Space

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Raven
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Space

Post by Raven »

Is space infinite or does space 'stop' somewhere? If it does, what's in the other side? And how the hell something could be infinite, i can't imagine. Both of them are just too impsy, tell your opinions. I've been thinking this for 30 minutes, maybe because lack of beer.. But really this occupies me now.
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Lee
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Re: Space

Post by Lee »

if space was really infinite, then that means anything that you can think of exists. that also means that there are an infinite number of humans who look like me, have the same name as me, and the exact same dna, and the exact same atom configuration, in some other planet, somewhere in another galaxy. now if you say that's impossible, then i guess the universe is not infinite at all.
wouldn't an infinite universe have infinite possibliites?
because what i said is almost certainly impossible, i think personally that space is not infinite.
but what gets me is when i think of the universe ending at some point, what is on the other side? it can't just be nothing, it has to be something.
but then that in turn suggests that the universe must continue to go on. and everytime there is an end there must also be something on the other side.
so i just don't know what to think. it is one mystery that mankind will never know.
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Re: Space

Post by Bismuth »

Yeah imo it is impossible to have anything on the other side, because at the edges, time, the three spatial dimensions we know, everything gets fucked, and there is some point, unreachable because of the deformation of the dimensions, where the existence of anything we know is impossible. The end of the universe is the end of the dimensions we know. I don't know much about all of that, but I'm 95% sure that with the relativity theory and so on, with time and space being relative and twisted, I guess it has something to do with it.
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Re: Space

Post by nick-o-matic »

Raven wrote:Is space infinite or does space 'stop' somewhere? If it does, what's in the other side?
Think of the two-dimensional surface of a ball. Just like that surface don't have borders and question "what's in the other side" is absurd, universum doesn't have either. Normal geometry is valid in universe only at short distances.
Leeland wrote:if space was really infinite, then that means anything that you can think of exists.
Noo, just like we could take infinite amount of numbers we still could skip as well infinite amount of numbers (like taking only every second integer).
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Zweq
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Re: Space

Post by Zweq »

an space o,o

ofc all of us sometimes stop thinking the insanity of the space, the couple of thousand little dots on the sky that are "only" from 5 lightyears to thousands(?) of light years away yet still feel totally unreachable and also represent only 0,000001% of milky way and milky way represents only 0,000000...000...???...0001% of galaxies. it's fun to estimate numbers about space because nobody knows them for certain and space cant be mapped. if theres a light source that is one billion of light years away it's hard to say which way to go to reach that source due to gravity bending light, or if the source ceased to exist 0,5 billion years ago. how would you put something on a map that youre not totally sure if it exists or where its exactly located?
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Lee
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Re: Space

Post by Lee »

Jappe wrote:this doesnt mean anything you can think of exists, you can pull many impossible things from your head, like silver made of gold or
any such absurd thing
what i really meant was anything that has a slight chance of possibility, no matter how small, will have already happened an infinite number of times.
example: humans being able to fly on a distant planet coincidentally called earth with people who just so happen to speak english, and one of them has got such deformities as yellow skin and spikes on his balls, and has 2 penises, with which he uses to walk with.
you can't say that this is impossible, because it is a possiblity (assuming that the universe does go on forever).
example 2: think of any creature in your head that you just made up. IT EXISTS!!!!!!!!!......somewhere.

that is all
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Re: Space

Post by nick-o-matic »

Cool post Jappe, but I still disagree that possiblity for every imagineable event should be 1 if the universe was infinite (or even if there were infinite amount of infinite universes in the many-worlds -theories...)

That's because there are different ranks of infinities, you know. If we think that we have infinite universe and infinite amount of planets, the amount of planets is infinity of the lowest rank (they are countable and we can give them some order). But amount of all the possible events in each planet are surely higher rank of infinity. Therefore all the events wont ever happen.

But this is just my cosmologically pretty uneducated opinion.
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Re: Space

Post by Grace »

warning: uneducated opinion:

Agree with most said above, who knows if Universe in continuous or if there's a stop, a barrier somewhere out there. Of course, we could consider the possibility that the Universe is a larger scale planet, and whilst travelling straightwards, we are actually travelling in a circle, similar to the way circumnavigating the earth works. it looks as if you travel straight, but you are on a slight angle at all times.

On top of this, perhaps our "Universe" is simply a small Planet-esque part of a larger place of being, perhaps there are many universes, just as there are many planets, many meteors.

unfortunately, we don't lack the resources to find out :P The Space Probe Galileo is still travelling :P
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Re: Space

Post by pawq »

i think that in some time we'll need to redefine "universe". wasnt it supposed to be just... everything? quote from wiki: "The Universe comprises everything that physically exists, the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter and energy, and the physical laws and constants that govern them." therefore even "many universes" sounds somehow weird :x actually if it was limited... we could reach the corner. and then wat? what would we see? nothing? space? beginning of another universe? an aluminium shell limiting this universe? these are just bunch of not too serious home-made contemplations, but people could create countless theories, and every single one of them would probably sound crazy. endless topic btw
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Re: Space

Post by chux »

Why are you all suggesting there is an end?

The "universe" is finite physical matter which is expanding into a vacuum. Empty space. Thats what goes on forever. Theres no infinite planets or penor-legged aliens, not necessarily.
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Xiphias
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Re: Space

Post by Xiphias »

Sorry.. but I was wondering. Was this topic inspired by Family Guy's Road to the Multiverse episode? :P
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Re: Space

Post by gimp »

i happen to be majoring in astronomy, not to say that means that my answer is any more correct than anybody else, but the general excepted theory is that the universe is finite. the big bang theory, the big crunch, the big rip, drakes equation, or the big bounce, all stand behind the idea the there is a fixed amount of matter.
the question of what is on the other side, is somewhat of a ridiculous question. right now, if the universe doesn't happen to be infinite, we at least know that it is definitely in the process of expanding. we know this because of the red shift that some galaxies have, meaning they are drifting away from us, this is the big rip theory, assuming that the universe never stops expanding, thus making all the fixed amount of matter stretch and all atoms be ripped apart. in this case the universe is always expanding at the speed of light, and we would never be able to look at the other side(hypothetically saying you could catch up to the expansion) because as soon as you happen to see anything at all, it has already become apart of the universe. the universe is everything that exists, the other side, if you must call it that, doesnt exist, similar to the way your conscious thought no longer exists after you die, it is nothing by the truest definition of the word.
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Raven
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Re: Space

Post by Raven »

Xiphias wrote:Sorry.. but I was wondering. Was this topic inspired by Family Guy's Road to the Multiverse episode? :P
No, actually this topic was inspired by beer :lol:
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pawq
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Re: Space

Post by pawq »

beer inspires so many interesting topics =D
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chux
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Re: Space

Post by chux »

Jappe wrote:
chux wrote:The "universe" is finite physical matter which is expanding into a vacuum. Empty space. Thats what goes on forever.
thanks for solving this, not even the top scientist were able to crack this.
No problem. If you ever see Stephen Hawking, tell him to call me so I can teach him a thing or two :P
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Re: Space

Post by Mushroom »

gimp wrote: right now, if the universe doesn't happen to be infinite, we at least know that it is definitely in the process of expanding. we know this because of the red shift that some galaxies have, meaning they are drifting away from us, this is the big rip theory, assuming that the universe never stops expanding, thus making all the fixed amount of matter stretch and all atoms be ripped apart.
Would you care to explain this a bit more? Unless the expansion of the universe is accelerating I can't see how it would ever be possible for it to rip apart any matter. I am not even sure I see how with acceleratin expansion :| .
The reason for observed more than light speed in the early universe is because of the inflation. But even then when space expanded faster than the speed of light it didn't rip apart anything matter or anything.
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