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The unimaginable vastness of the universe.


Alan McDougall

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yup, unimaginable! But it's fun to try to imagine the vastness and emptiness (being filled with various fields of force and stuff too small to measure?)

there must be forces that are Pre-Physical , that make everything round, so no matter where you go you end up here lol

* i read brief history of time too Gummug :tu:

Edited by lightly
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If and that's a Big IF that atoms, neutrons and electrons are micro universes that were billons of them make a living organism.

Can you imagine if our solar system with the collective of billions of other solar systems make up the same.

Check out the liminocentric universe idea...

http://tap3x.net/EMBTI/j6greene.html

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I often look up at the moon and stars at night, and realize just how tiny and insignificant we really are in the Cosmos .

It truly is beautiful, awe inspiring, and magnificent.

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I often look up at the moon and stars at night, and realize just how tiny and insignificant we really are in the Cosmos .

It truly is beautiful, awe inspiring, and magnificent.

It's pretty amazing. I always think about whether there is other life on another planet near a distant star and wonder what they are thinking at that very moment or how, when they look at the heavens,their views are totally different than ours.

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I suppose the reason we are struck by the size of the universe is because so much of it is pretty much transparent, so we can see great distances -- much greater distances in fact than we can even begin to imagine.

A comment on an earlier post: I don't know that gravity "seeps" into other universes. The fact that even though it is by far the weakest of the known forces, its range is unlimited and there is no anti-gravity known to cancel it is why it is so important in the universe at large. The other forces are either effective at only extremely short distances or have opposites (like positive and negative charge) that serve to cancel each other out.

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My question is, considering our size and shape , What useful purpose does an infinite universe serve considering we cant attain what we cannot reach? Hmmm... Why must it be so....mind numbingly big?

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My question is, considering our size and shape , What useful purpose does an infinite universe serve considering we cant attain what we cannot reach? Hmmm... Why must it be so....mind numbingly big?

An ant might think the same of the Earth, if it could fathom it all...

The answer might lie in the direction that there are beings, and consciousnesses on a much higher level than us, that need all that space in order to grow. :)

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My question is, considering our size and shape , What useful purpose does an infinite universe serve considering we cant attain what we cannot reach? Hmmm... Why must it be so....mind numbingly big?

I don't see where its size has anything to do with what we can or cannot attain. It does what it wants. We are not relevant.
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I don't see where its size has anything to do with what we can or cannot attain. It does what it wants. We are not relevant.

True. But at the same time how are we not relevant if we are here? Would we be here if the universe werent so big? Obviously we are woven into the scheme of things.

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True. But at the same time how are we not relevant if we are here? Would we be here if the universe werent so big? Obviously we are woven into the scheme of things.

Interesting question: why wouldn't we be here? Is there some minimum size the universe has to be to harbor sentient life?

I have heard that without the distant stars there would be no inertia.

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Interesting question: why wouldn't we be here? Is there some minimum size the universe has to be to harbor sentient life?

I have heard that without the distant stars there would be no inertia.

Or is there a minimum age the universe has to be to harbour sentient life? Or not? Just as perplexing.

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My question is, considering our size and shape , What useful purpose does an infinite universe serve considering we cant attain what we cannot reach? Hmmm... Why must it be so....mind numbingly big?

The universe is not infinite it had a beginning namely the "Big Bang" and will end in a cold dark death sometime in the unimaginably distant future.

Another reason why I say it is not infinite or eternal, because in such a universe the " Arrow of Time" would be pushed back into the infinite past and we would never have come into existence, if you don't get what I mean I will explain it in my next post!

Interesting question: why wouldn't we be here? Is there some minimum size the universe has to be to harbor sentient life?

I have heard that without the distant stars there would be no inertia.

I agree!

Edited by Alan McDougall
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The universe is not infinite it had a beginning namely the "Big Bang" and will end in a cold dark death sometime in the unimaginably distant future.

There is at least a philosophical difference between "all there is" and "all we can observe".

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The universe is not infinite it had a beginning namely the "Big Bang" and will end in a cold dark death sometime in the unimaginably distant future.

How can you be so sure? Firstly about a beginning? Secondly about a cold dark death? And thirdly about it being in the unimaginably distant future?

Another reason why I say it is not infinite or eternal, because in such a universe the " Arrow of Time" would be pushed back into the infinite past and we would never have come into existence, if you don't get what I mean I will explain it in my next post!

Yes please explain.

I wonder what spacetime looks like.

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My question is, considering our size and shape , What useful purpose does an infinite universe serve considering we cant attain what we cannot reach? Hmmm... Why must it be so....mind numbingly big?

Why does it have to serve a purpose?

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Why does it have to serve a purpose?

I dont know if it ' has' to serve a purpose at all just that one of its purposes apart from all the stars and imagery is life. We are at the least living proof of that process. As to the infinite purpose or higest order of its ( the universes) being well it was an open question really.

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My wild guess is that the "purpose" of the universe is to reproduce, and probably we are part of how it happens. A variety of mechanisms have already been proposed. It's a sort of natural selection. Things that reproduce tend to exist and things that don't reproduce tend to not exist except as bits and pieces of things the do reproduce.

Repeat: wild ass guess here.

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The relative size and distance of the universe raises some interesting questions.

In another article on UM, a NASA scientist says he is developing a prototype warp engine for a space craft, which would make faster than light speed travel theoretically possible. Not being a rocket scientist and having watched a lot of sci-fi over the years I of course think this is a cool idea, but I have my doubts about the reality of developing such a device, at least within my lifetime at our present level of technology.

IF space warp tech ever becomes real, how does it relate to time vs. distance traveled in the universe? For example, if it takes (roughly) six months to get to Mars at its closest approach using present tech, how long might it take with this new method of propulsion, vs. a trip to the nearest star system, which according to this article might take 80,000 years with conventional tech? In other words, when you "warp" space how does that effect distance and time; could space be warped to the point where a trip to Alpha Centauri takes no longer than a trip to Mars at warp? Or would longer distances require longer time in the ship and more energy expenditure as I assume? In other words would distances cease to exist in the practical sense?

Perhaps there are completely unanswerable questions given that much of this is theoretical at present, but it would certainly "reduce the size" of the universe as far as exploration is concerned, assuming it is even possible.

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My apologies for briefly taking this thread off topic to adress a frequently held miconception.

No it doesn't. It really REALLY doesn't.

The way that electrons are depicted as orbiting the nucleus like planets around a star is a very highly simplified version for school level chemistry. The reality is that they orbit in much more complicated 3 dimensional shells... and even then these orbits are only the most probable location of the electrons.

If you want to know the actual shape of atomic orbitals take a look at the images on THIS PAGE.

Thank you for this link, I had assumed that the nucleus of an atom was more or less spherical and contained the proton and neutrons bunched together and the electrons formed a "shell" more or less like a sphere themselves, swirling about the nucleus. This link certainly give a more exotic flavor to the sub-atomic world, I would not have expected these various shapes.

When these atoms link into various molecules things must really get interestingly complex, especially long chain organic molecules.

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My question is, considering our size and shape , What useful purpose does an infinite universe serve considering we cant attain what we cannot reach? Hmmm... Why must it be so....mind numbingly big?

My understanding is that without the vastness of the universe we would not have enough of the heavier elements like iron, lead, gold (and all the rest) that are created in the death of stars, from stars like our sun all the way up to massive ones that cause supernovae. These elements are then spread throughout the galaxy and are incorporated into planetary systems and then life as we know it. If say, only our solar system existed, presumably there would only be the sun and gas planets composed of the lighter elements like hydrogen, helium and a few others. Life would be impossible.

Also if you have a belief in God the Scripture says, "The heavens declare the glory of God." It argues that the vastness and seemingly infinite creation reveals something of the power and scope of its Creator. But that's another, different discussion.

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The heavens don't very directly declare the glory of God. Everything out there is mechanical and follows physics. There is no Ten Commandments or even God's name written out in asterisms and so on. The primeval radiation from the Big Bang is static, not an encoded Bible or Q'uran, although lots has been and will be learned from its close study.

The heavier elements could have been made if just the Milky Way existed. That we need the other hundred billion or trillion or so galaxies is not so obvious. I'm kinda glad we do.

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If u imagine the universe from afar, u can see the planets n stars r like dusts. It shows the big bang theory could be true. So amazing that each dust is planet size

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So unimaginably never ending the universe n some say there's no other intelligent life? I don think so

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How can you be so sure? Firstly about a beginning? Secondly about a cold dark death? And thirdly about it being in the unimaginably distant future?

Yes please explain.

I wonder what spacetime looks like.

If the universe were eternal and infinite and subject to linear time as we are in our universe, the question then begs, time could not have had a beginning

As an analogy think of a marathon race, with the start blocks located infinitely from the finish line. How would the athlete ever reach the finish line is the start block, was infinitely far back?

If we extrapolate that analogy, to our universe, then we could never have come into existence, because time could never flow out from the infinite eternal past.

We never come into existence ??? (Time does flow)

???????//no beginning ∞ ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞..

Edited by Alan McDougall
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I dont know if it ' has' to serve a purpose at all just that one of its purposes apart from all the stars and imagery is life.

Well, not really. Life is part of the planet's attempts to redistribute energy from the sun.

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