ripple07

Technically if we compare the speed of light with the time the big bang happened we could find the "size of the universe".

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magnus_maximus

Not really that simple. The universe is expanding faster than light.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

ripple07

Interesting. So Einstein was wrong?

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magnus_maximus

Nah, it's FAR more complex than that. See, as the universe is expanding, it's essentially creating space-time, so in that frame of reference it isn't going faster than light.

Put it this way, if there are no roads, there are no stop signs.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

ripple07

Interesting. As the universe expands, the laws of physics expand proportionately.

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Dirge Humani

More that nothing is actually moving faster than light, because nothing is actually moving. There is just more space being created between things.

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magnus_maximus

Kind of.

Consider this - everything in the universe, ever, and everything that ever has, and everything that will be, has already happened. We are merely experiencing points in time - [x,y,z,t].

As the universe expands into nothing nothing "new" is really being created, but what was always there is displacing itself.

The bad news is the implications for the rest of us.

See, because of Conservation of Energy, all those things flying away to the edge of time are using up kinetic energy. We are also always losing heat energy and doing work.

Eventually this means all energy will be lost in the sense that everything in the universe will be balanced at one temperature, so no work can be done.

This is called the "heat death" theorem. It's how the universe will end.

Damned entropy.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

magnus_maximus

Space-time.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

iwannabesedated

Luckily for us this is still trillions of years away.

magnus_maximus

Well, it's already happened.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

metal4all

It isn't just expanding... the rate at which is accelerating. Just think in billions of years you won't be able to see a star in the sky. Dark energy is supposedly the cause.

I'm getting deja vu.

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☮∞☯♥

magnus_maximus

Well, we don't know if Dark Energy or Dark Matter even exist yet.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

metal4all

^Which is why I said supposedly. Do you have a more entertained idea?

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Skullivan

Until everyone realizes the Earth is flat, we can't advance into any other fields of science.

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Diamond Dave

no, that's been answered already

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MrDo0m

Yeah, nothing moves faster than light, and that's exactly what "nothing" is doing. Because all this "nothing" is taking over the universe, as if "nothing" is supposed to exist instead of something.

Well, I don't know really. But it's interesting to note that everything is already mostly empty space. The more you look at some point of reference, the more empty space you find around it. Your arm? Full of cells with empty space around them. Those cells? Full of atoms separated by empty space. Those atoms? Comprised of electrons flying around in empty space, orbiting some tiny nucleus. So on and so forth. And the same thing happens when we look "out" as when we look inward. Our solar system? Some small spheres flying around with a whole bunch of empty space around it. Our galaxy? A big collection of spheres, but a whole lot more empty space around it. So on and so forth.

Empty space.

MrDo0m

Sometimes I wonder if we are actually experiencing time backwards or something, like we didn't really come from the "big bang" but are really falling into some big black hole.

I mean, sure, time is a concept we invented to measure change, and perhaps "now" is the only thing that's real--things are just moving around like magic, and we just use points of reference to measure it with what we call "time"--but the fact that animals perceive time at different rates (i.e. a mosquito can observe smaller, quicker moments of time than a tortoise) shows that time is subjective. What if it's just wired in our brains to perceive time in this forward direction, but the reality is totally different?

Sorry if I'm rambling. What can I say? I'm an existence nerd.

magnus_maximus

Except empty space has mass, just not all the time. Things like electrons don't exist as "points in space", rather they have a probability of being in a certain place in a certain time. We can't know where it is, its energy, its momentum and its point in time with any certain. Only one. That is, we can either know its energy accurately or where it is in time. We can either know how fast it is, or where it is. It's called the Heisenburg uncertanity principle and applied to something like an atom this suggests that lot of it is, indeed, empty space, but there is always a chance of SOMETHING appearing, even if just for an infinitesimally small period of time. This is what dark energy is theorised to be - pairs of particles and antiparticles appearing randomly and annihilating, so the "empty space" has mass, but you can't observe what's there.

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UG's Scottish Leftist Republican

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voltaire We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.

crazysam23_Atax

If he keeps smoking weed and doesn't grow up a bit, yeah.

TS, go study some astrophysics. Then it'll all make sense.

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I am on break from recording until I buy a new computer in June. Look at the bandcamp page to see the track list for upcoming EP "Discarnate".



Terry Prachett is funnier than you! Discworld