How big is our universe?

[PhilCastro]

Now that's freakin cool man.. thanks for sharing this

[ioc]

QUOTE (Workaholic Man @ May 22 2011, 06:31 AM)

Let me tell y'all something:  Cosmology pisses me off.      And I'll tell you why....there's no answer to it!!  For all the theoretical models we can invent, for all the conjecture, speculation, and wild guessing that we do, there is just NO ANSWER!!  The cause of the Big Bang?  Well, what caused the cause?  What happened before that?  And before that?  And before THAT?  Universes, multiverses, 11-dimension space-time continuums.....SHUT UP!!  IT STILL DOESN'T ADD UP!!!!

If I understood it correctly, that was half the point of the OP link. At the end, it's basically saying that we can see light that took longer to get here than the universe's estimated age. That to me, should cause one to ponder.

 

You do raise an interesting point that I bear in mind when reading any theoretical scientific work...it's theoretical. First Cause is a HUGE problem in quantum physics and all theoretical sciences. The "big bang" is only ever described during the first second and after (it gets progressively easier to "explain" the further out you go). The "actual" beginning is problematic, mathematically (and logically for that matter).

 

This is why I usually think of modern science as a religion in it's own right. It has an inexplicable God that had no beginning (pre-BigBang energy/matter). An inflexible dogma (everything came from nothing, case closed.) A priesthood (scientists) that cannot be questioned (within the community) based on hierarchy. Factions who espouse active persecution of non-believers (try questioning evolution in a biology classroom). Etc, etc.

 

To imagine we "really" know what's going on around us is a huge conceit. (Probably why we just can't figure out how to get along with each other - namely: we know it all, any one who disagrees is an idiot) The best I can hope for is that I continue to search and question and reject hurtful dogma from wherever it may spring.

[laughedatbytime]

I think David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap said it best at the end of tour party in LA...

 

 

Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you.

 

[Principled Man]

QUOTE (ioc @ May 22 2011, 07:39 PM)

At the end, it's basically saying that we can see light that took longer to get here than the universe's estimated age.  That to me, should cause one to ponder.

The discrepancy between the age and size of the universe is actually easy to explain. The Cosmic Background Radiation, it is argued, came into being well after the actual Big Bang (about 380,000 years). By the time electromagnetic radiation and visible light appeared, the universe was already very large. Add in the curvature of spacetime on a cosmological scale (which none of us can understand ), and you get the large discrepancy.

 

So what we can actually observe (one side of the Cosmic Background Radiation to the other side) is only 13.75 billion years old. The actual size of the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years in diameter.

 

Time to take some aspirin.....

 

 

[1 of the 7]

QUOTE (Workaholic Man @ May 22 2011, 06:31 AM)

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/wiltall_und_menschheit.gif

Is that our loving Watchmaker, loving us all to death there on the left?

 

And ioc, very interesting way of looking at it. Hmm.

Edited May 23, 2011 by 1 of the 7

[The Owl]

That is very humbling..... There was a segment on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, that did a similar "Power of Ten" montage that is basically the same thing.

[treeduck]

QUOTE (The Owl @ May 22 2011, 11:05 PM)

That is very humbling..... There was a segment on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, that did a similar "Power of Ten" montage that is basically the same thing.

The OWL has spoken, and we will listen, for he is the prog genius!

 

[Show Don't Tell]

That's so cool, thanks for sharing!

 

mind = boggled

 

http://i56.tinypic.com/1znmqm8.jpg

[workingcinderellaman]

QUOTE (An Enemy Without @ May 19 2011, 07:45 PM)

What's outside the universe then? And what feature defines the boundaries of the universe?

[workingcinderellaman]

QUOTE (The Owl @ May 22 2011, 11:05 PM)

That is very humbling.....  There was a segment on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, that did a similar "Power of Ten" montage that is basically the same thing.

I saw this on the discovery channel a few years ago.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPm3QVKlBJg

 

 

Edit: The best part of this video is the very last thing that Morgan Freeman says;

 

"Here about fifteen billion lightyears from Venice we approach the limits of the visible universe. What lies beyond this cosmic horizon we cannot see and do not know."

Edited May 24, 2011 by workingcinderellaman