"putting time in perspective," and some fun facts!

[robvalue]

It's like a pacman level, you go far enough one way you come out the other side. We're on the surface of a 4D sphere somehow.

That is based on my intuition only and so should be disregarded.

[Catholic_Lady]

It's like a pacman level, you go far enough one way you come out the other side. We're on the surface of a 4D sphere somehow.

That is based on my intuition only and so should be disregarded.

Very interesting. So basically, the universe is "round" like the earth?

[robvalue]

That's it, yeah.

I have no evidence of this, it's pure speculation. I have no idea if science is pointing this way or not. I came up with a hypothesis ages ago that the universe starting as a point and "expanding" could be seen as the cross section of a 4D sphere passing through 3D space, like a sphere would appear as a dot expanding into a circle in 2D space (imagine living on the tabletop only able to look sideways as a ball passes through the table somehow). If this is right, it will shrink once we get past the halfway part. That's if it's actually a sphere. It could be another 4D shape.

[Catholic_Lady]

That's it, yeah.

I have no evidence of this, it's pure speculation. I have no idea if science is pointing this way or not. I came up with a hypothesis ages ago that the universe starting as a point and "expanding" could be seen as the cross section of a 4D sphere passing through 3D space, like a sphere would appear as a dot expanding into a circle in 2D space (imagine living on the tabletop only able to look sideways as a ball passes through the table somehow). If this is right, it will shrink once we get past the halfway part.

Very interesting. If it is physically around, like the earth, have you given any thought to what it might be in? For example, we are on earth and earth is in the universe. We are on the universe, but what is the universe in?

Do you think there could be multiple other dimensions out there that are beyond our comprehension and that's why we can't fathom an answer to this?

[robvalue]

Quite possibly. Quantum mechanics seems so absolutely crackers that I feel like there's part of the picture missing.

I keep trying to "look" in one of these other directions! It's at right angles to all of our three dimensions... where is it!

I really don't know. It's all just guesses, you shouldn't take this as at all valid I don't know nearly enough about advanced science to make any sensible predictions. It's fun to think about, but trying to stretch the imagination about 4D space is bad enough and it just gets worse from there

Funnily enough, doing mathematics in higher dimensional space is pretty simple. It just doesn't necessarily mean such a thing is real!

[pocaracas]

Fantastic! Difficult to even imagine anything being that big...

Indeed... difficult is the right word.
Awe-inspiring also comes to mind!
Or, speaking of mind, mind-boggling!

Do you think the universe is infinite, or do you think it has boundaries?

Considering it's expanding, a few of the distances between galaxies, and backtracking it all to when what is visible was in a tiny point... I'd say we see most of what's out there...
There may be more stuff out there that we can't see... the possibility there is so much of it to become infinite, seems improbable.
According to Krauss, the overall sum of energy in the universe is Zero (and remember that energy = mass times a constant, energy = mass), so we can't have infinite stuff... some finite mass, and finite dark matter and dark energy, and it all adds up to zilch - pretty much what there was before anything happened - physicists like it when energy is conserved.

[ignoramus]

Cath, if yo really want to get geeky, search google for supersymmetry, multiverse and higgs.
This is where we are at right now with respect to "what" our universe actually might be.
It hinged on the higgs being found at a certain predicted Gev value. It was found in an area which opens up both possibilities, mathematically speaking. 

The quantum entanglement paradox is woven into this hypothesis.
One day, we will solve it. Only then, we will discover what else we don't know, not before.

Finding god is a little further down the track.

[Catholic_Lady]

Cath, if yo really want to get geeky, search google for supersymmetry, multiverse and higgs.
This is where we are at right now with respect to "what" our universe actually might be.
It hinged on the higgs being found at a certain predicted Gev value. It was found in an area which opens up both possibilities, mathematically speaking. 

The quantum entanglement paradox is woven into this hypothesis.
One day, we will solve it. Only then, we will discover what else we don't know, not before.

Finding god is a little further down the track.

Will do, thanks!

[Exian]

Trying to understand what was going on at different places on earth at the same time lead me to become an atheist (what was going on in China when Hepshetsut ruled? Or what were people making in the Americas when Abraham was making sand angels). Although, I can't for the life of me remember exactly how.

[Catholic_Lady]

Trying to understand what was going on at different places on earth at the same time lead me to become an atheist (what was going on in China when Hepshetsut ruled? Or what were people making in the Americas when Abraham was making sand angels). Although, I can't for the life of me remember exactly how.

It would be interesting to know.