Size and Shape of the Universe??

[Rich VanValkenburg]

I haven't seen anyone argue about this one yet, so I'll throw this one in. Here's what prompted it-
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/press/pr0404.html

It's difficult for me to believe there ever was a 'beginning' of the universe, let alone there being a finite size to it. What existed before the 'Big Bang', and if nothing existed, where did the fuel for the Bang come from? Suppose there's multiple bangs going on in succession. That would make me think time and space is infinite, and not the sphere that is indicated here- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030917.html

No, I don't dwell on this kind of stuff, it just fired off a stray neuron as I was checking out the Mars pics.

Rich

[Donn]

Size? Big enough. Shape? Shipshape, of course. ;)

[imported_Conrad]

It's all interesting, but there's obviously more work to be done.

One theory is that the universe is shaped like a doughnut, curved in three dimensions, so it appears infinite to those of us looking around inside it, while in fact it is quite finite. The bad news is there's a cop of seemingly infinite proportions looking at it right now... :eek: ;)

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

This must seem very stupid, but there's something that bothers me about that. If the Universe is ten billion light years across, and we are seeing light from eight billion light years away, surely the things that were eight billion light years away when they emitted the light that we now see must be much further away than that now?

Or is it all to do with the Hubble shift, somehow? If so, how?

I dont see how the universe could have been a singularity ten billion years ago, be ten billion light years across now (does that mean it is expanding at the speed of light?) and still let us see eight billion light years.

[High C]

This makes my head hurt...

[Meerkat]

Seems to me to be like speculating on the size and shape of infinity. ;)

[George Roberts]

It is certainly difficult to get your mind around ---

Regardless of where you are or the direction you look -- you can the same distance into time.

[JimD]

One theory is that the universe is shaped like a doughnut Yes, and it's a jelly doughnut, although it's not clear if the center is blueberry or strawberry. There was also a popular theory a few years ago that it was possible that the universe was a low fat doughnut, though that theory has recently been disproved and its author jailed for fraudulent research.

[chrisk]

There is a difference between finite-infinite and bounded-unbounded. For example I can walk in a straight line on the earth forever and never come to it's "end" in that sense it's infinite. But, I will always be bound to the surface of the earth. I think the general consensus is the universe is similarly infinite, but bounded.

But, it's been over a quarter of a century since I studied Astrophysics so I may not be remembering things quite correctly.

Chris Kottaridis (chris.kottaridis@quietwind.net)

[L.W. Baxter]

I think the first question is, what is the shape of the human mind?

Science has hypothesized how many dimensions of which we can have no sensory experience? String theory posits something like 12, right? Why would the shape of the universe be available to our rather limited senses?

Thinking that the universe has an edge or is really shaped like a donut or a balloon or anything else is like a blind man painting a picture of his feelings. Even he can never tell if he is right!

The universe may appear to be a certain shape, but I wouldn't trust conceptual models to represent reality as it might exist outside our ability to see it.

[Dutch.Rub]

..... I personally like to think that the universe is shaped like one rather large ( and none too sanitary) nose.....

[J. Wellington Wimpy]

..the things that were eight billion light years away when they emitted the light that we now see must be much further away than that now?

.. as a ship sails beyond the horizon, an observer on land watches it disappear.. you know what I mean. The limit of detection for the best telescopes are about 8 BLY.. light beyond that still is there, we can not see it.. and consider that what we do see is no longer there!

I dont see how the universe could have been a singularity ten billion years ago, be ten billion light years across now ... and still let us see eight billion light years.

This is what amazes me, how cosmologists always make the same assumptions that space and time are linear constants and even that the local physical constants always applies to all regions of space... come on people!

[L.W. Baxter]

Dutch Rub, I liked how you had it originally. Kind of a comforting image, really.

Sigh. Oh well.

[Beowolf]

I like Wimpy's repliy to the second answer. Also, I think that you would find that Stephen Hawking agrees with the infinite, yet bounded theory.

As for the singularity, think packaging. As you turn back the clock, the particles break down into pieces that fit closer and closer at their theoretical simplest level (strings) they ahve ten dimensions through which they can pack together too. They also become less distinctive from energy. Of course energy doesn't follow the same physical restraints so you can pack more and more stuff into a smaller package.

Just a thought

Jeff

[Rich VanValkenburg]

I think Meerkat has the right idea. Somehow I don't buy the finite Universe theory. I can't believe that all matter was compacted into a dense ball, and exploded outward in all directions. That implies a finite universe, roughly spherical in shape. Seems more likely that the universe resembles this map, and instead of the dots and clusters denoting galaxies, they represent universes. If you looked at each dot under a microscope, you'd see a galaxy map like this.

(how can I just post this as an image?)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030917.html

If you give the Universe a boundary and a shape, then what's on the other side of it?

Rich

[ 01-07-2004, 09:04 PM: Message edited by: Rich VanValkenburg ]

[J. Wellington Wimpy]

If you give the Universe a boundary and a shape, then what's on the other side of it?

.. incomprehension..

WBF dark matter.

[John Bell]

If you give the Universe a boundary and a shape, then what's on the other side of it?
...God?

[J. Wellington Wimpy]

quote:If you give the Universe a boundary and a shape, then what's on the other side of it?

...LINUX?

[TimH]

Originally posted by Rich VanValkenburg:

(how can I just post this as an image?)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030917.html

If you give the Universe a boundary and a shape, then what's on the other side of it?

Richright click on the image
properties
highlight the URL
copy
come to WB Forum "post a reply"
click image from Instant UBB code
paste into the field provided
click ok
add reply
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0309/galaxysky_2mass.jpg

[Dutch.Rub]

Originally posted by L.W. Baxter:
Dutch Rub, I liked how you had it originally. Kind of a comforting image, really.

Sigh. Oh well.......I was not the one who changed it.... sigh......

[JimD]

Originally posted by Dutch.Rub:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by L.W. Baxter:
Dutch Rub, I liked how you had it originally. Kind of a comforting image, really.

Sigh. Oh well.......I was not the one who changed it.... sigh......</font>[/QUOTE]Maybe not, Dutch, but that's no excuse to not trim your nose hairs.

[Jack Heinlen]

"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." -J. B. S. Haldane

[JimD]

Originally posted by Jack Heinlen:
"The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." -J. B. S. HaldaneIts hard to imagine just how strange that could be. I wonder what J 'BS' Haldane stands for? :D

[Jack Heinlen]

Opps, a D not a B. redface.gif I was just looking for his vitae. Not much found on the web. From what I can gather an obscure Cambridge something, probably physicist or chemist, a pinko(of course) from the twenties and thirties.

I've alway liked that rather pithy statement however. It been my experience anyway. smile.gif

[chrisk]

As a three dimensional creature it's easy to look at the two dimensional surface of the earth and see that it is bounded. But, how does a two dimensional creature identify that the two dimensional surface he is limited to is bounded ?

That is kind of the issue here.

Chris Kottaridis (chrisk@quietwind.net)

[Del Lansing]

Well the universe is really big only because we think it is big. It's a matter of perspective. To God the universe probably seems small. Likewise time is another convention to put things into a pretty framework that fits our uses. So to us it is many years to travel to the next solar system. But perhaps in the next solar system they have no concept as "time", so to them we're right nextdoor. So creation happened in a blink of an eye?, or 7 days? but new solar systems are being formed right now, new planets too. So that "blink of an eye" is still going on, creation is still happening. So looking at the two views: the Big-Bang and deism. One says out of _nothing_(no planets, no empty space) something happened to make it (what?) go kaboom and start the universe. The other says that out of nothing, (again no planets, no empty space) an entity (from where?) caused there this stuff to be. Either way it is a big firkin miracle!!!

[Ian Wright]

What ever shape it is and how ever big it is, there are an uncountable number of stars. Round many of those stars orbit a huge number of planets.

But in only one galaxy, and one solar system and one planet and one small part of that planet live a population of people some of whom belive that there is no relationship between a high rate of domestic gun ownership and a high rate of death by shooting...........
How unlikely is that?

IanW

[stan v]

AND, on that same planet, in a much smaller area, live a population that judged the death of Princess Di to be the most catastrophic event in the last 100 years. Who'd have thought?

[ 01-08-2004, 08:26 AM: Message edited by: stan v ]

[LeeG]

TimH, that's a good picture of the universe,,kind of yin/yang.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Originally posted by Jack Heinlen:
Opps, a D not a B. redface.gif I was just looking for his vitae. Not much found on the web. From what I can gather an obscure Cambridge something, probably physicist or chemist, a pinko(of course) from the twenties and thirties.

I've alway liked that rather pithy statement however. It been my experience anyway. smile.gif
One of the founding fathers of modern biochemistry; the remark was made a propos of the diversity of life forms, rather than of the physical universe.

For some unaccountable reason, he is often confused with JD Bernal, also at Cambridge, who certainly was a Marxist, and who founded the study of the history and philosphy of science as an academic discipline. Like you, I did a quick Google and find that a very eminent scientist is missing from the Web; the only reference to him is a dismissive one on a creationist quack science site.

[Ian Wright]

Originally posted by stan v:
Who'd have thought?There you go. Folk will believe the most ridiculous tosh. Thank you for providing a second example! Although, it must be said, very few people die from Diana worship…

IanW.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Originally posted by stan v:
in a much smaller area, It must be a very tiny area. Pass the microscope.

[stan v]

Hmmm, were I Brit and allowed to vote (just before putting the gun to my head), what would I have thought was the most catastrophic event in the last 100 years?

John Lennon getting shot in New York? (what with all those guns, shouldn't really be a surprise) OR

Jaguar becoming part of Ford?

Tough call. I'd probably be so overwrought with emotion that to stay with Princess Di would be the safe choice. All those land mines and such.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Originally posted by Ian Wright:
What ever shape it is and how ever big it is, there are an uncountable number of stars. Round many of those stars orbit a huge number of planets.

But in only one galaxy, and one solar system and one planet and one small part of that planet live a population of people some of whom belive that there is no relationship between a high rate of domestic gun ownership and a high rate of death by shooting...........
How unlikely is that?

IanWIan, may I refer you to that indispensable vademecum, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

What we see here is an entire nation propelled by the Infinite Improbability Drive.

Given the infinite improbability that a nation would believe such tosh, lesser improbabilities, such as that nation invading another country, several thousand miles away, that had not attacked them and was incapable of doing so, in search of an invisble element, unknown to science, called "WMD", acquire an inexorable certainty.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

Originally posted by stan v:
Hmmm, were I Brit and allowed to vote (just before putting the gun to my head)...1. See the Representation of the People Acts. Lunatics cannot vote.

2. See the Firearms Acts. What gun?

[stan v]

Ahhhhhhhhhh, there you go again! Ripping W AND Blair, I told you they deserve our respect....they've earned it. Much more than Princess Di.

[Ian Wright]

Originally posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett:
[QUOTE]Ian, may I refer you to that indispensable vademecum, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.......

What we see here is an entire nation propelled by the Infinite Improbability Drive..Ah Yes! Now it becomes clear,,,,,,,,and I never travel without a towel, how foolish of me not to realise. smile.gif

IanW

[ahp]

Some cosmologists have suggested that this universe is the result of a prankish experiment performed by some unsupervised graduate students of quantum mechanics in another universe.

To think, that you I are the result of someone else's odd sense of humor! Come to think of it, that can be the only explaination for some people.

[Ed Harrow]

Speaking of quantum mechanics, my I suggest The Dancing Wulie (I can never remember how it's spelled) Masters? No. Ok.

Perhaps the suggested "flatish" (nice scientific, descriptive phrase) arrangement is caused by an outside magnetic force field which is keeping the whole of the universe hovering in someone's universarium.

[Beowolf]

DON'T PANIC!

(Someone had to write it.)

[Jim H]

http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/2002/10/images/a/formats/web.jpg

Hubble Uncovers Oldest "Clocks" in Space to Read Age of Universe (http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2002/10/)

Hubble Uncovers Oldest "Clocks" in Space to Read Age of Universe

Pushing the limits of its powerful vision, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered the oldest burned-out stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. These extremely old, dim stars provide a completely independent reading of the universe's age without relying on measurements of the universe's expansion. The ancient white dwarf stars, as seen by Hubble, turn out to be 12 to 13 billion years old. Because earlier Hubble observations show that the first stars formed less than 1 billion years after the universe's birth in the big bang, finding the oldest stars puts astronomers well within arm's reach of calculating the absolute age of the universe.

The White Dwarfs are shown in the bottom right photo inside the circles.

[ 01-08-2004, 05:41 PM: Message edited by: Jim Hillman ]

[Jim H]

Originally posted by Ian Wright:
But in only one galaxy, and one solar system and one planet and one small part of that planet live a...person who hijacks a thread, thank you Ian.

[Meerkat]

Perhaps this may clarify the nature of the universe - or perhaps not: don't forget your towel ;)

There once was a lady called Bright,
Who could travel faster than light.
She went out one day,
In a relative way,
And came back the previous night.

[ 01-08-2004, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Meerkat ]

[ken mcclure]

I want to know what was there before the Big Bang.

Just a big lump? and what was outside the lump?

If the universe is expanding, what's it expanding into?

Stop me, someone - I feel an experiment coming on. And with my experimental experiences, things could get ugly......

[Ian Wright]

Originally posted by Jim Hillman:
...person who hijacks a thread, thank you Ian.[/QUOTE]

My pleasure... no one is safe, not even nice people.
... but Hijack it back if you wish, I'm done with it.

IanW