I can not comprehend something being at " the end" such as nothingness. And I also cannot see how there can be an infinity of something.

7/29/2005 2:29:47 AM

the concept of infinite time in both past and future is also hard to grasp


nothingness is just a vacuum, but I don't think that's necessarily what is outside of our universe. In any case we don't know because the edge of the universe is receding from us much faster than the speed of light.

[Edited on July 29, 2005 at 3:13 AM. Reason : .]

7/29/2005 2:54:13 AM

there isn't anything outside the universe.

7/29/2005 8:40:21 AM

^^yea i saw some video about how they proved the universe was expanding in that when something gets further away the light it emits becomes redder and redder. They could see that all the other galaxies and constellations were doing this.

The whole concept of infinite time and space and different time dimentions is pretty intriguing but maybe is something we're not even capable of grasping. Kinda like a cat being unable to grasp the concept of algebra...its just impossible not matter how hard it thinks about it.

[Edited on July 29, 2005 at 8:41 AM. Reason : ^]

7/29/2005 8:41:16 AM

Your question is like asking what lies to the south of the South Pole. Being the totality of all spatio-temporal events, the universe has no "end" and there's nothing "outside" of it.

7/29/2005 10:05:24 AM

Quote :

"there isn't anything outside the universe."

you're making the classic mistake of forgetting about Dimension X...

after all, where do you think krang is?

[Edited on July 29, 2005 at 10:27 AM. Reason : /]

7/29/2005 10:27:23 AM

don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

7/29/2005 10:28:40 AM

i'm guessing a restaraunt

7/29/2005 10:28:57 AM

Since we're not going there anytime soon, I think it's a moot point.

7/29/2005 10:54:14 AM

Quote :

"Your question is like asking what lies to the south of the South Pole. Being the totality of all spatio-temporal events, the universe has no "end" and there's nothing "outside" of it."

This is pretty much right. If you think about a balloon expanding, with the 2D surface being our 3D reality and the balloon itself being in 4D, then that's kind of the idea (at least to my understanding -- I'm not a physicist).

It's not like you'd "wrap around" the Universe though like you would if you went North forever on the Earth. The reason why is because the Universe is expanding too fast.

The Universe isn't infinite -- it's finite and bounded, yet expanding too fast for those bounds to matter to anything inside. Now, there might be an infinite amount of Universes, but that's way outside of this scope I think.

Quote :

"nothingness is just a vacuum"

Vacuums don't exist because of the Uncertainty Principle. There's always a slight fluctuation.



Oh, and here's the comedy response:

Quote :

"Why, it's turtles all the way down!"

7/29/2005 11:04:49 AM

i think theoretically a cat could grasp algebra, it would probably be easier for the cat to learn if it was presented in a way other than text though

7/29/2005 11:10:43 AM

All sorts of animals probably have an intuitive grasp of math/physics.

7/29/2005 11:11:40 AM

Milliway's

7/29/2005 12:07:08 PM

the letter "e"

I'll be here all week.

7/29/2005 2:21:46 PM

please no

7/29/2005 2:45:14 PM

Quote :

"Milliway's"

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There's another theory that this has already happened.

The End of the Universe is very popular, people like to dress up for it, Gives it a sense of occasion.

7/29/2005 3:49:07 PM

if its so easy to accept that extension can be infinite, why is it so difficult to grasp infinite existence

or is it

[Edited on July 29, 2005 at 3:56 PM. Reason : x]

7/29/2005 3:56:40 PM

Infinity is an easy CONCEPT to grasp.

But by its very nature, it's impossible to encapsulate, except in itself?

Aw shit, I just confused myself. I take this entire post back.

7/29/2005 4:02:29 PM

you know, i feel like it have something to contribute

but im not going to

because i hate the soapbox

fuck you fuckers

7/29/2005 4:10:26 PM

We love you nastoute

your contribution will be sorely missed

7/29/2005 4:11:39 PM

Quote :

"if its so easy to accept that extension can be infinite, why is it so difficult to grasp infinite existence or is it "

because one way or another you'll stop thinking about it, and in doing so fail to fully grasp infinity.

7/29/2005 4:16:55 PM

hahah

7/29/2005 4:22:38 PM

^^ I think you can still grasp it and model it. Doing so accurately, however? Probably not.

7/29/2005 4:43:23 PM

An 11th dimensional brane containing our 10 dimensional universe, and others like it.

7/29/2005 5:55:19 PM

Quote :

"Milliway's"

7/29/2005 10:22:21 PM

Another universe!

7/29/2005 11:01:20 PM

it actually ends in my back yard

7/29/2005 11:04:08 PM

actually, there is a monster at the end of this universe.

7/29/2005 11:19:55 PM

yeah, I told your mom to get out of my back yard, but the bitch just dont listen

7/29/2005 11:20:37 PM

that's amazing!

the same thing happened when I told your mom to get out of my bed!

7/29/2005 11:22:45 PM

what can I say? my mom's a lazy bitch!

7/29/2005 11:28:29 PM

Who is John Galt?

7/30/2005 5:07:53 PM

Quote :

"Milliway's"

winner

7/30/2005 6:08:41 PM

Quote :

"What is at the end of the Universe?"

Probably a forcefield...like in the old mario game when you try to go backward.

7/31/2005 5:14:48 PM

I say there's a huge sign that says THE END, in cursive handwritting, like at the end of old movies.

8/1/2005 11:11:22 AM

Waffle House

8/1/2005 11:12:10 AM

South of the Border.

8/1/2005 11:18:31 AM

I thought we answered this when someone said "a restaurant"?

8/1/2005 11:55:16 AM

maybe it's just a big reset button?

8/1/2005 12:06:25 PM

Maybe its candy!

8/1/2005 12:10:02 PM

Quote :

"yea i saw some video about how they proved the universe was expanding in that when something gets further away the light it emits becomes redder and redder"

did anyone else find this really funny?

8/1/2005 12:28:13 PM

why is it funny?

The further away an object is, the farther towards the red end of the spectrum the light from it shifts. Thats how they discover new planets. They look for this red shift in stars which they can measure to tell how much the star 'wobbles' and can then work out the mass(s) of the planet(s) needed to produce that wobble.

8/1/2005 12:35:44 PM

I thought red/blue shift was an indicator of direction of motion (coming towards or moving away from the viewer), not the actual distance involved.

You know, something about crunching/elongating the light waves.

8/1/2005 12:36:47 PM

right

as it moves away, the shift goes towards the red end of the spectrum. I am pretty sure they calculate the rate of expansion using this shift.

8/1/2005 12:51:04 PM

Right, but that has nothing to do with how far away it is. Something can be very far away and moving towards us.

I think what you're thinking of is the correlation between distance and rate of motion away from us, which doesn't actually have anything to do with how the Doppler effect occurs, it's just a property of our universe.

8/1/2005 12:53:13 PM

http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/ExpandUni.html

Quote :

"Hubble, who had been the first to establish that the universe included many other galaxies outside of our own, noticed something else: the galaxies were receding from us at a velocity proportional to their distance. The more distant the galaxy, the greater its redshift, and therefore the higher the velocity, a relation known as Hubble's Law. "

Quote :

"Determining the Hubble Constant is something of a Holy Grail for cosmologists, because it holds the key to the age of the universe. Imagine running a film of cosmic expansion backwards to the Big Bang--in other words, a contracting universe instead of an expanding universe. Because the Hubble Constant is a measure of how much space is expanding in units of distance per second, it's possible to estimate how long it would take, rolling the movie backwards, for the most distant galaxies to collide with each other and finally collapse in the Big Bang. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to determine the Hubble Constant. While cosmologists have mastered the trick of determining a galaxy's redshift, and therefore its velocity, determining the distance to far-off objects is quite another matter. We don't have any yardsticks that long. "

yeah, I didnt mean to say that the distance an object is from us is connected to the color of the light we see from it, its the rate of travel to/from us that produces the shift. I worded my reply poorly.

[Edited on August 1, 2005 at 12:59 PM. Reason : *]

8/1/2005 12:58:44 PM

kk

8/1/2005 1:02:54 PM

Quote :

"why is it funny?"

because he is on a college message board talking about the doppler effect
only he saw somehting about it in a video

i mean we've all been to high school, everyone here should know what the red shift is

8/1/2005 1:44:02 PM

yes, but you realize that there are people in college who study this stuff and plan on making a career out of it.

8/1/2005 1:47:20 PM

i dont think you got my point

anyone who is in college should know more about this than "i saw this thing in a video"

8/1/2005 2:57:39 PM