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Is the Universe Shaped Like a Funnel?
DrMorpheus writes "A new theory of the shape of the Cosmos posits that the Universe may be shaped like a medieval horn, according to Frank Steiner at the University of Ulm. This theory, if true, could explain several strange observations about the microwave background radiation. The Universe would be stretched out at one end into a long tube and flared out into a bell at the opposite end. The technical name for this shape is a 'Picard topology'. To quote the article, '...our Universe is curved like a Pringle, shaped like a horn, and named after a Star Trek character. You could not make it up.'"
I just have to jump in and be the first one to make the reference to Sir Bedevere's remark at the end of what could only be assumed to be a lengthy explanation to King Arthur, "...and that, my Liege, is how we know the earth to be banana shaped."
Imagine if he'd said, "...and that, my Liege, is how we know the universe to be shaped like a trumpet." Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones might have been Nobel Prize candidates.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Last year it was a dodecahedron, this year a funnel, what's it going to be next year?
How can the universe, the sum of everything which exists, have shape? What, then, is outside this funnel? Isn't it infinitely large by definition?
If it is shaped like a funnel, does it point up -- like a Dunce Hat, or down -- like a toilet bowl?
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
If the universe is shaped like a horn, curved like a pringle, and named after Jean-Luke Picard.
Then it is all my favorites rolled into one.
The universe blows, is made out of mashed potatoes, and is named after someone i look up to.
Sorry couldn't help myself.
A Fatal OE Exception has occurred, Sig will now reboot.
Sorry - I just have to cut in here.
It's actually our universe. The rest of you will need to pay $699 to live in it.
- Darl McBride
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
The article made me think of this gem:
'Alright,' said Ford, 'imagine this. Right. You get this bath. Right. A large round bath. And it's made of ebony.'
'Where from?' said Arthur, 'Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons.'
'Doesn't matter.'
'So you keep saying.'
'Listen.'
'Alright.'
'You get this bath, see? Imagine you've got this bath. And it's ebony. And it's conical.'
'Conical?' said Arthur, 'What sort of...'
'Shhh!' said Ford. 'It's conical. So what you do is, you see, you fill it with fine white sand, alright? Or sugar. Fine white sand, and/or sugar. Anything. Doesn't matter. Sugar's fine. And when it's full, you pull the plug out... are you listening?'
'I'm listening.'
'You pull the plug out, and it all just twirls away, twirls away you see, out of the plughole.'
'I see.'
'You don't see. You don't see at all. I haven't got to the clever bit yet. You want to hear the clever bit?'
'Tell me the clever bit.'
Ford thought for a moment, trying to remember what the clever bit was.
'The clever bit,' he said, 'is this. You film it happening.'
'Clever,' agreed Arthur.
'You get a movie camera, and you film it happening.'
'Clever.'
'That's not the clever bit. This is the clever bit, I remember now that this is the clever bit. The clever bit is that you then thread the film in the projector... backwards!'
'Backwards?'
'Yes. Threading it backwards is definitely the clever bit. So then, you just sit and watch it, and everything just appears to spiral upwards out of the plughole and fill the bath. See?'
'And that's how the Universe began is it?' said Arthur.
'No,' said Ford, 'but it's a marvelous way to relax.'
What do we mean by the topology of the Universe?
We sort of mean the 'shape'. It is easy to talk about 2 dimensional surfaces in a three dimensional universe - planes, spheres, funnels, etc. But the Universe has 3 (large) dimensions, not 2, so it is much harder. Normally, we think of the universe as a 3 dimensional equivalent to a plane - that is, in space, straight lines are straight, never curve back on themselves, and go on forever. Another common topologies which arise naturally from gravity theory are 'spherical' - where parallel lines eventually cross, and you can see the back of your head. The group in questions is proposing that the Universe is a 3d analog to the surface of a horn. Others have proposed 3d analogs to the surface of a doughnut....
How can one possibly determine what this shape is?
If the Universe is actually curved in some way, then light coming from distant objects will be bent on its way to us, distorting the images. For the global topology of the Universe, one wants to use the largest, most distant thing you can look at. The Universe is expanding and cooling. Light takes time to travel, so if you look far enought away, you can look far enough back in time to when the whole Universe was filled with a hot H-He plasma. This is called the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). Most recent topology studies have looked at the statistics of the fluctuations of this distant plasma for distortion in the image from what is predicted.
So, is this true?
Could be.... but the evidence is not compelling. The anomalies they are looking at are of rather low statistical significance, and the idea that the universe is just 'straight/flat' and boring still fits pretty well. And unfortunately, for the large scale stuff, the data isn't going to get any better. The problem is, we only have one Universe, and COBE and WMAP have measured the large scales as well as can be measured. The small scale distortions have more potential given upcoming experiments like Planck, and the WMAP year2 data.
actually, (61.74/60) is less than (60/58.27), not the other way round, but you are right to say that this makes 1.74 a smaller percentage of 60 than 1.73 is of 58.27.</nitpick>
frequency is a continuous property of a wave... whether you choose to select linearly or logaritmically spaced points is up to you. over large scales (i.e. multiple octaves or decades), it is generally more useful to choose logarithmically spaced points, because you want to treat low octaves with the same number of points as high octaves. over small ranges (here only 3.47 Hz or about 5.78% of the nominal 60 Hz), it makes sense to deal with linearly spaced points, because the imbalance between octaves cannot come into play. in this case, if you played the B-natural against 60 Hz and then played the B-flat against 60 Hz, the resulting beat frequency signals would sound essentially the same, as the difference between them would be only 0.01 Hz.