together and even he is understanding a lot of it. They put it into layman's terms so that we can understand. It's a whole series of documentaries. Anyways, if you have Netflix, check it out.

[Whitney]

This might be a dumb question, so sorry if that is the case. But, since there is no eternal being who always is and always was that created everything, then is matter eternal? I'm sure that's an unanswerable question. But, just curious if there are any thoughts out there or maybe new scientific info on the topic. And, also, what is beyond our universe? If there are other universes, then what is in between our universe and the other universes and then what's beyond that? Does it ever end? Again, I'm sure these are unanswerable questions, but I just thought maybe there was someone out there who had some ideas. It's just mind boggling to think about what's beyond all this and then what's beyond all that, ad infinitum.

It's not a dumb question....but the short answer is that we don't know yet and it's possible it may be one of those questions that humans can't answer due to our limitations (like if there is no beyond the universe we couldn't travel outside of it to check).

Even philosophy doesn't have an workable answer because something being uncaused and something always existing both don't really make much sense compared to what we can observe.

[Stevil]

That is cool, but photons don't have mass, they have momentum. ???

Virtual particals have mass, or something, but apparently it isn't mass that is detectable (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle).

Doesn't say much about whether the energy field that virtual particles come from is eternal though. ???

Surely photons have mass. Light is affected by gravity, gravity requires mass. Light cannot escape a black hole.

The uncertainty principle is about the inability to measure momentum and position of an electron at the same time.

[Tank]

That is cool, but photons don't have mass, they have momentum. ???

Virtual particals have mass, or something, but apparently it isn't mass that is detectable (Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle).

Doesn't say much about whether the energy field that virtual particles come from is eternal though. ???

Surely photons have mass. Light is affected by gravity, gravity requires mass. Light cannot escape a black hole.

The uncertainty principle is about the inability to measure momentum and position of an electron at the same time.

Light does not have mass. A  photon's path appears distorted because the structure of spacetime, through which the massless photon is 'travelling', is distorted by mass. This distortion is what we call gravity. So mass distorts spacetime which photons travel through.

[Stevil]

Light does not have mass. A  photon's path appears distorted because the structure of spacetime, through which the massless photon is 'travelling', is distorted by mass. This distortion is what we call gravity. So mass distorts spacetime which photons travel through.

Time for me to pick up some more science books.

[Asmodean]

You might want to look into gravitational lensing. 

[pytheas]

A  photon's path appears distorted because the structure of spacetime, through which the massless photon is 'travelling', is distorted by mass. This distortion is what we call gravity. So mass distorts spacetime which photons travel through.

(after a week in Nederland's Amsterdam)
the above statement is so exceptionally flamboyant and spectacular that,
in consequence,
renders the question " is matter eternal" 
irrelevant and nearing the border of ridiculously wasted thoughttime