Next Stop, Warp Drive

[Asso]

Clear as crystal, justTripn.

[evcake]

So now we need dilithium crystals, right?

[Asso]

Exactly!

[Linda]

Nice imagery jT! Still, the concept of the Big Bang suggests to me one origin point for an explosion, meaning that point is the center of the universe. So now I am trying to visualize multiple simaltaneous bangs, bringing un-dark matter (light matter?) into existence in a billion places at once. Then, those billions of pieces of matter (stars, planets, glaxies - whatever) all moving away from each other in all directions. Moving in all directions means that some of that stuff is colliding - unless it is all moving out from a central point. If it is all on the surface of a balloon, what is in the center of the balloon. Because a balloon has a center that its surface skin is expanding away from.

Uh, am I confusing just myself or other people too? Maybe everyone sees in one more dimension than I do. I will reread jT's explanation until I totally comprehend or my mind explodes or implodes.

[blacknblue]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Elessar]

Nice imagery jT! Still, the concept of the Big Bang suggests to me one origin point for an explosion, meaning that point is the center of the universe. So now I am trying to visualize multiple simaltaneous bangs, bringing un-dark matter (light matter?) into existence in a billion places at once. Then, those billions of pieces of matter (stars, planets, glaxies - whatever) all moving away from each other in all directions. Moving in all directions means that some of that stuff is colliding - unless it is all moving out from a central point. If it is all on the surface of a balloon, what is in the center of the balloon. Because a balloon has a center that its surface skin is expanding away from.

Uh, am I confusing just myself or other people too? Maybe everyone sees in one more dimension than I do. I will reread jT's explanation until I totally comprehend or my mind explodes or implodes.

This is the easiest way to picture a "center-less" universe:

You take that balloon model, which is correct. As you blow it up, the galaxies get further away from each other, right? But the center of expansion is inside the balloon, nowhere on the surface of the balloon. Now, to analogize this to our reality, the 2-dimensional surface of that ballon is actually OUR 3-dimensional space. So there is some concept of a center of expansion, but it requires some multidimensionality to our concept of our spacetime. Just like from the surface of the balloon, the center of expansion is "down", but... in a 4D way, heh.

I believe that this model is argued for as evidenced by the fact that all galaxies seem to be receeding from all other galaxies at an equal velocity, suggesting no point of origin on the same plane as that which all the galaxies exist. (and so as not to confuse anyone, a 'plane' can be of dimension greater than 2. It's called a hyperplane. Just learned that term in Adv. Calc II yesterday ).

By the way, exceptional explanations for dark matter, dark energy and anti-matter JT

[Elessar]

Just to throw in another point about expansion and "the visible Universe"... I ran into an fascinating theory by the Russian physicist Andre Linde, who's been working on inflationary theory (the idea that Universal expansion hasn't been uniform - that at some point in early history it expanded exponentially and then became a slow, linear expansion). Inflation is introduced in order to explain such global Universal phenomena as the fact that matter and antimatter were not left in even quantities after the Big Bang (which they should have been in a homogeneous Big Bang), the existence of dark matter, and even the fact that some galaxies appear to be far too old to have formed in the normal processes which we understand galactic formation to take place in. I.e., there are galaxies out there that are almost as old the estimated age of the Universe, a big problem, lol.

The theory suggested that if the Universe actually grew exponentially such that it doubled its size every 10^-100 seconds, a billion times, and then suddenly slowed to a crawl, then it would have grown to almost the size and temperature that we see today in just a few hundred million years instead of billions, allowing for very early galactic formation (the argument for why this would happen had something to do with a critical vaccuum energy density related to the zero point energy well, but I can't remember the details... Oh, and the defense also had something to do with supermassive primordial black holes).

Anyway, the neat thing about this theory was that it suggested that if this ultra rapid expansion happened nonhomogeneously in random directions (i.e., not in perfect 3dimensional spherical shells) then we could actually be viewing the distant universe through a kind of spatial pinhole. It's like imagining if there's a central point of expansion and you fire bullets in random directions and their shockwaves carve out wound channels in ballistic gelatin, one of those tunnels could be our observable universe. So, the suggestion is that THE WHOLE universe could actually be several times the actual size we observe... like by orders of magnitude. I thought it was a neat theory.

[Linda]

What Bnb said! But actually jT and Elessar are starting to make sense to me. I am not a completely a hopeless case. Oh, Bnb, are you agreeing with me or just exasperated with my stupidity? Its okay, you can tell me, I won't bite... I only nibble. Didn't mean it THAT way. Better quite while I am ahead here...

[Elessar]

What Bnb said! But actually jT and Elessar are starting to make sense to me. I am not a completely a hopeless case. Oh, Bnb, are you agreeing with me or just exasperated with my stupidity? Its okay, you can tell me, I won't bite... I only nibble. Didn't mean it THAT way. Better quite while I am ahead here...

*nibble*.

[Distracted]

This thread's making me crosseyed. Of course, I was never very good at visualizing spatial relationships. Basic calculus is even beyond me. I made an "A"... anybody can stick numbers into memorized equations and spit out answers... but I never understood it. I like things I can touch... and stick needles in and stuff.

[Asso]

But T'Pol is graduated in mathematics, isen't she?
And Trip "likes things he can touch..."
Oh yes!
Opposites attract!

[Elessar]

But T'Pol is graduated in mathematics, isen't she?
And Trip "likes things he can touch..."
Oh yes!
Opposites attract!

yeah, T'Pol's emphasis is subspace physics, I think... and that would VERY mathematical. As you get into graduate work, they say the best physicists are great mathematicians even now.

[TPoptarts]

I like things I can touch... and stick needles in and stuff.

I hope I never meet you then

[CoffeeCat]

Why not? She could play with your voodoo dolls

[TPoptarts]

She has her own. And I hate needles