Looking Into Deep Space & Back In Time. How does it work?
Discussion
qube_TA said:
mattnunn said:
Who says it's a closed system?
It's either expanding into something or something is being compressed somewhere. My 30cm ruler doesn't seem to have expanded in the last few weeks, although I can't be sure how big it was before I got it out the stationary cupboard (stationery).
Everything inside the universe is spreading out.It's either expanding into something or something is being compressed somewhere. My 30cm ruler doesn't seem to have expanded in the last few weeks, although I can't be sure how big it was before I got it out the stationary cupboard (stationery).
However if you could somehow be outside the universe, and also be somehow able to see this one then it's probably not changed size at all.
The age/shape/size of the universe only exists inside it.
Is this emperical or just very handy?
Because on the face of it it sound like irrational straw clutching to me.
I'd be happy to have the proof, if it is in a language I can understand.
mattnunn said:
If humans aren't agency for knowledge and there is an immutable physical truth to reality that goes beyond our perception, how come we have to think this stuff up before we go looking to see if it's true? Science has long since stopped discovering stuff and really only prooves what our imagination can concieve.
Really? Look closely enough at "reality" and it all changes into probabilities and a whole lot of nothingness rather than anything solid. Doesn't sound like physical immutable truth to me.A lot of astrophysics appears to be trying to explain observations that don't fit the current best fit model, rather than making up stuff and then looking for it. Got any examples of your assertion that "Science has long since stopped discovering stuff and really only prooves (sic) what our imagination can concieve."?
But what about "Black Holes", they are eating matter (not sure if that is the correct term), galaxys etc so could they actually have eaten the origin of space..?
Humans struggle to grasp the concept of nothingness, bit like before we were born and what happens after.....
But that is a whole other issue/topic.
Claire
Humans struggle to grasp the concept of nothingness, bit like before we were born and what happens after.....
But that is a whole other issue/topic.
Claire
Gaffer said:
But what about "Black Holes", they are eating matter (not sure if that is the correct term), galaxys etc so could they actually have eaten the origin of space..?
Humans struggle to grasp the concept of nothingness, bit like before we were born and what happens after.....
But that is a whole other issue/topic.
Claire
OK, in an attempt to explain as I understand it:Humans struggle to grasp the concept of nothingness, bit like before we were born and what happens after.....
But that is a whole other issue/topic.
Claire
Imagine living in a 2 dimensional world. So everything was completely flat, you have no concept of height at all. You couldn't perceive it at all, it makes no sense to your 2D mind.
If objects do have a 3rd dimension/height then you'd be unaware of this as you'd only see or know about the other 2 dimensions.
Now if an object in your flat world lifted 'up', then it would completely disappear from your world/POV as it would no longer exist in your 2 dimensional universe as you understand it, as this mysterious 3rd dimension doesn't make sense or really exist to you.
Back to our 3 dimensional universe, take a star, the gravity pushing all the particles together is stopped by the hot gas inside which is trying to push everything away in a big explosion (this is like our Sun), the balance of these two forces keeps everything in check for the duration of the stars life. But if the mass is much higher then the greater the resultant gravity is heavy enough to overcome this electron force and it's the nuclear force inside atoms that stops this crushing force of gravity, this is a neutron star (atoms are mostly full of space, but the nuclear force the surrounds them stops atoms passing through other atoms, stopping you walking through walls). But if the star is so super massive then this nuclear force propping up the star isn't strong enough to fight of the squashing of gravity, it then squashes to 'nothing' but the effect of where it was is still felt as a black hole.
So all that stuff has vanished, no way to get to it, it has no size at all any more, but it was once several times larger than our whole solar system but now it's gone.
Now back to our 2D universe with your 2D self encountering a 3D object, if the mass of the big star has moved 'up' to a dimension that you can't perceive it any more, it's completely disappeared, and in addition if you were caught up inside that collapse and somehow survived then you'd not be able to detect the rest of the universe from which you came as it is now also in a dimension that you can not perceive or get to, you are now effectively in a new universe all of your own and there are no others.
You would be able to perhaps theorise how big your new flat universe is from your POV, and possibly determine when it came into existence, but you've no real way to determine how big it is relative to the other one or anything else that you could theorise as there's no ruler that would be able to measure the different dimensions required, one isn't relative to the other.
If your new universe expanded, you may ask 'into what is it expanding' but from everyone else's point of view in the universe you left behind, you were squashed and disappeared to nothing.
So take our 3D universe and imagine being confronted with additional dimensions, you've no way of knowing they're there or how 'big' they are and vice versa.
Edited by qube_TA on Thursday 14th June 22:47
Gaffer said:
Imagine living in a 2 dimensional world.
I already live in one of these. It revolves around getting up, going to a boring job, coming home late, going to bed, then repeat. To earn some meagre money that gets taxed to the hilt, with the rest spent on consumer goods I don't need, so that I have to keep going to the boring job day in, day out.The only break from that is maybe leaving the house that is hanging by a thread by being a few mortgage payments away from re-possession, only to be met with an array of surveillance cameras tracking my every move, and an army of enforcers looking to fine me for the merest transgression.
If I want to use the 'freedom' of my car, then before I can even get in it, I am presented with stellar bills for insurance and 'road tax', whatever that is. Want some fuel for the car? No problem, but another 80% of the cost of fuel is further tax - lolz, enjoy! And be careful not to exceed the ridiculous arbitrary speed limits, or dare to park somewhere you shouldn't for a minute - because we'll tax you again! Big Government Lolz!!
Entertainment wise, I suffer a Television that tries to sell me even more stuff I don't need for around 25 minutes of every hour, and when I do get to see a programme, it feeds me 'reality' episodes of stuff that either belittles my existence by insisting I should be living my life in a particular manner, or else presents me with an endless array of 'celebrities' and 'famous' people that I am supposed to be interested in, but are actually vacuous non-entities devoid of any real talent, who spout their own mediocre verbal diarrhoea like it's some kind of important Biblical teaching.
Ok forget that then, I'll stay in and go 'online.' Online you say, responds the Government Big Brother? Well, watch out - we're looking to track your every move there too, sucker! Lolz again, etc!
That's my current '2D' world, right there!
Sorry, bad day...
mattnunn said:
don4l said:
Most people seem to be treating Einstein's theories as if they were immutable laws of nature. They are not. They are just a set of mathematical equations that we can use to describe some of the things that we see around us.
These equations do not work at the sub-atomic level. I strongly suspect that they also don't work on the very large scale either.
Einstein didn't believe in any of this stuff, he didn't support the BBT or an expanding universe, he and Fred Hoyle believed in a stable universe, the Big Bang was a term Hoyle used to deride the theory, it stuck. As previously posted the Big Bang theory was first promoted by possibly the worlds best and most forgotten Physicist George Lamaitre, his name not so widely used by popular science due the confusion caused in the minds of the geeks because of the fact he was a catholic priest.These equations do not work at the sub-atomic level. I strongly suspect that they also don't work on the very large scale either.
I don't believe that Einstein believed "any of this stuff".
Galaxies appear to be rotating faster than Einstein's theories predict. Most modern scientists assume that Einstein was 100% correct, and that these galaxies, therefore, must contain much more matter than we can observe (ie. dark matter). I suspect that if Einstein was still alive, he would say that he had been wrong.
He was very close, but he wasn't 100% correct.
The Big Bang Theory fails on many levels.
The Universe seems to be far bigger than it should be if our knowledge is correct - and if Einstein was right.
The Universe, or Space itself, seems to be expanding at an increasing rate.
Maybe, we should re-evualate our ability to understand the cosmos.
Don
--
Ray Luxury-Yacht said:
The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Actually there is no "before" the big bang as this would imply time, which started at the point of the big bang.S
hornet said:
don4l said:
Most modern scientists assume that Einstein was 100% correct
I'm guessing most of the quantum physicists don't...Einstein said:
The important thing is not to stop questioning; curiosity has its own reason for existing.
But also:Einstein said:
Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
Wise man indeed.hornet said:
don4l said:
Most modern scientists assume that Einstein was 100% correct
I'm guessing most of the quantum physicists don't...Al scientific theories have been proved wrong. All it takes is time. Newton, pure genius, was proved wrong by Einstein (amongst others). Creationists seem to think that disproving Darwin will somehow create their god but in many wasy Darwin has been proved wrong. There is a catastrophic view of evolution that has a lot going for it, not mentioned by Darwin. He had no knowledge of DNA. Mind you, it would appear that most sceintitsts have no real idea of DNA given recent discoveries, sorry, theories.
The only truth is that everything scientists tell us is lies. At best it can only be a best guess, based on observations of coruse.
I've been reading John Barrow's "The Book of Universes" in bed for the last few nights.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Book-Universes-John-Ba...
Everything was going fine until I got to the section on Braneworlds at about 1am. I've read that chapter several times and still can't get my head round it.
If anyone can explain that bit, it might save me to try reading it either before I'm half cut or half asleep.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Book-Universes-John-Ba...
Everything was going fine until I got to the section on Braneworlds at about 1am. I've read that chapter several times and still can't get my head round it.
If anyone can explain that bit, it might save me to try reading it either before I'm half cut or half asleep.
GuinnessMK said:
I've been reading John Barrow's "The Book of Universes" in bed for the last few nights.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Book-Universes-John-Ba...
Everything was going fine until I got to the section on Braneworlds at about 1am. I've read that chapter several times and still can't get my head round it.
If anyone can explain that bit, it might save me to try reading it either before I'm half cut or half asleep.
I have not read the book, so I don't know the specifics.http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Book-Universes-John-Ba...
Everything was going fine until I got to the section on Braneworlds at about 1am. I've read that chapter several times and still can't get my head round it.
If anyone can explain that bit, it might save me to try reading it either before I'm half cut or half asleep.
However I can talk about Branes.
To do so we have to go back a few years.
In the 60s a new form of maths supremos had some intriguing ideas on the future of theoretical theorists and a new math was born over the next few years, it was fiendishly esoteric and more than a little confounding, eventually this math was taken by a true maths genius and extended and applied to a new theory, it was known as String Theory, it was almost impossible for all but a few to take it apart and argue against, but it was and it was changed to Superstring Theory, by this time the advent of the Computer with real power started to dissemble it, but there were parts that fitted, in fact fitted so well almost everyone agreed that there was a nugget of pure gold in there, but Superstring, just like String was wrong, but the bit that survived was Brane Theory and this, at last, held some promise, but this too has been dismissed, but the dismissal has a huge twist in the tail, although few in the Quantum Field Theory camp freely admits it, the remnants of both String Theories and Brane theory is the basis for QFT, without the convolutions of those we would not have arrived at QFT when we did.
That was a very abbreviated and dismissive precis and viciously truncated.
But the whole S/SS/B episode has had quite a few effects on maths and theoreticians since that time.
It is not dead, there are still adherents of some of its principles and the (very) original thinking behind it is only to be admired and may yet at some time need to be re-visited as almost anyone who perseveres with the maths instinctively feels there is more to come from the theory.
So the S/SS/B book will lay on the shelf gathering dust and at some point when a truly great mind picks it up, dusts it off and provides the key, we wait.
Often work that seems all wrong can be shelved only to become later lionised at a document of huge foresight... for me at this time, it's largely ballocks... but I reserve the right to change my mind in the future.
My advice is if you've got your head around S/SS and stumbling over Branes, just jump to QFT...
Gene Vincent said:
My advice is if you've got your head around S/SS and stumbling over Branes, just jump to QFT...
Great post thanks. I've read a little about String Theory and Branes and these theories did come across as, shall we say, very clever but self indulgent mathematical conundrums (as a layman reading popular science books, so maybe what I've read has been diluted to the point of coming across as being far fetched nonsense). I'll have to try reading about QFT next! Derek Smith said:
All quantum physicists are wrong. Of this there is no doubt.
Al scientific theories have been proved wrong. All it takes is time. Newton, pure genius, was proved wrong by Einstein (amongst others). Creationists seem to think that disproving Darwin will somehow create their god but in many wasy Darwin has been proved wrong. There is a catastrophic view of evolution that has a lot going for it, not mentioned by Darwin. He had no knowledge of DNA. Mind you, it would appear that most sceintitsts have no real idea of DNA given recent discoveries, sorry, theories.
The only truth is that everything scientists tell us is lies. At best it can only be a best guess, based on observations of coruse.
Vastly over-simplifying things there, Derek.Al scientific theories have been proved wrong. All it takes is time. Newton, pure genius, was proved wrong by Einstein (amongst others). Creationists seem to think that disproving Darwin will somehow create their god but in many wasy Darwin has been proved wrong. There is a catastrophic view of evolution that has a lot going for it, not mentioned by Darwin. He had no knowledge of DNA. Mind you, it would appear that most sceintitsts have no real idea of DNA given recent discoveries, sorry, theories.
The only truth is that everything scientists tell us is lies. At best it can only be a best guess, based on observations of coruse.
Newton's equations aren't wrong, they're simply insufficiently detailed to describe all cases. You can land a spaceship on another planet quite satisfactorily using Newtonian mechanics.
Like a lot of people in this thread, I think it would behove you to revisit the definitions (in this context) of the words "theory" and "hypothesis".
CommanderJameson said:
Newton's equations aren't wrong, they're simply insufficiently detailed to describe all cases.
Thus they are "wrong", they remain a perfectly adequate approximation in most circumstances but since they cannot describe all circumstances they are not "correct", ergo they are "wrong".(As I'm sure is everything else we "know" - contingent truths and best guesses is all we shall ever have.)
Gassing Station | Science! | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff