|
The scale of the universe
|
|
| apenpaap | Date: Sunday, 08.07.2012, 12:46 | Message # 1 |
 World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
Status: Offline
| Have a look at this wonderful flash animation showing the size of things in the universe next to each other. It's quite like Powers of Ten, except it visits a lot more powers and is interactive. Many of the descriptions of things are also quite funny.
http://htwins.net/scale2/
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
|
| |
| |
| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Sunday, 08.07.2012, 13:50 | Message # 2 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
Pirate
Messages: 3600
Status: Offline
| This combined with programs like space engine and celestia make me 
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
|
| |
| |
| Drawnin | Date: Monday, 09.07.2012, 19:02 | Message # 3 |
 Space Tourist
Group: Users
Spain
Messages: 37
Status: Offline
| Minecraft world...
LOL! 
Intel Core i7-3770 - 3.40 GHz @ 8 Gb RAM @ nVidia GeForce GTX 570 1280 Mb
|
| |
| |
| Solaris | Date: Monday, 09.07.2012, 19:16 | Message # 4 |
 World Builder
Group: Global Moderators
France
Messages: 731
Status: Offline
| Quote (apenpaap) Have a look at this wonderful flash animation showing the size of things in the universe next to each other. 
About scale, this link is more boring, but help to realize how vast distances are :
http://visual.ly/omg-space?view=true
Edited by Solaris - Monday, 09.07.2012, 19:17 |
| |
| |
| Hasforjs97 | Date: Monday, 09.07.2012, 23:49 | Message # 5 |
 Space Pilot
Group: Translators
Spain
Messages: 107
Status: Offline
| Quote (Drawnin) Minecraft world...
LOL!
you stole my words  I was going to say the same, because I had been playing minecraft, but I didn't know it had limits...
So this is our universe... I saw a documentary where they say there are approximately 200 billion galaxies with 200 billion stars each one... and then there are still people saying "we are alone in the universe" and things like that...
This is a thing that makes me think a lot of time, I remeber when I was 5 or 6 and I couldn't sleep thinking on what's there when the universe finishes, and what was before it was created, because the nothingness its just impossible to imagine...
What do you think? If you traveled out of the Universe, what do you think it would happen? Maybe space doesn't exist and you stop going forward, but you don't know it because you are out of the universe? Maybe when you reach one edge you go back to the oposite one, (like in Pacman where you went to the right of the screen and you apeared on the left ) ?
EDIT: I saw this thread about this http://en.spaceengine.org/forum/22-647-2, I'm reading it and it's really interesting
My desktop:
Pentium G3260 @ 3.30GHz
8.0 GB DDR3
AMD Radeon HD 5570 1GB
Edited by Hasforjs97 - Tuesday, 10.07.2012, 00:00 |
| |
| |
| apenpaap | Date: Tuesday, 10.07.2012, 00:16 | Message # 6 |
|
World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
Status: Offline
| Hehe, the Minecraft world was actually how I found it; someone somewhere was saying he didn't want to play Minecraft, because the world is far too big and he would waste too much time; linking to this animation as an example with the instruction "scroll up just a little". In any case, it's quite funny to see the Minecraft world hanging around with Uranus and Neptune.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
|
| |
| |
| dontpanic | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:26 | Message # 7 |
 Space Pilot
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 113
Status: Offline
| Quote (Hasforjs97) What do you think? If you traveled out of the Universe, what do you think it would happen?
Personally, I think the universe is infinite, there is no edge and you can't travel out. I think the emptiness just goes on forever even past the point where there are no stars anymore and no light (but something else...).
You don't have to look to the stars to see that infinity exists. Look at your table, for example. If you look at it with a microscope, you will see all of the atoms and molecules from which the table is made, and if you hadn't known it was a table you would have no way to know it actually IS a table. Now, say you could look at it at X100000000000000000000 magnification. What would you see? Would your view "bump into" or "hit" the surface of the atoms so you couldn't look any closer? No. You would see smaller particles from which the atoms consist. And you would be able to look even closer to see from what these particles are made.
My point is, if technology would allow it, you could "zoom-in" to infinity. And you would keep discovering new particles the further you "zoom-in". That shows that infinity is not just out beyond the observable universe, it is all around us. We are part of it. But we are "trapped" in this range, and we know nothing of what happens outside it, we can't look too far out to space and comprehend what is happening there, nor can we look too close in and see beyond a certain point.
Technology widens that range in both ways, we can look farther out to space and look closer down on objects. It is that range exactly that the first animation (http://htwins.net/scale2/) shows you. With time (and technology) that range will become wider but we will never be able to fully grasp it.
You can see this theory in many places, for example math. You can count up to infinity, but you can also count down in to negative numbers (also to infinity).
Physics also shows us infinity. An object with mass requires infinite energy to move with the speed of light, meaning no matter how much energy you have you will never quite have enough to move with the speed of light. That inability to reach infinity IS infinity. Just like you can't "zoom-in" right to the surface of an object or count to the last digit, and evidently reach the end of the universe.
-OR-
We just live in a virtual procedurally generated universe, not unlike Space Engine, made by a hyper advanced alien race, and all I said is a load of BS. But I doubt that. Still, who knows...
Edited by dontpanic - Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:29 |
| |
| |
| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:42 | Message # 8 |
|
Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
Pirate
Messages: 3600
Status: Offline
| Even if the simulation hypothesis were correct that still doesn't invalidate the question of what is beyond the visible universe or the universe as a whole. To me that would actually make the question more interesting.
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
|
| |
| |
| apenpaap | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:49 | Message # 9 |
|
World Builder
Group: Users
Antarctica
Messages: 1063
Status: Offline
| One very strange thought is that if the universe is really infinite, there should be a second Earth somewhere  And I really mean an exact copy of Earth; where every single atom is in exactly the same place and state as ours... Which means there's also exact copies of everyone on the planet there. Of course, these exact copies of Earth would be very, very far outside our visible universe. In fact, there should logically eventually come one of these double Earth from the point of view of which the entire visible universe is an exact copy of ours.
I occasionally stream at http://www.twitch.tv/magistermystax. Sometimes SE, sometimes other games.
|
| |
| |
| dontpanic | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:54 | Message # 10 |
|
Space Pilot
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 113
Status: Offline
| Quote (apenpaap) One very strange thought is that if the universe is really infinite, there should be a second Earth somewhere And I really mean an exact copy of Earth; where every single atom is in exactly the same place and state as ours... Which means there's also exact copies of everyone on the planet there. Of course, these exact copies of Earth would be very, very far outside our visible universe. In fact, there should logically eventually come one of these double Earth from the point of view of which the entire visible universe is an exact copy of ours.
Actually, if the universe is infinite there is probably an infinite number of earths not just one more. As well as an infinite number of possible variations of that earth. All that, of course, only if it doesn't contradict any law of physics.
Edited by dontpanic - Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:55 |
| |
| |
| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 00:58 | Message # 11 |
|
Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
Pirate
Messages: 3600
Status: Offline
| Quote (apenpaap) One very strange thought is that if the universe is really infinite, there should be a second Earth somewhere surprised And I really mean an exact copy of Earth; where every single atom is in exactly the same place and state as ours... Which means there's also exact copies of everyone on the planet there. Of course, these exact copies of Earth would be very, very far outside our visible universe. In fact, there should logically eventually come one of these double Earth from the point of view of which the entire visible universe is an exact copy of ours.
I posted this before but its pretty much guaranteed to be true if the universe is infinite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2LyfwrHa3k#t=03m10s
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
|
| |
| |
| dontpanic | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 01:16 | Message # 12 |
|
Space Pilot
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 113
Status: Offline
| OK... I should have said the laws of quantum mechanics then...
|
| |
| |
| Talisman | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 04:09 | Message # 13 |
 Pioneer
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 409
Status: Offline
| Quote (apenpaap) One very strange thought is that if the universe is really infinite, there should be a second Earth somewhere And I really mean an exact copy of Earth; where every single atom is in exactly the same place and state as ours... Which means there's also exact copies of everyone on the planet there. Of course, these exact copies of Earth would be very, very far outside our visible universe. In fact, there should logically eventually come one of these double Earth from the point of view of which the entire visible universe is an exact copy of ours.
But this is wrong.
This could be true if there was infinite matter. But scientists do not believe that is true because of the big bang. If there was infinite matter, it would have to mean the universe has existed for infinite time (or the big bang expanded at an infinite speed/created infinite matter), if the universe has existed for infinite time and contained infinite matter then the entire sky would be completely white from the infinite number of photons traveling around for an infinite amount of time.
The currently most accepted theory is the "infinite flat model" meaning there is infinite space, but finite matter.
However, what is on the outside of the universe is impossible to know for now, it could be anything, there could be an infinite number of other universes exactly like ours on the outside or it could just be nothing, at all, just completely perfect empty vacuum. we just can't know. 
EDIT: Although due to the number of galaxies that exist, it's not too far off to say that there is an NEAR exact copy of earth somewhere out there, with roughly the same looking creatures and people.
Edited by Talisman - Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 04:29 |
| |
| |
| dontpanic | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 06:05 | Message # 14 |
|
Space Pilot
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 113
Status: Offline
| What you are saying is that before the big bang there was space with no matter, and when the big bang happened part of that infinite space got filled with matter?
I don't think so, and besides most mainstream scientists say that before the big bang there was no space and no matter, NOTHING. If that's correct, then what you are saying is that when the big bang happened, INFINITE space and FINITE matter were created. Why? Why if infinite space was created, infinite matter couldn't be?
|
| |
| |
| Cael | Date: Wednesday, 11.07.2012, 12:25 | Message # 15 |
 Space Tourist
Group: Users
Denmark
Messages: 32
Status: Offline
| If I'm getting Talisman right, he is saying that infinite space has always been there - even before the Big Bang. In essence infinite nothing. How do you define nothing? Is nothing infinite or finite? If nothing is infinite and there was nothing before the Big Bang, then essentially space is infinite, but matter is finite, being stretched out over infinite space.
|
| |
| |
ENG
New site
Antarctica 
Pirate 
Spain 
France 
United States 
Denmark