Yeah ok I left a whole bunch of stuff out. But I'm not teaching Fetching so she can earn a degree in Astrophysics, I'm only making light conversation with her. :rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure she wasn't asking to be "taught" in the first place.

Exactly and that's why I didn't go into detail... maybe I should've for Tore's sake.:D

I've often thought about the logical assumption that "something cannot come from nothing", and in the context of what you said about humans thinking in linear terms, I can't help but wonder if that assumption isn't misguided in some sense.
Let me explain...
We think of as a state of "nothingness" as a state where no physical property exists. That may be more than an intuitive assumption, based on our own definition of the concept, but the concept itself relies on a logical assumption that nothingness itself is a default state in the beginning of a linear progression into "something". Because our logic is rooted in linearity in many ways, it's hard to not assume that first there was nothing, and then there was something.

But, what if that thinking is incorrect? What if there is no natural state of nothingness wherein a state of physical property has somehow occupied? What if the natural state of existence is, by default, a physical property which contains and allows for the potential of change to occur? What if there is no such thing as nothing?

To me, that would mean that at the very basic, fundamental level of "existence" there could be some property outside of the universe that doesn't simply accommodate the presence of physical properties as a vessel, but is, in essence, the very fabric by which those properties originate.
And when I say "change", I refer to a process, perhaps continuous in its state, whereby things like the Big Bang occur simply due to the nature of the way this fundamental state behaves.

Simply put, would it be unreasonable to suggest that something never came from nothing, because our universe is just born of a system that has properties and naturally occurs, and matter is just simply an eventuality?

I know it seems like a lazy assumption by scientific standards, and hardly quantifiable, but as a mere thought experiment where the results are produced from imagination (Dangerously close to religion, I know), would I be assuming the earth is flat, or round (in a manner of speaking)?

I wouldn't have because I wouldn't immediately assume that Kayleigh doesn't already have a good idea of what a black hole is (even if they do blow her mind).

But if you're gonna do it, you might as well try and do it right.

Actually I was commenting to the WTF part not that I assumed she didn't know what happens during the death of a star. There is a difference of what a black hole is and how a black hole forms. They are popular enough where most people know what a black hole is and the different properties it has. But how it is form is another matter. To me that is the WTF moment imo when gravity - the weakest of forces overcomes the strong force. Not that I was trying to pontificate the formation of a Black Hole.

Yes professor.

Why do you see gravity as weak?

Gravity is always there, constantly. A star is like a bike rider trying to go up a tall hill. As long as it has energy (fuel) to keep the engines burning, it exerts an outward pressure against gravity, pushing its stuff outwards from its core like the rider going uphill. As it burns out, that pressure drops off - it can no longer go "uphill" against gravity - and the star starts to compress or implode, like the bike rider losing his energy and rolling down the hill backwards.

Slightly naive example, but I don't see gravity as a weak force overcoming the strong force of a burning a star just like I don't see a tall hill as a weak force beating a bike rider.

Good point. It's one of those things that makes my head spin because linear thought patterns are not just a habit, they are instinctual. I've been tossing around ideas about math from ancient civilizations recently.... While the concept of zero (or nothingness) is what sparked incredible advances, many societies did not think of it. I wonder sometimes if that is why we have such a hard time letting go of these ideas... We were all raised with the existence of nothing being hammered into our heads.

I'm not sure I even addressed what you were talking about, but it got my head going.

That and the strength of gravity depends on the mass of the object, so it kinda varies from celestial body to celestial body...