[Closed] If the universe is 13.7 billion years old...

We can see the same distance in all directions - we're not in the centre of the universe as there is no centre. It is a bit odd to get your head around, but space itself is expanding, it's not that everything is expanding into empty space.

The usual analogy is a balloon - if you were standing on a giant balloon as it was being blown up, every other point would be rushing away from you at the same speed - but you aren't at the centre of the balloon.

Now try to convert that analogy from two to three dimensions without your brain popping out of your ears 🙂

The universe is a hypersphere.. think of a sphere, but with every point on the outside edge being joined up to it's opposite point on the sphere. So it's got size, but no edges. It's like that because gravity bends it that way.
In a sense, you are at the centre of the universe. How does that make you feel?

Scared!

we can see stars 13.4 billion light years away

You should've gone to specsavers mate........30 billion light years

If I'm standing in a balloon and it get's blown up, yes every point of it would be moving away from me. Some bits of it would be closer than others depending on where I was in the balloon when it started being inflated. I was watching the horizon thing on before the big bang and found it quite interesting that they didnt really know what the hell was going on. I liked the expansion/contraction idea though.

Space is not only queerer than you think, It's queerer than you CAN think.
I read that somewhere & i reckon it's true!

I am of the opinion that if something ever gets so complex that it's not understandable then it's wrong.

I am of the opinion that if something ever gets so complex that it's not understandable then it's wrong.

Try reading a book on quantum electrodynamics - if that was wrong then this computer wouldn't work, yet it's very, very odd.

as old as your mum.

We are the centre of our own field of view, not the universe.

The only thing that can solve this is the opinion of an erstwhile yet omniscient medical professional.

Quincy, M.E.?

But you can't qualify any other point as more the centre of the universe than here

or there

anyways I like all the space piktures. They r cool. even if they do colour them in.

If I'm standing in a balloon and it get's blown up

Youre either A) going to have a high pitched voice (if its helium)

B) going to have a headache due to the pressure

C) going to go deaf when it goes pop

I'm not trying to say we are or are not at the centre of the universe. It's just the 13.7Bn yrs old and we can see 13.4bn light yrs in each direction that doesnt sit well. Either the speed of light is incorrect or there is a lot more universe out there than we can see and the universe is a lot older or any number of other explanations. I also likeed the idea that invoking infinity was giving up.

There is a lot mroe universe out there than we can see - we can only see about 2% of it.

Bw, more like Doogie Howser MD.

It depends if the universe is expanding symmetrically in every direction from the point at which the big bang occured.

Heres some nice long words with some graphs that have numbers on and stuff 😆

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe ]The universe according to Wiki[/url]

The only thing that can solve this is the opinion of an erstwhile yet omniscient medical professional.

Don't you ever tire of your persistent smartarse comments about TJ Flashheart ?

I appreciate that it gives you something say when you clearly struggle to formulate any opinion about anything, but why not try something new ? 💡

if there is a lot more out there than we can see - another 98% or whatever - and it all started expanding at the same time - how does that work if the universe is 13.7 bn yrs old and we can see 13.4 bn light years away?

Ernie, why not type another essay instead. Someone might even read it.

The other 98% is dark matter and/or dark energy. Being dark, we can't see it 🙂

CFH - if you're just going to start your childish bickering and trolling i suggest you do one.

ben cooper - prove it.

Ben, is there a Higgs Boson link there, now we can (sort of) see it?

but how much can you weigh? does it matter where you are? that's the invisible shit right there. that those freaky wierdos are trying to find in a big tunnel or something. That must have an effect on speed and SBZ your numbers are very unspecific. Have you been reading newspapers? if they find the higgs-boson I will definitly sleep at night knowing the missing mass of everything has been found

because we can only see those objects that are 13.7 bn years old, and therefore 13.4 bn light years away. What that says is the age of the "visible" universe.

ben cooper - prove it.

Well, one proof is to look at how galaxies spin. Basically, they are spinning too quickly - they should really be flinging themselves apart. But the fact that they're not means there's a lot more mass there that we can't see holding them together. You can even work out how much mass there is and where it is by looking at the speed of rotation at various distances from the centre of a galaxy - galaxies should rotate like water downa plughole, but they really rotate a bit more like a spinning plate.

well look mikey, is it in HD? or I don't wanna know.

we can only see those objects that are 13.7 bn years old, and therefore 13.4 bn light years away.

Does that allow for expansion ?

What does dark energy do then?

Just using SBZ's figures. I'll read up on it properly when I haven't had a beer or two.

For the record, I would have assumed that the two figures would be the same.

What does dark energy do then?

Sod all 🙂

Quite a few theories about the creation of the universe require that there's a certain amount of matter/energy (which are, of course, interchangeable) in the universe. The "flat universe" theory, for example. But calculations of galagtic rotation curves etc only accounts for some matter/energy, so it can't all be in the form of matter, some of it must be in the form of energy. And it must be a form of energy that doesn't interact with anything, or we'd see it.

Just reading a short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson which covers this on a nice layman level. I think the explanation is that where ever you are in the universe will deemed as the centre

So they're just making shit up. Thought so. I would like to come back in 1000 years and see where the human race had got to with this stuff.

Dark matter is the term used to describe the "missing" mass of galaxies and their surrounding gas clouds, which turns out to be five times greater than the visible amount of matter should suggest.

the Higgs Boson, on the other hand, is the particle that gives objects mass. As atoms are 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999 % etc empty space, theoretically everything should have no mass and solidity.

Scumbag universe. Already infinite; keeps expanding

[i]So they're just making shit up.[/i]

That's how things get discovered and found out though. Do you not agree with a bit o scietifc experimentation and leeway? The human race has come up with some good stuff with daft ideas even in the last hundred years.

Yeah, that's science for you. You just make shit up. Then you test it - that is the important bit.

like an experimental soup using your wierd neighbours leftovers. Something like that. That's science. Test that shit you bastards..

I am of the opinion that if something ever gets so complex that it's not understandable then it's wrong

I agree, you are wrong 😉

The funny thing is that the universe is actually pretty simple - the most complex thing in the universe, by quite a long way, is between your ears...

not on this forum

Ernie, why not type another essay instead. Someone might even read it.

Ooh! I like Ernie's 'essays'. They're thoughtful, stimulative and informative. 😀

Unlike you, Flashy. 😐

A lot of that science spacey stuff is cobblers. Scientists need to come up with stuff what sounds really clever and compulcated, so's they can keep getting their research grants to come up with stuff like 'Ducks like water'.

No it's true, look:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/20/research-proves-ducks-like-water

See? Three hundred thousand pounds, to come up with that? What a joke.

And what about that Beagle 2 Mars thing? Fifty million quid; borked as soon as it took off from Earth. Scientists dunalf seem to waste a lot of money on vanity projects, whilst millions starve or can't even get clean water.

'[i]Ooh yeah let's spend trillions sending probes into outer space rather than sorting out the problems down here on Earth![/i]'

Yeah. Up Uranus.

Going back to the balloon analogy. If we kept going in one direction would you theoretically eventually end up back at Earth then?

Possibly... would probably be due to the fact that there is a lot of gravity in the universe, so that if you tried to go in a straight line (and you would perceive that you were going in a straight line) then the gravity in the universe would cause you to go round in a big circle. Although it would take you that long that even if you could survive the journey chances are the earth wouldn't be here any more.

Going back to the balloon analogy. If we kept going in one direction would you theoretically eventually end up back at Earth then?

Problem is, the balloon keeps expanding as you try to go around it...

aye I understand the time thing, even at the speed of light it'd take you 28 billion years, assuming the visable universe is all there is(which I doubt). crazy amounts.

Biggest problem with explaining this is that we try to explain the universe in science that we understand, my reckoning is that the universe plays by rules we haven't even thought of yet, so to even have a chance of getting it right, we need to find out what the language of the universe is so to speak. Which i don't think we even know. I'm another one who wouldn't mind seeing where we've got to on this question in another 1000 years.

The difference between science and religion, science you make something up then try and prove it, religion you just make something up.

I am sure that i read somewhere that only a handful of people in the world actually understand the problem enough to be able to think how to prove it.

Start with a simple problem such as newtonian mechanics and it isn't that hard, move on to quantum mechanics and things start to get odd because they run counter to what our everyday experience teaches us. This is the problem, there was a time when it was believed the earth was flat and you could fall off the edge, look at the sea, you see a horizon, it is obvious that there is an edge and the sea is flat.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Universe
Happy Birthday to you

Science holds with an approach to finding knowledge [ obseerve and experiment etc] it does not hold to what is found so new knowledge/facts does not threaten science as we/it can easily shift to the new paradigm
Religion is tied to its beleiefs as they are the word of a diety so they are stuck with creationism, no evolution, no dinosaurs, even a heliocentric universe. These all made sense 2000 years ago and were facts today we knwo they are wrong. The beleievers have to stick with ot though as its the word of god.
New knowledge threatens religion it does not threaten science and ths is sciences greatest strength no "laws" are infallable

Surrounded By Zulus - Member

I am of the opinion that if something ever gets so complex that [s]it's not understandable[/s] I don't understand it then it's wrong.

Ernie, why not type another essay instead. Someone might even read it.

Ernie's essays are interesting, even if I don't agree with a lot of it, yours CFH however:

[img] [/img]

It's an image representation of your mind, no wonder nothing interesting ever comes out of it.

That's science. Test that shit you bastards..

😆

So, to follow on from this curved space thingie that says that when you think you're going straight you'll still end up back where you started. Could it be that if we look to the north and see something 13 (or 30) billion light years away and then look to the south and find something the same distance away, we are looking at either side of the same thing?

Whilst we're on the subject of astrophysics can someone tell me if there any gaping holes in my own theory that the big bang did not necessarily include all universal matter and may just be a local phenomenon. We know that matter and energy are interchangeable, so what if there is a limit to the mass of a black hole, beyond which it becomes unstable and it's constituant matter is crushed out of existence and makes that transformation in a similar manner to a nuclear chain reaction. Such a violent explosion would erase all traces of anything existing for a pretty big surrounding area and anything not affected would presumably be too far away for us to identify with current technology.
I've always been intrigued as to WHY the big bang occured and this is my attempt at explaining that.

seeing that man has never been past the moon i find it hard to believe we can say with any certainty how old the universe is

I am of the opinion that if something ever gets so complex that it's not understandable then it's wrong.

I'm taking a guess but I reckon by that thought process there's an aweful lot of stuff in the world that works as it was designed that you're just going to classify as wrong, or magic. You're thinking in 3D for a start, which is part of the mistake you make.

seeing that man has never been past the moon i find it hard to believe we can say with any certainty how old the universe is

Presumably that's just because you don't understand the physics behind how the estimations are made?

I love it when armchair spectators assume an army of scientists and physicists working for decades are wrong, based on an idle 5 minute thought 🙂

So, when you reach the edge of the universe, where do you end up? Back at the beginning? What starts where one thing ends?

When you get to the edge of the universe, you reach the start of another one.

Makes you wonder why you bothered.

jumpupanddown - Member

seeing that man has never been past the moon i find it hard to believe we can say with any certainty how old the universe is

I'm amazed. You don't know about "Google" and, er, "Wikipedia" and the like?

Never mind. Knock yourself out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe

.

we can only view the universe from our perspective... we might just be a experiment in some greater beings laboratory.

Yes, we might, but:

1: That would be a being that has evolved into complexity from a simple beginning, just like us and

2: There's no evidence for it.

Oh, also, 3: So what?

the one issue with physics that i have never really been happy with.

The big bang, there was nothing, no time, no mass, no void, absolutely nothing, then there was everything, time began, mass and energy appear.

As for the shape of the universe, you have to remember that space is not 3d in the normal sense, time, gravity, mass, energy, everything, interact in ways that on an everyday level you do not see. You assume time is fixed, but it is not.

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment ]Hafele Keating experiment[/url]

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens ]Gravitational Lenses[/url]

the one issue with physics that i have never really been happy with.

The big bang, there was nothing, no time, no mass, no void, absolutely nothing, then there was everything, time began, mass and energy appear.

Why aren't you happy with that?

the one issue with physics that i have never really been happy with.

The big bang, there was nothing, no time, no mass, no void, absolutely nothing, then there was everything, time began, mass and energy appear.

As for the shape of the universe, you have to remember that space is not 3d in the normal sense, time, gravity, mass, energy, everything, interact in ways that on an everyday level you do not see. You assume time is fixed, but it is not.

dont question the scientists, unlike the religious people their right about every thing!!

the one issue with physics that i have never really been happy with.

The big bang, there was nothing, no time, no mass, no void, absolutely nothing, then there was everything, time began, mass and energy appear.

Which is why I kneel before the God Particle.

[img] [/img]

dont question the scientists, unlike the religious people their right about every thing!!

1: That would be a being that has evolved into complexity from a simple beginning, just like us and

why would that being have to have evolved the same way as we did any way..Perhaps it could have evolved in a completely different way and be made of a type of energy or mass we have no concept of. You need to think out side the box more.

So the solution is to choose who you believe to be the most credible from the two unbelievable options?

maybe there both wrong maybe there both right, there is not sufficient primary evidence to prove any thing conclusively, so ill keep an open mind till that evidence comes along.

Yeah, that's science for you. You just make shit up. Then you test it - that is the important bit.

and peer reviewed then published also, that's the other important bit 😉 but I agree so as we were 🙂

Paulsoxo and Ernie; you don't ever reach the edge of the universe, you're always in it. if you want to define yourself at the centre of it or travelling to the centre of it, you're right on both counts.

Brian, please do question the scientists. Any decent scientist wants to scrutinise the current evidence and/or theory as this is science in action - and scientists are quite cool about the fact they don't know everything

Brian Cox will be on the telly tomorrow evening to explain this properly

why would that being have to have evolved the same way as we did any way

Because observation, experiment and rigorous testing indicate that that is the case in the unverse to which we belong.

I wish you luck in your attempt to develop your hypothesis of an invisible being into a demonstrable theory, but I'm not holding my breath...

As for what if... I still ask - so what?

I like the one electron theory best.

they said evolved like us from a simpler being they did not mention the method of this evolution. I think we can all tell you are utterly off your box and somewhat out your depth here [ or just bored and trolling]

the one issue with physics that i have never really been happy with.

The big bang, there was nothing, no time, no mass, no void, absolutely nothing, then there was everything, time began, mass and energy appear.

dont question the scientists, unlike the religious people their right about every thing!!

Because observation, experiment and rigorous testing indicate that that is the case in the unverse to which we belong.

but its to localised we need to go much deeper in to the universe before we can draw and firm conclusions, until man develops the ability to travel many times faster than light we will not have the ability to physically examine other parts of the universe. At which point many of the current theories could we be proven.

The best minds used to think the sun went around the earth.

So you even know what the word science means?
Why not disprove them with evidence ?
Scientists admit that they dont have facts in the sense lay people use the word and can be swayed with evidence, If you have evidence to the contrary of any view then please show me your [peer reviewed and objective] evidence and we can evaluate it. If not shh the grown up are talking

Unless an experiment has been carried out an infinite amount of times it is not possible to conclude that the same thing will always happen.