Where did the Universe come from? Wait.. what is the Universe? Wait.. what is the definition of "is?" No, the definition of "the Universe" is vital to understanding where it came from. We tend to accept that "the Universe" is all that there is (meaning: it affects us). Space could be considered a component of the Universe - even if only vacuously. But, to keep the record straight: What does the Universe look like? A ball? A brane? Fractional (fractal) dimensional objects? Or do we even know? It would be interesting to have a conclusion to this, but it is improbable it exists in its current form: everything there is. So, how do we understand the origin of everything there is if the sum of the component parts is intangible? We can deduce a reason.. like "it was a single point and that's all there was because forces acting on stars and planets now cause them to accelerate, and those stars and planets are all accelerating away from each other, therefore, by reversing time, we see them all collapse in on each other." But was there only a single point? Were there multiple "origins?" Where is the edge of the Universe? (or is there one at all?) If these questions cannot be answered, what kind of results will we get from our limited observational capabilities?
The astrophysicists seem fairly certain at this point that the universe is infinite. The reasoning for this is beyond me though.
asking such questions is like trying to smell your own nose with your own nose.
is implies a separation between what is and what isn't. OTOH if they really aren't separate there is only an isness which includes both subject and object.
ATM, the universe looks like your computer.
just as any point on a sphere can be regarded as the center. so can any position OF the universe be regarded as the center (or point of origin).
Sometimes when one asks a question that creates frusteration after frusteration it might simply be a matter of asking the right question in the wrong way. start with the fundamental assumptions of language and work from there.
The universe doesn't come from..it just comes.
or in short
it's you.
man, i don't even know where the universe is
Quote from: BootyBay on July 10, 2008, 06:28:29 AM
Where did the Universe come from? Wait.. what is the Universe? Wait.. what is the definition of "is?" No, the definition of "the Universe" is vital to understanding where it came from. We tend to accept that "the Universe" is all that there is (meaning: it affects us). Space could be considered a component of the Universe - even if only vacuously. But, to keep the record straight: What does the Universe look like? A ball? A brane? Fractional (fractal) dimensional objects? Or do we even know? It would be interesting to have a conclusion to this, but it is improbable it exists in its current form: everything there is. So, how do we understand the origin of everything there is if the sum of the component parts is intangible? We can deduce a reason.. like "it was a single point and that's all there was because forces acting on stars and planets now cause them to accelerate, and those stars and planets are all accelerating away from each other, therefore, by reversing time, we see them all collapse in on each other." But was there only a single point? Were there multiple "origins?" Where is the edge of the Universe? (or is there one at all?) If these questions cannot be answered, what kind of results will we get from our limited observational capabilities?
Whut.
Go ask Stephen Hawking, and he'll tell you he doesn't know, and until we can get a better picture of the fundamental forces, and how they interact, we aren't going to know.
There does seem to be a number of different theories that support the Big Bang theory, however. It does seem to be the likeliest explanation for the origin of the universe.
~Galaxys are moving away from each other, as shown by red shift.
~There is a background radiation signature (which is actually part of the static you see on TV sets or hear on detuned radios), which appears to have been caused by the Big Bang.
~Looking at a tremendously distant part of the universe, and therefore "back in time" we can see a significant number of far less mature galaxies , which seems to support the idea that Galaxies were closer to each other and less evolved in the distant past.
~Hawking appears to proven that black holes are NOT eternal, static, objects, but that they do emit radiation, and slowly degrade over time. If everything in the universe was packed into a singularity, really a "black hole", then it's quite possible that similar "mechanics" could have something to do with the moment of origin.
Theorising on the shape of the universe is like asking what colour time is. It's meaningless. As is, at this time, anything more detailed than the standard basic Big Bang. Insufficient data to properly make any kind of model.
Riffing off of popular, but contentious theories, such as string theory, won't get you anywhere. Not even the scientific community can agree on them.
Quote from: BootyBay on July 10, 2008, 06:28:29 AM
Where did the Universe come from? Wait.. what is the Universe? Wait.. what is the definition of "is?" No, the definition of "the Universe" is vital to understanding where it came from. We tend to accept that "the Universe" is all that there is (meaning: it affects us). Space could be considered a component of the Universe - even if only vacuously. But, to keep the record straight: What does the Universe look like? A ball? A brane? Fractional (fractal) dimensional objects? Or do we even know? It would be interesting to have a conclusion to this, but it is improbable it exists in its current form: everything there is. So, how do we understand the origin of everything there is if the sum of the component parts is intangible? We can deduce a reason.. like "it was a single point and that's all there was because forces acting on stars and planets now cause them to accelerate, and those stars and planets are all accelerating away from each other, therefore, by reversing time, we see them all collapse in on each other." But was there only a single point? Were there multiple "origins?" Where is the edge of the Universe? (or is there one at all?) If these questions cannot be answered, what kind of results will we get from our limited observational capabilities?
I think that we will come up with lots of new models which fit new data as its discovered... and
I think that's really OK. I doubt that we will ever KNOW what happened to cause life, or if anything happened at all.... Maybe the idea that the Universe 'started' is based solely on our tendency to perceive things in a linear fashion. For example, Peter Carroll, well known Chaos Magician, quit Chaos Magic for awhile and holed up with some physicists. He came out of that experience with a concept called H6D, which models the Universe as a 6 dimensional hypercube (3 dimensions HxLxW and 3 time diminsions PastxPresentxFuture). In some cases his model addresses some flaws that the current Big Bang model has... I don't believe its true, but the model does seem interesting and potentially useful, if it can account for some things which BB cannot.
Here's an overview:
http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=51 (http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=51)
its turtles all the way down
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk61/fnord_photo/121243975037.jpg?t=1215706495)
hey kinda like how rocks look like miniature mountains, eh
Quote from: BootyBay on July 10, 2008, 06:28:29 AM
Where did the Universe come from? Wait.. what is the Universe? Wait.. what is the definition of "is?" No, the definition of "the Universe" is vital to understanding where it came from. We tend to accept that "the Universe" is all that there is (meaning: it affects us). Space could be considered a component of the Universe - even if only vacuously. But, to keep the record straight: What does the Universe look like? A ball? A brane? Fractional (fractal) dimensional objects? Or do we even know? It would be interesting to have a conclusion to this, but it is improbable it exists in its current form: everything there is. So, how do we understand the origin of everything there is if the sum of the component parts is intangible? We can deduce a reason.. like "it was a single point and that's all there was because forces acting on stars and planets now cause them to accelerate, and those stars and planets are all accelerating away from each other, therefore, by reversing time, we see them all collapse in on each other." But was there only a single point? Were there multiple "origins?" Where is the edge of the Universe? (or is there one at all?) If these questions cannot be answered, what kind of results will we get from our limited observational capabilities?
We don't know.
We have a few ideas.
None have been strongly proven.
Some seem more likely than others because the math mostly works, and we can make more-or-less accurate predictions based on them.
Also,
:barstool:
Quote from: LMNO on July 10, 2008, 06:04:05 PM
Quote from: BootyBay on July 10, 2008, 06:28:29 AM
Where did the Universe come from? Wait.. what is the Universe? Wait.. what is the definition of "is?" No, the definition of "the Universe" is vital to understanding where it came from. We tend to accept that "the Universe" is all that there is (meaning: it affects us). Space could be considered a component of the Universe - even if only vacuously. But, to keep the record straight: What does the Universe look like? A ball? A brane? Fractional (fractal) dimensional objects? Or do we even know? It would be interesting to have a conclusion to this, but it is improbable it exists in its current form: everything there is. So, how do we understand the origin of everything there is if the sum of the component parts is intangible? We can deduce a reason.. like "it was a single point and that's all there was because forces acting on stars and planets now cause them to accelerate, and those stars and planets are all accelerating away from each other, therefore, by reversing time, we see them all collapse in on each other." But was there only a single point? Were there multiple "origins?" Where is the edge of the Universe? (or is there one at all?) If these questions cannot be answered, what kind of results will we get from our limited observational capabilities?
We don't know.
We have a few ideas.
None have been strongly proven.
Some seem more likely than others because the math mostly works, and we can make more-or-less accurate predictions based on them.
Also,
:barstool:
Here's what I have to say:
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/science.jpg)
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 10, 2008, 04:55:16 PM
I think that we will come up with lots of new models which fit new data as its discovered... and
I think that's really OK. I doubt that we will ever KNOW what happened to cause life, or if anything happened at all.... Maybe the idea that the Universe 'started' is based solely on our tendency to perceive things in a linear fashion. For example, Peter Carroll, well known Chaos Magician, quit Chaos Magic for awhile and holed up with some physicists. He came out of that experience with a concept called H6D, which models the Universe as a 6 dimensional hypercube (3 dimensions HxLxW and 3 time diminsions PastxPresentxFuture). In some cases his model addresses some flaws that the current Big Bang model has... I don't believe its true, but the model does seem interesting and potentially useful, if it can account for some things which BB cannot.
Here's an overview:
http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=51 (http://specularium.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=51)
Holy Jumping Jesus Jack Flash! This is goin in my notebook of amazing theories (it exists in outer space somewhere I think). You truly are the master of all things science around here (it certainly seems to me).
P.S. I'm getting all excited cos I'm a soon-to-be math major (possibly physics major also now).
Quote from: BootyBay on July 11, 2008, 01:16:41 AM
P.S. I'm getting all excited cos I'm a soon-to-be math major (possibly physics major also now).
DON'T DO IT!!!!! RUN AWAY!!! NEVER LOOK BACK!!!! BE AN ELECTRICIAN INSTEAD!!!!
The current interpretation AFAICT is that the universe is finite, contains at least 4 dimensions, probably 11 or more, and roughly soccer-ball shaped. 11-14 dimensional soccer ball shaped, that is. But the Brane theory people could be right, and there could be hundreds of dimensions, some of which are infinite and others being finite... So it's really a bit of a mess. Oh, the observable matter seems to be mostly evenly distributed over about 93 billion lightyears.
Quote from: Requiem on July 10, 2008, 08:45:42 AM
The astrophysicists seem fairly certain at this point this week that the universe is infinite. The reasoning for this is beyond me though.
fixd for accuracy
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 10, 2008, 05:16:52 PM
its turtles all the way down
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk61/fnord_photo/121243975037.jpg?t=1215706495)
Quote from: burnstoupee pancakes on July 10, 2008, 06:02:56 PM
hey kinda like how rocks look like miniature mountains, eh
no.
it's kind of like the law of fives.
there is no reason why the large-scale structure of the universe should look like neurons, except that it gives certain hippies some excuses to write a new book about how we're all the dream of some giant brain or something.
if you look at larger scale structures of the universe, you encounter an immense variety of shapes, structures and whatnot. especially given the arbitrary way you can colour these pictures (the colours at these scales hardly ever correspond to actual visible light).
one of these shapes/structures was bound to have a striking similarity with some micro structure. we'd have been equally impressed if it would have represented some other larger or smaller scale structure of the brain, something in an atom, molecule, DNA, electron, or whatever else our fancy pattern-recognition mechanisms can come up with.
then there's the problem that these large scale structures of the universe are in fact shaped like Voronoi-cells (http://www-sop.inria.fr/prisme/fiches/Voronoi/voronoi.gif) (why this is, is quite interesting, but beyond me), which only resembles
certain microscopic images of the brain and only
when projected/visualized in one particular way.
if time were to stop, then how long would it stop for?
Comments in <>s.
According to The Standard Model (SM), the entire observable universe erupted in a 'big bang' from either a zero sized singularity of infinite density or from a quantum sized event of near infinite density. In the non-inflationary version, time begins at the eruption and space expands from zero or quantum size at lightspeed, causing an explosive dilution of the mass/energy within it. I the inflationary version space itself initially expands very much faster than lightspeed, and then a secondary eruption of mass/energy occurs all over the already inflated space. In both scenarios matter and energy initially act in a somewhat interchangeable fashion although neither hypothesis explains the apparent current absence of the antimatter that such interchangeability implies.
In the inflationary scenario the universe can have a far greater size than that which we can ever hope to observe. The observable part will forever remain but a tiny domain of the whole. In both scenarios the universe has a radius of about 14 billion light years. In the non-inflationary case this represents its actual size. In the inflationary case this merely represents the limits of possible observation.<This is actually almost exactly the opposite of what the inflationary case causes.> In both cases, 14 billion years corresponds to the real age of the observable universe.
The big bang theory arose because the universe gives the appearance of expanding and having expanded from something much smaller. In the absence of anything known to prevent vast accretions of matter from collapsing into zero sizes or quantum sized volumes it was assumed that the universe must have erupted from such.
The inflationary hypothesis was tacked on later to explain why apparently causally disconnected parts of the observable universe exhibit the same basic behavior, and to explain the apparent geometry and homogeneity of the universe at large scales. <actually it is to explain that some galaxies are very redshifted, and thus must be traveling away from us at a high evocity. see below, cosmological redshifts. Since the evidence for the speed of light as a limiting velocity is very strong something must be happening. That something is most likely that space-time itself is expanding. Thus, in the inflationary model the universe is about 93 billion light-years across, but only 13.7 billion years old.>
SM does not say what initiated the big bang or inflation, or how all the mass/energy in the universe came to occupy such an initially minute volume. Some SM theorists have toyed with various ex-nihilo creation (creation from nothing) schemes in which the total mass/energy of the universe summates to zero if you account certain quantities as negative and others as positive. However in all such schemes the origin of the vacuum fluctuation or the symmetry breaking or the conditions before the event remain unexplained, and in danger of leading to a chain of infinite causal regress. Indeed, any attempt to unravel the causal origin of the universe must in principle terminate either because further observation becomes impossible or because we put it down to some form of acausality. Every phenomena that we observe in the universe has arisen from something else, even if in an apparently acausal fashion. SM does not and cannot in principle, tell us the final reason for the occurrence of the universe. It can only tell us how the universe goes from one state to another.
The H6D model suggests a universe finite but unbounded in both space and time. A universe in which the mass/energy density exceeds a certain value will have an escape velocity in excess of lightpeed. Nothing could escape such a closed universe and any object which traveled far enough would eventually pass through its starting position again despite that it had traveled in an unswerving straight line from its own point of view. However such a journey would take billions of years and nothing would look familiar when it again passed its starting position. In a finite but unbounded space such as this you can travel as far as you like but there exists a definite maximum possible separation between any two objects. An analogous situation pertains to a universe with finite but unbounded time. An object can in theory persist for as long as desired but no two events will ever appear to have a separation in time greater than a certain maximum. The surface of a Hypersphere as described by Riemann represents the simplest finite but unbounded space. The space within the surface f a hypersphere appears 3 dimensional and almost Euclidean over small distances but over large distances the curvature becomes more apparent as gravity bends the whole 3 dimensional surface back in on itself. The curvature of the 3 dimensional surface requires a fourth dimension about which to bend it. In Riemann's original model an hypothetical fourth spatial dimension, somehow orthogonal to 3 dimensional space provides this. Riemann described the 3 dimensional surface as somehow embedded in a higher dimensional space of 4 dimensions, analogous to the way in which the two dimensional surface of an ordinary sphere lies embedded in ordinary 3 dimensional pace. However in H6D, a dimension of "imaginary time" provides a "direction" about which gravity can curve 3 dimensional space. A second dimension of imaginary time provides a direction about which to bend "ordinary time", in the same way that the extra dimension f a plane allows the bending of a line into a circle. The H6D universe thus has three spatial and 3 temporal dimensions. By convention in H6D ordinary time denotes the observed progress of observed events on the macroscopic scale, whilst the two dimensions of imaginary time provide a plane of probability orthogonal to it. No real differences exist between the 3 dimensions of time on the quantum scale however.
In H6D the universe has no origin and no age. It did not have a beginning and it will not have an end, but from every point within it the temporal horizon will set a limit to how far back an observer can see and a distance to an antipode point which represents the maximum separation between any two points. The temporal horizon does not prevent structures from persisting for lengths of time greater than the temporal horizon length. Thus in H6D it comes as no surprise that some ancient stars appear older than what SM calls the age of the universe. <which stars? None that I know of appear older, some just appear to be moving too fast.>
COSMOLOGY. What interpretations can we place upon current astronomical observations?
SM has interpreted a number of key observations to support the hypothesis that the universe has expanded from some sort of a big bang about 14 billion years ago. I will umber them and present both the SM and H6D interpretations.
1) The gravitational collapse problem.
As gravity appears to have a exclusively attractive effect in both Newtonian and General Relativistic models a static universe should collapse in upon itself. This led Einstein to add an ad hoc fudge factor, which he called the Cosmological Constant, it was supposed to act as a sort of long range anti-gravity. He later retracted this idea when Hubble"s redshift observations were interpreted as evidence for an expanding universe. However the cosmological constant has enjoyed a recent renaissance because the redshifts and optical magnitudes of distant type 1A supernovae do not match up with the Hubble formula. This has been interpreted within SM as an acceleration of the universe's expansion driven by some mysterious "dark energy". Unfortunately, calculations which use quantum vacuum energy as the prime candidate for this dark energy yield spectacularly wrong answers. Observations of the apparent mass of galaxies and their rotational velocities also show a bad mismatch with the basic theory of gravity. The galaxies do not appear to contain enough matter to hold themselves together whilst they rotate. This has led SM theorists to posit the presence of vast amounts of a mysterious "dark matter". To resolve the discrepancies this dark matter must have some very eccentric properties. It cannot interact with light and it has to have gravitational properties rather different to ordinary matter. <actually, the gravitational properties MUST be the same as normal matter. That's the whole point of dark matter. Also, it can interact with light, or at least some of it can, just weakly.> It cannot consist of the same type of "baryonic" matter as people, planets, and stars, and we cannot seem to find a single particle of it anywhere. <except for, say, the 20% of the "missing matter" that was recently found by observing gravitational lensing, and the other 18-24% that was found to be vast quantities of intergalactic dust...> Nevertheless most SM theorists confidently assert that it makes up a significant fraction of the universe and that our galaxy must contain vast amounts of it. A minority of theorists working within SM have suggested various modifications to our understanding of gravity instead of invoking dark matter and dark energy, but these schemes look very ad hoc, and lack convincing mechanisms. <This is true. Since observations are starting to notice much stronger evidence for dark matter, it seems it isn't all quite as mysterious as previously thought.>
2) The Cosmological Redshifts.
The spectral lines in the light and radiation from distant objects in the universe all show a shift towards the lower energy part of the spectrum. Hubble discovered that the degree of shift (towards the red end of the spectrum for optical light), increased with distance. Although we can measure redshifts with great precision, the estimation of distances on the cosmic scale remains difficult. However Hubble came up with a fairly reliable formula which relates redshift to distance. Despite ongoing arguments about by precisely how much, there seems little doubt that redshifts do increase fairly uniformly with distance.
SM equates redshift with recession velocity, the speed with which galaxies fly apart from each other. Th furthest observable objects thus have recession velocities approaching lightspeed whilst less distant objects have more modest velocities. Observers anywhere in the universe who use the recession hypothesis will therefore conclude that about 14 billion years ago, all the observable objects must have started off from the point at which the observers now stand. The equation of redshift with recession velocity created the big bang theory and seemed to answer the question of why the universe had not already collapsed under its own gravity.
The H6D model attributes cosmological redshifts to gravitational braking by the simple equation A = GM/L^2 where A represents a deceleration caused by M, the mass of the entire universe times G, the gravitational constant, divided by the square of L, the length of the universe, (to the antipode).
A gravitational effect on light will not actually slow it down from lightspeed, it will merely redshift it to a lower frequency with a longer wavelength. We can readily observe this effect in the redshifting of light that occurs as it climbs out of heavy stars.
H6D asserts that this deceleration factor A appears in elsewhere (see gravity revisited) and that its measurement indicates an antipode distance of about 10 billion light years, somewhat less than the SM figure for the radius of the observable universe. <10 is quite a lot less than 90>
3) The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. (CMBR).
A thin drizzle of microwave radiation pervades space in every direction. It has a wavelength of about I millimeter and a spectrum corresponding to blackbody radiation with a temperature of about 2.7 Kelvin, only slightly above absolute zero. SM theorists hailed its discovery as strong evidence for a big bang. They reasoned that it constituted the after glow of the hot gas cloud which formed after the big bang. They calculated that after 14 billion years the expansion of the universe would have redshifted the radiation from this primordial fireball until it remained as only low energy microwaves. However if the big bang hypothesis had not existed at the time of the CMBR discovery a very different interpretation would have arisen, The vast voids between the galaxies contain significant amounts of hydrogen and traces of other elements. However over vast distances the amounts of the thinly spread inter galactic matter become significant. Before the discovery of the CMBR theorists had calculated that deep space would have a temperature slightly above absolute zero due to the heating of the intergalactic gas by starlight.
H6D asserts that the CMBR originates from relatively local intergalactic gas at a temperature of 2.7 Kelvin rather than from a primeval fireball. Deep space has a poor transparency to microwaves, tending to reabsorb and re-emit them and to scatter them. The so-called "cosmic" microwaves have thus not traveled anything like 14 billion light years to reach us. They have come from relatively local intergalactic space without appreciable redshift. <calculations? Papers? This is argument-by-intimidation. State an argument, state some "facts" and pretend the result is so obvious anyone questioning it must be an idiot. Is there enough energy emmited from nearby stars to account for this much energy in the local area? (not that I know of, some sort of dark energy that interacts with normal matter but not our observatories... oh, wait, that's religion, not science.>
4) Entropy.
Many of the current ideas in astrophysics remain somewhat at variance with those in cosmology. Th apparent age of some of the structures in the universe seems very close to, or in excess of, the age of the universe that SM predicts. Nevertheless the ideas that the primordial hydrogen in the universe becomes gradually converted into helium and the heavier elements in stars and that matter gradually accretes into black holes or singularities, lends support to the hypothesis that such processes cannot have proceeded indefinitely. Within the cannon of SM, the very existence of free hydrogen, and indeed the existence of matter outside of black holes implies that the universe has a definite age.
In H6D matter cannot become confined in black holes larger than Planck sized ones, or smaller than the universe itself. In H6D neutrons annihilate under sufficient compression, (see particle physics section), liberating radiation. Thus black holes of stellar or galactic magnitude cannot come into existence. The dense objects in the middle of many galaxies consist of huge neutron stars rather than black holes. A sufficiently massive neutron star, which could convert infalling mass into radiation, would behave in exactly the same way that SM predicts a black hole would. If the radiation blasted back into space by annihilated neutrons creates new matter at the rate of only one proton per cubic meter per billion years, then a balance will exist between collapsed and dispersed matter, and the universe will not exhibit signs of decay into one mode or the other. <how does this annihilation work? How does a black hole fail to be created with that much in a small area?>
5) Light Element Abundance.
Our spectroscopes reveal that the universe contains about 75% hydrogen, 25% helium plus a smidgen of heavier elements. SM theorists claim that the stars have not had enough time to transmute the primordial hydrogen into this much helium and heavier elements. They conclude that the helium must have been created in the big bang itself. This argument looks suspiciously circular. H6D asserts that the 75% hydrogen and 25% helium mixture represents a stable equilibrium composition that has evolved over an arbitrarily long period due to the neutron recycling mechanism. <big bang made bunch of hydrogen, some other stuff. Very hot, lots of energy, small space. Fusion happen, turns some into helium. Space get bigger, fusion stop, yay, what we have todays. Talk like caveman to equal intelligence level needed to get this.>
6) The Flatness Problem.
Current observations, interpreted trough the SM paradigm, cannot determine whether we inhabit a universe with a curvature or not. In a positively curved SM universe the gravity will overcome the expansion eventually and it will all collapse. In a negatively curved SM universe the expansion will beat gravity and the universe will expand indefinitely, becoming ever more thinly dispersed in space. In a perfectly "flat" SM universe, expansion and gravity balance exactly and the universe's expansion will slow down, but it will take an infinite time to reach a static condition. However within SM the universe cannot have had initial conditions very far from the flat state, or it would have either collapsed by now or have expanded to a far more diffuse condition than we observe now. The hypothesis of inflation does solve the problem of the approximate or exact flatness of the universe, but at the price of invoking a bizarre supraluminal expansion of space itself, before the big bang, whatever that really means.
H6D offers a simpler hypothesis. M/L = c^2/G.
Where M = the mass of the universe. L = the distance to the hyperspherical antipode. c = lightspeed . G = the gravitational constant. This formula, which also describes a black hole shows that the density of the universe, (the ratio of mass to size) and the ratio of lightspeed to gravity, mutually define each other, and give the universe a small positive curvature, just enough to close it. (See section 8 for an explanation of why such a universe does not collapse.
7) Dark Energy.
In an effort to find a "standard candle" with which to estimate the distances to far galaxies, astronomers looked at a particular kind of exploding star, the type 1A supernovae, in these galaxies. Astronomers presumed that all such supernovae would have the same intrinsic brightness or magnitude. However a comparison of the redshifts of these supernovae with their apparent magnitudes they found the magnitudes rather too dim for the distances indicated by the redsifts. Cosmologists concluded from this that the expansion rate of the universe had actually increased since the big bang and that it continued to increase. To propel this accelerating expansion they introduced the idea of "dark energy". This dark energy supposedly makes up about 70% of the mass/energy in the universe. Cosmologists warmed to this idea because in SM theory the visible mass and energy only accounts for a small proportion of that required to render it anywhere near flat. However it does seem suspicious that this dark energy can at the same time act as a sort of negative gravity driving the universe"s expansion, and as a sort of positive gravity opposing that same expansion. Calculations to derive dark energy from the supposed quantum vacuum have yielded very silly answers.
In H6D, the mismatch between redshifts and magnitudes occurs because whilst redshifts give a fairly good measure of distance, hyperspherical lensing distorts the magnitudes of objects past the halfway point to the antipode. They will appear fainter but dimmer. It does seem more economical to give the universe an hyperspherical geometry rather than to invoke some kind of bizarre "have it both ways" sort of energy comprising 70% of the entire universe. <confusing dark energy with dark matter...>
8) Dark Matter and Gravity Revisited.
According to the astrophysicists, galaxies do not contain enough visible matter to prevent themselves from flying apart as they rotate. This has led SM theorists to deduce the presence of so called dark matter concentrations in galaxies. However these dark matter concentrations do not generally have the same shape as their host galaxies. For SM theorists dark matter has the additional advantage of contributing to the mass/energy require to flatten the universe. In H6D the gravitational field of the entire universe created a decelerative effect which modifies the gravitational effect between any two bodies, particularly over long distances. (It also affects linear motion, see section 9) Specifically, in H6D, the deceleration A, caused by the gravitational field of the entire universe will: -
(a) Increase escape velocities, Ve,
From Ve = (2Gm/d)^1/2 To Ve = (2Gm/d + 2dA)^1/2 And hence
(b) Increase orbital velocities, Vo,
From Vo = (Gm/d)^1/2 To Vo = (Gm/d + dA)^1/2
This will give galaxies higher orbital velocities than SM predicts, but it will have negligible effects on planetary orbits.
(c) Reduce the "infall" velocity Vi, the speed with which gravitationally attracted objects would collide at if they fell together, From Vi = (2Gm/d)^1/2 To Vi = (2Gm/d - 2dA)^1/2
Thus objects at cosmological distances will not begin to move towards each other and the universe will not collapse, it will remain static on the cosmological scale.
<yup, let's discard Lorentz invariance to make the theory work, nothing whatsoever wrong with that.~>
9) Factor A.
The deceleration A caused by the gravitational field of the universe will have an effect on linear motion over astronomical distances. Anderson"s team has detected a deceleration in the motion of the Pioneer, Viking and Ulysses spacecraft as they move towards the extremes of the solar system. They have measured this deceleration as 8.74 (+ or - 1.25) x 10^-10 meters/sec^2. Inserting the 8.74 x 10^-10 value yields:-
By L = c^2/A, an antipode distance of 1.03 x 10^26 meters., or about 10 billion light years. By M = Lc^2/G we obtain a mass for the universe of about 1.39 x 10^53 Kg.
10) Hyperspherical Geometry and Topology and Closure Mass.
I have used the formula M/L = c^2/G for the entire universe as a black hole. However this formula corresponds to the orbital velocity of an ordinary massive 3-sphere, with the distance L measured from its center. Different criteria may apply to the 3 dimensional surfaces of 4-spheres (hyperspheres).
The surface of an hypersphere with an antipode distance of L will have only about 1/6 of the volume of an ordinary sphere with a radius of L.
This may considerably reduce the amount of mass/energy required to flatten it, or to give it a modest positive curvature.
PARTICLE PHYSICS.
Any cosmological theory must exhibit consistency with the theory that describes the behavior of the fundamental particles which constitute the basic "stuff" of the universe.
SM describes the phenomena of the universe as due to: -
a) The Matter (fermion) particles, consisting of 2 types of quark, electrons, and neutrinos.
b) Force carrying, or energy particles (bosons), consisting of gluons, weak bosons, photons, and perhaps gravitons.
c) Force fields, the strong nuclear, the electroweak, and gravitational*.
SM cannot explain why each type of fermion particle occurs in 3 generations, each with an antimatter partner as well. In SM both fermions and bosons exhibit both particle like and wavelike behavior, depending on circumstance. In SM force fields arise from the action of so called "virtual bosons", except perhaps in the case of the gravitational field*. The gravitational field remains supremely problematical in SM because General Relativity models gravity pretty well, at least within the solar system, by describing it as a curvature of spacetime subtended by mass and energy. General Relativity does not need the idea of force fields comprised of virtual bosons to model gravity. The SM of particle physics remains largely phenomenological. It consists of a wealth of carefully measured particle types, energy levels, particle masses, and charges, and particle behaviors, but it lacks any sort of grand mechanism to account for the phenomena that it catalogues. It looks rather like the "science" of natural history prior to the discovery of evolution and DNA. <Except for the particles it predicted, via those mechanisms (quantum chronodynamics, electroweak unification, etc)
SM theorists have labored mightily to find an underlying mechanism. Kaluza showed that a fourth spatial dimension could allow the modeling of electromagnetism as a geometric phenomenon in the same way that General Relativity models gravity. However as space looks so obviously 3 dimensional this idea fell by the wayside for decades until the development of Superstring theory.
Superstring theory, and the various "brane" theories which have followed it, attempt to describe all fundamental phenomena as arising from geometric effects within a lot of extra spatial dimensions. Ordinary space appears quite obviously 3 dimensional so theorists decided that the extra spatial dimensions must have a very small size, down at the quantum scale. Various superstring and brane theories (we should really only call them hypotheses) demand between 11 and 26 spatial dimensions. This addition of many extra dimensions adds a huge mathematical complexity and richness to the model of particle physics. Unfortunately most of the solutions to superstring type theories do not seem to correspond to any king of known particle phenomena at all. Superstring theory yields some reasonable answers but it yields a vastly greater number of apparently silly answers. It has failed to provide the quantum gravity theory which SM theorists seek, and thus it does not quite constitute part of the orthodox SM cannon.
H6D attempts to model all particles and fields as geometric phenomena in 3 spatial and 3 temporal dimensions. In H6D all so called "charges" and "fields" arise from curvatures in various spatial and temporal dimensions. Such curvatures propagate instantly and virtual bosons do not exist. Particle spins occurring in the 2 unnoticed temporal dimensions account for the probabilistic and wave like behavior of matter and energy particles at the quantum level. H6D does not offer an algorithm for predicting particle masses, but neither does SM. However H6D does provide reasons for the manifestation of each type of fermion and boson, and it does explain the existence of three, and only three, generations of each type of fermion. <where? You say it explains this, and provied on references whatsoever.>
H6D does make 2 controversial predictions. I contradiction to SM, H6D predicts that neutrinos can annihilate each other and it predicts that matter compressed to extreme levels will start to emit leptoquark bosons. If this occurs, black holes and singularities will not form, as excess matter falling into neutron stars will escape back into space as energy which will decay back into matter, creating fresh interstellar and intergalactic hydrogen.
CONCLUSION.
I hope to have shown that the hypothesis of 3 dimensional time as advanced in H6D can offer a viable alternative to the SM which provides the current consensus about the structure of reality. The devil, as always, lies in the details. The details remain highly mathematical. I would welcome attempts by any devils advocates to add rigor to the H6D hypothesis mathematically. <do the work for me, please! oh come on, it's your job to put something convincing down before anyone will want to do this. Most kids stop trying to get their parents to do their homework before they are 12.>
It's a nice diversion, but there's no physics theory there.
tl;dc
IMHO, there wasn't one big bang, but a lot of smaller bangs. I think the supermassive black holes collide, and eventually bang out, but the idea that everything goes to and comes from one singularity seems a bit presumptive.
Quote from: triple zero on July 11, 2008, 11:03:29 AM
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 10, 2008, 05:16:52 PM
its turtles all the way down
(http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk61/fnord_photo/121243975037.jpg?t=1215706495)
Quote from: burnstoupee pancakes on July 10, 2008, 06:02:56 PM
hey kinda like how rocks look like miniature mountains, eh
no.
it's kind of like the law of fives.
there is no reason why the large-scale structure of the universe should look like neurons, except that it gives certain hippies some excuses to write a new book about how we're all the dream of some giant brain or something.
if you look at larger scale structures of the universe, you encounter an immense variety of shapes, structures and whatnot. especially given the arbitrary way you can colour these pictures (the colours at these scales hardly ever correspond to actual visible light).
one of these shapes/structures was bound to have a striking similarity with some micro structure. we'd have been equally impressed if it would have represented some other larger or smaller scale structure of the brain, something in an atom, molecule, DNA, electron, or whatever else our fancy pattern-recognition mechanisms can come up with.
then there's the problem that these large scale structures of the universe are in fact shaped like Voronoi-cells (http://www-sop.inria.fr/prisme/fiches/Voronoi/voronoi.gif) (why this is, is quite interesting, but beyond me), which only resembles certain microscopic images of the brain and only when projected/visualized in one particular way.
which only resembles certain microscopic images of the brain and only when projected/visualized in one particular way.the observer is part of the observation :lulz:
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 11, 2008, 04:46:19 PM
which only resembles certain microscopic images of the brain and only when projected/visualized in one particular way.
the observer is part of the observation :lulz:
sorry i don't quite understand what you're trying to say with this remark?
are you agreeing with me?
Quote from: rong on July 11, 2008, 11:34:25 AM
if time were to stop, then how long would it stop for?
I been mulling this over in my head all day and I'm pretty sure it'd be twenty eight and half minutes
Quote from: triple zero on July 11, 2008, 09:15:33 PM
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 11, 2008, 04:46:19 PM
which only resembles certain microscopic images of the brain and only when projected/visualized in one particular way.
the observer is part of the observation :lulz:
sorry i don't quite understand what you're trying to say with this remark?
are you agreeing with me?
yes
(interesting pic plus excuse to use turtles all the way down quote = :lulz:) my understanding of the interrelationship between cosmology + quantum physics is both rusty and weak , just because clouds look like fluffy bunnies does not mean they are fluffy bunnies in some way. I was :lulz:ing because its struck me as funny when it was pointed out
Oh, I forgot to mention that he confuses the Standard Model with Relativity. The Standard model is just Quantum Mechanics, it says nothing about cosmology. That's sort of the current Big Problem in physics: finding a theory to unify QM and GR.
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 12, 2008, 05:43:50 PM
Quote from: triple zero on July 11, 2008, 09:15:33 PM
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 11, 2008, 04:46:19 PM
which only resembles certain microscopic images of the brain and only when projected/visualized in one particular way.
the observer is part of the observation :lulz:
sorry i don't quite understand what you're trying to say with this remark?
are you agreeing with me?
yes
(interesting pic plus excuse to use turtles all the way down quote = :lulz:) my understanding of the interrelationship between cosmology + quantum physics is both rusty and weak , just because clouds look like fluffy bunnies does not mean they are fluffy bunnies in some way. I was :lulz:ing because its struck me as funny when it was pointed out
huh, why did you draw quantum physics into the picture? that stuff happens at about the same amount of orders of magnitude below the microscopic (neuron) level as that large scale universe pic goes up. (for reference, check out this awesome pic to get you an idea of scale: http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/5088/uroboroscolormu6os6.jpg linked cause it's a bit big)
The observer being a part of the observation is the point i thought you were making (a weird truth in quantum physics). The above (over my head ) post by peragrinbf he mentions particle physics and there activities on the quantum level.
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 13, 2008, 03:58:02 PM
The observer being a part of the observation is the point i thought you were making (a weird truth in quantum physics). The above (over my head ) post by peragrinbf he mentions particle physics and there activities on the quantum level.
I think you might be confusing "the observer changes what is observed" with confirmation bias.
But what the heck do I know?
Quote from: Cainad on July 13, 2008, 05:07:56 PM
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 13, 2008, 03:58:02 PM
The observer being a part of the observation is the point i thought you were making (a weird truth in quantum physics). The above (over my head ) post by peragrinbf he mentions particle physics and there activities on the quantum level.
I think you might be confusing "the observer changes what is observed" with confirmation bias.
But what the heck do I know?
I seem to be mixing the two - the human predisposition to see order and recognize patterns (the photo of brain/ universe) "confirmation bias" and the observers method of observation changing what is observed (quantum physics) are different. The observer being a part of (influence on) the observation applies to both
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 12, 2008, 05:43:50 PM
Quote from: triple zero on July 11, 2008, 09:15:33 PM
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 11, 2008, 04:46:19 PM
which only resembles certain microscopic images of the brain and only when projected/visualized in one particular way.
the observer is part of the observation :lulz:
sorry i don't quite understand what you're trying to say with this remark?
are you agreeing with me?
yes
(interesting pic plus excuse to use turtles all the way down quote = :lulz:) my understanding of the interrelationship between cosmology + quantum physics is both rusty and weak , just because clouds look like fluffy bunnies does not mean they are fluffy bunnies in some way. I was :lulz:ing because its struck me as funny when it was pointed out
Quote
See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 13, 2008, 05:46:13 PM
Quote from: Cainad on July 13, 2008, 05:07:56 PM
Quote from: fnord mote eris on July 13, 2008, 03:58:02 PM
The observer being a part of the observation is the point i thought you were making (a weird truth in quantum physics). The above (over my head ) post by peragrinbf he mentions particle physics and there activities on the quantum level.
I think you might be confusing "the observer changes what is observed" with confirmation bias.
But what the heck do I know?
I seem to be mixing the two - the human predisposition to see order and recognize patterns (the photo of brain/ universe) "confirmation bias" and the observers method of observation changing what is observed (quantum physics) are different. The observer being a part of (influence on) the observation applies to both
:facepalm:
lolquantum
Quantum theory: The process of making bold, outlandish and controversial metaphoric statements which make really boring mathematical equations sound much more interesting to members of the opposite sex.
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on July 16, 2008, 04:50:55 PM
Quantum theory: The process of making bold, outlandish and controversial metaphoric statements which make really boring mathematical equations sound much more interesting to members of the opposite sex.
Obviously, you've never met my wife.
heh, so that's what she told you? :evil: