Epic Discovery: Our Colossal Universe -"250 Times Bigger than What We See"

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Is our universe infinite or closed? Because the visible Universe is expanding, the most distant visible things are much further away than its estimated 14-billion year age. In fact, the photons in the cosmic microwave background have traveled a cool 45 billion light years to get here. That makes the visible universe some 90 billion light years across.

The real universe, however, is much bigger. We now know this thanks to statistical analysis by Mihran Vardanyan at the University of Oxford and colleagues.

The key to measuring the actual size of the universe is to measure its curvature. Astronomers have come up with various methods to measure this curvature. One method according to MIT's Technology Review is to search for a distant object of known size and measure how big it looks: "If it's bigger than it ought to be, the Universe is closed; if it's the right size, the universe is flat and if it's smaller, the Universe is open."

Awesome article and I had to share it with all of you.

I looked around and couldn't find it on here, and it is fairly new.

I, personally do not think that the universe has an end to it. How could there be an end of space? What would be past that? Would it not just be more space? It's kind of a mind bending idea once you really get down to the physics of it all.

I also think that our universe has curvature to it. If we were only on one part of the Earth and could not go anywhere but a short walking distance, we would believe it was flat, we already did this. So if you can only see the earth on such a small scale as walking distance then we would interpret the earth as flat, same theory for the universe. We are only looking at a small percentage of the universe and cannot see this curve.

I think we are in for interesting times ahead as we are going to discover so many new things and hopefully disprove most of what we know already. If not disprove then at least heavily modify.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

I've often thought that the act of looking may create more of what we expect to find. Kind of like when we keep looking for smaller particles beyond that of an atom they keep appearing. The observer effect in action if you like.

reply to post by Namaste1001


Your welcome buddy!!!

I have always like that theory, it sounds good in my book. I think period, no matter what we look for we will find. Although that has serious implications for the world we live in now if that is true. Think about the possibilities of that concept if proven true.

Pred...

"In fact, the photons in the cosmic microwave background have traveled a cool 45 billion light years to get here."

Then that means the universe is at least 45 billion years old instead of the 14 billion or some we have been told. But it could be even older. If the universe is 250 time bigger than we can see then the universe could be up to 250 times as old. 14 billion times 250 = three trillion five hundred billion years old. I have been saying for years the universe is far older than we think it is. And every so often something like this comes along and makes it just that much closer to being true.

The article also says that the best calculations show that the universe is flat and infinite.

That generates another question to me. If the universe is infinite, does that mean it is not expanding as we've been told it was for some time now? And if it is not expanding, we need another explanation for the observed red-shift in distant objects.

The Vardanyan model says that the curvature of the Universe is tightly constrained around 0. In other words, the most likely model is that the Universe is flat. A flat Universe would also be infinite and their calculations are consistent with this too. These show that the Universe is at least 250 times bigger than the Hubble volume. (The Hubble volume is similar to the size of the observable universe.)

Another question. How is something that is infinite in size "at least" 250 times bigger (or smaller) than anything else?

In mathematics:

zero X anything = zero
null X anything = null
infinity X anything = infinity

Same for division ...

reply to post by centurion1211


No kidding hey?

The universe is infinite, so it's about 250 times bigger than we initially thought it was.

Kind of funny reasoning.

I think the red shift would have a reasonable explanation for it, as in, the amount of this so called "dark matter" strewn about. Maybe with the amount of dark matter between galaxies, makes a more noticeable lensing effect, which although there is no significant movement between galaxies it appears to be so in the ways we look at it.

I always thought there was something funny about the red-shift, how is that a galaxy twice is far away as another galaxy is moving twice as fast?


Pred...

Originally posted by predator0187
reply to post by centurion1211

 

No kidding hey?

The universe is infinite, so it's about 250 times bigger than we initially thought it was.

Kind of funny reasoning.


Pred...

Sorry.

Wasn't sure everyone would understand the math part of my post.

In fact, the photons in the cosmic microwave background have traveled a cool 45 billion light years to get here. That makes the visible universe some 90 billion light years across.

Casey Kazan, author of the article, has no understanding at all of cosmological distance measures! The truth is that 14 Gly is the supposed “light travel distance”, which is the speed of light times the cosmological time interval that passed between emission and detection of the light. 45 Gly represents the “luminosity distance”, which is how far the light source has receded from us because of the expansion of space during the 14 Gy that it took the light to reach us. A light source which is seen now at a light travel distance of 14 Gly would have been much closer when the light was emitted. That distance is called the “angular distance”; the angular size of the object in our telescopes is the angular size that it would have had if we could have seen it instantaneously (without speed of light delay) at the time when the light was emitted.

Furthermore, Kazan makes a mistake that most 8th graders could catch. He doubles the 45 Gly radius to get 90 Gly, and calculates the volume to be “at least 250 times larger” than the accepted volume. He’s comparing the cube of his diameter to the cube of the accepted radius, yielding a ratio 8 times greater. If the actual radius were 45 Gly, instead of 14 Gly, the volume would be (45/14)^3 = 33.2 times greater, not 250 times greater. (Actually, there are some finite closed-universe models in which the radius is the diameter, but this article is not about a finite closed universe.)

There is no contradiction in saying, “The universe may be infinite, and it is at least X times larger than the accepted size.” 1 < X < ∞.

Personally, I favor a model in which the universe is, and always has been, infinite in extent since the beginning of time as we know it. An infinite universe can’t get bigger, but distances within it can expand. It doesn’t make sense to say, “The universe is expanding,” unless you believe the universe is finite. But it does make sense to say, “Space is expanding in the infinite universe.”

EDIT: The article allegedly came to the Daily Galaxy via MIT Technology Review. However, a search of MIT Technology Review for "Kazan" comes up empty. I can't imagine such a prestigious publication ever accepting such a trashy article. Googling "casey kazan", I find that he is the owner of Galaxy Media LLC. You don't suppose Daily Galaxy is his own baby, do you?

Originally posted by predator0187
I also think that our universe has curvature to it. If we were only on one part of the Earth and could not go anywhere but a short walking distance, we would believe it was flat, we already did this.

So if you can only see the earth on such a small scale as walking distance then we would interpret the earth as flat, same theory for the universe. We are only looking at a small percentage of the universe and cannot see this curve.

Good article my friend!

This is exactly what Micio Kaku has said and he might be right. Nothing in this article would contradict that.

Originally posted by centurion1211
The article also says that the best calculations show that the universe is flat and infinite.

That generates another question to me. If the universe is infinite, does that mean it is not expanding as we've been told it was for some time now? And if it is not expanding, we need another explanation for the observed red-shift in distant objects

Another question. How is something that is infinite in size "at least" 250 times bigger (or smaller) than anything else?

The flat part sounds right.

The infinite part, maybe, maybe not. The observable universe has a radius of round it to 14 billion light years. Their analysis suggests the actual size is at least 250*14 billion for a radius of at least 3.5 trillion light years. My interpretation is that 3.5 trillion light years is so large, we don't have accurate enough measurements to tell the difference between that and infinity, basically the same thing that Predator said in the OP and what Kaku has been saying.

If it's not infinite, then what's beyond the space may be nothing. Empty space, and nothing, are 2 different things. so as space expands, it replaces nothing with space.

These aren't concepts that our brains evolved to understand so they are rather mind-bending.

Originally posted by centurion1211
The article also says that the best calculations show that the universe is flat and infinite.

That generates another question to me. If the universe is infinite, does that mean it is not expanding as we've been told it was for some time now? And if it is not expanding, we need another explanation for the observed red-shift in distant objects.

I have done a little research, and I am by no means an astrophysicist, or any kind of scientist related to the matter. However, dreamers got us this far, and I have a fairly easy to understand theory to why we believe the universe is expanding.

It is a similar concept to why we thought the earth was flat, and the earth was the center of the univers, ect.

We are only able to see our corner of the universe, and it is expanding, that much has been proven. I do however, believe that it is more like a ripple of water upon a sea of exotic matter. The big bang created the observable universe, and other big bangs might not be so big in comparison the the vastness of space.

To be short, we are expanding, and so are many other multiverse, much like a fractal repeats itself, this process is part of a larger process. I doubt we will be able to understand the sheer enormity of what we behold every day, and the relatively insignificance we have.

Imagine this entire 14bn year lightverse as a mere molecule of another entire being. Imagine yourself as the cell, instead of the top of evolution. We might be the stem cell, but we are still insignificant to the whole, individually.

The Vardanyan model says that the curvature of the Universe is tightly constrained around 0. In other words, the most likely model is that the Universe is flat. A flat Universe would also be infinite and their calculations are consistent with this too. These show that the Universe is at least 250 times bigger than the Hubble volume. (The Hubble volume is similar to the size of the observable universe.)

Another question. How is something that is infinite in size "at least" 250 times bigger (or smaller) than anything else?

In mathematics:

zero X anything = zero
null X anything = null
infinity X anything = infinity

Same for division ...

Infinte things cannot be divided or multiplied without being infinite, you are correct in assuming this. Taking my theory into account, you can see that it would only increase the size of the cell, but the theory remains intact.

Thoughts?

Originally posted by sbctinfantry
Thoughts?

Some of that sounds logical and fact based, but other parts sound like you're telling me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

I would say the speculation in the OP is at least based on a model, so then it becomes a question of how accurate the model is.

But some of the speculations about a cell of a being, may be true but are much more highly speculative.

Some of these questions may never be answered.

It's sort of like "if you tell me what's south of the south pole, I'll tell you what's beyond the end of the universe." I suspect it's more than just unknown, it's probably unknowable, and it's certainly unknowable in the foreseeable future. We could all give each other a million guesses and they could all be wrong.

For this reason, while I enjoy reading the guesses and make some myself, I see the highly speculative guesses as having little value other than entertainment and prefer to at least try to make educated guesses, like the subjects of the OP are trying to do. For this I commend them.

reply to post by predator0187


I believe that the Universe is Infinite and without center or end. In fact, I believe that there are an infinite number of universes stretching on for an infinite amount of space. So to say that the universe is much, much bigger than our observable portion is within my realm. Of course, this is founded scientifically and not just my personal beliefs, which are always good to have reinforced.

Space as we know it erupts into being at all times, in all places, from quantum nothingness... all that everything is, is right now, forever.

NEXUS

reply to post by Namaste1001

I've often thought that the act of looking may create more of what we expect to find. Kind of like when we keep looking for smaller particles beyond that of an atom they keep appearing. The observer effect in action if you like.

Why do you believe this? What observation or deduction suggests it?

What happens if we look without expectations? Do we find nothing?

Isn't this point of view just a load of solipsistic conjecture?

we need another explanation for the observed red-shift in distant objects.

The red shift just identifies how one object is moving in relation to us. Go to another spot in the universe and you will get a different red shift offset when watching the same object.

I have been open to an infinite universe, feel a bit like getting thrown in the deep end of the pool when the evidence starts coming in to support it.

To my knowledge, we've never isolated motion as the source of observed red-shift. I've even seen a number of articles where it is discussed that observed red-shift is quantized in nature (controversial, that they are).

In my opinion, any estimates of distance that do not involve triangulation methods are fairly useless. Since the number of objects actually triangulated is rather small, and the margin of error makes only measurements of some of the closest objects useful, that leaves a lot of guesses about the distances involved.

The problem with any current methods of determining the curvature of our universe (if there is any) is simply the scale involved. No matter how accurate the measurements taken and how 'flat' our universe is determined to be, it can always be stated that "it's just too big to measure the curvature."

And since we're on the tangent of geometries and the concepts of the infinite - imagine a sphere with an infinite radius. You are standing at a given polar coordinate of 90x90 on the surface of that sphere. You can walk and move around in two dimensions. However, you will never be able to reach another polar coordinate, as the distance between 90.0000000001x90.0 on the surface is infinite. However, because it's a sphere, the space does have a curvature. It is just that nothing you can see or get to actually exhibits that curvature. And I'm not sure if any method could be derived to tell if you were in 'flat' space, or in a space with an infinitely small curvature.

I'm not sure how this would play out in 4d, which would likely be necessary to properly describe a 3d space exhibiting the same idea.

I'm sure a few people here could take that idea and run with it in the context of parallel universes and such (every 'spoke' represents a completely isolated universe that is still part of the whole system). I suppose if parallel universes could ever be proven to exist and communicated between, it would be possible to verify this type of structure - for all the use such knowledge would have beyond a trivia game.

There could also be the issue that space is infinite, and the 'universe' (matter) is not. This does pose interesting problems with the concepts of "zero point energy" - if space is infinite, but matter and energy are not, then the "zero point" is not constant and therefor local. This could have drastic implications for interstellar and intergalactic physics, and even be a factor in the Cosmic Radiological Background (a result of an ever-expanding 'shockwave' as whatever contributes to our zero-point futilely attempts to reach equilibrium with an infinite amount of space).

Now, it would stand to reason that if matter/energy got here to start with - then it can come forth again, somehow. Whether or not we could have any influence on this phenomena, however, is completely unknown. That said, having an "energizer reactor of infinite wonder" would be pretty cool, if not completely impossible (as in ever - I know it's pretty much impossible with known technology).

That line of thought, though, leads me to wonder about the prospects of another 'big bang' (or whatever lead to us being here - another 'creation event,' if you will). If it happened once, it may very well happen again. While it would play out in scales in the billions of years - it would certainly be an interesting course of events.

That's enough rambling from me for today.

Originally posted by Phractal Phil

There is no contradiction in saying, “The universe may be infinite, and it is at least X times larger than the accepted size.” 1 < X < ∞.

However, I do see a problem with saying - as the article seems to be - that: ∞ = 14gly X 250. Which was my point.