What shape is the universe?

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This doesn't help with the shape of the Universe but it does attempt to describe the Lego blocks used.



Strangely enough the descriptions of the beginning of the Universe suggested here fit quite closely to the beliefs of the Confucianists and Daoists of China 2500 years ago.

There is a lot more but the opening verse of the Tao Te Ching says "It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang: the named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind." (Credited to Lao Tzu)


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[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

THE TAO OF PHYSICS
An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
by Fritjof Capra
1975 - superceded in some respects but the principles apply.

http://www.aakkozzll.com/pdf/tao_of_physics.pdf

There is an old Buddhist homily about how long it takes a mountain to erode, and when you convert all the stuff about grains of sand into physics and do the math, it turns out to be about right.

One of the most interesting things in cosmology is that factors such as the expansion rate of the universe and mass estimates lie right on the boundaries which would determine whether the universe will expand forever, come to a halt at the end of time, or collapse back into a big crunch. And the margins of error allow all three possibilities. And as we reduce the margins of error and refine the estimates with better measurements, we still find all possibilities exist. This kind of thing happens quite a lot. Spooky.

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Fox

One of the most interesting things in cosmology is that factors such as the expansion rate of the universe and mass estimates lie right on the boundaries which would determine whether the universe will expand forever, come to a halt at the end of time, or collapse back into a big crunch. And the margins of error allow all three possibilities. And as we reduce the margins of error and refine the estimates with better measurements, we still find all possibilities exist. This kind of thing happens quite a lot. Spooky.

Perhaps we did not arrive at this boundary by accident. Perhaps our position at this boundary is a necessary condition and it provided the specific environment that allows our Universe to exist and function? The balance of the tensions in a triangulated structure or the balance of yin and yang?

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