Universe to Expand For Ever

The Universe will expand for ever, at an ever-increasing rate, Nasa scientists are to announce.
They base their conclusion on new data obtained by the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (Map) satellite, which has been orbiting the Sun beyond the Moon since shortly after its launch in 2001.

Full Story: news.bbc.co.uk...

[Edited on 2-11-2003 by William One Sac]

Interesting read. Thanx for posting William.

Have they even determined the shape of the universe yet? I thought they were still debating if it was roughly flat or saddle shaped.

[Edited on 12-2-2003 by Protector]

All we know, is in 1 year or less some other group will come out and give valuable proof as to why the universe will collapse.

Until we can see the "BIG PICTURE" by actually getting out of our solar system and checking physics all over the universe...we will always be the ant trying to fathom where an apple falls from.

Sincerely,
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Originally posted by Protector
Have they even determined the shape of the universe yet? I thought they were still debating if it was roughly flat or saddle shaped.

[Edited on 12-2-2003 by Protector]

They said it was Flat, 10 billion in age, and will expand forever!!! Sounds like a pretty bold statement to me :-)


Click Here To
Read Why


God, I would love to know what's on the other side of any edge!!! And why Flat!!! what forces are at play to keep it Flat?


[Edited on 29-11-2002 by Skeptical Believer]

Why flat? Maybe becuase they are physicist who have been working hard to determine this and using the tool's created by them to find the solution gave them this answer? I dunno ... seem's kinda far fetched, but I think there might be something to it ....

Why does :

13.7 billion years old
Flat
populated mostley of exotic dark matter and,
expand forever

Seem like a bold statement? Sorry if I don't bother reading the link .... But I'd like your personal opinion on why you've come to this conclusion.

I guess I just wander how can they be so sure that the universe will expand forever if we know nothing about the exotic dark matter. Just seems like a bold strong statement to make if in the same breath you also state that you know nothing about two of the major components that make up the vastness of space. It just makes me wonder I guess. Then again, I'm just a TV repair man LOL.

And as for the statement the universe is flat. That conclusion is very interesting because I would think it would give clues to the laws at play on all sides of the fence. This topic is a minderbinder at best. For the universe to have expanded in a such a manor and into such a shape seems to make me beleive that there is more to it that is not seen but yet felt so to speak. Does this tell us a bit about the shape of what "was" before the big bang and why?. I will use North ,South, East And West as my example here:

Why is East to West expanding more then North and South so to speak?. And when you say flat!!, Does this mean the egg shape is more like a "dime hit by a train" then say an egg?. If it's more like a the dime then should we not see more stuff on two sides and less of on the other two sides. And, it would seem no matter where we are in the universe we are not that far from the other two sides, by other side I mean, what ever the hell it is we are expanding into that seems to be more then "nothing" because "nothing" would have no say so in what something was doing :-).

I'm sorry, this topic is killing me, I give up

[Edited on 29-11-2002 by Skeptical Believer]

We might expand forever (relatively speaking). We had a beginning (even if cyclical). One normally would attempt to say that we will have an end. However, our universe might crash into/merge with another universe and then we would no longer be under a cyclical influence (the collapse of the universe). My personal thought is that "if the solar system is flat, the galaxy is flat, the universe is flat," then "our 'universe' is just part of a larger multiverse."

We know that relativity works, quantum mechanics works, but what about ANTI-QUANTUM MECHANICS for all those things outside of our particular universe? Maybe we are missing a REALLY BIG piece of the puzzle.

That's it... I'm becoming Buddhist.

P.S. Just kidding.

On the otherside of the edge of the universe is the center. Chew on that one for a while.

I've learned to trust the conclusion's of those who know more about a subject than I do. But rather than question the validity of said conclusion, I rather find *why* that person came to the conclusion in the first place ...

It's flat because the amount of Dark matter = 0 or something like that...(read this awhile ago) if it were -1 then we'd be a saddle if it were 1 then we'd be a sphere.

There's just enough Dark Matter to counter the force of gravity, and flatten our universe out.

I think the flat universe may be more or less accurate...but I don't think we'll expand forever, as they think and I used to thought.

Obviously "Braines" (not what's in your head, but the fabrics that collided to cause the big bang) have some form of physical manipulation on our universe, or else how would their moving cause a big bang...their colliding.

Ohh now I came up with something really interesting....too bad I know so little on the subject but here it goes.

Our universe isn't expanding because of the "big bang" it's not like the fabric of the universe was pushed as a car is thrown through the air by an explosion.

It is being PULLED, the universe is a square, picture a square between two parallel planes (the Braines).

As these braines seperate, the surface area of the square (our universe) increases.

So we are expanding, hmm and you'll never reach the end of the universe even though there IS an end, because it is like a rainbow.

The Braines are moving, and the universe and all its physics would be restricted simply by the movement of the braines, you'll never reach the end because with what laws are given us, you'd reach only a point that WAS the end, but no longer is, and you won't be able to out run it.

At most we can match the speed of the universe...but not go faster....I picture an integral that goes to infinity.

what.... 1/x^2 for example? And so as we travel closer and closer, the amount we get closer to the end, gets smaller and smaller...so our universe is a finite universe, but with INFINITE bounds...

So being flat, then we are 2 dimensional as far as the fabrics of space is concerned, so you have only one universe, because the braines are only 1 dimensional lines, the congruent segments that run along the very boundries of our universe...that means that braines are not physical things that can be measured!

You can't just go close to the edge, look up and see a large wall that would be a braine...no because the braine and our universe is flat...we aren't though...why?

Well I guess the hologram theory is more correct than not...or a 3rd dimension can exist inside AHA!

That's a new thought for me....instead of it being a point is a point, and 2 form a line, and 2 of those forms a square...it is the opposite.

2 lines form a square yes, but it is bound inside, and this would be the same for a cube, so you can have a 3rd dimension existing on a plane...but how would you concieve that mathematically

Actually since A,B,C = 3rd dimension, it doesn't matter if it is "physically" the 3rd dimension as we think of it or not....technically the 3rd dimension is what it is, we can't say "Oh well it's not the way we thought" we just try to compare it to something INSIDE the system (such as a cube...how is a cube representative of the 3rd dimension? It has 3 variables yes, but why must those variables be in width, length, depth, can't the be in length^2, width^2 to form a cube?) Such as....

something with the sides 2/2/2 = a cube of 8 units....but if it is simply length^2 + width^2 it still = 8!

Let's test this with different figures.

7//6//4 = 168 Ahh but perfect, this is going to show that the above L^2 + W^2 doesn't work, but again that's representing it on our concept of 3 dimensions...how would you have a 7//6//4 item on a flat surface?

Oh well I'll solve the riddles of the universe later, me tired now, me go to bed.

Sincerely,
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For all we know the universe is shaped into one big smiley face and we're just looking at it wrong. And how can the universe be edged? Would you just travel to one side till you hit a wall and stopped? We are limited from understanding by our use of Euclidean math in which there is no uncertainties, no infinity, nothing that cannot be exacted. Can we ever really know everything for sure? We are limited by our existence in four dimensions, and even our passage through the fourth is constrained imensely. We connot trulty *know* any other dimensions because our simple brains cannot comprehend it. We are too used to our own environment that any change is foreign and un comprehendable. Imagine being able to see in a 360* circle around your head, could you?

XAOSX

It's funny, scientist's who know more, have been studying, trying to understand and find an answer to the topic of discussion, tell us the answer we've been waiting for. Yet, the one's who know less then the scientist, say NO to their answer ... Instead of saying NO, find out WHY the scientist came to that conclusion, as he know's more than you do about it.

Scientists from NASA and Princeton University Tuesday unveiled the first
results from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, of WMAP, terming them a
revolutionary "turning point" in understanding how the universe formed and
evolved.
"Every astronomer will remember when they first heard the results from WMAP,"
said Dr. John Bahcall of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. "The
announcement ... represents a rite of passage for cosmology from speculation to
precision science."
In June 2001, NASA launched the WMAP satellite, a joint project of the space
agency and Princeton. The $145 million observatory has been orbiting about 1
million miles above Earth, measuring microwave radiation that has traveled 13
billion light years and was generated just 380,000 years after the Big Bang that
scientists theorize started the universe.
By measuring temperature variations in the microwaves, down to a millionth of
a degree, scientists on the WMAP team were able to create a picture of the early
universe, before galaxies and stars were even formed.
With those findings, scientists were able to make the most precise
calculations yet about the age and make-up of the universe, including:
-- The universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago, give or take about 200
million years.
-- Only about 4 percent of the universe is composed of atoms -- the "ordinary
matter" making up the physical universe we know. About 23 percent is "cold, dark
matter," about which scientists know little, and 73 percent is "exotic dark
energy," about which they know even less.


-- The first stars were "turned on" within about 200 million years of the
"big bang" -- much earlier than scientists had previously believed.
-- The geometry of the universe is flat, and WMAP's measurements support an
"inflation" model, which holds that the universe formed with the "big bang" and
expanded rapidly over a short period of time, before slowing to the rate of
expansion seen today.
That expansion will continue, said Dr. Charles Bennett of NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center.
"The universe will expand forever. It will not turn back on itself and
collapse in a great crunch," he said.
The data from WMAP fits with conclusions drawn from other investigations of
the early universe, including observations by the Hubble telescope and the
Cosmic Background Explorer, which was sent up a decade ago to study the
universe's origins.
The "baby picture" of the universe was made possible by discoveries in the
1960s of faint, uniform radiation emanating from deep space and reaching Earth
nearly 14 billion years after it was generated by the Big Bang. The radiation
can be more accurately measured with satellites in distant space than it can on
Earth.
By measuring the temperature patterns of the radiation, scientists can map
these "anisotropic" differences and compare them to what they would expect to
find with various theories about the origins of the universe, a process NASA
scientists compared to fingerprint analysis.
Bahcall's analogy of the process: If the current universe is a 50-year-old
man, what WMAP scientists have been able to do is accurately measure his weight
when he was just 12 hours old.
NASA officials announced Tuesday that they had named the satellite for David
Wilkinson, a Princeton cosmologist who worked on WMAP and died in September.

Even the damn amount of Dark Energy keeps changing, at first it was 65% and 30% dark matter and 5% matter, what the hell...and are they accounting for Anti-mater? that has to have a percent too you know.

And XAOSX you can have an edge to something, but never be able to reach it.

It is called infinity.

You think with a finite mind, you see a line heading for an end, and are told that it goes out to infinity, never reaching the end, but your BRAIN sees it otherwise.

Your brain sees it as it will eventually touch that line, no matter how much you tell yourself it never will, you can't comprehend it.

God is infinite that's for sure, because only infinity, only that can we not understand.

But our universe, can have a finite area, but an infinite bound, meaning no matter how close you travel to the edge, you'll never be close enough, but however, even though you can never reach that edge, mathematically you can calculate where EVERYTHING in the universe must be, and we've done that.

We've calculated EVERYTHING must be within about a 15billion light-year radius, because that is how old our universe is, now if you could travel at say 15 billion light years a second, theoretically in 1.0000001 seconds you should surpass our universe and be "somewhere else" but realistically, you'll probably never reach that "Somewhere else" no matter how long you travel.

We are trapped here, in this great experiment, by math.

This is all why I now say, that to solve the mysteries to the mysteries to the mysteries of the universe (to give you an example we are probably at the myseteries to the mysteries to the 10th power or such...) we will not only need to focus ALL of mankind's energies on it.

But we will need to be sending quantumly (So that the information is not corrupted by physics in transit) at the time of 0 (instantly) data from every corner and star and galaxy in the universe, all the time, constantly, to a central hub, that will monitor how physics is opperating at a given time through out the universe.

When we are able to finally understand how physics compares here and there, we will begin to be able to do more than invent machines (which is all we are doing now) and we will finally be able to solve the TRUTH of our universe...where it came from, how it works, and hopefully, WHY it is here.

Personally, it seems religion is just a lot easier...and death, a lot sweeter.

Sincerely,
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I'd be willing to bet, the so-called change is more with different source's your getting information from. I'd also be willing to bet, that anti-matter is accounted for within that 4%, as it is still matter.

I'd also like to point out, infinity is an imaginary number. The only way you could never reach the edge of the universe, or surpass it, is if it were traveling either C or even FTL velocities. Say the universe is only going X speed which is under C, your spaceship is traveling 99% the speed of C, eventually somewhere down the line, you will run into the edge and surpass it because you are traveling faster then that edge.

As for scientist's trying to find a *why* is it here answer for the universe ... Not going to happen. A why, would imply a reason, and physical interaction's don't need a reason or why to create or destroy something. The *why* is it here, is of a religous nature, something scientist's can't answer.

Many of your question's have already been answered by those capable and more knowledgable than you to answer them. You've chosen to ignore that answer, and demand a new and different answer. Why?

As I've said, instead of saying NO, when you know less, find out WHY, they say yes ....

Infinity is not an "imaginary" number, that's a totally different thing.

Infinity is infinity, it's not a number ... You'll never reach the end of the universe, because I'm willing to be the universe is like an integral of a function f=1/x^2. Using integrals you can get the area under a curve, well we can solve for the area of our universe, we know how big it roughly is...but if it is based on the above fucntion, you'll never reach the end of it.

There is a why, nothing exists for no reason. There needs to be a reason anything happens, afterall we run on borrowed time, the way of things is to become nothingness, and that is what happens to our universe every milli-second, it becomes more and more as it once was, nothing. Scientists say they've observed a "reversal" in the general decay of everything qunatumly, but that probably has little or no real meaning of anything.

In the end, none of my questions have been answered, at all, by even stephen hawking and his team themselves!

I think you should re-read what it is I asked.

Ugh the fact you disagree with this is annoying, no one on this earth can answer these things at this time.

How far can we travel if we could travel at ANY speed we wanted?

How did the universe come into being?

Where is it going?

How do dimensions effect existance?

This one is really important: What is time?
Ask that above one and you'll have physicists everywhere fumbling and stumbling.

Need I go on?

The number of uncertanties in this universe is vast, down to the point where we are 2dimensional holograms (someone's already proven it mathematically) now that doesn't mean he's correct, but we have found MANY answers to the same questions, which ones are correct?

I personally don't think the Hologram answer is the correct answer to how the universe opperates, I think we are in fact an existing form, not just a hologram, but what makes us an existing form? Well there's another question that scientists can't answer.

If you think your hand is in front of you, maybe you should try and answer WHY? Is it so much as in front of you, or simply a different mathematical formula on the same plane, making it SEEM it is in front of you...perhaps it is nothing more than information fed to you by some giant fabric of the universe that governs all of existance.

I don't ignore any answers, we humans as far as understanding go, know nothing...but as far as technology goes, we are doing a lot.

We haven't figured out WHY or HOW anything really works, all science has done, is shown us patterns that we can use to make machines, combine chemicals, and solve math problems.

Understanding though is our goal, not machinery, and the end of the universe is included in that understanding, we don't know, and we won't know until we can take measurements from different locations of the universe at the same time, and compute them.

Sincerely,
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A lot of scientists think the universe is donut shaped, and there are 11 of them floating around. Like a bowl of wheetos. Apparently the 'big bang' was a result of two universes banging into each other, which sparks the creation of another. (homer simpson proclaimed the donut shaped idea in the episode with stephen hawking!)
thing is if its expanding forever, whats it expanding into?

it makes my brain melt.

I must be a nutcase or something for trusting those who know more than me ...

FM, your answer's have already been answered. They've been answered as best as possible with today's technology and our brightest mind's.

The problem is, you want more clearer answer's than what has already been provided. With what's already there, you are saying NO, not right, try again.... BUT, I have to ask you, are you a scientist yourself that has been study these sort of thing's for many year's trying your best to come up with answer's to these question's?

How far can we travel if we could travel at ANY speed we wanted?

Well, it really depend's on what the edge is of the universe is like, if it's enclosed within a strong gravitational field like a blackhole, then that's as far as your gonna get, unless you have a way around such intense gravitational field's.

How did the universe come into being?

That's a very very difficult question. I don't think we'll ever know the true answer to it. Until the first time machine that can travel before the onset of time itself, we will never know the answer.

Where is it going?

It's going nowhere, just growing forever. As already explained by the scientist's who have recently discovered that.

How do dimensions effect existance?

Don't know too much about that ...

What is time?

Personally, I think time is something invented by man to place natural linear occurances withing a more managable sequence called time. It's nothing more than a mathmatical construct we came up with to better understand our universe and ourselve's


I've heard about the holographic universe theory too. If it were true, then not only do you not physically exist, but when you sleep, your in another existance altogether. Think of it like this, when your *awake* you have all your sense's, your conciouse and aware of your surrounding's. Now induce a lucid dream, all those SAME characteristics are there as if you were awake. There are alot of possibilities with a holographic universe, take some time to think about it more ...

kegs,

first, the universe is flat, it's already been discovered. Second, there will NEVER be anyway whatsoever that we can answer the question of how the universe cam into being. In other word's, the two universe's colliding is nothing more than a possibilty, not a fact.

e-nonymous you just showed my questions have never been answered.

What happens when we can travel any speed we want? (Say 500 billion light years a second)...maybe you'll still NEVER reach the end of the universe, not because of Gravity but because of math.

And view my theory of Time.

I can tell you one thing for sure, no scientist in the world thinks time is "man-made" and in fact the article I was reading one physicist was quoted saying, "If you think time is just an illusion you're an idiot."

But as I said, view my thread on time, it's very interesting, and provides a POWERFUL link to what time is, and how it effects the universe, and to how particles interact and why an up-quark, and another up-quark are distinguished as 2 up-quarks and not just one.

Because, they are EXACTLY The same, same in every aspect but one possible aspect....what time they exist in!

I was wrong in my last post I'll correct myself there later if it comes up.

I said "their point in space isn't why they are different because they can exist in multiple points at once" that's partialy true but isn't helpful.

The actual reason that their point in space doesn't matter is because we don't know trully where they are.

Picture you have 2 "bulbs" with a link between them, and you have 2 particles.

You have a probability that particle A is in the left bulb, and B in the right bulb, you have a probability that particle A and B are both in the right bulb, or both in the left bulb.

And you have a probability that particle B is in the left bulb, and A in the right bulb.

So since the universe constantly favors the more probable, probably the two particles are seperate, but which is in which bulb?

We have no way in hell of ever telling...so theoretically they are the same particle, in the two bulbs...so two places one time.

But! That makes lesser sense, so what I had theorized, keeping into accordance that our Probabilities laws are somewhat accurate.

Is that each particle is in fact seperate, and not being confused by the universe (just as we label them A+B not knowing where A and where B really is, the universe both labels them A and B and knows where they are)

So well how does it distinguish them?

Quantums my good man...Quantum-Temporal! Each particle can exist at only ONE given point in time, so particle A exists in the left side, for one interval of time, and particle B exists in the right side, for its interval of time!

And they switch off like this, in the 0 dimension of time (a point, or you can think of it as time concerning only one particle).

Now if you want to deal with both the particles...you would distinguish between them by going to the 0dimension of time, but you would be observing them linearly in time, not one interval, but two!

And so on, now what if these particles collide? Well they only collide in the 2nd dimension of time, in the 0 dimension only one of them exists at any given point in time, in the 1st dimension the both exist but are seperate, in the second dimension they are now capable of interacting on a 2D scale. And so forth.

I'll guarentee you, that though at this moment I don't know enough to finalize my theory, that as I learn more of phyisics, quantum physics, and chemistry, that my theory will become more and more distinct!

Time is not the 4th dimension, it is something else all together!

Sincerely,
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