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The Universe May Be Shaped Like a Doughnut

Posted by michael on from the krispy-kreme dept.

NewbieV writes "The NY Times (reg., etc.) is reporting that data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe may suggest that the universe might be shaped like a doughnut or a cylinder: it might be possible, like in the old video game Spacewar, to drift off one 'side' of the Universe and reappear on the other."

2 of 495 comments (clear)

  1. Observations by TWX_the_Linux_Zealot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Then in theory, we'd be able to see the same part of space from two vantage points, assuming that they're not farther away from us than the distance that light could have travelled since the universe came into being, assuming that one believes in the big bang theory.

    So, would this mean that if we can't see one point from two directions now, that if we suddenly can, we've reached the halfway point of the life of the universe? Would we lose the redshift in favour of a green shift?

    --

    IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
    And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
  2. Dr. Tegmark's original paper on the web by LinuxParanoid · · Score: 5, Interesting
    There's also a BBC story on the same topic, or you can go straight to Dr. Tegmark's webpage version of his paper (with cool pics).

    I've admired Dr. Tegmark's home page since he was a grad student, not so much for the design skills (ha!) but as an exemplar of mixing serious and non-serious publications for other colleauges and onlookers to enjoy, explore, and learn from. Tegmark gets the web. As for the science, some of it I can actually understand.

    I would also commend to the curious Slashdot reader a couple items I found facinating from the 'non-serious' section of his website:

    a very cool diagram of "Relationships between various basic mathematical structures" from his Theory of Everything paper

    and another paper addressing the question: Why does the universe have 3 spatial and 1 time dimension?

    --LP