Big Bang

Hi, cavediver! Im quite ignorant in matters of science, but this topic is quite interesting to me and I wanted to know your (and others) opinions on a couple of questions.1) What are some of the current theories behind the "singularity"? How small (or dense) could it have been? Would it have fit in the palm of my hand?2) I read that the estimated size of the universe is somewhere in the range of a hundred billion stars per average galaxy and 100 billion galaxies. Is that in line with current thinking? Is there MORE than even that?An infinite universe would pose some spectacular philosophies and would, to me, be as inconceivable as God! Thats a faith based question, though!

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

That WOULD be a mind boggling topic, and I dont know if I could participate without some faith-based philosophies...but maybe we could open it in Misc. topics Creation/Evolution....(Although it properly qualifies as a Big Bang/Cosmology topic as well....)What boggles MY mind is the fact that we as creatures on a small dust speck of a planet can even begin to tackle concepts of such a vast array! It never can hurt to think, however!