[LCARS 24]

Maybe mainstream is right, even though the evidence, not to mention common sense, is against them. But they win, anyway, for now, because right or wrong they’ve got the pulpit. It brings to mind a famous quotation:

New ideas come to be accepted, not because their opponents come to believe in them, but because the opponents die and a new generation grows up that is accustomed to them. --Max Plank

There is even controversy in classic physics with regard to how a siphon works, with one side citing air pressure and the other side gravity. Well, if you drape a piece of plastic tubing over a greasy horizontal rod, it will slip off, because the lower end is more affected by gravity and the tubing has the tensile strength to pull the upper end up over the rack. If liquid in a siphon hose had enough tensile strength to do that, I’d be okay with the gravity crowd. But doesn’t it make sense to think that in most cases it’s the increase in tensile strength of the liquid imparted by air pressure that makes siphoning possible? Some say a siphon will work with mercury in a vacuum. I doubt that’s been demonstrated, but if it works, I still say it’s because mercury is heavier and has higher tensile strength than gasoline or water (enough of both for a siphon to not require air pressure), but that ordinary siphons require both gravity and air pressure.

[Saquist]

I recall spacerip showing a galactic cloud of H2 in space they discovered. First of it's kind.

No stars...at all.
It makes me wonder if that is what is between filaments of the galactic web.

[LCARS 24]

The thing about H2 in space is that we can detect it where it's hot but not where it's not, while cold H1 is easy to detect and is considered the atmosphere of space, even though it's only one atom per cubic centimeter. There are probably at least five molecules of H2 per cubic centimeter of space, but we don't have the technology to detect that except where it's hot and probably won't for a long time. So not knowing how much is there, scientists simply leave that variable out of the calculations, which probably yields a wrong answer. I just don't like it when they go around preaching something derived in such a way and beating up on people that don't buy it. That's politics, not science, and I would expect this talk of a Big Bang to be something of a joke a hundred years from now.

[martok2112]

If I recall correctly, the presence of hydrogen in space was the basis for the theoretical design of the Bussard ramjet, which was a real idea that Star Trek adopted for its TNG (and onward) productions.

The Bussard would collect sparse hydrogen particles and convert them for use into energy

Might've been Omni Magazine where I'd read something about such theoretical designs.

[horatio]

And I always thought that the ramscoop was just there to give Riker a chance to play with the stick and shove something down somebody's throat.

[LCARS 24]

Oh, a Trill looking for a thrill.

[martok2112]

Horatio and LCARS

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by LCARS 24

The thing about H2 in space is that we can detect it where it's hot but not where it's not, while cold H1 is easy to detect and is considered the atmosphere of space, even though it's only one atom per cubic centimeter. There are probably at least five molecules of H2 per cubic centimeter of space, but we don't have the technology to detect that except where it's hot and probably won't for a long time. So not knowing how much is there, scientists simply leave that variable out of the calculations, which probably yields a wrong answer. I just don't like it when they go around preaching something derived in such a way and beating up on people that don't buy it. That's politics, not science, and I would expect this talk of a Big Bang to be something of a joke a hundred years from now.

You're right but there is a caveat.
Much of the theoretical science in the Standard Model and Quantum Mechanics...(Models that have multitudes of successful test) are based on our understanding of the Big Bang, or at least the understanding of it fits well in the those models. This includes the Higgs Boson. And Higgs especially is derived from the concept of the Big Bang.

I think there is something missing.
I too don't like the portrayal of want we know as definitive and absolute when there are still questions to be asked and solved.