I could well be wrong about whether the universe is flat, curved or even saddle shaped, but I don't agree that the analogy is fundamentally flawed. What is fundamentally flawed is our ability (or at least mine) to really think about curved 3 or 4 dimensional space. In the surface analogy, you can define a being that only lives "in" the surface, and then I don't think your complaint survives. (bonghit)
(bong hit) What if, what if on the other side of the "end" of our universe, there are other universes. And what if our expansion is causing the other universes to collapse? (smokey cough)
antimatter has mass. a particle and its antiparticle have the same mass, just something else, like charge or spin, is opposite. an electron and positron are the same except one is postiively charged and one negatively.
Your career envy knows no bounds. I had to look up LARP, and it means Lawyers Acquiesce to the Reign of Professors.
That is a simulation image of the visible universe only. The actual universe could be infinite. But as far as us humans are concerned, the visible universe is the universe.
Along those lines of whether the universe was infinite... I thought I had read something about the speed of light from the time of the big bang being the limit of what we can "see" in terms of the size of the universe, meaning... the universe is much larger than what light has been able to travel. Who knows.
What on earth are you talking about? Antimatter doesn't "weigh less than nothing." The positron, the antiparticle of the electron, has the EXACT same mass as the electron, but opposite charge.
Nothing or nothingness is by definition endless, and beginingless and boundaryless and timeless. The 'Universe' is the common reference to the cosmological horizon but it is unprovable that there may be other big bang complexes 'out there' in the nothingness that we wouldn't and may never have any perception of. It could be that there are infinite big bang complexes each containing infinite numbers of stars. And that's only considering the four dimensional reality that humans can perceive. Not that I understand it but there seems to be some mathematical evidence that many other dimensional systems exist. My point is the fact that we find ourselves on a planet just the right distance from it's star, where water exists, freezes and thaws, has a spinning molten core that produces a protective magnetic field, an orbiting moon that balances orbital variation, a tilted axis that produces seasonal fluctuations and oceans currents that mitigate climate and circulate nutrients, has enough gravity to maintain an atmosphere, enough historical volcanic activity to produce hydrocarbon compounds, periodic extinctions that allow for massive jumps in evolution, and bi-pedal creatures with prehensile thumbs and large neural network brains adept at learning and adaptation......while appearing to be the result of divine creation may just be the result of an infinite number of possibilities producing this result. If have every possible type of world in this or any universe then you would certainly have this one. We know because we can see it. It appears to be divine to us because the only perspective we have is 21st century humanoids living here now. It could be if you had the perspective to see billions of star systems in billions of Universes, there might be a billion planets with intelligent life. So, I think it's a statistical certainty that there is now, has been or will be other intelligent life in the universe(s) but due to the the vast distances compared to the human scale, the vast amount of time in all of cosmological history (endless?) and the energy budgets required to move anything of any real mass at the speed of light, we will never sense their presence.
I am a very strong adherent to the scientific method as far as it is properly applied, but don't you think it's a stretch to say that most scientists with their ideas of how things work would love to be proven wrong for the sake of knowledge? I think all of us have some kind of way of looking at things and want to hold onto those things whether that causes us to unquestioningly accept things that conform to our worldview or interpreting objective evidence in a slightly slanted view. Tis human nature to bend the method to our madness (esp. in the days of competition for grants and so forth). Also, I think the scientific method is constrained in its scope to the present time. We obviously cannot use it to predict the future, but I'd say can't purely use it to gain objective knowledge of the past either. How can I prove scientifically that there was a big bang or that Homer wrote the Iliad? We can and will continue to gather data that we can interpret as evidence for various conclusions, but have we not strayed from science into pseudo-science (quasi-science?) since it is impossible to reproduce the exact same experiment now and say definitively that yes, that is what happened then, since the event has passed? All this to say, science is based on the scientific method so let us render unto science what is science's and to pseudo-science what is pseudo-science's (I would include parallel universes in this category until someone comes out with a reproducible list of steps that will show they are there). (This post is not really directed at HAYJON02, his post just sparked me to throw in my two cents about this topic in general.)
Nice post, Jimes. (1) I agree that it's a stretch. In my own tiny career, I've seen some remarkably bad behavior in terms of abandoning the method, especially for some people late in their careers, who have the feeling of a stake or legacy for certain ideas to be "correct." There's some dirty laundry I guess. It really surprised me when I first saw it, naif that I was. (2) I don't really think science is about proving absolutes at all. Was there a big bang, did Homer write the Iliad, did somebody just fart? We can have strong evidence, but we can just build good theories and models and modify those appropriately as we gather more evidence. When the theories and models make testable predictions for future measurements, they do start to gather weight, but I don't think they are ever truly meant as absolute carved-in-stone final "truths." Maybe I have too soft a sense of the goals; others may really disagree here.
Nice post. You're talking about m-theory and multi universe theory here. And you're talking about the theory of creationism here. Some spiritual/religious people believe that the fact that intelligent life has evolved on this planet with perfect circumstances is the result of a higher power/being's will. But this statement here is the exact opposite of creationism theory. In creationism we are the only intelligent life in the "world". Anyway, I think it would be cool if, despite the numerous disagreements between science and religion, there was a way that they would be interconnected. Who knows?
I'm saying, man's existence is not divine, it's a statistical inevitability. The other way I like to say it (and my former sig) In a universe of umlimited possibilities why are we so amazed to find ourselves in a condition that is merely improbable.
Divinity is no different a concept as freedom. You can't prove you are free, but you sure can work on that belief. I think most people expect scientists to prove things in absolutes. It makes things easier.
still sounds like . . uhm . .. Faith you can say . .well when we get disproven . . .we will change but science resists being disproven mightily Look at the whole Global Warming thing . . . some folx entrenched on both sides .. .evidence be d*mned they are . .faithful to their faith Rocket River
There is another possibility. It could be that the Universe is actually smaller than that. In other words it could be smaller than the speed of light expansion after the big bang. If that is the case then the farthest galaxies that we see are a mirror image of present galaxies in the past. If the actual universe is smaller than the visible universe, then light had the chance to bounce off its edge atleast once, i.e. a mirror. Crazy stuff huh? I know. But, who knows. In fact, if you really think about it, we know nothing about the universe.
