I went to public school growing up.  They told me that I evolved from a monkey.  Then they told me to stop acting like an animal.

How do you see whether there's a belly button on a skeleton, again?  Yuck.

That's a very eloquent way of putting things in perspective. For us explorers, these are exciting times we live in. Revolutionary discoveries in astronomy, quantum mechanics, physics and space exploration in the past 20 years or so have been amazing, and I am proud to be alive in a time when so many monumental milestones are being achieved. I hope I live to see the day when we colonize Mars or explore the depths of Europa or the surface of Titan...and perhaps achieve superior drive technology that, if nothing else, allows us to travel to any point in the solar system in a reasonable amount of time.

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Jy, I agree wholeheartedly. The skeleton thing killed me too, though I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and assumed they found the the bodies mummified. Still, I doubted such an amazing discovery could be made that would seal the deal for creation and yet I've never heard about it in the news or anywhere outside of this classroom. And the really infuriating part is, this wasn't just this school, this was in the actual textbook, so it undoubtedly has been distributed to many private schools across America. 

Trying to pull the wool over someones eyes is never a smart thing to do unless you're absolutely sure that you can control the information a person has access to. I know they don't teach creation science in public schools, but I seem to remember the texts clearly stated, when we reached the chapter on evolution, that it was the theory of evolution. So young people should understand that and, if their parents go to church, should have access to a different view there and make their own informed decision.

That being said, that particular school was just a tiny thing when I went. 22 years later, and the place looks amazing, so it must be doing well. 

I would be very interested but I still can't watch youtube videos.

I am assuming you are at work, so whenever you get home take a look at them, or just watch for it on the Science channel. They show reruns leading up to the newest episode on Wednesday nights and you might occasionally catch a marathon on Saturday or Sunday. Also check out How The Universe Works episode named 'Extreme Stars', just to learn how stars work, Mike Rowe is an amazing commentator and they should have kept him for season 2. 

Or try watching it on this link. http://science.discovery.com/videos/through-the-wormhole-creator/

I would open up my web filter at homeand make an exception, that's just a tad extreme to me. 

You don't think its extreme to deny yourself access to such a powerful information tool such as youtube? You know you can block videos based on their content, right?

I didn't say anything about the information, just that it's an incredible wealth of information, you as a person can pick and chose what you want to watch. There's all kinds of stuff on creation science, and videos of alleged proof that God exists as well as videos that show proof that he doesn't and then there's tons of goofy stuff, beautiful stuff, meaningless stuff, and profound stuff. It's endless. The point is, you seem to be blocking access to it for no other reason than you might be exposed to some bad language or inappropriate material or even false information. Or perhaps more disturbing, but the thought has crossed my mind that you don't want to be exposed to something that might change your point of view. 

By the way, Wikipedia is written by anyone, so the information should be taken with a grain of salt, but the nice thing is the entire worldwide community has the opportunity to provide sources for that information, as well as refute the information and flag it for review. It can be updated and changed and graded on accuracy. For quick fact finding, it can be sufficient especially when cross-checked with sources. 

Michio Kaku said to a mathmetician, infinity is simply a number without limit. To a physicist, its a monstrosity. Gravity becomes infinite, density becomes infinite, time stops. 

I've had fun watching many noted physicists on tv wrestle with the problem and one of the more interesting theories I've seen thrown around is the possibility on the other side of the singularity point in a black hole is another universes big bang, and its possible our entire universe is inside the gravity well of another universe's black hole. Kinda neat to try to think about, especially thinking about how there would be no space and time before the big bang....perhaps a massive conversion of infinitely dense matter to energy....truly mind bending to try to think about.

Quantum Mechanics is really what has sparked my renewed interest in the Sciences. Ever since the double slit experiment, I have been perplexed and intrigued by all the wierdness that exists at the subatomic level. Makes me wish I would get u pthe nerve to go back t oschool and study it and get into either that field or astronomy or physics in general. 

 EDIT: I kinda just pondered what if the big bang wasn't at just one point, but multiple points much like the countless black holes we have in our universe, are feeding into a single universe on the other side and the same is happening in reverse here?

I tend to think of them both at the same time, imagination usually comes before the theories, mathematical proofs and discoveries. I'm just mindful of what is a theory, and what is law and those other theories that are widely accepted and have been proven mathematically in almost every situation.

The thought has crossed my mind, assuming the expansion of the universe slows down at some point to allow a reversal. Otherwise, it doesn't seem there are black holes big enough to affect the entire universe. Part of the problem we have now is that the black holes at the center of every galaxy don't appear to be massive enough by our calculations to contain its outermost stars. Assuming that is true, it shouldn't be possible for the entire universe to get sucked down the gravitational well of a single hyper-massive black hole at the current scale of the universe.

My personal hypothesis / musing stems from the unknowns of dark matter and dark energy. Knowing how many black holes (hundreds of billions of supermassive black holes at the center of every galaxy), and wondering what they do with all the mass in our universe that disappears down its gravitational well, the assumption is they would continue acquiring mass to the breaking point of physics, so what happens then? Maybe it all goes into a new universe, and our universe is fed through many holes in that universe or perhaps a different one, though our infrared telescopes would surely pick up billions of heat sources if that were the case. 

There is also some physical evidence that needs to be scrutinized a little more. When a black hole consumes too fast, it spits pure energy back out into the cosmos at its poles, which means light actually can escape its velocity, furthermore it suggests that black holes may have a limiting factor, its very possible they can't grow bigger than the supermassive ones at the center of galaxies, whenever they acquire new mass, the black hole simply belches out energy, converting the excess mass in the process. Nature may very well have a safety system built in that prevents physics from breaking down inside the black hole.

There is also another theory I liked that depends on the big crunch theory, but by using quantum mechanics, the nature of the magnetic force will prevent the universe from ever reaching a singularity point and at a certain point the repulsion will create a new bang, and perhaps this has gone on over many cycles, retracting and expanding, recreating the universe again and again.

The universe's unimaginable scale truly fascinates me, these two links were posted on I FN love science on Facebook, they do a good job of demonstrating the immense scale of the universe from the tiniest particles to the estimated size of the universe.

http://scaleofuniverse.com/

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html