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The scale of the universe


Spudders

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I still don't understand it. The universe is suppose to be infinite, yet there is an estimation of its size.

 

And the universe is supposed to be "everything"; if that's the case, and we know it's size, what is outside of the universe?

 

Plus, its widely accepted that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang; anything that expands needs something else to expand into, so in the case of the universe expanding, what is it?

 

My brain hurts when I think about things like this.

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I still don't understand it. The universe is suppose to be infinite, yet there is an estimation of its size.

 

And the universe is supposed to be "everything"; if that's the case, and we know it's size, what is outside of the universe?

 

Plus, its widely accepted that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang; anything that expands needs something else to expand into, so in the case of the universe expanding, what is it?

 

My brain hurts when I think about things like this.

 

It is not expanding in something. It is creating TIME.

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The universe isn't infinite - it has a definite size, and it is expanding. It isn't expanding into anything, because by definition there isn't anything outside the universe for it to expand into.

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The universe isn't infinite - it has a definite size, and it is expanding. It isn't expanding into anything, because by definition there isn't anything outside the universe for it to expand into.

 

So, by definition, if something is expanding (i.e. getting bigger) how is it doing that without occupying more space?

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If all the planets and moons were created by the big bang, why are they all so perfectly round? I'd have expected more unusual shapes. Where did all the big unusual shaped stuff go?

 

They weren't created in the instant of the "big bang". There wasn't just a popping sounds, and everything suddenly existed. The uniformity, or roundness, that you speak of is a natural occurrence when massive objects fall in on themselves due to gravity. There is an answer for everything my friend! Or at least there will be, one day, I hope.

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Anyone got a link to the pic of the bubble of water compared to the earth. There's naff all water on this planet and it ain't really going nowhere I assure you.

 

Environmentalists are precisely that with a silent 'enviro'. Fact.

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I still don't understand it. The universe is suppose to be infinite, yet there is an estimation of its size.

 

And the universe is supposed to be "everything"; if that's the case, and we know it's size, what is outside of the universe?

 

Plus, its widely accepted that the universe has been expanding since the Big Bang; anything that expands needs something else to expand into, so in the case of the universe expanding, what is it?

 

My brain hurts when I think about things like this.

 

tbh kraken, I dont think we're supposed to understand it. The nearest I ever got to any sort of plausible conceptualizing of this stuff was from a quantum physics expert I used to do some work for. he was a lecturer based at Soton Uni. I saw him every six months or so for about twenty years, we became quite friendly, and as often as not we would go for a pub lunch after I'd done his maintenance stuff. He's dead now, I still have a couple of his books that his wife gave me after he died.

 

What fascinated me was that the job I did was in his study, there were shelves of technical books about the quantum stuff, but they were interspersed with textbooks and reference books on every religion and belief system you could ever think of. I asked him over lunch once, how does all that square with what you know about quantum mechanics, surely you're a scientist and you wouldn't believe any of that? He said "its possible. Any of them. And if its possible, it either has happened, is happening, or is going to happen."

 

I have never made sense of his books, but he told me they have already proved the existence of particles which can exist at the same time in two separate places, which suggested to him an entire set of dimensions in which our concept of time, distance and space are utterly irrelevant. There was supposedly a "singularity" which resulted in the big bang, but it literally expanded into a void; there was nothing there, no space for it to expand into and no matter to affect it once it had exploded.

 

Thats as far as I've got with it, as you say my brain starts to hurt as well.

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Is that a question?

 

You clever ones, could scientists actually do a jurrasic park or was that all made up?

 

It's theoretically possible, but they are having enough trouble trying to find a decent piece of DNA for the mammoth and that is only thousands of years gone.

 

I do wonder though, with the genetics revolution currently going on whether we could one day almost 'reverse engineer' DNA and so life tailored to what we want. We can already do this for simple celled organisms with the first 'synthetic' life created recently(though in fairness, we are hardly writing the code, merely copying existing DNA code). Surely eventually, we could just piece together the nucleotides. It'd be horrifically complex though.

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The biggest leap in personal satisfaction comes when you better understand just how much you cannot truly comprehend.

 

Agreed. I find it much more satisfying that there is so much more that we can learn and find out, that the universe is as complex as it is, and that we are in the process of solving these mysteries rather than just accepting some mythical story.

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I quite the idea that good deeds contain an energy. Look for good and you will find it everywhere , let Good be your God. I found mine.

 

What and who constitutes good though? Surely 'good' and morality is entirely relative to the time you live in. What people think is good today, people would have thought evil many years ago.

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What and who constitutes good though? Surely 'good' and morality is entirely relative to the time you live in. What people think is good today, people would have thought evil many years ago.

 

Indeed, today we encourage obnoxious, precocious teenagers to have an opinion on everything, 100 years ago you'd be seen and not heard.

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We might have evolved so far from our primitive beginnings as to have a stab now at measuring the awesome scale of the universe, but measuring and truly comprehending are quite different things. In a way I find almost impossible to explain the only way I can contemplate eternity is through artistic expression rather than grappling with a level of science that is quite beyond me frankly.

 

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away".

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley 'Ozymandias'

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Scientists don't know how big the universe is, that website is cool but after a point it's just guesswork.

 

Yes but I think you're missing the point.

 

Go back (say) 100 years. If it had been possible to make a similar website then (obviuosly not but keep with it...) the information contained would just be a 10th of that included today. Without researching I'd guess that they could have got to the point where they had a "guess" at teh size of the planets" and atoms were likely the smallest possible particels.

 

Imagine if in another 100 years time a similar site were drawn up and what we currently know made up just a 10th of it...

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It's funny how most of the bible is now considered a parable as science proves most of it to be ********.

 

What is actually funnier is the way that increased literacy in adult populations has led to a more literal take on the Bible amongst many. Don't think that too many priests would have pushed the literal side of things, but literalism ( the notion that everything in the Bible is the infallible word of God ) is a relatively new phenomenon. 1920s, apparently.

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Scientists don't know how big the universe is, that website is cool but after a point it's just guesswork.

 

That's not entirely true. We do have a rough idea of how old it is, how fast it's expanding and how big it is. I say "rough" because in most other areas of science an estimation that's ten times bigger or smaller than the real value would be useless, but in astronomy it's considered reasonably accurate.

 

So we don't have a nailed-on accurate answer for the precise size of the universe, but to say it's pure guesswork is untrue.

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That's not entirely true. We do have a rough idea of how old it is, how fast it's expanding and how big it is. I say "rough" because in most other areas of science an estimation that's ten times bigger or smaller than the real value would be useless, but in astronomy it's considered reasonably accurate.

 

So we don't have a nailed-on accurate answer for the precise size of the universe, but to say it's pure guesswork is untrue.

 

I disagree. I think it just goes on forever.

 

The big bang theory is probably right, scientists are measuring something and are probably reasonably accurate. But it could just be part of something way beyond our comprehension or ability to measure.

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