Think with me. Say we're at the 0 point in time of the universe, a "center" point.. In creationists eyes we were created by an all loving God who knows everything (keep in mind since time is infinite so is knowledge)... This universe (defined as everything we can see / see an effect) is finite, but outside of everything there is in this universe (stars, black holes, matter, radiation, ect. ect.) there is an infinite percentage of empty space with no purpose, is it possible that our universe (keeping in mind what universe is) isn't the only, or doesn't even exist? What ever caused the big bang could have also caused multipul other big bangs out side of our own universe... If universe has no beginning or end, and time has no beginning or end it IS NOT possible for us to even BE here.

The Universe (matter) began 14 Billion years with a cataclysmic explosion, but our universe had to exist for said event, only back an INFINITE ammount of years.. It could have already happened a billion billion billion trillion times in just the same spot.. Since there was no beginning and no end we can consider ourselves in the center point (aka 0) meaning you have to explain how we reached 0 when it goes forever back in time and forever forward in time, we should have NEVER, EVER, NO MATTER HOW MANY YEARS PASSED BY CAME TO THE 0 (or center) POINT IN TIME!

I don't know if this is entirely relevant, but the local library has a book called The Big Bang Never Happened, and since they have few science books, I have read it several times. The basic fact on which it is based is that 99.9% of the universe is plasma, and motions must be calculated using magneto-hydrodynamics, notoriously difficult. Nonetheless, it has been done, and it shows that there are no Big Bangs, but there are little bangs, which produce some of the same symptons, such as the CMBR. The little bangs only involve part of the universe. This idea is being revived (see NewScientist, July 2, 2005, page 30.)

So in our corner of the universe there may have been a little bang 13.7 billion years ago. We can now see parts of the universe not involved in this little bang. The most distant galaxies we can now see look old, not new. At the most extreme distances, there are already superclusters of galaxies. The galaxies should be blue, but they are red, indicating old red giants.

WMAP has discovered a single very large structure in the universe, violating all the assumptions made when doing calculations with General Relativity. If I understand it (and I may not!) there seems to be something like a pole, a center of rotation, or a center point for a bang (big or little), and we can measure everything relative to that. WMAP is a scientific instrument in outer space, not a satellite of Earth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dr.H~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wait, stop, time out. Doesn't that mean they're redshifted, and moving away from us?

All assumptions based on time assume that time is linear, and relative to movement, moving away from a central point in the universe as a result of the big bang. The truth is that what we know from looking into space only gives us a very small perspective of what is actually going on. Also, all findings from different parts of the universe are expressed in ways that systems can be explained by comparing them to systems on earth. There may be other factors that occur in space which we don't know of, and never will as we cannot see our world from the outside (i.e. sit on the beach on another planet and look back at earth). The only fact I am sure off is that "systems breed systems". Quantum particles --> Mass, matter, rules of physics, time ----> Chemistry -----> Biology -----> Social order.

Time is one of the core components of the universe we can visibly comprehend. To try and explain what happens on a plain where there is no time, is as futile as trying to express pythagorus theorum in the terms of monkeys - it just makes no sense.

Mooj

The whole theory is based on the fact that your (and for arguments sake my) human mind cannot quite grasp the concept of something existing without a beggining or an end.

But its just the same as an animal who sees in black and white not being able to grasp the concept of colour.

Its all certainly interesting though

i'm way too sober to comphrend this!

Get Drunk. Very.

Kaze, I think you just confused yourself there. What do you mean by a centre point and what is your perception of the universe, I mean what exactly do you mean by saying "outside our own universe? Doesn't universe include everything?
At one point you say universe is finite and at another you say it is infinite, you say
the universe has no beginning or end in time and then you start measuring the time lines with the number system and the talk that the universe is around 14 billion years old is just an assumption, not an established or a proven fact to base theories upon.

I refer to the absolute color, after red-shift corrections have been made. Then a blue galaxy has lots of type O young blue-giants, like those in the Pleiades. An old galaxy will have lots of red giants, since this is what all stars become in the last 100 million years of their existence, before they go supernova, or create planetary nebulae.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dr.H~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What there is is change. We have one physical universe, with one universal time (according to quantum mechanics) constantly in change. We invent time because we remember the past (memories vastly extended by science), and we have expectations about the future (again vastly extended by science). But that doesn't mean time is a real dimension. We don't see any evidence of time travel. Nothing ever vanishes into the past or future. In special relativity, time has to be an imaginary number. Imaginary numbers are useful, but they do not correspond to anything real.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dr.H~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And in the immortal words of Stephen King speaking through the Man in Black.....

The universe offers a paradox too great for the finite mind to grasp. As the living brain cannot conceive of a nonliving brain - although it may think it can - the finite mind cannot grasp the infinite.

The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: "Daddy, what is above the sky?" The father says: "The darkness of space." "What is beyond space?"
"The galaxy."
"Beyond the galaxy?"
"Another galaxy."
"Beyond the other galaxies?"
"No one knows."

Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die?

Or one might take the point of a pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil point is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravitation. Shrunk to the correct size, the distances between these atoms might become leagues, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to sub-atom particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest conclusions to things is one impossibility.

If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell, what great and torrential light might shine through your hole at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them? Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as an atom on a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we perceive, from the infinitesimal virus to the distand horsehead nebula, is contained in one blade of grass? A blade that may have existed a day or two in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it began to die, would the rot seep into our own universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desicated?

Think how small such a concept of things makes us! Imagine the sand of the desert, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds but universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying into darkness in a chain never to be completed.

Excerpt from The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Great quote

This is too deep for me, since it is 2:16pm, I need more sleep befor comeing on this form!

To me Universe is everything that exists, and we can see or feel the effects of... Like Galaxies. So outside would be everything else So the universe is finite but outside it is infinite. You HAVE to measure it with the number system because what else is there? Once more I state that the universe where galaxies exist was only started 14 Billion years ago.

MedicTJ<<---- A really great quote... this is what I have been talking about a long time.

By the way ..I think you can reach closer to the truth with philosophy than science...cuz science doesnt make sense...dead ends everywhere.
Its limitations kills it.

What you're all failing to take into consideration is that time and space do not exist independently of eachother, just as time is effected by velocity at relativistic speeds, so is it also effected by gravity, which warps space-time. So, prior to the big bang, when all mass was concentrated in a single point, space-time was wrapped into itself. The concept of time as we understand it, had absolutely no meaning. The period of time before the big bang was literally infinate. Being so, it is a little bit perplexing that we ever hatched from the cosmic egg at all.

This is an interesting conversation. The universe is infinite and the big bang is only a theory, and since we cannot fathom infinity, as infinite beings, we've invented time to try to explain. Time does not explain anything outside of ourselves and is not even real. It's a constraint we've put on ourselves in the effort to try and control and understand everything about everything.

And to Kaze, How is it impossible for us to be here if we ARE here?

Allright Libraschild!!
And so we bow to Schroedinger, Heisenberg, et. al. And all the "nuts" of the various spiritual bents who have stated the same through the ages.
Time exists only as a reference point, therefore space exists only as a reference point. Were this not the case, there would be no loss for explaining all the millions or billions of examples of paranormal activities. But since science and math are fixed within their own worlds of endeavor and are unwilling to examine things that exist outside their realms, it is scientifically hopeless to have an explanation of the universe.
It would behoove many "scientists" (and I might add that one of those am I, with substantial "education") to explore some of those odd paranormal realms, as I have. My explorations, of course, are not complete, as it is a pretty big universe, but I do not lose faith, since it exists in the same time/space as I: to wit, infinity.
You can all have fun with this. But I am not nuts, just curious, and wish to satisfy my curiosity.

its kinda hard to belive and taike in everything, since all we have is tv and
books to look at ,and great quotes pretty simple way to put it

like someone said, our mind bounds us to needing a beginning to everything, though i often wonder whats outside the universe, i dont think its posible to imagine the vastness, but once again, my mind needs a boundry to everything

!@#@#$%^&*&*())*(*&&^%^$%#$#
(on second thought were all just in a giants dream)
*twitch*
MinD OVeLoADEd
me want cookie
me likey bouncy
me likey bouncy

Humans suck, Our minds are powerful but fall short of Gods by a considerable margin, and for anything out there smarter, I salute j00!

What you are arguing is that our 'finite minds' can't comprehend an infite universe.
There is no such thing as a finite mind! We don't have a fixed amount of space in our brain to learn and understand things.
Minds don't work like a computer!
And the infinite universe is based around physics, and your mixing it with Biology!
We don't know enough about biology to be able to make assumptions.
So, when you say that "we have a finite brain so we can't fully comprehend the infinite universe" you are wrong, because you don't have to have a large brain to understand that gravity pulls things down. You could have small brain, with three cells to figure that out. It's all about how you utilize the cells effectively.

To argue about this furthur I suggest that you study more on finite minds than on infinite universes! Because what your doing is talking about something that we understand, and saying that we can't understand it becuase it's infinite, yet you don't understand a finite mind which is 'finite'!

We don't know if we have a finite mind or not... and if we don't won't you feel like a jackass!

Infinity exists only as a mathematical "tool" to express uncertainty and unboundness of arrays. In practice, infinity would have no use.

Imagine. If the universe was infinite, then there are infinite numbers of me typing exactly this same message on infinite number of same computers, in the same town, on the same planet. Infinite number, doing SAME things. What's the purpose of that?

Let alone the laws of thermodynamics which would not comply with this. Let alone the probabilities and laws of statistics failing at every other point, in infinity.

The only "possible" infinity to speak about, in the context of universe, is the infinity of scales, however, even then it would not be true infinity, but unilateral bounded semi-infinity, as we are pretty sure about the quantum levels and Planck's length, time and consequently speed, so on that end we have a "barrier" - and the other end is "uncertain", however the thermodynamics and statistics can indirectly infer it to be finite.

Another "possible" infinity to speak about here is the illusion of infinity for curved space. Analogy is of the surface of a baloon. For a flatlander living at that surface, his universe would appear infinite (actually finite, but repetitive), albeit the core structure of such universe would in fact be finite.

And regarding the Time, I'll repeat what I said in another thread. There is evidence of objective, unilateral time:

1. Enthropy
2. Cause-effect
3. Motion

In my opinion we are not even here. OK hear me out, when stars burn out it stays lit in the sky, cause it is still traveling to us. But what if the World, Galaxy, Universe all died hundreds of thousands of years ago but we just don't know it. Today we look out the window and see tree's, the sun, maybe some clouds..BUT what if that is just an illusion. What if when we look out we are just seeing the ruins of our planet and everything that was ever around it. We were all dead a LONG time ago but we just dont know it yet. If you die tomorrow, the world will keep turning and would not make a difference to alot of people.. What if everything we have ever known about this Universe is already gone. Something so advanced that the world is blowing up around us. When a volcano errupts, that is the world splitting in half, when it rains out, every single drop of rain is slowly burning the earth. But since we don't exist it is nothing to us. If everything was still happening now, then 2005 years after the world was created we had magnifying glasses that could make Pluto look bigger. We get up and ride out bikes SO fast that we leave the milky way. I know this seems strange but just try to compare it with the light or a burnt out star. It does not exist...but we still know it's there....