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Our understanding of the universe could be fundamentally wrong, astronomers say

I'll let you know when I get there.

Asking a question about the shape of the Universe is like asking "What shape is the ocean?"

I’d say a flat Universe projecting into the 4th dimension which would give it finite but unbounded qualities. The flat Uni shown on the clip represents a tesseract (3 dimensional shadow) of this.

Still Science is self-correcting and what the speaker talked about was fascinating. Some successfully argue mathematically our Uni is a Black Hole - given the estimated Dark Matter in existence. Wanna know what’s inside a BH? Look around you.

In the Existential sense the Universe could be inside a marble once attached to Orion’s Belt and is being played with by weird looking long-fingered alien kids on some world in a far larger Universe.

Some Fox3 input required.

Boac wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:21 pm

I'll let you know when I get there.

When my better half asks why I am no longer the shape I was when I met her, I simply reply that I am adapting to the shape of the rapidly expanding universe in which I find myself!

On a more serious note, as some observers here imply, the shape of the universe is intrinsically bound up in questions about whether or not it will expand forever or contract and this is bound up in questions about the how much matter (i.e. stuff) and therefore energy is in the universe which leads us into questions about the possibility of dark matter and energy and so on. Literally infinitely fascinating stuff.

All of which leads us neatly onto the role of NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) which measured background cosmic background microwave radiation fluctuations in an effort to determine whether the universe is open or closed.

Open or Closed?



The sound is slightly distorted but fascinating none the less.

Doesn't matter because with an Infinite Improbability Drive you are everywhere in the Universe at the same time.

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Oh no, not again.

boing wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 07, 2019 1:57 am

Doesn't matter because with an Infinite Improbability Drive you are everywhere in the Universe at the same time

With all due respect to Douglas Adams, the improbability drive is so passe in a closed universe. Go down Schwarzschild drive and take the Einstein–Rosen bridge to get where you are going!

Did that once but all of those bloody commuters from Ursa Major had the on-ramps fouled up for a couple of light years.


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Silly question really.
The universe doesn't have a shape.
When you come to the last object, the farthest away one, and keep going, there's just sweet f a for ever and ever.

I think the Universe is in good shape meself. Chaotic...yes, scary ...yes, deadly...you bet, but nonetheless in good shape. Maybe it goes to the gym a lot.

AtomKraft wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 10, 2019 10:13 am

Silly question really.
The universe doesn't have a shape.

Not really silly at all.

So you posit a flat universe (i.e. one that is infinite and yet is still expanding). Can something that is infinite still expand sure it can ∞ = ∞ + 1

Mind you perhaps it would be better to ask what geometry does the universe have?

Shape of the universe

there's just sweet f a for ever and ever.

You mean like Australia...

I maintain that a lot of "physics" is actually "bollocks".

We have no idea what shape the universe is. None.

Probably what happens is that if one were to travel in any direction, there would come a point where there are less and less celestial bodies encountered, until eventually there is nothing at all in front of you. Just miles and miles of SFA, as you say- just like Australia.....

Mankind likes to bound reality, to establish limits. Space doesn't have an end, but bits of space with something in it, likely ends.

After that there's just, well, 'Space', into which things are moving.

Clearly I'm right, because if there wasn't space for 'space' to expand into, it would have stopped expanding.

Space isn't Space. Space is the space into which 'Space', which is things that are found in space, like planets and stars, is moving.

AtomKraft wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 11, 2019 8:35 am

I maintain that a lot of "physics" is actually "bollocks".

We have no idea what shape the universe is. None.

Probably what happens is that if one were to travel in any direction, there would come a point where there are less and less celestial bodies encountered, until eventually there is nothing at all in front of you. Just miles and miles of SFA, as you say- just like Australia.....

Mankind likes to bound reality, to establish limits. Space doesn't have an end, but bits of space with something in it, likely ends.

After that there's just, well, 'Space', into which things are moving.

Clearly I'm right, because if there wasn't space for 'space' to expand into, it would have stopped expanding.

Space isn't Space. Space is the space into which 'Space', which is things that are found in space, like planets and stars, is moving.

Atom with all due respect (if one accepts the concept of the big bang) then space did not exist prior to that singularity and space, when it came into being, did not inflate into space. It simply came into being which allowed the objects within it to become subject to a space time continuum and the multiple dimensions in which such objects might move or interact. You are right about the fact that we don't know whether or not space is infinite or bounded but if it is bounded then it will have a shape and although we don't what that shape is, we can meaningfully discuss the many options.

I maintain that a lot of "physics" is actually "bollocks".

Hopefully not the physics of space and missile flight!

AtomKraft wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 11, 2019 8:35 am

I maintain that a lot of "physics" is actually "bollocks".

We have no idea what shape the universe is. None.

Interesting article on infinity and space and that kind of stuff...

Infinity is ruining physics

Just ask Georg Cantor Paul Ehrenfest who finally went mad and killed himself while considering many of infinity's conundrums.

Dear ....erm Goblin
It's true that mankind has a standard model including the "big bang", and the idea that everything sprang into existence in a vacuum, and some other theories...

Happily, I am in a position to offer confirmation (or not) of the standard model, and here it is.

It's the best we have to date, but regrettably has only a miniscule relationship with fact.
It is, in other words, bollocks. As are fancy concepts about the shape of space.
Space is the absence of things, not a thing itself.
Therefore it cannot have a shape.

I'd be grateful if you'd be good enough to pass this on to the wider scientific community, and as always it's a pleasure to hear from your good self!

More because of our specie’s rabid thirst for knowledge Atom. But you are right - we haven’t a clue about the shape of the Universe - but we can draw logical conclusions which are certainly not final. Nature doesn’t have to be in harmony with human ambition nor what it thinks ‘makes sense’ (mathematically nor existentially).

Asking about how our Universe came to be is like asking an infant to describe his conception. Asking about the shape of said Universe is like asking the same ankle biter to describe the shape of the womb he was in.

Assuming no education given nor external input and left to his own devices, in his teenage years he can probably come up with intelligent theories based on observation and biological study of his own making - but they’ll remain only that. Theories.

If the universe has a shape then that implies there's something outside it. I guess one could argue that there's an infinite void and the universe is still expanding into it from the Big Bang, so the matter in the infinite space is bounded by a shape that is probably a slightly lumpy sphere.

AtomKraft wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:21 pm

Dear ....erm Goblin
It's true that mankind has a standard model including the "big bang", and the idea that everything sprang into existence in a vacuum, and some other theories...

Atom please feel free to call me Gob or GOB if you wish (I have been called a lot worse over the years).

As you well know the standard model is the best theory we have to date and has proved very resilient and useful in making predictions. The highly successful and well-tested four-dimensional so-called Standard Models of particle physics and of cosmology seem to provide powerful, accurate, and partially complete (with the discovery of the Higgs boson) descriptions of the world we see and the predictions of the model and its role in cosmological inflation have largely been supported by empirical observations and evidence made possible by missions such as COBE, WMAP, Planck, and most recently by BICEP2 although Planck has thrown some empirical spanners in the works.

Be warned that this video has aviation content therein.



Of course Planck has shown large scale anomalies that might force revisions in the current inflationary model.





It may all be bollocks, as you say and it may be be "turtles all the way down" but I would suggest that the current model of inflation is a better theory to have than that, even if we have to modify it or even discard it later.





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Tell me where I should stand to view it and I'll tell you what shape it is.