Anyone else find the universe immensely interesting?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I always get sucked into those universe shows on the Science Channel. And I was like :ohmy: when this astrophysicist was on the Daily Show a couple of weeks ago talking about theories about the earth being seeded by Mars and how bacteria and stuff can travel from one planet to another when, say, an asteroid hits it or something.
 
deep said:
I recently watched a BBC science program
and the multi verse theory makes the most sense

also the brane (as in membrane) theories may be in the right direction

the big bang suggest something from nothing

more likely two branes colliding that spewed out what we call our universe

Some people might come away with "something from nothing," but that's not really the case, is it? In this case, you've got "something" from the "collision of two branes," in this theory. And if string theory is even remotely on the right track, it would imply that things exist outside of our 4D (height, width, depth, time) view of the universe in other dimensions that most of us cannot fathom.

So then the question arises as to "what created the branes," which you can think about scientifically or theologically, if one prefers. It all tends to imply that "Big Bang" wasn't really "the beginning of everything"; it was just part of a longer and larger process.

Unfortunately, I fear that, someday, we're going to reach the point of "scientific pre-history," where there will be nothing that we can observe and our questions will be forever unanswered beyond theoretical physics. Still, it's probably better than nothing at all.
 
Vincent Vega said:
No, it's actually nothing. A great big nothing.

The scientific term is "void," which is basically defined as the space between filaments, which are structures made out of superclusters of galaxies.

Here's a diagram that should make some sense out of this:

http://pil.phys.uniroma1.it/twiki/bin/view/Pil/GalaxyStructures

These voids are formed because even galaxies prefer to group together, and gravity, over many billions of years, will create larger, denser filaments, and, by extension, larger voids created by their absence.

If I had to guess what's confounding scientists right now, it's the fact that this void is considerably larger than what previous models predicted, due to the assumption that the universe is not old enough to create them. That's what makes this particular "supervoid" so fascinating, I believe.
 
Slipstream said:
In case anyone didn't know, Google Earth just came out with an update that has a new feature called Sky. Instead of looking at the Earth you can now zoom into outer space and surf the heavens! It's really cool.

http://earth.google.com/sky/skyedu.html

I just heard about this yesterday...sounds great. :drool:

My best friend is an astrophysicist. I'm always driving him crazy with questions, and I can never really remember all the answers! That's when I ask again. :wink:

Space is so compelling...I could stare at the sky for hours on a clear night. If I ever build a house, I'd like to design a room with a domed skylight, so I could just look right out while listening to music. A heavenly combination!
 
melon said:


Some people might come away with "something from nothing," but that's not really the case, is it? In this case, you've got "something" from the "collision of two branes," in this theory. And if string theory is even remotely on the right track, it would imply that things exist outside of our 4D (height, width, depth, time) view of the universe in other dimensions that most of us cannot fathom.

So then the question arises as to "what created the branes," which you can think about scientifically or theologically, if one prefers. It all tends to imply that "Big Bang" wasn't really "the beginning of everything"; it was just part of a longer and larger process.

Unfortunately, I fear that, someday, we're going to reach the point of "scientific pre-history," where there will be nothing that we can observe and our questions will be forever unanswered beyond theoretical physics. Still, it's probably better than nothing at all.
Why fear? we already have the cosmic dark age.
 
melon said:


The scientific term is "void," which is basically defined as the space between filaments, which are structures made out of superclusters of galaxies.

Here's a diagram that should make some sense out of this:

http://pil.phys.uniroma1.it/twiki/bin/view/Pil/GalaxyStructures

These voids are formed because even galaxies prefer to group together, and gravity, over many billions of years, will create larger, denser filaments, and, by extension, larger voids created by their absence.

If I had to guess what's confounding scientists right now, it's the fact that this void is considerably larger than what previous models predicted, due to the assumption that the universe is not old enough to create them. That's what makes this particular "supervoid" so fascinating, I believe.


So is it just made of dark matter then?
 
COBL_04 said:
Wow! So it is quite literally 'nothing', yet it is huge and is actually eliminating nearby galaxies. How interesting!

The "void" is merely defined by its lack of substance. It is a side-effect of the gravity of filaments, which are, essentially, making structures out of superclusters of galaxies. As these superclusters are being made into a larger, more compact structures, the empty space being left behind by the gravitational pull is the "void." Nothing is being eliminated; the superclusters are just clumping together.
 
http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/blackholes.asp

One much-discussed design for a time machine involves a "wormhole": two black holes linked together by a tunnel or "spacewarp". The tunnel could exist only if it were made of a substance that has very large negative pressure (or tension). Theorists speculate that exotic stuff of this kind did exist in the early universe, but even if such material still existed, the mass needed in order to make a wormhole wide enough to be comfortably traversed by a human would be 10,000 times that of the Sun!

Love this stuff! :drool:
 
unico said:
One of my goals in life is to see Aurora Borealis

Oooh me too.


Also I'm a huge nerd and I religiously read the NYTimes Science section, while we're on the topic of the universe and science...
 
Back
Top Bottom