The Universe, who is fascinated by that?

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#1621007 1-Sep-2016 18:32

Rikkitic:

Religion and science both start from the same point, an attempt to create something out of nothing (that cat again). In The Beginning, there was ignorance. The sun shines, lightning crashes, trees grow, monsters want to eat you. The human brain being what it is, people try to make sense of these things. They start from a state of ignorance, when nothing makes sense. Then someone tells a story about a super-being who created everything at the beginning of time. People can understand that. They make things too. The super-being is just a larger version of them. Now the world makes a little more sense than it did before, and isn’t quite as frightening. Things have a reason.

People are inquisitive and they like to try things out. Eventually someone discovers how to assemble a spear. Someone else realises that fire can be their friend. From these small beginnings other things are built. Like religion, science starts from nothing. First there is ignorance, then come ideas. Both are ways of trying to explain why things are the way they are.

The thing about religion is that it seems to stop after the initial idea. Once the belief is established, it becomes dogma and nothing is allowed to question it. Science keeps going. Questions get answered, new ones arise. Knowledge accumulates.

The thing about science is it is taking us to the stars. Religion seems to still be sitting around the campfire telling the same super-being story. If we ever do find the ultimate answer, which may or may not be 42, it will be science, not religion, that reveals it.

Religion is a belief, science is taking real things and thinking how, when and why did they happen. Some people believe a religion is a fact therefore they find that science is fiction. Some discount religion as they believe the science, but its a heck of a lot easier providing hard evidence, and solid evidence, and sound reasoning for theoretical science than coming up with anything to support religions answers to creation.

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#1621008 1-Sep-2016 18:41

Paul1977:

I'm clearly not as well versed as many of you on many of the things you are discussing. I like to think I have something of an understanding of many of the concepts, but not the intricacies.

One thing I have trouble visualizing is the idea that the universe has no centre, or that everywhere is the centre. You think of the Big Bang as an explosion, and so I want to visualise a "ground zero".

Yep. The Big Bang talks about a dot if infinitesimal mass. To me thats a dot, and a centre. Another quoted here that the Universe began everywhere,no centre. Now, they can look further and further back in time, also quoted here is 300 million years age from memory. But looking back seems to be converging on a start point. If the universe started everywhere, and is expanding, that doesnt make sense. But why it started as a dot, or why it was suddenly everywhere at once is beyond me. Where did all that energy come from? Was there a previous big crunch?

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#1621009 1-Sep-2016 18:58

I am in no way knowledgeable about this and the maths are way over my head, but from what I think I understand, the big bang was not an explosion at all, just an expansion. Space itself started small and then grew bigger. It is still growing bigger. When the big bang happened, all of space was confined to a single point. That was the centre of the Universe. As space expanded, so did the centre. In other words, every point in space is the centre of the Universe so every direction you look will be back to the beginning. The mistake is in visualising it as an explosion that occurred in a bigger space. The centre of the Universe started out as a singular point which was as big as all of existence and since then everything has been expanding so the centre is still as big as the entire Universe and it always will be. Wherever you are, you are at the centre, just as every other point is. Think again of the famous balloon example. The centre is not in the middle of the balloon, but on the surface. As the balloon expands, all the other points get further away, but each is the centre to all the rest.

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#1621011 1-Sep-2016 19:09

Rikkitic:

I am in no way knowledgeable about this and the maths are way over my head, but from what I think I understand, the big bang was not an explosion at all, just an expansion. Space itself started small and then grew bigger. It is still growing bigger. When the big bang happened, all of space was confined to a single point. That was the centre of the Universe. As space expanded, so did the centre. In other words, every point in space is the centre of the Universe so every direction you look will be back to the beginning. The mistake is in visualising it as an explosion that occurred in a bigger space. The centre of the Universe started out as a singular point which was as big as all of existence and since then everything has been expanding so the centre is still as big as the entire Universe and it always will be. Wherever you are, you are at the centre, just as every other point is. Think again of the famous balloon example. The centre is not in the middle of the balloon, but on the surface. As the balloon expands, all the other points get further away, but each is the centre to all the rest.

As I recall it was a sudden release of everything. How sudden and fast that was depends what people decide an explosion is. Not silica, particles, etc, but energy. Atoms did not exist then, IIRC

If the big bang happened at a point, and the universe expanded, the location of the big bang surely has to be the centre. The balloon was IMO to show how expansion illustrates how observable matter such as stars, galaxies move away from each other, relative to each other. But the universe isn't just he balloons surface, its three dimensional. IMO the centre of the universe is the centre of the balloon, where the expansion shows that matter in-between us and the centre moves apart, as do matter on the outer of us, or matter that is nearer to a tangent to us, sideways if you will.

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#1621014 1-Sep-2016 19:27

That intuitive thinking is why people get confused. Imagine the balloon sunk down to a single point. There is no 'inside', only outside. that is the centre of the universe. Then the balloon expands. It is still the centre, but the centre is the whole balloon. There is no 'inside'. That is just a construct of our limited imaginations. As the balloon grows bigger, so does the Universe, but every point of it is still the centre. When you look across space, or backward in time, you are not looking at a different point on the balloon but at an earlier moment of the expansion.

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#1621019 1-Sep-2016 19:49

TwoSeven:
gzt:
TwoSeven: I am not sure how many people are familiar with the current version of einsteins field equation for general relativity, but the way I read it would be that for the big expansion (which some people call a bang) it implies that energy has a pressure which must push things outwards.

Not all forms of energy exist all of the time, and some forms of energy we guess is there by observing potential effects on things we can see. I am not sure I agree with the concep of dark matter, but dark energy is plausible although I am leaning to the idea of there being dark fields.

Also, time is relative to space, so I don't think there could have been a 'before the big bang' in the same way there is likely no after (since it is still happening).

New galaxy discovery: 99.99% dark matter.

Imo we will have an answer soon building on this discovery. 10-20 years..

I saw that article and don't really agree with it. Everything discovered these days is either dark matter or dark energy. Maybe if they build a better telescope they will figure out what it really is.

Umm ... no one has discovered any dark matter or any dark energy as far as I know. And you don't need a telescope to analyse dark matter and dark energy (assuming you've discovered it). You probably just need to step outside the ISS to do so.

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#1621021 1-Sep-2016 19:59

tdgeek:

Rikkitic:

I am in no way knowledgeable about this and the maths are way over my head, but from what I think I understand, the big bang was not an explosion at all, just an expansion. Space itself started small and then grew bigger. It is still growing bigger. When the big bang happened, all of space was confined to a single point. That was the centre of the Universe. As space expanded, so did the centre. In other words, every point in space is the centre of the Universe so every direction you look will be back to the beginning. The mistake is in visualising it as an explosion that occurred in a bigger space. The centre of the Universe started out as a singular point which was as big as all of existence and since then everything has been expanding so the centre is still as big as the entire Universe and it always will be. Wherever you are, you are at the centre, just as every other point is. Think again of the famous balloon example. The centre is not in the middle of the balloon, but on the surface. As the balloon expands, all the other points get further away, but each is the centre to all the rest.

As I recall it was a sudden release of everything. How sudden and fast that was depends what people decide an explosion is. Not silica, particles, etc, but energy. Atoms did not exist then, IIRC

If the big bang happened at a point, and the universe expanded, the location of the big bang surely has to be the centre. The balloon was IMO to show how expansion illustrates how observable matter such as stars, galaxies move away from each other, relative to each other. But the universe isn't just he balloons surface, its three dimensional. IMO the centre of the universe is the centre of the balloon, where the expansion shows that matter in-between us and the centre moves apart, as do matter on the outer of us, or matter that is nearer to a tangent to us, sideways if you will.

Umm AFAIK the smart guys believe the universe is infinite.

if d=∞ then r=∞ then there is no centre

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#1621075 1-Sep-2016 22:13

Rikkitic:

That intuitive thinking is why people get confused. Imagine the balloon sunk down to a single point. There is no 'inside', only outside. that is the centre of the universe. Then the balloon expands. It is still the centre, but the centre is the whole balloon. There is no 'inside'. That is just a construct of our limited imaginations. As the balloon grows bigger, so does the Universe, but every point of it is still the centre. When you look across space, or backward in time, you are not looking at a different point on the balloon but at an earlier moment of the expansion.

If the balloon was down ti a single point where the point cannot be smaller, yes there is no inside. There, by default, there also cannot be an outside. And again by default there cannot be a centre. The Universe however is not a single point. It comprises hard matter, gases, and space. It started as a single point, expanded into countless atoms that make up countless volume of all types of matter, so everywhere in the universe cannot be the centre. Aside from deciding that anyone who doesn't agree has limited imagination, you are saying that Earth is the centre of the Universe, as is Alpha Centauri, as is a star in the Andromeda galaxy. When the ballon grows, the centre is mid diameter of a sphere. As that sphere expands, the centre remains the centre. Where it all began, aka Big Bang theory. The Universe would not have a centre if it was infinite, but it cannot be infinite as it is expanding. Time is not relevant, aside from the expansion being at an earlier stage

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#1621076 1-Sep-2016 22:18

joker97:

tdgeek:

Rikkitic:

I am in no way knowledgeable about this and the maths are way over my head, but from what I think I understand, the big bang was not an explosion at all, just an expansion. Space itself started small and then grew bigger. It is still growing bigger. When the big bang happened, all of space was confined to a single point. That was the centre of the Universe. As space expanded, so did the centre. In other words, every point in space is the centre of the Universe so every direction you look will be back to the beginning. The mistake is in visualising it as an explosion that occurred in a bigger space. The centre of the Universe started out as a singular point which was as big as all of existence and since then everything has been expanding so the centre is still as big as the entire Universe and it always will be. Wherever you are, you are at the centre, just as every other point is. Think again of the famous balloon example. The centre is not in the middle of the balloon, but on the surface. As the balloon expands, all the other points get further away, but each is the centre to all the rest.

As I recall it was a sudden release of everything. How sudden and fast that was depends what people decide an explosion is. Not silica, particles, etc, but energy. Atoms did not exist then, IIRC

If the big bang happened at a point, and the universe expanded, the location of the big bang surely has to be the centre. The balloon was IMO to show how expansion illustrates how observable matter such as stars, galaxies move away from each other, relative to each other. But the universe isn't just he balloons surface, its three dimensional. IMO the centre of the universe is the centre of the balloon, where the expansion shows that matter in-between us and the centre moves apart, as do matter on the outer of us, or matter that is nearer to a tangent to us, sideways if you will.

Umm AFAIK the smart guys believe the universe is infinite.

if d=∞ then r=∞ then there is no centre

Agree, as I said in my post just now, an infinite universe cannot have centre. So, who says it is expanding> If it is expanding, its larger now than what it was 10 seconds ago, thats not infinite.

It could be that the universe is in fact infinite, and what populates it is finite, and expanding. In that case there is no centre of the universe, just a centre of the matter occupied volume that is expanding. The Universe is thus not everything. It is just the infinite volume of space, of which a tiny portion is occupied, percentage wise, and past the expanding edge, there is universe, but zero matter in it. yet

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#1621078 1-Sep-2016 22:25

joker97:

TwoSeven:
gzt:
TwoSeven: I am not sure how many people are familiar with the current version of einsteins field equation for general relativity, but the way I read it would be that for the big expansion (which some people call a bang) it implies that energy has a pressure which must push things outwards.

Not all forms of energy exist all of the time, and some forms of energy we guess is there by observing potential effects on things we can see. I am not sure I agree with the concep of dark matter, but dark energy is plausible although I am leaning to the idea of there being dark fields.

Also, time is relative to space, so I don't think there could have been a 'before the big bang' in the same way there is likely no after (since it is still happening).

New galaxy discovery: 99.99% dark matter.

Imo we will have an answer soon building on this discovery. 10-20 years..

I saw that article and don't really agree with it. Everything discovered these days is either dark matter or dark energy. Maybe if they build a better telescope they will figure out what it really is.

Umm ... no one has discovered any dark matter or any dark energy as far as I know. And you don't need a telescope to analyse dark matter and dark energy (assuming you've discovered it). You probably just need to step outside the ISS to do so.

Why always an ummm?

Did you read the article? It seems like a solid means to decide, at this point theorise, that the amount of matter is far larger than the visible matter. That by way of mass. But it only has a minor level of star count, so theorising that dark matter is there (due to the mass involved) and that they cannot see it, makes this dark matter possible discovery more than feasible.

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#1621079 1-Sep-2016 22:27

joker97:

TwoSeven:
gzt:
TwoSeven: I am not sure how many people are familiar with the current version of einsteins field equation for general relativity, but the way I read it would be that for the big expansion (which some people call a bang) it implies that energy has a pressure which must push things outwards.

Not all forms of energy exist all of the time, and some forms of energy we guess is there by observing potential effects on things we can see. I am not sure I agree with the concep of dark matter, but dark energy is plausible although I am leaning to the idea of there being dark fields.

Also, time is relative to space, so I don't think there could have been a 'before the big bang' in the same way there is likely no after (since it is still happening).

New galaxy discovery: 99.99% dark matter.

Imo we will have an answer soon building on this discovery. 10-20 years..

I saw that article and don't really agree with it. Everything discovered these days is either dark matter or dark energy. Maybe if they build a better telescope they will figure out what it really is.

Umm ... no one has discovered any dark matter or any dark energy as far as I know. And you don't need a telescope to analyse dark matter and dark energy (assuming you've discovered it). You probably just need to step outside the ISS to do so.

So you didn't read it. Read it to learn how they decided what the total mass is, and with the low count of stars, that the remainder is dark matter, matter that would have the same effect as millions or billions of stars, but is not visible. You can't take this readings tethered to the ISS

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#1621083 1-Sep-2016 22:42

tdgeek:

joker97:

TwoSeven:
gzt:
TwoSeven: I am not sure how many people are familiar with the current version of einsteins field equation for general relativity, but the way I read it would be that for the big expansion (which some people call a bang) it implies that energy has a pressure which must push things outwards.

Not all forms of energy exist all of the time, and some forms of energy we guess is there by observing potential effects on things we can see. I am not sure I agree with the concep of dark matter, but dark energy is plausible although I am leaning to the idea of there being dark fields.

Also, time is relative to space, so I don't think there could have been a 'before the big bang' in the same way there is likely no after (since it is still happening).

New galaxy discovery: 99.99% dark matter.

Imo we will have an answer soon building on this discovery. 10-20 years..

I saw that article and don't really agree with it. Everything discovered these days is either dark matter or dark energy. Maybe if they build a better telescope they will figure out what it really is.

Umm ... no one has discovered any dark matter or any dark energy as far as I know. And you don't need a telescope to analyse dark matter and dark energy (assuming you've discovered it). You probably just need to step outside the ISS to do so.

So you didn't read it. Read it to learn how they decided what the total mass is, and with the low count of stars, that the remainder is dark matter, matter that would have the same effect as millions or billions of stars, but is not visible. You can't take this readings tethered to the ISS

If you had discovered dark matter and dark energy, you will know that it is what "space" is made of. How do you analyse "space"? Go outside and take a piece of it!

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#1621084 1-Sep-2016 22:43

tdgeek:

joker97:

tdgeek:

Rikkitic:

I am in no way knowledgeable about this and the maths are way over my head, but from what I think I understand, the big bang was not an explosion at all, just an expansion. Space itself started small and then grew bigger. It is still growing bigger. When the big bang happened, all of space was confined to a single point. That was the centre of the Universe. As space expanded, so did the centre. In other words, every point in space is the centre of the Universe so every direction you look will be back to the beginning. The mistake is in visualising it as an explosion that occurred in a bigger space. The centre of the Universe started out as a singular point which was as big as all of existence and since then everything has been expanding so the centre is still as big as the entire Universe and it always will be. Wherever you are, you are at the centre, just as every other point is. Think again of the famous balloon example. The centre is not in the middle of the balloon, but on the surface. As the balloon expands, all the other points get further away, but each is the centre to all the rest.

As I recall it was a sudden release of everything. How sudden and fast that was depends what people decide an explosion is. Not silica, particles, etc, but energy. Atoms did not exist then, IIRC

If the big bang happened at a point, and the universe expanded, the location of the big bang surely has to be the centre. The balloon was IMO to show how expansion illustrates how observable matter such as stars, galaxies move away from each other, relative to each other. But the universe isn't just he balloons surface, its three dimensional. IMO the centre of the universe is the centre of the balloon, where the expansion shows that matter in-between us and the centre moves apart, as do matter on the outer of us, or matter that is nearer to a tangent to us, sideways if you will.

Umm AFAIK the smart guys believe the universe is infinite.

if d=∞ then r=∞ then there is no centre

Agree, as I said in my post just now, an infinite universe cannot have centre. So, who says it is expanding> If it is expanding, its larger now than what it was 10 seconds ago, thats not infinite.

It could be that the universe is in fact infinite, and what populates it is finite, and expanding. In that case there is no centre of the universe, just a centre of the matter occupied volume that is expanding. The Universe is thus not everything. It is just the infinite volume of space, of which a tiny portion is occupied, percentage wise, and past the expanding edge, there is universe, but zero matter in it. yet

Pretty sure it's infinite.

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#1621086 1-Sep-2016 22:47

joker97:

tdgeek:

joker97:

TwoSeven:
gzt:
TwoSeven: I am not sure how many people are familiar with the current version of einsteins field equation for general relativity, but the way I read it would be that for the big expansion (which some people call a bang) it implies that energy has a pressure which must push things outwards.

Not all forms of energy exist all of the time, and some forms of energy we guess is there by observing potential effects on things we can see. I am not sure I agree with the concep of dark matter, but dark energy is plausible although I am leaning to the idea of there being dark fields.

Also, time is relative to space, so I don't think there could have been a 'before the big bang' in the same way there is likely no after (since it is still happening).

New galaxy discovery: 99.99% dark matter.

Imo we will have an answer soon building on this discovery. 10-20 years..

I saw that article and don't really agree with it. Everything discovered these days is either dark matter or dark energy. Maybe if they build a better telescope they will figure out what it really is.

Umm ... no one has discovered any dark matter or any dark energy as far as I know. And you don't need a telescope to analyse dark matter and dark energy (assuming you've discovered it). You probably just need to step outside the ISS to do so.

So you didn't read it. Read it to learn how they decided what the total mass is, and with the low count of stars, that the remainder is dark matter, matter that would have the same effect as millions or billions of stars, but is not visible. You can't take this readings tethered to the ISS

If you had discovered dark matter and dark energy, you will know that it is what "space" is made of. How do you analyse "space"? Go outside and take a piece of it!

If dark energy is what space is made of, it might well be whats also in space, but you cannot see it. Whatever the article saw, or in this case, didn't see, has an energy affect of many many stars.

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#1621088 1-Sep-2016 22:50

tdgeek:

Rikkitic:

That intuitive thinking is why people get confused. Imagine the balloon sunk down to a single point. There is no 'inside', only outside. that is the centre of the universe. Then the balloon expands. It is still the centre, but the centre is the whole balloon. There is no 'inside'. That is just a construct of our limited imaginations. As the balloon grows bigger, so does the Universe, but every point of it is still the centre. When you look across space, or backward in time, you are not looking at a different point on the balloon but at an earlier moment of the expansion.

If the balloon was down ti a single point where the point cannot be smaller, yes there is no inside. There, by default, there also cannot be an outside. And again by default there cannot be a centre. The Universe however is not a single point. It comprises hard matter, gases, and space. It started as a single point, expanded into countless atoms that make up countless volume of all types of matter, so everywhere in the universe cannot be the centre. Aside from deciding that anyone who doesn't agree has limited imagination, you are saying that Earth is the centre of the Universe, as is Alpha Centauri, as is a star in the Andromeda galaxy. When the ballon grows, the centre is mid diameter of a sphere. As that sphere expands, the centre remains the centre. Where it all began, aka Big Bang theory. The Universe would not have a centre if it was infinite, but it cannot be infinite as it is expanding. Time is not relevant, aside from the expansion being at an earlier stage

It's tricky stuff. For our universe to be expanding, it surely must be expanding within some larger construct. I guess that's where extra dimensions come in, and it is extremely difficult for us to conceptualize anything beyond the 4 dimension we experience (it's often difficult enough to think of time as a dimension).

With the balloon analogy you have to remember that a dimension has been removed to make it easier for us to understand the concept. The universe is represented by the surface of the balloon, not the 3D inflated balloon that we are looking at. So the question is not "where is the centre of the balloon?" but rather "where is the centre of the surface of the balloon?".

I personally don't like the balloon analogy though. It implies that the universe is finite, and that if you travel in one direction long enough you will end up back where you started. I don't know that this was the intention though?

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