RE: Is the universe infinite?
November 19, 2014 at 10:53 am
(This post was last modified: November 19, 2014 at 11:07 am by Anomalocaris.)
It seems to me there are only three possible ways to become persuaded that we know whether the universe is infinite (in the sense it is basically similar everywhere and goes on forever without coming back to the same point) or not (space with properties that would make us call it part of the universe only goes out so far before coming to an end or coming back to the same point):
1. We perfect such a powerfully, precisely, accurately and fundamentally predictive model of the physics of the Big Bang that we have some considerable confidence in what it predicts for region of space beyond our visibility horizon.
2. We discover some form and information transfer that is faster than speed of light with which we can probe for properties of what lies well beyond current visibility horizon.
3. The thing that lies closer to the origin of the Big Bang than inflation - call it primordial atom - contained information that can be used to predict the outcome of the Big Bang, inflation and expansion, and the subsequent process of inflation and expansion nonetheless left enough residual information from the primordial atoml intact within in our visible universe for us to use to reconstruct what inflation and subsequent expansion of the universe has pushed beyond our direct observational horizon. ie, universe beyond our visibility horizon may have left evidence of its impact upon our part of the universe before the inflation, and from the nature of the surviving evidence of these impact we can deduce what nature of the universe beyond our visible horizon would have been.
1. We perfect such a powerfully, precisely, accurately and fundamentally predictive model of the physics of the Big Bang that we have some considerable confidence in what it predicts for region of space beyond our visibility horizon.
2. We discover some form and information transfer that is faster than speed of light with which we can probe for properties of what lies well beyond current visibility horizon.
3. The thing that lies closer to the origin of the Big Bang than inflation - call it primordial atom - contained information that can be used to predict the outcome of the Big Bang, inflation and expansion, and the subsequent process of inflation and expansion nonetheless left enough residual information from the primordial atoml intact within in our visible universe for us to use to reconstruct what inflation and subsequent expansion of the universe has pushed beyond our direct observational horizon. ie, universe beyond our visibility horizon may have left evidence of its impact upon our part of the universe before the inflation, and from the nature of the surviving evidence of these impact we can deduce what nature of the universe beyond our visible horizon would have been.
