The Scale of the Universe

[Perfect Storm]

I found this, it's incredible and seems to put stuff into perspective:

The Scale of the universe (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347)

[Sub101]

Fascinating!

I find the most important thing in life is knowing how much more there is to understand.

[Spice Weasel]

Just think how many lives have been lost, just so somebody could own a little more of that tiny dot... :cry:

e: Holy ****! THE GIANT EARTHWORM.

[Verbeck]

the universe is spherical?

[Perfect Storm]

the universe is spherical?

If you take the Big Bang theory, then yes.

[Oxwivi]

I'd seen a somewhat similar presentation, though much less detailed and simpler, possibly easier to understand. I'll dig around and see if I can find it.

[3Miro]

If you take the Big Bang theory, then yes.

Care to explain?

[Verbeck]

If you take the Big Bang theory, then yes.
found http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html


Recent measurements (c. 2001) by a number of ground-based and balloon-based experiments, including MAT/TOCO (http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/cosmology/mat/), Boomerang (http://cmb.phys.cwru.edu/boomerang/), Maxima (http://cosmology.berkeley.edu/group/cmb/index.html), and DASI (http://astro.uchicago.edu/dasi/), have shown that the brightest spots are about 1 degree across. Thus the universe was known to be flat to within about 15% accuracy prior to the WMAP results. WMAP has confirmed this result with very high accuracy and precision. We now know that the universe is flat with only a 2% margin of error.
\\:D/

[Perfect Storm]

Care to explain?

It easier to read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

[3Miro]

It easier to read up on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

The only thing about shape of the Universe that I have seen has to do with the curvature and for that


... the Universe today remains very close to flat.

I don't think you can claim "sphere" as simple as that.

[Perfect Storm]

Then it's my fault. I thought he meant that as it expand.

[Oxwivi]

Uploaded the presentation (http://www.mediafire.com/?gvp3x17ofzuxij2).

[nlsthzn]

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. -
Douglas Adams (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Douglas_Adams/), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)PS - I didn't know he was dead... RIP Douglas...

[Spice Weasel]

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. -
Douglas Adams (http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Douglas_Adams/), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)PS - I didn't know he was dead... RIP Douglas...


Peanuts doesn't do it justice... A fraction of a grain of sand, maybe?

[NCLI]

the universe is spherical?
It seems spherical to us. However, according to the most accepted scientific theories, it behaves like a brane.

In short: We're not sure yet.

[czr114]

the universe is spherical?
We're not sure of the exact nature of the universe.

The observable universe is spherical by definition.

[zer010]

Thanks so much for posting this thread! That is an awesome piece of work! Love it! Great accompanying music too!

[fatality_uk]

It seems spherical to us. However, according to the most accepted scientific theories, it behaves like a brane.

In short: We're not sure yet.

Which is where my universe hernia theory comes in!!

[cpmman]

Penrose suggests a series of big bangs. Would they all have been in the same plane?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11837869

[orlox]

Then it's my fault. I thought he meant that as it expand.

"The big bang" is a derogatory denomination used by Fred Hoyle, and the true physical effect is not an explosion at all, as the universe was not embedded in empty space.

[lobner]

This video does the same thing... just prettier :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U

...very well produced!

[98cwitr]

They lost me at preon...never heard of it, and wtf is quantum foam?

[Paqman]

the universe is spherical?

We don't know, but the observable universe is, by definition. We can see a finite distance in all directions ie: a sphere.

The guy who made that animation actually got the size of the observable universe wrong. It's a lot bigger than he thinks.

He (not unreasonably) assumed that since the universe is 13.7 billion years old, we can only see things up to 13.7 billion light years away. However, due to the expansion of the universe that's been going on during that time the furthest objects we could see are actually about 46 billion light years away.

[odiseo77]

Overwhelming! I've always felt a mix of wonder and fear when I think about the universe and how unconceivably big it is... This probably isn't new (and don't flame me for my ignorance on the matter), but I remember having read on some news site a while ago a modern scientist (don't remember who) saying the universe has the shape of a balloon in which the only thing that exists is the external part (where the galaxies are spreaded); according to this theory, the inner part of the balloon simply doesn't exist, nor the space beyond the external part... Anyway, whatever its shape is, it's astounding to think about how big it is and the fact that it may have some sort of boundaries; makes one think: how come it has an end?, what is beyond, if there is some sort of "beyond"?, an absolute void where simply nothing can exist?, what if there weren't boundaries?, how come it exists at all (and how come everything exists at all, if we come to that)?, etc. (even if we know about the theories, these questions arise).

BTW, thanks for the link (the music is beautiful too).

[t0p]

Uploaded the presentation (http://www.mediafire.com/?gvp3x17ofzuxij2).

Humph! I am not a happy bunny! On this computer I use Abiword and Gnumeric. Then I downloaded the presentation (FantasticTrip.pps) and selected to open it. This opened up a window that told me it was looking for suitable software to handle the .pps filetype. After a little hunting, it came up with OpenOffice.org Presentation. Like a fool, I opted to install OOo Presentation - and guess what! It proceeded to download stuff like open.office-style-human, openoffice.org-core, openoffice.org-common - basically a shed-load of software that I really don't want! Believe me, once I've checked out this FantasticTrip.pps, all that OOo garbage is gone-ski!

Doesn't the Gnome Office suite include something to display .pps presentations? If not, why not? If it does, why did Ubuntu insist on my installing OOo Presentation? Grrr!!!

[handy]

This one is cool too:

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index.htm

[wilee-nilee]

This one is cool too:

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index.htm

Good stuff, funny thing about perception a rock actually has more empty space then the matter that gives it weight.

[Dustin2128]

Two more obligatory Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy passages:


The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore.
Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do.
For instance, in one corner of the Eastern Galactic Arm lies the large forest planet Oglaroon, the entire "intelligent" population of which lives permanently in one fairly small and crowded nut tree. In which tree they are born, live, fall in love, carve tiny speculative articles in the bark on the meaning of life, the futility of death and the importance of birth control, fight a few extremely minor wars, and eventually die strapped to the underside of some of the less accessible outer branches.
In fact the only Oglaroonians who ever leave their tree are those who are hurled out of it for the heinous crime of wondering whether any of the other trees might be capable of supporting life at all, or indeed whether the other trees are anything other than illusions brought on by eating too many Oglanuts.
Exotic though this behaviour may seem, there is no life form in the Galaxy which is not in some way guilty of the same thing, which is why the Total Perspective Vortex is as horrific as it is.


The Total Perspective Vortex derives its picture of the whole Universe on the principle of extrapolated matter analyses.
To explain — since every piece of matter in the Universe is in some way affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation — every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake.
The man who invented the Total Perspective Vortex did so basically in order to annoy his wife.
Trin Tragula — for that was his name — was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
And she would nag him incessantly about the utterly inordinate amount of time he spent staring out into space, or mulling over the mechanics of safety pins, or doing spectrographic analyses of pieces of fairy cake.
"Have some sense of proportion!" she would say, sometimes as often as thirty-eight times in a single day.
And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her.
And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it.
To Trin Tragula's horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

[undecim]

reminds me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

[ikt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

:(

[iponeverything]

square, round, flat, [0-...]D

Does it antimatter.

[mkendall]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

:(

"No, you are not the center of the universe."

HA!