Universe may be shaped like a soccer ball
POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Friday, December 12, 2003 11:49
VIEWED: 6134
PAGE 1 of 2
I feel bad for all the other balls that aren't shaped like the universe. They got screwed.
Scientists Say Universe Might Be Soccer-Ball Shaped
Wed Oct 8, 2:16 PM ET
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031008/sc_nm/space
_universe_dc_2
Scientists said Wednesday the universe could be spherical and patched together like a soccer ball -- and it may not be infinite. ...if Weeks and his colleagues are correct we might indeed live in a small, closed universe.
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I understand that it may be finite but unbounded. This means it has a finite amount of "room" but, like old videogames like "Asteroids", you go one way far enough you just come back to where you started.
Or another example: Blow up a balloon (don't pop it), the balloon's surface has a finite area. But you can keep tracing a line across its surface without coming to a boundary.
It may also be a 4th dimensional representation of a 5 dimensional reality, much like a square is a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional cube...which is a 3 dimensional representation of the 4 dimensional tessaract.
Jayne: "How big a room?"
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here's a question(s) to ponder: is space a natural result of the presence of matter? at the time of the big bang, would space have been a localized and finite phenomenon? or has there always been a "certain amount" of space and no more. if there are alternate dimensions, how do they exist relative to our universe? could our universe be a pocket of space adjacent to even larger macro-universes?
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From what I can tell, the popular theory among cosmologists is that, at the moment of the BB, the universe was infinitely compressed. It only follows with Hubble's law (galaxies continue to move farther away from one another, and the farther away they get, the faster they move) that, at one point, there was no expansion, or, infinite compression.
Then, you have the Big Bang and about 400000 years of nothing but hot gas everywhere, a uniform spread, too hot even to have electrons and protons coalesce into molecules (this is evidenced by the Cosmic Background Radiation- leftovers from the energy given off by the luminous gas). Then, finally, the gas cools enough for the formation of early hydrogen and the universe became transparent, then tiny ripples in the distribution of that eary matter (also detectable in extremely sensitive analyses of the Cosmic Background Radiation)soon became the focal points for early star and galactic development.
And there you have it. A brief, hopefully not so technobabbly description of the present theory of the Big Bang.
As to the curvature of the universe, well, recent research (don't even make me go into what it is. Let's just say it has to do with sources of light that never change, Standard Candles (which we think we've found in type Ia Supernovae) and how we percieve the fan out of theur light) that, if the measurements are to be trusted (a debatable thing at the moment) that, unlike the Entropy theory, in which the universe is negatively curved and all of the molecules will get so far apart and moving so slowly that everything will drop to 0 degrees Kelvin (all molecular motion ceases), the universe is actually accelerating, and the theory of positive curvature, or, as you've said, a soccer ball, seems more and more likely. In this theory, the universe will eventually collapse under its own weight, and very possibly infinitely compress and Big Bang once more.
Yes, I know I took the long way around giving current popular thoughts on two questions, but they were rather complex.
Hope it helps, at any rate!
Paradigm Shift
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i suscribe to the theory that the universe is infinite. how the universe came into being is currently speculative. one view is still the big bang. another is the universe was created due to the collision of two adjacent realities/dimensions. ensuing collision gave off energy particles, etc. (if you have a better understanding of THIS theory, elucidate please) the idea however, that the universe will only expand so much and then collapse upon itself, seems to be more viable with advent of dark matter presence. (rubber-band effect). then again, if the universe DOES keep on expanding forever, what effect do you think proton decay will have on the continuation of life in the universe? would "life" as we know it, be forced, sometime in the VERY distant future, to evolve to a different state of being? also, as an aside, what do you think of the idea of earth's magnetic field reversing whithin next century? speculation is that venus and mars experienced a loss of magnetic field protecting them from stellar wind. this in turn broke down water on both planets and "killed" possibility of life as we know it. i love this kind of stuff! (have you read any kip thorne?)
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I have to admit, I don't believe in infinity. It is inconsistent with objects observed, and appears to be a logical inconsistency. And in a choice between accepting a logical universe, or an infinite one, I'll go with logic, as I have evidence to support that, while I do not have evidence to support infinity.
Right now there is no evidence of proton decay, which is EXTREMELY troubling for theories that require it. We have had several experiments used to measure it, and so far have found nothing indicating the process takes place.
As for alternate realities/dimensions and the like, part of this is based on a flawed understanding of Schrodinger's cat paradox, and part of this is nice looking mathematics of questionable applicablity to the real world. We can imagine all kinds of things outside the real world, create ideas and concepts that have no relation to reality. That does not make them real. More dimensions makes the math look nicer, but to date, there is no evidence that such exist.
Pole swapping: I have heard this could cause some problems related to solar winds, but not sure it will be that big a deal. It has happened before, and life still exists on this planet. So there is little reason to suppose that it is as severe a danger as a lot of folks make it out to be, or that anything can be done to prevent it.
Mars lost its atmosphere because it was too light to keep it. Because of its low mass, its solid crust is thicker, making volcanism a lot harder. (Yes, I know about Mons Olympus and her 3 sisters. These are pretty rare on Mars, and have apparently been extinct for some time.)
Venus, lost her water, probably due to being too bloody close to the sun and getting too hot. She still has volcanoes, and is almost as massive as the Earth. Without rain, CO2 released by volcanism stays in the air, instead of becoming carbonate minerals. Which simply accelerates the green house effect.
Mars does not have a magnetic field, apparently because its small size caused it to lose its heat so fast it no longer has a liquid core. Venus does not have plate tectonics (as such) due partly because of its lack of water, which acts a a lubercant. But beside that, its axial spin, its day, is so long, whether it has a core or not, its not rotating fast enough to do much.
Now, whether the lack of a magnetic field contributed to the water loss is debatable, as other mechanisms seem more active in removing water. Extreme closeness to the sun (whose surface grows hotter as it ages) and simply being too light to hang on to it.
Evolution: I have no idea. I do see advances in medical technology accomplishing, possibly in your lifetime, several amazing things such as, an end to cancer and the whole host of genetic diseases; an end to organ transplants, (simply grow a new one in situ, teach the body how to repair itself) and possibly even practical immortality. Beyond that, its anybody's guess as to what challenges the physical form will be subjected to, and have to evolve to adapt to.
I can see that other advances will allow folks to tailor their bodies not too different picking clothes. You want fur, a tail, horns, wings, tenticles? Simply take the proper synthetic retrovirus, wait for a bit, (possibly a lot of scratching involved) and there ya go. You want to change genders, even temporarily? Take this other retrovirus. Lost your arm? Well grow a new one and stop bugging me. 
Love Kip Thorn. Would recommend Matt Visser as well.
"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"
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I agree that the universe has to be finite. The evidence to support the non-Euclidean idea of curved space is so much more grounded than infinity (and, if space is curved, the beginning and end point eventually have to meet togetehr again, therefore, finite). Infinity is a nice thought, but it's also impractical. How the hell did the universe reach infinite proportions? Where did it come from? To have an infinite universe implies that it always was and always will be that size (because once you reach the point of infinity, there's no way out of it), and that is in direct contradiction of Hubble's Law, and all Einsteinian thories (which have been tested exhaustively in the lab, and are very much supportable). Matter doesn't just spontaneously burst into being, and the thought of infinite matter makes no sense. The only time with any evidence to support that the universe might have been infinite was at the moment of the Big Bang (though the concept of simultaneous infinity and infinte compression does boggle the mind, or, at least, it boggles mine.) Still, the best evidence I can give that the universe is not infinite is that it is expanding. There is hard physical evidence for this fact, and, if the universe was infinite, how, exactly, would it expand?
As to the theory that the universe is unbounded, well, it makes perfect sense to me. It is like a soccer ball, if the theory of positive curvature is to be trusted, and, therefore, eventually you'll be travelling along its surface in a straight line, and find you've come full circle. You're back to where you started.
Mmm. I love this sort of discussion.
Paradigm Shift
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problem i've always had with the big bang theory is if the universe was compressed into a very small area of space at one time, why, at some much earlier point, didn't a black hole form. if a star above a certain critical mass collapses in upon itself black holes form. also, if matter does affect "space" (or gives definition to it), that is, matter creates a gravity well and kind of sinks into surrounding space. this being so, what is matter "sinking" into? is there a flip side universe that is experiencing a reverse gravity well? if the matter in the universe expands more or less uniformly in every direction,then i agree the universe is spherical, but i can't resolve in my mind the how or why space SHOULD exist except as a result of the presence of matter. if matter does distort space, and matter is energy, then would a large amount of energy in a small space create the equivalent of a gravity well distortion? if so, could this "bend" in space caused by the energy source be used to be used to connect to another source-created "bend" to create a "shortened" area of space (or shortcut) between one point and another destination? (sort of like how they folded space on dune) realize source would have to be quite large, but would this be within the realm of possibility?
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The problem with black holes is that we don't, and possibly can't know a lot about them. We know that they're extremely dense, and there's so much matter compressed so highly that it not only bends space, but rips through it (if the theory of General Relativity is any indicator). Think of space as a trampoline with various weights being put on it. Eventually, you're going to get something that's so heavy that it simply rips through the fabric of the trampoline. This is your black hole (which is black, consequently, becasue it has such a gravitational draw that not even light can escape). As to what is beyond a black hole, well, no one knows. We can't exactly probe beyond the event horizon, and, so, we really don't know what would happen to something that falls into such a gravity well. The popular theory of the day, as proposed by Stephen Hawking, is that, should anything pass beyond the event horizon, the gravity would literally turn whatever fell in into a chain of its own molecules, so, if a person ever was spit back out after going in, they'd be a some-hundred-miles-long, molecule thick spaghetti noodle.
This also applies to the wrinkle in time thing. As nifty as it sounds, it just isn't plausible, becasue you really can't bend space. If you tried, what would msot likely result from the production of as much energy as is needed to that severely damage the four-dimensional space-time (and we're talking on the scale of a supernova), you wouldn't get a bend, you'd get another rip, and you'd once again encounter the issue of the human spaghetti noodle.
The Big Bang is a fun topic, becasue, basically, the theory goes (and try to wrap you mind around this one), while matter was infinitely compressed, it was also infinite, so matter was both nowhere and everywhere at the exact same moment. It sounds insane, but that's how things go, then, of course you have the Big Bang.
Paradigm Shift
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Another thing to remember is that in those first moments ( and even years) after the BB, it was just raw energy, matter didn't start happening till a little ways further down the line. By the time matter DID rear it's head in the new universe, the expansion of the univers was already well under way. As energy has no mass, gravity wouldn't have played a role towards forming a black hole, and by the time there was enough matter to maybe get a good start on a BH, everything was already moving away from eachother way too fast for A BH to really have a chance.
I've got some sources for this if anyone's interested.
Keep on flyin'!
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