Is the Universe a Hall of Mirrors?

PhysicsWeb is running an article by one of the researchers who has developed the theory that the universe may be finite, rather small, and soccer-ball shaped. The question is still open; it's one theory that fits cosmic microwave data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). Apparently testing the theory by looking in the indicated way through the WMAP data would so far be computationally prohibitive. From the article: "The Poincaré dodecahedral space can be described as the interior of a 'sphere' made from 12 slightly curved pentagons. However, there is one big difference between this shape and a football [soccer ball] because when one goes out from a pentagonal face, one immediately comes back inside the ball from the opposite face after a 36 degree rotation. Such a multiply connected space can therefore generate multiple images of the same object, such as a planet or a photon. Other such well-proportioned, spherical spaces that fit the WMAP data are the tetrahedron and the octahedron."

Comments

if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

how can it be finite ? something must be containing the object.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Shihar]

No, nothing has to be "containing" it. Think of it like walking on the surface of the Earth. If you look in either direction you can see pretty far and you might imagine that the Earth goes on forever. If you start walking, you will walk all the way around the Earth and end up exactly where you started. The Earth simply curves back on itself. You could walk around the Earth forever and never reach a boundary where Earth ends, but the Earth itself is still finite.

As to what this soccer ball universe could floating in, well, the question itself is probably the largest issue. We don't know the answer, but the it could very well be that there is no "outside of the soccer ball". The universe could be all that there is. There could be no "beyond" the universe or "outside" of the universe. It is hard concept to visualize, but that is pretty much true of any concept that outside of the traditional Newtonian world.

Once you leave the safe world of Newtonian physics you need to develop a superhuman ability to try and NOT visualize the universe on the grand scale of the quantum scale. Human intuition and visualizations is was built for Newtons world. Once you leave that world, it breaks down and fails to be much help.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[MichaelSmith]

If the universe has 12 faces what happens to you if you exactly hit a boundary between faces? Do different bits of you come out of different opposing faces? If so, where does the energy come from to break you into components?

Maybe not a big issue for a spacecraft but what happens if a neutron star hits a boundary?

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Bjarke Roune]

I do not know the details of this, but I strongly suspect that the universe is still continuous in this model. In that case things are set up so that if you hit a boundary between two faces, then the two corresponding faces that you come out of are also adjacent, meaning that you would not notice that you have hit a boundary. Possibly the faces are just a way to explain what is going on, and there would not need to be any actual boundaries that could be detected.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[ClassMyAss]

The mistake is thinking of there being an actual boundary. You need to think of it more like the crotch on a pair of pants - imagine that each pentagon has a tube connected to it, and you run it to the other side and connect it up with the appropriate twist. Then imagine that you turned the whole thing into rubber. There is no longer a sharp edge, just a blobby series of tubes joined by a bunch of U-shaped pant crotch things. The fact that two particles that were very close to each other before they entered separate tubes has no bearing at all on how far they will be after they enter the tubes. It may have great bearing on the details of the force laws that they interact under (basically, every "mirror" particle has to be accounted for, including the infinite copies of the particle itself; this is an incredibly delicate self-action problem even for the simplest multiply connected spacetimes).

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[bedonnant]

I had read about this quite some time ago. Apparently when you go through one of the faces you enter from the opposite side. This is why it is not immediately observable that the universe has this shape: the light escaping from stars, to reach us, goes through several paths, either directly or through one or several faces. And of course, with the times it takes for the longer trips, the light indicates a far younger star that the direct path: hence our ignorance that the light comes from the same star. I just love that theory.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[stigin]

The fact that two particles that were very close to each other before they entered separate tubes has no bearing at all on how far they will be after they enter the tubes. Well, they will at no point be further away then ct where c is lightspeed and t is the time elpased, even if they traveled trough different "tubes".

basically, every "mirror" particle has to be accounted for, including the infinite copies of the particle itself There is only one particle. One might think that because of the mirrors there are an infinite amount of particles because one can "see" an inifinte amount of them but this is no different from standing in a mirror-room, there are no extra copies of you even tough you see loads of them.

It may have great bearing on the details of the force laws that they interact under I agree on this one.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Deviant Q]

Once you leave the safe world of Newtonian physics you need to develop a superhuman ability to try and NOT visualize the universe on the grand scale of the quantum scale. Human intuition and visualizations is was built for Newtons world. Once you leave that world, it breaks down and fails to be much help.

I've always wondered if you raised a kid the right way if he would be able to have a quantum intuition. I mean, despite not being known directly to me, having been taught very early in my life about (the classical model of) atoms makes them seem intuitive, even though I would imagine they would not be to someone 500 years ago.

Of course, it might all be wasted if our final Theory of Everything has a new way of looking at quantum effects. Which I, personally, think it will. My personal candidates include Bohm's interpretation (which goes a lot deeper than Wikipedia will tell you; see Wholeness and the Implicate Order's later chapters for details), Heim theory, loop quantum gravity, and string theory. But I am fairly confident that at least the last of these, and probably all of them, will not survive in their current forms; they will have to merge and evolve first. (IANAP, but IAA Caltech undergrad planning on majoring in/doing research in physics for what that's worth.)

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is no more held than Pacman is held when you go out the right side of the screen and return on the left.

In fact it might be a good time to ask whether our universe is just a big simulation for a Pacman like game.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[dangitman]

Apparently when you go through one of the faces you enter from the opposite side.

I knew it! The universe is shaped like a game of Pacman. I didn't waste the 80s on nonsense time-wasting after all.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[product byproduct]

Strangely the boundary between 2 faces is actually shared by 3 faces. Here's a figure of it. See for example how the edge "g" is a boundary between faces IV and V, faces V and VI, and faces VI and IV.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Local Loop]

So, could this hypothesis be proved by looking in one direction, observing an arrangment of galaxies, then looking in the opposite direction and observing the same arrangment rotated 36 degrees?

Obviously someone has though of that already, so is it impractical because the universe is too young for the light to have wrapped around and reached us, or because the universe is just too big to see things that far away?

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[name*censored*]

Well that's about right, if you were using a spherical monitor (I know it said "soccer ball shaped" but a sphere is an easy-to-understand concept of something finite with no boundaries, eg, earth)

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[spiffyman]

Mod parent up. There's greater explanation in the article linked than in any comment heretofore. Thank you, product byproduct.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows what's beyond the rim:

Sheridan, Lorien, Vorlons and Shadows, all eating at a Taco Bell.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Shihar]

The human mind is the product of millions of years of evolution designed to think in a Newtonian way. You are hardwired to think Newtonian. This hardware does very deep and is a fundamental piece of your core persona. Consider for a moment that if you toss a ball, a dog can jump up in the air and snatch it. This gives you an idea of how hardwired we are to think in Newtonian terms. This is an an ancient way of thinking that goes back well before we were primates, much less full blown humans.

Anyone can tell you what happens when you hit one object against another or toss one object against gravity at a certain angle. Even small children know roughly where a baseball is going to end up the second you release it from a throw despite the fact that the real calculation would take someone a few minutes to make. With quantum mechanics, you are never going to have that child like grasp of what happens when two atoms start interacting.

While we do make visual models to understand quantum mechanics, they really are only a crude ways to give our poor mammalian brain some straws to grasp at. We can visualize orbitals to some extent, but anything deeper then that kicks human intuition which has been developed to deal with a Newtonian world in the balls. You really can only truly 'understand' quantum mechanics and general relativity with math. And not just simple math, but ugly math that kids go to college for years to understand.

Without the hardwired machinery to give us answers like what we have for Newtonian physics, there is no ability to develop and "intuition" for quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is ugly math combined with concepts that have no Newtonian world analogy. Let the kids know that this stuff exists, but keep them in their happy Newtonian world where their hardwired physics engines can pick up the slack. Save quantum mechanics for after they know calculus.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Dunbal]

I've always wondered if you raised a kid the right way if he would be able to have a quantum intuition.

      What, you mean let your kid get stoned every day?

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a very neat UID :)

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!!! The xtians and conservatives are the pacmans of our universe going around gobbling up all the good things in life

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Jessta]

The issue of "what is the soocer ball contained in?" is answered by the fact that the soocer ball is the universe, ie. All of space and time. Space doesn't exist outside the universe, therefore there is no need for the universe to be contained in anything.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[GeffDE]

That is not quite true. Quantum mechanics technically still holds at the macroscopic level. However, Newtonian physics is an "approximation" that is incredibly good in intermediate scales (i.e. not relativistic or quantum). I can guarantee you that the dog is not doing newtonian physics in his head; neither is he hardwired to do it that way. If you throw a ball at a puppy, he will not be able to catch it right away. Just like a little kid can't. We aren't hardwired to "think Newtonian." As it is, Newtonian physics are a representation of the world we live in, not the world itself.

Anyone can tell you what happens when you hit one object against another or toss one object against gravity at a certain angle.

Yes, they can, but that does not make them "hardwired" to do Newtonian physics; physics is the mathematical description of the real world, and so someone who lives in the real world and experiences it will have intuition into how physics works. If we lived and experienced in the quantum or the relativistic, we would have intuition into how that works as well. However, if you have never experienced something (even Newtonian physics), then you have no intuition about it because it is not something hardwired. Examples: on this very site a while back, there was a heated discussion about what would happen if there were a a tunnel bored completely through the Earth and you fell it in. What would happen? People disagreed. Also, Total Internal Reflection. I don't think that a dog, or a child, or anyone who hasn't taken a physics course or read about fiber optic cables would know about this. There is no intuition about it, but it is Newtonian physics. Physics is not hardwired into anybody's or anthing's brain. Our seemingly innate grasp is the ability to find patterns in the behavior of things, which is why the dog will know when to jump to catch a ball, or why the child knows where the ball will land (approximately). If we have no experience to find patterns in, we won't know our heads from our asses, metaphorically speaking.

As a consequence, you can grow intuition as you work with something. Which is why if you do enough quantum mechanical calculations, you will begin to have a sense of "what looks right," to have intuition about how quantum mechanics works. True, because we can only express quantum mechanics, our intuition in mathematical, but just like the physics student can translate the mathematical expressions of Newtonian physics into consequences in the real world (i.e. if the momentum of A is bigger than B, then they will both move mostly in the direction of A if they have an inelastic collision), the student of quantum mechanics can say "This Hamiltonian of an electron doesn't have any nodes. Then it must be in an s-orbital." Just because we are not as intimately familiar with quantum mechanics as we are with Newtonian physics because we live in the latter, not former, doesn't mean we can develop an intuition into how the former works.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[MouseR]

If you start walking, you will walk all the way around the Earth and end up exactly where you started. No, you wont! You will drown!!

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[complete loony]

I'd say it's more like asteroids, since it doesn't matter which side you leave from...

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Trom77]

Okay, this is off topic, but it must be said. Your "spacetime is a bunch of rubber U-shaped pant crotch things connected by a blobby series of tubes" metaphor really deserves its own page on the uncyclopedia, http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. I'm far too lazy to do it myself, so consider this a challenge.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the universe has 12 faces what happens to you if you exactly hit a boundary between faces?
Pah! This isn't hard to imagine at all. Haven't you ever played Ultima Online? It's called a server boundary. And your little person just sorta lags for a second then, *blip!* your on the other side. Pssh! God probably came up with the idea of "lag" in the first place.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[kabz]

Read the article. In fact, read the summary.

The whole point is that they found dupes in the cosmic microwave background that at least support the theory. i.e. duplicates that occur at angles consistent with the theory.

They are waiting on a satellite to help tell us whether the planck constant is where it needs to be to support the model.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like pacman?

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[sgt_doom]

I believe Shihar is correct, and you, good Citizen GeffDE, are off the mark, as much as I would truly like to agree with your assertion. Our brains are most definitely hardwired to sustain us by seeking food, shelter and most important of all, SEX! All else is fuzzy thinking.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Planesdragon]

Once you leave the safe world of Newtonian physics you need to develop a superhuman ability to try and NOT visualize the universe on the grand scale of the quantum scale. Human intuition and visualizations is was built for Newtons world. Once you leave that world, it breaks down and fails to be much help.

And this is why QM is and forever will be seen as the quack end of respectable science. Human intuition and ability to visualize are not tied to the Newtonian-level physics. They are tied to the words of language used to describe the concepts, and it's very hard to be a good scientist and be good at naming things, especially things that you don't really understand.

If you want to visualize QM, talk about "subreality", "patterns", and "fabric", not "waves" and "particles."

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Instine]

Ah but what happens beyond time is less clear. Repeating time can create paradoxes. Causality itself becomes errend when one either precludes a 'prior' or assumes a reflection/reversal. And as space and time are one, this (as well as many other issues, includeing entropy) discourages my belief in such 'closed' world theories. Not to say its imposible, but less than likely, i'd say.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[NTesla]

This universe probably came from when one of the multi-dimensional universes collapsed and broke into universes with different number of dimensions (one of them 3D) or developed a 3D "bubble" inside of a 5, 9, or some other n-dimensional universe that keeps expanding (big bang) and collapsing over and over again. I read somewhere not too long ago that the dark matter could be leftovers from the last time big bang occurred. I see our world as a soap bubble that started expanding many billions of years ago because of extreme energy/heat that "inflated" and will continue to inflate this universe until pressure outside of the bubble is greater than the presssure within. Then as the temperature inside begins to decrease (galaxies cooling off) our universe will start shrinking rapidly. Some say it may even shrink to something as small as football or baseball. Of course everything within will be crushed and there will be no molecules or atoms left - just a blob of very dense matter/energy that will most likely explode again and form another universe, most likely another 3D one.
Michio Kaku wrote books on this very topic and while it's all theories it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course we don't know where those other n-dimensional universes begin, end and what else contains them and WHY they are here to begin with.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[snilloc]

Of course we're living in a simulation.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Coryoth]

You're essentially correct, under this model you end up with a continuous space. Perhaps the easier way to see how it works is with a simpler example like a torus: you can make a torus (donut shape) from a flat piece of paper by first rolling it up into a tube (identifying the top edge with the bottom edge) and then looping the tube around (identifying the two ends of the tube with each other). Thus you can think of the flat piece of paper as a torus by imagining that when you pass off the top edge you appear at the bottom edge, and when you pass off of one side you appear on the other. Now, what happens at the corner (the equivalent of an edge of the dodecahedron)? A quick check and you'll see it all works out: in some sense you might be "broken up" with half of yourself on one side of the paper, and half on the other, but remember those sides are connected together, so so are you.

The same trick works with the dodecahedron, you just have to get the identification of faces right. On passing out through a fae you'll appear on the opposite face, rotated. Take a quick look at a dodecahedron (here's an example that is translucent and rotatable so you can look around) and you'll get the idea. Looking through the dodecahedron from one face you can see the opposite face doesn't align: it's at an angle - hence the rotation. Visualsing where you'll come out as you approach an edge (and where the other face of that edge will result in you appearing) you'll see that the whole thing in indeed continuous; the edges present no problems.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Shihar]

That is not quite true. Quantum mechanics technically still holds at the macroscopic level. However, Newtonian physics is an "approximation" that is incredibly good in intermediate scales (i.e. not relativistic or quantum).

Of course the universe isn't truly Newtonian. That said, Newtonian is how we perceive it in our day to day lives. Sure, there are electrons and atoms bouncing all around me, but the only thing I see is a flat desk with gravity pointed straight down.

I can guarantee you that the dog is not doing newtonian physics in his head; neither is he hardwired to do it that way. If you throw a ball at a puppy, he will not be able to catch it right away. Just like a little kid can't. We aren't hardwired to "think Newtonian." As it is, Newtonian physics are a representation of the world we live in, not the world itself.

Do you truly and honestly believe that in the millions of years of evolution in a world that looks like a teenagers physic books opening lessons that nothing has been hardwired to deal with a Newtonian outlook on the world?

Take a gazelle. Drop it out of its mothers womb, and watch as within an hour it is performing a balancing act in modern robots struggle to mimic. This stuff is hardwired in.

Take a baby. Try and teach it calculus. Spend every single day trying to teach it calculus, and see how successful you are. The baby is going to find this utterly impossible because calculus is something we have absolutely zero evolutionary adaptation for. When we learn calculus, we learn it through blood, sweat, and tears. Now take a baby and try and teach it English. Spend every single day talking to the baby and trying to teach it English. You will probably take the better part of year before you start to see any success. It will probably take the child until he is in high school before the child has mastered the language. Language comes quicker then math because we have entire centers of the brain that have been devoted to learning it. It is still a new evolutionary adaptation on the grand scheme of things, but there has been some time for it to get a foothold in our brains.

Now, try and teach a baby how a Newtonian world works. The baby is going to understand that something coming towards its face is going to hit, that objects are solid, and that things fall in parabolas long before it even has the beginnings of muscle control do anything about it. A baby will start making sense out of the photons bouncing around in a deeply intuitive way almost instantly.

A young child is significantly faster and more accurate then Ph.D. in physics can ever be without the aid of a computer when trying to predict a trajectory or what happens when an object is struck. This stuff is so hardwired into us that we don't even think about it. Hell, we CAN'T think about it because it is so hardwired into us. Acting in a Newtonian world comes easier then breathing.

However, if you have never experienced something (even Newtonian physics), then you have no intuition about it because it is not something hardwired. Examples: on this very site a while back, there was a heated discussion about what would happen if there were a a tunnel bored completely through the Earth and you fell it in. What would happen? People disagreed. Also, Total Internal Reflection.

Of course we don't have an intuitive understanding of what happens when gravity is doing anything other then pulling us down or any we are bouncing things through a fiber optic cable. Why in the hell would any species evolve to understand such things? When I say that we understand Newtonian physics, I don't mean every single rule and law that falls under "Newtonian physics". I mean that we perceive the world like the first few chapters of a high school physics book.

Further, the intuitive jump for understanding complex but still Newtonian things is a small jump compared to trying understand quantum mechanics or general relativity. After a

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[SQLGuru]

I agree. I was watching a six year old chase a super ball the other day. She had very little clue which way the ball was going next. It would take her about six bounces before she could catch it (after it "settled down"). I, however, could catch it on the first bounce. I think that Newtonian thought is learned quickest because there are more observable occurances. It's like learning a (second?) language, the more exposure you have to it, the faster you learn it.

Layne

P.S. Did anyone else think of a Tesseract after actually reading the article? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract) I first came across the concept in the Wrinkle In Time books. Also, the article said that the soccerball shape wasn't the only possible explaination -- maybe the stereographic projection is how it looks.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[dangitman]

I think you're onto something there. Could the basic unit of matter in the universe be the triangle? Still, I think we need to leave some room for old Pacman. Black Holes are made when Pacman swallows a Power Pill and goes around eating stars.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[iluvcapra]

I've always wondered if you raised a kid the right way if he would be able to have a quantum intuition.

"Paging Mr. Dick, Paging Mr. Phillip K. Dick, you have a visitor at the front desk."

An individual with a quantum-intuitive understanding of the world might be very difficult for the rest of us to recognize. Such a person would have a lot of trouble perceiving cause and effect in the way we do, and would probably have no concept of determinism or even certainty. They would be able to see more dimensions than us (if such theories are physical), and would be unable to correlate these dimensional relations to objects within our understanding: if you are a sphere, you can describe yourself to a plane by saying "I'm a bunch of circles," but this really is incomplete and the plane really would be hopeless to have a complete understanding of you. Such a person may appear at times clairvoyant or at least extremely intelligent, but much of the time incoherent and simply apart from the human race.

In short, such a person would either be autistic or the Mua'Dhib. Read PKD's "Martian Time-Slip" or "Dune" for examples of people with quantum knoweldge or understanding, and how is basically makes them appear mad much of the time.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[hords]

For all we know, our universe could be a tiny little "cell" or "atom" within another universe. It could be within a monstrous living being. The big bang could have been the initial creation of this "cell" within this life form. Unlikely, but who knows.

Our universe could be so huge that there are millions+ of big bangs all so far apart that we would never know they existed. They may also happen so uncommonly, that any light, etc that would have reached us from another has long died out since the last big bang happened and there is no way to detect anything else ever existed.

The electron goes around the atom, the moon goes around the earth, the earth goes around the sun, and the sun goes around a black hole. I doubt it stops there. Things just move so slow when they get to a larger scale (relatively, it actually goes quite fast) that it might be hard to determine if our blackhole at the center of our galaxy (and the other galaxies) actually goes around something else like the big bang. Maybe the galaxies are still moving away from it because of the initial velocity of it's explosion, but will eventually fall into orbit around it? If this turned out to be true, than for all we know, the big bang could be orbiting around something else, so far away that we may never know if it exists. And so on, and so on.

Just a couple of crazy ideas. I'd love to hear reasons why this could or could not be true. Is there any reason to think that what we can "see" is all there is? We've been wrong so many times before.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[loki_tiwaz]

it is possible for a finite object to have no boundaries, for example, the surface of a sphere is a two dimensional surface but there is no edge to it. i have a model of the universe i dreamed up which sounds dreadfully similar to this concept of the universe starting as a tiny and simple polyhedra, it's following a power of two pattern but somewhere as it divides perturbations form in the pattern and eventually these unfold into what we see here now around us. the key concept is of the process of endless division of a continuous 3 dimensional (and finite) surface that is undergoing an endless second harmonic reverberation that keeps on doubling the number of wave fronts while halving their amplitude. the key concept this model is aimed towards solving is the question of the source of gravitational force. in my model it is basically equalibriation, the reason why water forms spherical droplets is because this allows the most optimal geometry for releasing the pressure of the endless dividing of matter within it without losing the integrity of the matter. it is this equilibriation which causes the centre of gravity and when two objects are close together, if they get closer together and then share surfaces they are at optimal minimisation of resistance from the expanding force that is uniformly distributed throughout all space. i still haven't figured out quite how to exploit it, my current concept for a gravitational manipulation device is developing a semiconductive material, some sandwich of specific kinds of matter that shields gravity flowing in one direction but lets it flow in the other direction. creating such a device, preferably one which is switchable so it is operating only when some other controllable force is applied (eg, magnetism). it should also be possible to create the opposite configuration, where it operates unless it is manipulated, such a configuration would be well suited to creating a 'perpetual motion' machine by nullifying or reversing gravity on one side of a rotational cycle, or even better, mounting the gravitic semiconductors on the arms of a rotating device and tapping the energy of gravity to create electricity. anyways that's a nutshell version of my hypothesis. i have a whole set of concepts for how matter particles (radiative and inert) are formed and what causes them to behave the way they do, and ideas about how to implement teleportation and matter holography (think replicator). i should really get off my butt and do something about it the problem is describing my ideas is all i can do at this point. maybe some /. person will read this post and lightbulbs will magically appear in thought bubbles above their heads and something really interesting happens subsequently. just don't try to patent it if it's possible to see how my idea was prior art... this idea is licenced under a GPL v2, and when v3 is released, it will be gplv3 licensed. i don't want to be paying through the nose for a device that i helped invent.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[GuyWithLag]

Duh, what do you think lightspeed is? Enforced lag ....

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[theonetruekeebler]

You need to think of it more like the crotch on a pair of pants Ah, the legendary Trousers of Time...

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[shma]

As to what this soccer ball universe could floating in, well, the question itself is probably the largest issue. We don't know the answer, but the it could very well be that there is no "outside of the soccer ball". The universe could be all that there is. There could be no "beyond" the universe or "outside" of the universe. It is hard concept to visualize, but that is pretty much true of any concept that outside of the traditional Newtonian world.

One of the most confusing aspects of general relativity comes from the discussion of the expansion and curvature of the universe. To almost everyone, a curved surface can only be understood as such by treating it as being embedded in a higher dimensional space. But in reality, we don't have to think of it this way. Curvature is an intrinsic property of a manifold. That means that I can measure the curvature of the earth without ever leaving its surface or even walking all the way around. In fact, according to the gauss bonnet formula, all I need to do to measure the local curvature of the earth is measure (extremely precisely) the area of a triangle I draw on the ground. The field of differential geometry contains all the mathematical tools we need to describe the curvature of the universe, the metric (which lets us measure distances over curved surfaces) and it's evolution in time and space, and any other properties which you might think could only be understood if the universe was contained in something, but which actually make perfect mathematical sense if the universe is all that there is!

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[poopdeville]

Oh my god please shut the fuck up.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[solitas]

I seem to remember a speculative fiction novel in which the protagonists are on a ramscoop ship whose drive goes funky and won't shut down. (it's lurking on my shelves somewhere; but I cannot remember the title yet)

Long story short: they keep increasing in speed, ever nearer 'c' (the scoop field strengthening with the increasing speed so they don't collide or get fried), and eventually end-up 'wrapping around' the universe and seeing how things have changed each time they pass certain galaxies/clusters (time dilation helps here). As the wrapping progresses, they also notice all else 'cooling down' and regressing back to Origin where there is eventually another 'big bang', they get their drive fixed and start to slow down, and ultimately (conveniently) find an earth-type planet to land on.

Sound familiar to anyone?

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[glitch23]

The human mind is the product of millions of years of evolution designed to think in a Newtonian way.

Don't put "evolution" and "designed" in the same sentence because you will contradict yourself otherwise. We are the result of one or the other. Design implies purpose and forethought however it seems evolution hinges on a long series of accidents.

You are hardwired to think Newtonian.

And why is that? Why not Euclidean or Einsteinian? Why did the universe turn out the way it did? Why do we even have the ability to understand it (at least most of it) when no other species does? Why should we exist at all if we are just an accident? What benefit do we get by understanding the rules of the universe (other species march along just fine without the knowledge)?

This is an an ancient way of thinking that goes back well before we were primates, much less full blown humans.

Really? Care to cite evidence that bacteria, or even fish, understand gravity?

For as much as you imply evolution provided us (e.g. fact that we can even begin to contemplate the laws of the universe) it seems a little fishy it could even have the power to do any of that. Then again there is no logical explanation that evolutionists can give other than the meager circular logic of the anthropic principle which states the universe, and everything in it including us, is the way it is because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here to witness it. It's the most useless principle that I know of.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[MillionthMonkey]

"Asteroids" the video game takes place on a toroidal surface. You go in any one direction and eventually come back from the direction you were heading away from. The "torus", if considered as a 2D surface embedded in 3D space, can have its hole in the yz plane, the xz plane, or any plane really that contains the z axis, perpendicular to the screen. Within the 2D space defined by that donut surface, the orientation of the hole in the higher 3D space has no observable effect. Pac-Man, for its part, can be considered to have taken place on the surface of a cylindrical 2D surface embedded in a 3D space, not necessarily a toroidal one, since there was no magic tunnel connecting the top and bottom of the maze.

This is different: "an object that travels away from the Earth in a straight line will eventually return from the other side of the universe, having been rotated by 36 degrees in the process". So, it's just like Asteroids except the ship is pointing in a crooked direction when it reappears, off by some predictable angle. This would be a real problem for a game like Pac-Man, because of the way the controller works. Asteroids could accomodate the situation rather easily since left and right in that game control rotation instead of absolute direction, and applying continual thrust will keep the ship going straight even if it comes back with a cockeyed trajectory. Also, the maze and controller in Pac-Man, entirely based on NSEW directions, would present real headaches. Asteroids has no maze and the ship can point in any arbitrary direction, not just four.

The minimum radius of the soccer ball (according to this group) is 43 billion light years. The Big Bang was 13.7 billion years ago, but the actual horizon is 53 billion light years and not 13.7 billion since the universe wasn't always this big and the first few light years covered by the earliest photons have expanded to have a large contribution to that 53 billion. This little detail would present a challenging user interface problem for Asteroids. Now that I think about it, that might be less lame than the original Asteroids.

From any vantage point the furthest radiation visible is the microwave background. Beyond that, the light would have had to have been emitted earlier, at a time when the universe was more opaque. (Charged particles had yet to combine and emit background-radiation to form neutral, transparent matter less efficient at scattering light.) Past the microwave background, we "see" the early universe along all lines of sight as a completely opaque, black sheet, which emits no light of its own, absorbs all light, and which lines the boundary of what is for us the observable universe. It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black. But these guys are saying that since 43 is less than 53, you can see the same patterns of microwave background radiation being emitted from various points in the sky, inside this opaque layer, in a pattern consistent with this dodecahedral symmetry. It's like God really does play dice, except he plays with those geeky 12-sided Dungeons and Dragons dice. Stuff like this has to make you wonder. Why 12? Who ordered that? What would have been wrong with a flat, spherical, tetrahedral, cubic, octahedral, or icosahedral universe? From a video game design perspective, a cubic symmetry would have been so much easier. In my humble opinion, God should have seriously considered creating a six-sided universe instead.

Even if you could reach the "edge", it's not like you would even notice anything, like a lot of these posts seem to be assuming. You wouldn't hit some sort of wall and go "splat". You'd just sort of relocate, rotate, and keep chomping away obliviously like Pac-Man does when he does his thing. We have no evidence that some anisotropy exists in the topology of the universe everywhere but here as if the universe really is centered on us and our galaxy, so that it changes somehow within a sphere that surrounds us. There's most l

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The book is Tau Zero, written by Poul Anderson if I recall correctly.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[emilper]

The whole point is that they found dupes in the cosmic microwave background that at least support the theory. i.e. duplicates that occur at angles consistent with the theory.

certainly,certainly ... I live in a foggy neighbourhood and I never left my block; when I look around, I see looming out of the fog, on every side, shadows that resemble the building I live in: it must be that the universe is finite, square, and each side is connected to the opposite side and I need another 2 billion USD grant to continue the study of a problem of such a great importance.

Finding some regularities in background radiation means only one thing: there are some regularities in the background cosmic radiation; the first explanation could be that beyond our field of vision our cosmic neighbourhood is more regular than we think; no need for universes looped upon themselves.

Little wonder the smart kids of today don't want to become physicists and dream about going to law school ... if physicist promise to solve the question about the life, universe and everything during the next budgetary exercise and one can get branded as a heretic for not believing in string theory, Einstein and Big Bang, then even History looks like an exact science.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[master_p]

Or, on the other hand, our universe could be a basic particle in another universe...

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[cbacba]

The universe really isn't a 13.7b lightyear wide black hole. It's too weird and full of bugs to be real. It's got to be a computer simulation. The question is whether or not the program was written by mickie-soft in the year 2525 and if so, will it function beyond the year 2006 or will it require a complete reboot on dec 31 or will it get stuck in a loop recycling dec 28th until it's deja vue all over again.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in a foggy neighbourhood and I never left my block; when I look around, I see looming out of the fog, on every side, shadows that resemble the building I live in: it must be that the universe is finite, square, and each side is connected to the opposite side and I need another 2 billion USD grant to continue the study of a problem of such a great importance.

Nobody gets anywhere near 2 billion dollars for studying the topology of the universe.

Finding some regularities in background radiation means only one thing: there are some regularities in the background cosmic radiation; the first explanation could be that beyond our field of vision our cosmic neighbourhood is more regular than we think; no need for universes looped upon themselves.

The problem is that it is very difficult to come up with a mechanism explaining how the CMBR can have particular geometric regularities without actually postulating that the universe itself is geometrically regular. If you can think up a better explanation, go ahead. In the meantime, evidence of geometric regularity does support the multiply-connected universe scenario.

if physicist promise to solve the question about the life, universe and everything during the next budgetary exercise and one can get branded as a heretic for not believing in string theory, Einstein and Big Bang, then even History looks like an exact science.

Physicists don't brand people "heretics". String theory is far from an established theory. Einsteinian relativity and Big Bang cosmology are established theories, but if you think you can do better, you're free to do so. You simply have to be able to explain everything that those theories currently explain — and that's a lot.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[emilper]

Nobody gets anywhere near 2 billion dollars for studying the topology of the universe.

No, I probably not, but one can ask :) .

The problem is that it is very difficult to come up with a mechanism explaining how the CMBR can have particular geometric regularities without actually postulating that the universe itself is geometrically regular. If you can think up a better explanation, go ahead. In the meantime, evidence of geometric regularity does support the multiply-connected universe scenario.

I have not said the universe is regular, only that what lies right beyond what we can observe from our point of view could looks like it is, and this is a much simpler guess than what the authors of the fine article propose.

Physicists don't brand people "heretics". String theory is far from an established theory. Einsteinian relativity and Big Bang cosmology are established theories, but if you think you can do better, you're free to do so. You simply have to be able to explain everything that those theories currently explain — and that's a lot.

I have stressed believe: as in "x believes in Zeus". Theories are, well, theories (tools to think with) whether they are established or not. That the universe was born out of a monster slain by a god was also an established theory, and belief was required. The advantage (over the theory that we don't know s***) of the slain monster theory is that it's better than nothing and pretends to be complete. The multiply-connected universe scenario promises to be a complete solution, as in postulating that we don't expect many surprised from the universe, at least not as far as size, composition, age etc. are concerned.

If you don't think physicists are in the branding business, try one of the schools that spits out mostly law, marketing and humanities-minded graduates: you'll find scientifically trained people teaching ex-cathedra (pun intended) the dogma of established science.

Seeing that you haven't missed once leaving two spaces after a '.', I infer you either edited or passed through the tedious process of writing and rewriting papers published in peer reviewed journals ... you certainly are aware of the practice of academic ketman (Rorty even recommended it for budding scientists) and how antagonizing your department head by "not believing" can harm your career prospects. Ever since Michelson and Morley blew it by not asking the right question, we deal more and more with belief than with method. I have no idea if the theories of relativity/quantum etc. are right or wrong, but how about this: funny how out of the early church theories, the one that won was the one which joined mutually exclusive concepts: one person in three hypostases , and out of the late physics, the theory that almost won is the one that joins mutually exclusive concepts: same speed no matter what system of reference (it wasn't me the one that noticed this ... some 1930s obscure philosopher).

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have not said the universe is regular, only that what lies right beyond what we can observe from our point of view could looks like it is, and this is a much simpler guess than what the authors of the fine article propose.

The observations are not of "from what lies right beyond what we can observe from our point of view". And saying "the universe is not regular but looks as if it is" is philosophical hair splitting, akin to saying that the Sun isn't bright but just looks that way. Furthermore, you have not proposed any theory of this regularity, let alone one that is "much simpler" than the theory in question.

The multiply-connected universe scenario promises to be a complete solution, as in postulating that we don't expect many surprised from the universe, at least not as far as size, composition, age etc. are concerned.

No theory ever promises to be a complete solution of anything. The goal of a theory is to parsimoniously explain existing observations and to make predictions of new phenomena.

Seeing that you haven't missed once leaving two spaces after a '.', I infer you either edited or passed through the tedious process of writing and rewriting papers published in peer reviewed journals

Actually, I've been typing that way since elementary school, since that's the way we were taught. It is unnecessary to do so in order to publish papers, since those are usually submitted in LaTeX which handles spacing for you.

and how antagonizing your department head by "not believing" can harm your career prospects.

Department heads look more at number of publications in prestigious journals than "beliefs" when it comes to tenure, and department heads are hardly the sole arbiters of tenure.

Ever since Michelson and Morley blew it by not asking the right question, we deal more and more with belief than with method.

Michelson and Morley didn't blow anything. They disproved a prevailing theory. That is an academic success, regardless of whether they happened to replace that theory themselves. This also has nothing to do with "belief over method".

I have no idea if the theories of relativity/quantum etc. are right or wrong,

Yes, it's very easy to be critical when one is ignorant, isn't it?

funny how out of the early church theories, the one that won was the one which joined mutually exclusive concepts: one person in three hypostases,

And what is the relevance of the Trinity to the point you're making? "Theological theories unify, physical theories unify, therefore physics = theology"?

and out of the late physics, the theory that almost won is the one that joins mutually exclusive concepts: same speed no matter what system of reference (it wasn't me the one that noticed this ... some 1930s obscure philosopher).

There are no "mutually exclusive concepts" involved here.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[bill_mcgonigle]

In short, such a person would either be autistic or the Mua'Dhib. Read PKD's "Martian Time-Slip" or "Dune" for examples of people with quantum knoweldge or understanding, and how is basically makes them appear mad much of the time

Ah, so that's who/what the Cylon Base Ship brain-chick is modeled after.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a balloon with an ant on it (light). You inflate the balloon at a steady rate that expands its surface at such a rate that the ant (light) will never circumnavigate the balloon, because it is expanding. It is finite, but from the perspective of the ant, it is infinite because he can travel forever and never come back around.

The universe is not infinite. However it is not expanding into anything else. For that matter, there is no such thing as "space". Space does not exist, what exists is relationships between things, whose properties are a function of the speed of light. "Distance" between things is determined by the relative velocities of two things. The only thing that exists "between" objects is our perception of time as we traverse the vector.

So there are only so many things in the universe. These things are changing their relative velocities in such a way that some things we can never reach, nor they reach us. The reason that there is no "outside" the universe, is that the term "universe" is all inclusive. By definition, it is all things, period. There are only so many things, changing their relative velocities amongst each other. Hence we have this concept of the universe having empty "space" between things. The concept of space is where people get confused when thinking about what is "outside" the universe. If there is no relationship between you and another thing, then there is no concept of "space" between you and the non-thing. You can't stand at the edge of the universe and look off into the void surrounding it, because there is no void if there is nothing on the other side of it. Relativity, my dear Watson. Relationships. Thats all there really is.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[inviolet]

Thanks for that link. I love this subject.

After reading the website, I went to wikipedia and checked the relevant entry. The 'rational arguments' section contains a decent condensed version of that website. Meanwhile, I fleshed out the section on 'empirical arguments', perhaps it will amuse you.

Re:if it is finite than what is holding it?

[solitas]

>> The book is Tau Zero, written by Poul Anderson if I recall correctly.

yup! That's it - I found it this morning.

This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows the universe is banana shaped.

Re:This is silly

[publius_jr]

I can't imagine an experiment which would test the shape of the universe. I can't even comprehend the notion of a universe's shape. Maybe the rest of the posters are privy to "God"'s brain.

Re:This is silly

[ozmanjusri]

Everyone knows the universe is banana shaped.

Not a chance man. If it was, the elephants would have eaten it already.

Re:This is silly

[bitingduck]

Not a chance man. If it was, the elephants would have eaten it already.

No, that would be if it were peanut shaped.

Monkeys would eat a banana shaped universe. And there just may not be enough monkeys far enough back in time when the universe was small for them to eat it.

Re:This is silly

[egr]

I actually like the idea of universe being flat

Re:This is silly

[bedonnant]

Sorry man, if 2 dimensions are nice to picture in your mind, recent theories like string theory use a basis of something like 9 or 11 dimensions. Im not sure if this theory is compatible with the soccer ball-shaped universe though.

Re:This is silly

[LoonyMike]

I'm sure the guys before Eratosthenes thought the exact same thing regarding the earth's surface.

Re:This is silly

[Octavian59]

Is that universe in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Re:This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure there are enough monkeys. They are just busy writing the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Re:This is silly

[Gilmoure]

What about Tom Stoppard? Who's writing his stuff?

Re:This is silly

[complete loony]

So now we can all play asteroids?

Re:This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascinating!

Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

Re:This is silly

[DynaSoar]

>> Not a chance man. If it was, the elephants would have
>> eaten it already.

> No, that would be if it were peanut shaped.

> Monkeys would eat a banana shaped universe. And there
> just may not be enough monkeys far enough back in time
> when the universe was small for them to eat it.

Whether space-time is infinite, or finite but spheroidal (space-time circling back on itself), the effect is the same: any number of monkeys has the effect of an infinite number of monkeys. A banana shaped universe would be eaten by them, and not exist, but then they would not and so could not eat it. Paradox. Or so the traditional physical thinking would go. But you can't have the paradox occur until some time during the first go round. For the paradox to occur, as it must given the infinities, the first universe must exist. The infinite number of monkeys must even now be eating the universe. While doing so they are generating an enormous amount of waste in the form of metabolized entropy, which is information. I offer as evidence a Google search for "a" resulting in "about 6,560,000,000" hits, as well as the volume of /. article replies, including this one.

The counter argument that something must be informative to be information is obviously flawed, as the evidence shows that non-informative /. replies generate informative ones.

The counter argument that we are not monkeys, whether finite or infinite, is an argument regarding evolution, and is off topic here. It would be moderated out of existence, but the moderation would be generative information replacing it, supporting the first assertion against counter argument.

On the other hand, elephants eat bananas too.

On the gripping hand, turles eat neither bananas nor peanuts. This accomplishes in one sentence reference to two different science fiction entities, the geek value of which makes it appropriate to /. reply form. And coming from fiction, represents information generated from imaginary or false information, again supporting the first assertion.

You may all now resume typing. We have a long way to go. I'll start.

"What a piece of work is Man,..."

Re:This is silly

[Eideewt]

For that matter, old theories like jumping and tall buildings rule out a two dimensional universe.

Re:This is silly

[Half a dent]

"Monkeys would eat a banana shaped universe. And there just may not be enough monkeys far enough back in time when the universe was small for them to eat it."

Hence the obelisk in 2001 - it had to make the monkeys evolve to save the universe. It's all so logical now, thanks!

Re:This is silly

[johnungus]

I have never heard anyone mention the similarities between things like solar systems and galaxies to atomic particles. Is it not possible that if you were to expand your view away from earth far enough it would show our universe is just a molecule of something on a far larger planet? If we could drill down into the atoms on our bodies, would we find there are little tiny creatures on the electrons trying to figure out the shape of their universe? Polluting that electron with fossil fuels? The real cause of cancer? I hope the residents of my atoms are liberal pansy greenies!

Re:This is silly

[Anonymous Coward]

The counter argument that we are not monkeys, whether finite or infinite, is an argument regarding evolution...

This is a literal translation from the original quote "Oook" made by The Librarian.

This sounds very dodgy

[Timesprout]

Personally I subscribe to Professor Hawkings theory of a donut shaped universe.

Re:This sounds very dodgy

[Rodness]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm..... universal donut....
*drool*

Re:This sounds very dodgy

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and I believe in four elephants, but the difference between me and you is that instead of just saying "dodgy", I give a clearly testable theory:

If it's all about four elephants holding up the world, then there has to be a big source of heat nearby due to the fire burning all the elephant dung.

Let's look in the sky... ah yes, a sun. I must be right. See, I've got a theory; I derive a testable result, and I then prove that it's true by comparing against the evidence available. You on the other hand just state that it's "dodgy". That difference is what makes me a scientist and you just a stinky poo...

Re:This sounds very dodgy

[LordVader717]

It is actually an intersting theory for the shape of the universe. I was recently in a lecture at an open day at a university faculty for astrophysics, and the prof said that the Torus-shaped universe is now considered to be unlikely though (don't ask me why)

Re:This sounds very dodgy

[Eideewt]

Probably because it would be fairly easy (size permitting) to see repetition in a simple shape like a torus. That's just a three dimensional version of Asteroids.

Re:This sounds very dodgy

[Dabido]

How does this differ from Einsteins Bagel shaped Universe?

Re:This sounds very dodgy

[LordVader717]

I think that was it actually.

Bable Fish translation ...

[Che Guevarra]

Bable Fish translation: "You, the reader of this article, are not nearly as smart as you thought you were. Don't feel bad about not being able to grasp anything in this article other than the word "the". Go to bed and do not look up at the sky at night for a very long time."

Re:Bable Fish translation ...

[rolfwind]

It's not just a matter of being smart, but rather being into it. I'm sure programming talk can sound like gibberish to some very smart physicists the first time around.

Re:Bable Fish translation ...

[bedonnant]

no, it's just you.

Re:Bable Fish translation ...

[Che Guevarra]

There once was a time on Slashdot that a humorous comment was appreciated and moded up for being funny. I was going for the funny and hoping it would rise. I just wanted to make the scientists blow a little milk out of their noses. I see that is no longer the standard. Nice new universe model. Please let us know when the de facto will be revised. I look forward to reading it while sitting on the toilet.

Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe...

[Nova Express]

It's turtles, all the way down...

Remember

[Dude163299]

"The enemy has only images and illusions behind which he hides his true motives. Destroy the image and you will break the enemy." Anyone else think of this quote when they saw the article title

Simulation?

[MichaelSmith]

the radiation left over from the Big Bang - suggest that we live in a finite universe that is shaped like a football or dodecahedron, and which resembles a video game in certain respects.

If our universe resembles a video game, could it actually be a video game?

Re:Simulation?

[servognome]

If our universe resembles a video game, could it actually be a video game?

World peace can be achieved by transferring to a carebear universe

Re:Simulation?

[suv4x4]

If our universe resembles a video game, could it actually be a video game?

That logic is fallacious, even if the observable universe is a "simulation", then this simulation runs inside a real universe, and we're at the start again figuring out what the universe is.

Plus I subscribe to another logic: if the universe is similar to a video game, then it's because as video games increase in complexity they start to approach the model of a little universe :D

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who designed the video game? Who is playing it? Are they winning? Is it a beta? Does it have bugs? Cheat modes? Can we tap into the code somehow? Does it begin with a cheesy storyline? Millenial subscription?

Re:Simulation?

[Troed]

Yes, maybe it's even likely.

http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If our universe resembles a video game, could it actually be a video game?

And if so, is there a mod for some extra Hot Coffee?

Re:Simulation?

[PhB95]

That's an idea I played with more than once... If we are in a perfect Matrix, how could we even find out when all we get are blue pills ;-)

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

A better comparison is it resembles a computer program which explains such as problems like schrodinger's cat.

Re:Simulation?

[Kierthos]

So, then, there's two ancillary theories on the "universe as video game" theory:

1) Jack Thompson, upon learning this, would become rational.

or

2) His head would explode.

Re:Simulation?

[aussie_a]

Yes but this "simulation" universe in all likelihood is a simplified version of the real universe and so we'd have a lot more facts to work with in trying to work out the nature of the parent universe.

Re:Simulation?

[kongit]

I did look at the page and having heard arguments for it in the past I didn't not look at all of the supporting arguments provided on said page. That said, there is at least one flaw to the argument that we are living in a simulation of post humans or from other sources. This is the same as one of the many arguments against the existence of God. If we are living in a simulated universe brought about by some other means what is preventing said means from being a simulation also. Additionally, if it is impossible for us to detect and has no real effects on our lives then why even think that it exists. In my opinion considering that we live in a simulation is nothing more than a thought exercise and shouldn't be taken seriously because for one considering that it is true could very probably imply an infinite chain of simulations and also because even if we are living in a simulation we cannot tell the difference.


Disclaimer: If I am living in a simulation, I probably shouldn't be thinking about it because I might cause a divide by zero or an infinite loop somewhere in the simulation's code.

Re:Simulation?

[maop]

Where does the Lord Jesus fit into this?

Re:Simulation?

[AlecLyons]

Is a video game a video game to the characters in a video game?

Re:Simulation?

[FailedTheTuringTest]

Hm. That's an interesting idea. One of the articles at that site includes the observation that such a simulation wouldn't have to simulate everything down to the greatest level of detail at all times, but could conserve computing power by just simulating things that are under direct observation.

"If the book you are holding in your hands is a simulated book, the simulation would only need to include its visual appearance, its weight and texture, and a few other macroscopic properties, because you have no way of knowing what its individual atoms are doing at this moment. If you were to study the book more carefully, for example by examining it under a powerful microscope, additional details of the simulation could be filled in as needed. Objects that nobody is perceiving could have an even more compressed representation. Such simplifications would dramatically reduce the computational requirements."

Isn't that what actually happens in quantum-level experiments? If we are observing the double slits, the photons do one thing, but if we're not watching the slits, they do something else?

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was one but NbPonpus of Fffrdlgrtz got sued for trillion smackkazoids over it, thus it was consequently removed.
And prime Prosuctor Farrrwtzzz wanted even to throw them in Mot'ork, but he never got very far.

Re:Simulation?

[theskipper]

"...it's because as video games increase in complexity they start to approach the model of a little universe :D"

Yeah, friggin Microsoft again. Even God got trapped in the DX path.

The universe would be way more free if he went OpenGL to begin with (using Linux for development, of course).

Re:Simulation?

[DarthChris]

That logic is fallacious, even if the observable universe is a "simulation", then this simulation runs inside a real universe, and we're at the start again figuring out what the universe is

Why is it a fallacy?

If we live inside a simulation, then, to us, that simulation *is* the universe. What lies "outside" of it can only be determined if the creators of such a simulation wanted us to do so. Is it possible for a video game character to leave a computer game and enter the real world (or at least what we consider to be the real world)? Only through the intervention of it's creators (i.e. us). The same would occur if we ourselves are constructs of a simulation.

Re:Simulation?

[Troed]

Yes, there are lots of interesting thoughts this brings about. I've had this for a while:

Q: Why do we need dark matter to explain the rotation of galaxies?

A: The rotation was first described when static rotating textures was used for
visible galaxies, now the simulation has to include something that fits in with that as well as gravity

Re:Simulation?

[shwonline]

Oh great, I'm in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Re:Simulation?

[freeweed]

It's less a fallacy and more "OMG I watched the Matirx, and like, it was deeeeeep, man!"

Amazing how many armchair philosophers come out of the woodwork when a movie has kung-fu and guns in it.

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Isn't that what actually happens in quantum-level experiments? If we are observing the double slits, the photons do one thing, but if we're not watching the slits, they do something else?

There is no evidence that suggests that. And nobody bring up putting a photon detector at one of the slits, because that is clearly not what the parent poster is talking about in this context.

Re:Simulation?

[FailedTheTuringTest]

Actually that was what I was talking about. A simulator might save on computational effort by simulating photons as probability distributions most of the time, rather than tracking each and every photon. Thus in the double-slit experiment, an interference pattern is produced. But if we set up detectors at the slits, in order to find out which slit the photon is passing through, then we force the simulator to simulate each individual photon -- and as a result, a different pattern appears on the screen.

Re:Simulation?

[edschurr]

While we're speculating, maybe aspects of the simulation (including the unobservable) could be perfectly calculated with a short mathematical function, akin to how the game of Life can be. (If I remember correctly, someone found a way to set the board at an arbitrary step without doing each one in turn iteratively).

Re:Simulation?

[dircha]

"It's less a fallacy and more "OMG I watched the Matirx, and like, it was deeeeeep, man!""

But using the word "fallacy" to describe another's assertion does seem to make idiots feel smarter than they actually are.

Re:Simulation?

[mrogers]

Perhaps our failure to understand chaotic phenomena such as turbulence is due to the fact that we're trying to explain large-scale behaviour in terms of the emergent properties of small-scale behaviour, rather than trying to explain small-scale behaviour in terms of the impact of increasingly precise observation on large-scale behaviour?

If observation changes the outcome of the experiment, should we expect a system observed at a large scale to behave in the same way when observed at a small scale? And if not, how can we hope to build a unified theory of behaviour at all scales?

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

A different pattern (i.e. no interference pattern) appears on the screen if you put a detector on one of the slits, but there are better explanations for it than forcing the universe-simulator to perform more complicated math like calculating each particle. Maybe calculating the interference pattern is the more expensive simulator operation that happens if you have two open slits, and the non-interference pattern is the simulated effect! How can anyone know? It explains nothing.

Re:Simulation?

[DamnStupidElf]

That logic is fallacious, even if the observable universe is a "simulation", then this simulation runs inside a real universe, and we're at the start again figuring out what the universe is.

That's even worse logic, because it assumes some "real" universe indistinguishable from a simulation. How can anything distinguish between a real universe and a simulation from within that universe? Science can't say whether any universe is real or not, because empirically every universe is real to the observers within it.

Plus I subscribe to another logic: if the universe is similar to a video game, then it's because as video games increase in complexity they start to approach the model of a little universe :D

At some point we'll be able to stick a sentient AI in our video games that's smart enough to devise the scientific method and philosophy and consider its video game to be a real universe. Who's to say it's not?

Re:Simulation?

[basneder]

Amazing how many armchair philosophers come out of the woodwork when a movie has kung-fu and guns in it.

And spoons, dont forget the spoons

Re:Simulation?

[OBeardedOne]

That is a fascinating idea. I think you should contact the authors of the simulation theory about it.

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simplest proof: No I/O towers to communicate with the Users.

Re:Simulation?

[DigitallyChallenged]

Yes. Which video game? Pac-Man. http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive.php?s=1631

Re:Simulation?

[Eideewt]

Or maybe playing on a non-PvP server.

Re:Simulation?

[oohshiny]

That logic is fallacious, even if the observable universe is a "simulation", then this simulation runs inside a real universe, and we're at the start again figuring out what the universe is.

It could be an infinite regression of simulations.

Furthermore, software running on a computer can't determine the physical laws underlying the computer it's running on unless it is given access to external sensors. Simulations generally aren't given that access.

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The double-slit experiment demonstrate that light can appear to act like a "wave" in that interference patterns emerge on a screen beyond the double-slit screen. When you turn the experiment around by shooting only a single photon at a time down at the screen, whoah and behold, the interference pattern persists. But how??? How can the photon "Know" which slit to go through? Thus, the old physists originated the big lie: light is both wave and particle. But now that Everett bestowed upon us his great Many Worlds Interpretation, we don't have to spoon feed that new ago psycho-babble to our children anymore. Light is composed of corpuscular photons. Not waves. Even Dick Feynman insisted upon that. There is no "depending how you look at it" any more. 'Course, you do have to realize we live in some sort of fantastical multiverse where new universes split off every time a descision point comes up.

Re:Simulation?

[aadvancedGIR]

If we are observing the double slits, the photons do one thing, but if we're not watching the slits, they do something else?

Actually, it is simply because you can't observe anything without an interaction. You can see macroscopic objects because photons bounce on them and some go to your eyes and you can feel them because there are electromagetic effects when you are at close range. For subatomic particules, it is the same thing except that you need to add those strange quatum effects. Basically, in that case, the photon will act as wave and go through every possible path at the same time if you leave it alone, but will be restricted to the only path where you observe it because you made it to interact with your observation device at that exact point, therefore, forcing it to behave as a particule.

Re:Simulation?

[kalirion]

That logic is fallacious, even if the observable universe is a "simulation", then this simulation runs inside a real universe, and we're at the start again figuring out what the universe is.

And if the universe containing the simulation of our universe is itself being simulated inside our universe?

Re:Simulation?

[chelanfarsight]

sounds vaguely like the irish ecclesial philosopher bishop berkeley. "esse est percipi" to be is to be perceived. he believed that god held all things in existence only as they were needed, or better, perceived. aka, idealism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Berkeley

Re:Simulation?

[bill_mcgonigle]

but could conserve computing power by just simulating things that are under direct observation.

That would be a rather obvious optimization, since we humans have found it already (hidden line/surface removal, etc).

Re:Simulation?

[Ivo]

A while ago I've made a site about the universe as a simulation: http://www.simulism.org/

Re:Simulation?

[BillX]

Cool. Does that mean that if I set up a SHITLOAD of photon detectors in front of a really bright light, I can live longer?

Universe now moving at 0.997 ticks/tick...

Re:Simulation?

[MichaelSmith]

Thanks for that. I added some book references for you.

BTW my main interest is in finding ways to import our minds into a simulation, because I am pretty sure I will lose the use of my current body in the next half century.

Re:Simulation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... you just blew my mind! Whoa!

Re:Simulation?

[Ivo]

I noticed your additions; thanks.

The ability to upload your brain is dependent on the fact of what 'conscience' is made of. If it's just the sum of the parts (some matter, some energy) it should be doable. If it's more than the sum of its parts it might prove difficult.

Hall of Mirrors...

[__aaclcg7560]

Someone been playing too many badly designed Quake levels.

Re:Hall of Mirrors...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not offtopic mods, although I thought the 'hall of mirrors' effect was specific to broken Doom levels.

Re:Hall of Mirrors...

[__aaclcg7560]

HOM pops up in Quake editing but not as often or as bad as in Doom editing.

great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great! Now, let's fly to one side of the universe so that we may find a shortcut to India.

Re:great!

[Amouth]

nah.. i am to lazy.. but mabey we can out source the task to someone..

Free Moriarty!

[lotusleaf]

Or perhaps we're just in a holodeck inside a holodeck?

Re:Free Moriarty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps we're just in a holodeck inside a holodeck?

More like a bag of holding inside a portable hole.

More proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Q: Does not a soccer ball require a soccer ball-sack?
A: Therefore, God exists.

Re:More proof!

[Eideewt]

Is God the bag? That seems unglamorous.

Finite things can grow

[Antony-Kyre]

If you can infate a soccer ball and make it grow, certainly I would imagine the Universe can grow.

Maybe there is currently a finite amount of material. Who says that material can't get relatively further apart from itself? Either things can be moving away from each other occupying more space, OR the material itself, the "dots", are getting smaller and smaller making it appear we are gaining space.

Isn't there a multi-big bang theory that states that new material can enter our Universe in this fashion? Perhaps our current Universe had no single beginning, but new stuff is being added to it all the time. How many mutli-player online gamers have an ever-expanding world? New levels are constantly being added.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

> How many mutli-player online gamers have an ever-expanding world? New levels are constantly being added.

I was beginning to think your "new stuff being added to expanding universe" hypothesis was full of crack, but the video game analogy convinced me otherwise.

Re:Finite things can grow

[amRadioHed]

Maybe there is currently a finite amount of material. Who says that material can't get relatively further apart from itself?

Not many physicists I presume. That's basically the reason why distant galaxies are redshifted, space expands over the time the light is traveling and thus the wavelength is longer by the time the light reaches us.

Re:Finite things can grow

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Who says that material can't get relatively further apart from itself?

Of course it can, and the universe is expanding in exactly this way.

Isn't there a multi-big bang theory that states that new material can enter our Universe in this fashion? Perhaps our current Universe had no single beginning, but new stuff is being added to it all the time.

The steady-state theory proposed that new matter was being created all the time, at a very slow rate. This was disproved by the cosmic microwave background, that instead agrees exactly with the preductions of the big-bang theory. I think, the inflation theories allow new material to enter at any time, but the idea there is that the initial expansion of the universe was so fast, that any other matter (say, from another big-bang) would be so far away that it would not ever be possible to detect it. But if the universe is finite, and it is possible to see the periodic boundaries, then surely it disproves inflation? cosmologists out there?

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

scroll down THE REDSHIFT OF LIGHT FROM GALAXIES on http://www.divinecosmos.com/index.php?option=com_c ontent&task=view&id=271&Itemid=30

Re:Finite things can grow

[ozbird]

If you over-inflate a soccer ball you get a big bang, then get a new soccer ball; I guess that ties together the inflation and cyclic universe theories.

Re:Finite things can grow

[smaddox]

or what if it really is "infinite", but instead of one big bang, there is a constant bang. If we are moving away from the big bang's origin at the speed of light, we would never know if another happened. Maybe new matter is constantly made at the center of the universe, but never destroyed.

Or it could be really late and i'm starting to talk nonsense.

Re:Finite things can grow

[aussie_a]

I don't know what sort of soccer balls you use but I've never gotten a new soccer ball after exploding one.

Re:Finite things can grow

[IWannaBeAnAC]

The problem is, wew can't be moving at exactly the speed of light; that is impossible for objects that have non-zero mass. But if there was a continuous big-bang moving away from us at anything less than the speed of light, then we would see remenant radiation from it, it would show up as a (big) spike in the cosmic microwave background.

Re:Finite things can grow

[PakProtector]

That's incorrect. While it is impossible for something with mass to move faster than the speed of light, if you and I are five feet apart, and we each move away from each other at seventy-five percent of the speed of light, eventually we will no longer be able to see one another, because the photons bouncing off of you will, from my frame of reference, be moving too slowly to ever catch up.

Re:Finite things can grow

[IWannaBeAnAC]

No, that is completely incorrect. The whole point of Relativity is that nothing can exceed the speed of light, in any frame of reference. The situation that you describe, where Newton's laws of motion would imply the relative speed of the two observers is greater than the speed of light, never occurs because instead the passage of time is affected by the motion. If you had a clock, and were transmitting to me what the current time was, your clock would appear to me to be running too slow. And vice versa, you would think that my clock was running too slow.

The only situation in which the photons can never catch up, is if they pass the event horizon of a black hole ;)

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have purchased the extended warranty.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Dunbal]

Isn't there a multi-big bang theory

      Ahh, you are referring to the Gang Bang theory?

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

The only situation in which the photons can never catch up, is if they pass the event horizon of a black hole

It's also impossible for photons to catch up if you continually accelerate away from their source, with enough of a head start, and never stop accelerating. This can happen even in ordinary special relativity, in the absence of gravity. See the Rindler horizon. This is not a "true" event horizon, like a black hole's, because it only exists for the accelerating observer. A real horizon will exist for all observers.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Antony-Kyre]

I know this is off topic, but how is it even possible for photons to exist without gravity? Isn't gravity that which feeds energy/matter into passing time?

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't gravity that which feeds energy/matter into passing time?

I have no idea what that means, but gravity has nothing to do with the existence of photons. Maxwell's equations are a classical theory of electromagnetism obeying Einstein's special relativity, which describe light. Their quantized version, quantum electrodynamics (QED), describes light in terms of photons. Neither theory involves gravity. Gravity does not create energy or matter or the passage of time; all of those things exist in non-gravitational theories such as special relativity.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

"But if the universe is finite, and it is possible to see the periodic boundaries, then surely it disproves inflation? cosmologists out there?"

What does it mean to say the universe is infinite? It doesn't make a lot of sense, lastly what kind of experiment could you perform? Next how could you tell if you have not even explored %1 of the universe, what if what we are observing is not even %1 of the actual universe?

Re:Finite things can grow

[The_Wilschon]

The only situation in which the photons can never catch up, is if they pass the event horizon of a black hole ;)

If you and I start 5 feet apart, and we begin with zero relative velocity, but then we start to accelerate away from each other, no matter what our rates of acceleration, provided it is >0, then given enough time, we each create an "accelerational black hole".

First, think of good old Zeno's paradox (well, one of them), where you have Achilles chasing a tortoise. The tortoise has a head start. When the starting gun sounds, Achilles crosses the short distance to the tortoise's starting position quite quickly, but when he arrives he finds that the tortoise has moved on. So he crosses this short distance even more quickly, only to find that the tortoise has moved a tiny bit further. And so on ad infinitum. Zeno concluded that Achilles could not catch the tortoise, but since we can easily observe that any person can catch the tortoise, Zeno called this a paradox.

Now, Zeno's paradoxes really aren't worth that much, it turns out. However, now let's put a jet pack on the tortoise. This jet pack is constrained to never let the tortoise move as fast as Achilles can run (don't ask how), but it will perpetually bring the tortoise closer and closer to Achilles' speed. Now, Achilles runs to the tortoise's starting position, and finds the tortoise has moved on a short way. So, he then looks at the tortoise's new position, and runs to that position. The tortoise now has a new position, so Achilles runs to there. In the original scenario with constant speeds, the time it took Achilles to reach each new position was smaller, in fact greatly smaller. The times form a geometric series, which converges nicely. However, with this supercharged tortoise, Achilles finds that the times to catch up do not form a convergent series. That is, the total time for Achilles to catch the tortoise diverges, or is infinite.

Now let Achilles be a photon, and let the tortoise be a spaceship. The spaceship has an unlimited amount of fuel, and can keep up a constant acceleration for as long as the pilot likes. So, the pilot looks out his back window, and sees nothing. The photons behind him (well, the ones that started far enough away that is) can never catch him. It looks like there is a black hole following him. In fact, what with the equivalence of acceleration and gravity, from the astronaut's frame of reference, there IS a black hole following him! Of course, if he gives up trying to escape it, and just lets himself fall back into it, then he stops accelerating, the photons can catch up, and the black hole disappears.

So, the GP was wrong. But the parent isn't completely right either, unless his "unless they pass the event horizon of a black hole" was intended to include accelerational black holes like this.

My example was taken (in essence, not in text) from Nigel Calder's Einstein's Universe, an excellent book if you're bored.

Re:Finite things can grow

[eggnet]

You make an accurate description of the process from a 3rd party observer but aren't taking into account relativity.

Light travels at the speed of light for all observers which results in time and space distortion. For the two parties accelerating, the universe in the direction they are moving is compressed, approaching 0 as they approach the speed of light. To the 3rd party observer, time would appear to stop passing for the participants as they approach the speed of light. So yes to the 3rd party observer it would appear that light would take forever to go from one participant to the other, but to the participants the dimention that they are traveling in will collapse to near nothing and light will travel at the speed of light as always.

So yes, light would take longer and longer to go between the participants, but the participants experience that vast amount of time in a very short time.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the "accelerational black hole" scenario does take into account relativity; it is known as a "Rindler horizon". Very quickly, each of the two travelers will exit from the other's past causal horizon. Time dilation does exist, but it's also true that past a certain point, light from one of the travelers can never reach the other, so long as the other keeps accelerating.

Re:Finite things can grow

[sinktank]

Of course it can, and the universe is expanding in exactly this way. That's not entirely correct, at least not in the sense most people intuitively assume when you say "expanding". Objects in the Universe are not expanding away from each other into "nothingness", but rather it is the fabric of space itself which is stretching. Since it is the metric defining distance itself that is changing, this expansion (and the *resultant* moving apart of objects) is unaffected by the limit c indicated by special relativity.

Re:Finite things can grow

[IWannaBeAnAC]

There are three options: 1) the universe could be finite and have positive curvature. This would be like a 4-dimensional analogue of travelling on the surface of the earth; you never reach a boundary but eventually you get back to where you started. This is the case relevant to the article, although they are talking about a case where the geometry is not spherical but some polyhedra.

2) If the curvature is overall negative, the universe must be infinite because in this geometry a straight line never returns to its starting point. Instead, the curvature at each point is locally like a saddle.

3) In between the last two, if the curvature is exactly zero then the universe is flat (Euclidean).

In principle, these three cases can be distinguished by experiment. A triangle constructed on the surface of a sphere is characterized by having the sum of angles be greater than 180 degrees. Similarly, a triangle constructed in negatively curved space has angles that sum to less than 180 degrees, and in the Euclidean case they sum to exactly 180 degrees.

Re:Finite things can grow

[IWannaBeAnAC]

That is interesting, thanks for that link.

Indeed, the equivalence principle implies that something like this should exist, by replacing the gravitational acceleration by accelerating spaceships.

Re:Finite things can grow

[DreadPiratePizz]

Now, Zeno's paradoxes really aren't worth that much, it turns out. Yes actually they are, and you're missing the point of why they're perplexing. It takes a certain time to move from any point to another point. There are in infinite number of points on any given line (this is evidenced by zeno's half way argument, the distance can be divided smaller and smaller always). The real question becomes, how does Achilles cross an infinite number of points, in a finite time? Since it takes a finite amount of time to move between any two points, it should take him an infinite amount of time to travel any given distance. As a result of this, there is either a unit of distance that cannot be divided further, or a unit of time.

Re:Finite things can grow

[IWannaBeAnAC]

As a result of this, there is either a unit of distance that cannot be divided further, or a unit of time.

That doesn't follow. Zeno's `paradox' is easily resolved using only continuous functions. No need at any point to resort to any kind of quantized spacetime.

The real question becomes, how does Achilles cross an infinite number of points, in a finite time? Since it takes a finite amount of time to move between any two points, it should take him an infinite amount of time to travel any given distance.

That doesn't work either; if time is continuous then there is an infinite number of points in time that Achilles is crossing. You could say, that he crosses an infinite number of points, but he has an infinite number of 'time points' to do it in. But that is rather sloppy notation, better to define it in terms of limits, in which case you end up rediscovering differential calculus of continuous functions ;)

Re:Finite things can grow

[Antony-Kyre]

Wouldn't without gravity, time would be meaningless? Here in Earth, we're in a time well. If we go to the Moon, time is going to be going a bit faster because there is less resistance (i.e., less gravity). Out in deep space, in the middle of nothingness, time is going to go real fast, meaning 1 hour on Earth will seem like forever out in the middle of nothingness.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Antony-Kyre]

Exactly. Who knows, maybe we should ditch our measurement system and go towards another one? Instead of measuring from point A to B, maybe we should measure what fraction of the sphere A and B encompass?

You can put two dots on a partially filled balloon. They start at 1 centimeter apart. You blow it up, and now they are still 2 centimeters apart. However, they encompassed the same amount of the total balloon as before, despite appearing to be further apart. I.e., they may have been 1/360th of the balloon's distance around in that given slice.

Hmmmm. It makes me wonder about redshifts. Redshifts happen because light is stretched, like in the Doppler affect. Kind of like when a motorcycle moves away from you and the sound waves have to take longer and longer to get to you. What if the motorcycle and you aren't getting further apart, but rather the road is expanding itself?

Re:Finite things can grow

[kaidadragonfly]

Actually, the point of relativity is that nothing can have speed greater than that of the speed of light. Objects can move relative to each other faster than the speed of light however, provided space expands or contracts properly. If the acceleration of the expansion of the universe continues until the expansion of the universe exceeds the speed of light then it will be quite possible for photons to never reach us from various sources of light. Also the idea of warping space to achieve (functionally) faster than light speed travel is one of the basic concepts behind warp drive, so no, I'm not making this up myself.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

This jet pack is constrained to never let the tortoise move as fast as Achilles can run (don't ask how), but it will perpetually bring the tortoise closer and closer to Achilles' speed. This is where I disagree as the implict assumption is that the universe is, in fact, continuous(and more specifically that inbetween any 2 masses of any size, there exists another mass). I know not much of physics, but if I understand correctly the wikipedia article on Elementary particles, they are indivisible and hence the universe will have to be discrete.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Xeriar]

The only situation in which the photons can never catch up, is if they pass the event horizon of a black hole ;)

Incorrect. There are other horizons, such as Rindler horizons (caused by acceleration), and the cosmic horizon of the Universe itself some 13.7 gly away - where the expansion of space is such that it exceeds the speed of light.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't without gravity, time would be meaningless?

No. Einstein's original theory of space and time, special relativity, was formulated without gravity, and it works quite well even near planets and stars.

Here in Earth, we're in a time well. If we go to the Moon, time is going to be going a bit faster because there is less resistance (i.e., less gravity). Out in deep space, in the middle of nothingness, time is going to go real fast, meaning 1 hour on Earth will seem like forever out in the middle of nothingness.

No. The difference in the rate of time between the Earth's surface and deep space is not large; it's on the order of one billionth, according to my back of the envelope estimate. (It's roughly proportional to the ratio of the Earth's Schwarzschild radius to its actual radius, which is 0.5 cm compared to 6000 km.) Only when you get close to a black hole or something does the relative time dilation become really noticeable.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

I know not much of physics, but if I understand correctly the wikipedia article on Elementary particles, they are indivisible and hence the universe will have to be discrete.

No. The indivisibility of elementary particles has nothing to do with the discreteness of space. Our existing theory of indivisible quantum particles, quantum field theory, uses a continuous space. There are some theories of quantum gravity in which space is discrete, and some in which it is continuous, but there is as yet no experimental evidence nor theoretical requirement that space is discrete.

In addition, the continuity of space does not imply that "in between any 2 masses of any size, there exists another mass".

Re:Finite things can grow

[Antony-Kyre]

Isn't the problem with something being discrete is that it can be quantitized?

Instead of saying that such and such is 1/10th of the whole, it would be like saying that there is X number of units.

If there are discrete units for distance, there must be discrete units for time.

This would imply that when things gain speed, they are doing an instantaneous jump at the very beginning. For it to go from the 0th unit of time to the next unit of time, it's making an instant jump of infinite velocity, is it not? (I'm trying to remember some stuff from years past. It's been like 5 years since I think I had to deal with thinking about this precisely.)

Re:Finite things can grow

[abertoll]

Yes. I think the article isn't clear on the shape and size of the universe (as portrayed in the picture of a sphere) is in the 4th dimension. That sphere they show you is supposed to be a simple way at looking at it: we would exist only on the surface of the sphere, one dimension lower. That's why if you fly away from earth in one direction, eventually you circum navigate the sphere (or whatever other shape the universe is) and arrive at earth again.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are discrete units for distance, there must be discrete units for time.

This would imply that when things gain speed, they are doing an instantaneous jump at the very beginning. For it to go from the 0th unit of time to the next unit of time, it's making an instant jump of infinite velocity, is it not? Not only at the beginning, but at every instant. It wouldn't be infinite, however, it would be a very concrete number. So that wouldn't be a problem with discrete time. It might have issues, but I don't know, I am not a physicist.

Re:Finite things can grow

[Anonymous Coward]

Eve-online?

Re:Finite things can grow

[Pfhorrest]

Now let Achilles be a photon, and let the tortoise be a spaceship. The spaceship has an unlimited amount of fuel, and can keep up a constant acceleration for as long as the pilot likes. So, the pilot looks out his back window, and sees nothing. The photons behind him (well, the ones that started far enough away that is) can never catch him. It looks like there is a black hole following him. In fact, what with the equivalence of acceleration and gravity, from the astronaut's frame of reference, there IS a black hole following him! Of course, if he gives up trying to escape it, and just lets himself fall back into it, then he stops accelerating, the photons can catch up, and the black hole disappears.

Tangential question here:

If you were in a spaceship hovering just above the event horizon of a black hole (accelerating away from is just sufficiently to keep that distance) - and neglecting for the moment that you couldn't biologically survive that sort of acceleration - then looking out to your left or right, toward the "horizon" of the sphere contained within the event horizon, you would see in the distance your own self, however many light-seconds in the past it takes for light to travel around the black hole, correct? That is, very near the event horizon, any light reflecting off of you tangential to the event horizon would bend around the black hole and strike you from the other side. So you would see the image of your own spaceship smeared along the horizon (provided there weren't any other objects blocking the light from making that loop), while below you was an inky void and above you was a distorted image of the rest of the sky, compressed into a hemisphere. All that should be correct, right?

So my question is, under high acceleration in open space, such that you have this "acceleration black hole" behind you, would you see the same sort of effects? Look left or right or up or down (here saying the black hole is "behind" you rather than "below" you as above) or anywhere along the circle perpendicular to your line of motion, and you'd see the image of your own spaceship? If so, how does that work? And if not, why not?

Re:Finite things can grow

[kalirion]

That must be a LOT of turtles....

Re:Finite things can grow

[Ambitwistor]

Tangential question here:

No pun intended?

If you were in a spaceship hovering just above the event horizon of a black hole (accelerating away from is just sufficiently to keep that distance) - and neglecting for the moment that you couldn't biologically survive that sort of acceleration - then looking out to your left or right, toward the "horizon" of the sphere contained within the event horizon, you would see in the distance your own self, however many light-seconds in the past it takes for light to travel around the black hole, correct?

Only if you're at the "photon sphere" (1.5 times the Schwarzschild radius); that is the location at which light can circularly orbit a black hole. Outside the photon sphere light will spiral outwards from the black hole, and inside it it will spiral inwards, and in either case will not return to you where you are hovering.

For some visualizations of what it looks like to hover near a black hole, see Greg Egan's applet and summary.

So my question is, under high acceleration in open space, such that you have this "acceleration black hole" behind you, would you see the same sort of effects? Look left or right or up or down (here saying the black hole is "behind" you rather than "below" you as above) or anywhere along the circle perpendicular to your line of motion, and you'd see the image of your own spaceship? If so, how does that work? And if not, why not?

This "acceleration horizon" (the Rindler horizon) is not a sphere, so light cannot orbit it. It's more like a "wall".

Re:Finite things can grow

[The_Wilschon]

Theories of fundamental physics in which space and time are treated as continuous work very well, and are nice and simple. Theories in which space and/or time are treated as discrete become very much more complicated, and we don't appear to need them. Special relativity treats space and time as continuous, and the example I gave, as well as the discussion that prompted that example, involved special relativity, and not anything else. Thus, the assumption that space and time are continuous is not ill-founded in this case. If we do not make that assumption, then we can't talk about special relativity.

Furthermore, continuity of space and/or time, or the lack thereof, in no way implies that in between any 2 masses of any size there exists another mass. That would be a ridiculous thing, and I don't think that any theory could take that as either axiom or theorem and still manage to describe our universe with any degree of success.

Finally, the point-like property of fundamental particles (BTW, I am a high energy, or particle, physicist) in no way implies discreteness of either time or space. In fact, as has been said in another reply to you, our current most successful theories of fundamental physics (eg Quantum ElectroDynamics, or QED), which describe particles as points, deal with a continuous spacetime, not a discrete spacetime.

So, at present, it does in fact look as though space and time are continuous, and in the context of the discussion, it would not make sense to assume otherwise.

How the Universe Got Its Spots

[keesh]

If anyone's looking to understand this, the book you need is "How the Universe Got Its Spots" by Janna Levine. It covers all the apparently valid but actually nonsensical questions that people have when they first hear about this (what's the universe inside then? what happens at a boundary? etc), and it explains it in such a way that you don't need a degree in topology to understand it.

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[servognome]

If anyone's looking to understand this, the book you need is "How the Universe Got Its Spots" by Janna Levine. It covers all the apparently valid but actually nonsensical questions that people have when they first hear about this (what's the universe inside then? what happens at a boundary? etc), and it explains it in such a way that you don't need a degree in topology to understand it.

Given the history of human understanding, I'd wager the book is wrong.

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[kfg]

. . .it explains it in such a way that you don't need a degree in topology to understand it.

Oh, great. Nooooooow you tell me.

KFG

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[shawn(at)fsu]

Lets say your right (You probably are) does that mean that it's not worth learning? I mean think about how wrong our concepts were when Newton Galileo and Einstein were learning, should they have just said "it's not worth reading and thinking about since in the end it's probably wrong"

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[servognome]

The issue I had with your original post was the statement the book covered "apparently valid but actually nonsensical questions that people have when they first hear about this."
As if the book is the final authority in making those questions go away. We need to keep asking the "nonsensical" questions, because sometimes we end up with new answers.

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep on asking, but listen to the answers too

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[Anonymous Coward]

Every scientific explanation is wrong to a certain degree.

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[Sage Gaspar]

No, you're misunderstanding the post. It explains what would happen _under this model_ of the universe. As in understanding that with this topological structure it doesn't make sense to discuss a boundary.

Re:How the Universe Got Its Spots

[BorgCopyeditor]

It explains what would happen _under this model_ of the universe.

Kind of like God's version of the O.J. Simpson book, If I Did It.

welcome

[nofunben]

I, for one, welcome our new soccer ball shaped overlords.

Old Article

[Epicyon]

The article mentioned is well over a year old. The outstanding analysis of data due in 2004 has been completed. The validity of the information is being questioned Although it would be fun living inside a football.

Re:Old Article

[egr]

that's a great news for football-fans! Too bad it's not a hockey puck

Re:Old Article

[DerekLyons]

The article mentioned is well over a year old. The outstanding analysis of data due in 2004 has been completed. The validity of the information is being questioned.

The gentleman who wrote the linked article questions the validity of a lot of things - to the point that I wonder if he has valid questions, or is simply a crank.

Re:Old Article

[krymsin01]

Just to point out something that might be obvious if you look around the website you linked a bit more, that particular guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

For instance, witness this "debunking" of curved space, also from his site:

Curved Space: The concept of a 'curved space', which is essential for present cosmological models, is logically flawed because space can only be defined by the distance between two objects, which is however by definition always given by a straight line. Mathematicians frequently try to illustrate the properties of 'curved space' through the example of a spherical (or otherwise curved) surface and the associated geometrical relationships. However, a surface is only a mathematical abstraction within the actual (3-dimensional) space and one can in fact connect any two points on the surface of a physical object through a straight line by drilling through it.
Strictly speaking, one can not assign any properties at all to space (or time) as these are the outer forms of existence and it makes as much sense to speak of a 'curved space' as of a 'blue space'. Any such properties must be restricted to objects existing within space and time.
The concept of a distorted space around massive physical objects for instance, as promoted by General Relativity, is therefore also inconsistent and should be replaced by appropriate physical theories describing the trajectories of particles and/or light near these objects.

Re:Old Article

[Jerf]

Wow, that's pretty bad. For the non-mathematically inclined, I'd translate that to:

"If I use my own definition of space, which I slip in without either specifying it or explaining it to you, and which I probably can't really explain myself, I can demonstrate that the idea of curved space is silly." Since nobody shares that definition of space (and, like I said, he probably can't really explain it himself without repeated appeals to "common sense", which for better or worse has been shown to have no place in cosmology), who cares that the definition of space can't handle curving? Especially as it probably corresponds neither to reality nor any useful mathematical formalism.

(Mathematics requires a certain humility from those who would learn it; if you insist on elevating your "common sense" above logic and deduction, all learning math will do is annoy you. Math doesn't give a rats ass what you think is "common sense".)

The quoted explanation also has trouble with the fact that the curving of space has to do with how two straight lines relate to each other; for instance, whether lines parallel at one point by a local Euclidean measurement may cross later, or at least change their distance. Trying to understand curved space in terms of a single line is a waste of time; except for in a black hole where lines actually do curve back onto themselves all single lines are equivalent.

Re:Old Article

[nyri]

For instance, witness this "debunking" of curved space, also from his site:

Curved Space: The concept of a 'curved space', which is essential for present cosmological models, is logically flawed because space can only be defined by the distance between two objects, which is however by definition always given by a straight line. Mathematicians frequently try to illustrate the properties of 'curved space' through the example of a spherical (or otherwise curved) surface and the associated geometrical relationships. However, a surface is only a mathematical abstraction within the actual (3-dimensional) space and one can in fact connect any two points on the surface of a physical object through a straight line by drilling through it.
Strictly speaking, one can not assign any properties at all to space (or time) as these are the outer forms of existence and it makes as much sense to speak of a 'curved space' as of a 'blue space'. Any such properties must be restricted to objects existing within space and time.
The concept of a distorted space around massive physical objects for instance, as promoted by General Relativity, is therefore also inconsistent and should be replaced by appropriate physical theories describing the trajectories of particles and/or light near these objects.

I think he's not trying to debunk curved space. He's just saying that any curved space can be seen as a subspace of greater dimension non-curved space and thinks that the definion of space in physics should be made such that we select the non-curved space.

Then he proceeds to make a note about the formulation of general relativity.

The quote doesn't prove him as a crackpot. It might prove that he's not that good writer but that is a whole different matter.

Re:Old Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the problem is that he doesn't understand math. Just because "curved" space CAN be seen as being embedded in a higher-dimensional space doesn't mean that it actually IS. For example, Lobachevskian geometry, often called "hyperbolic geometry" by those in the field of projective geometry, has been shown to be as consistent as Euclidean geometry, which it seems this guy considers to be the only "flat" geometry. But in itself, Lobachevskian geometry doesn't require extra dimensions for its straight lines to be called straight lines.

To put it another way, the math doesn't require extra dimensions for curved space, so there's no reason to assume the physical universe (which can in no way be known a priori, since there are multiple consistent geometries) requires extra dimensions for "curved" space. There may very well be extra spacial dimensions, but there need not be any "flat" ones.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[TapeCutter]

Nope, ball with 12 slightly curved pentagons => 30 edges + 12 faces => 30 + 12 = 42

Infinite or is it?

[Djeek]

Personally I believe in the Simpsons theory of a recursive universe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNV9FEKi9FQ. The strange thing is, this is totally based on a gut feeling (which I had long before the episode), but funnily enough, when you talk about this with other people, lots of folk seem to share this feeling... from your brother in law to, well, the Simpsons. Maybe we do have some sort of common knowledge sitting somewhere that is guiding us to find out these things... As another gut conclusion, in my opinion, if there is such a thing as a unified theory as proposed by Hawkins, this recursive thing is probably the only way to make it stick at all ends. Moreover, we probably are inside something a lot smaller than we think: ourselves! Wooooooooow!

Re:Infinite or is it?

[Terminus32]

Yeah, I watched that Simpsons episode the other week. Got me thinking again, as i'd seen that theory in a Carl Sagan book some while before.

Re:Infinite or is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, we probably are inside something a lot smaller than we think: ourselves! Wooooooooow!

So if I rape a girl on the street, I'm just making love to myself? Woooooow!

"But judge, I was making love to myself..."

Re:Infinite or is it?

[squizzar]

This box contains a whole universe!

Dude, there's like a universe inside all of us!

Right on professor Freaksworth!

Get a job!

Re:Infinite or is it?

[shams42]

Your theory definitely has truthiness about it.

Re:Infinite or is it?

[ZeroExistenZ]

you might want to see this video, IBMs "power of ten".

Re:Infinite or is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

bite my glorious golden ass.

Running with it

[CaptainCarrot]

soccer-ball shaped

I think these cosmic topologists are going to have to kick this theory around for a while before they achieve their goals.

WMAP 3-Year Data?

[Jazzer_Techie]

Before people start saying that these guys are crackpots (yes, I agree this does sound vaguely reminiscent of the Platonic solids), their research has been published in well-regarded, peer-reviewed journals (Nature, etc.) While this isn't necessarily a widely accepted idea, it's not TimeCube.

This article is about 15 months old and discusses this in the context of 1 year of WMAP data. Since then, the WMAP 3-year data has been released. I would be curious to see how this affects the theory.

Data from the European Planck Surveyor, which is scheduled for launch in 2007, will be able to determine Omega with a precision of 1%. A value lower than 1.01 will rule out the Poincaré dodecahedron model, since the size of the corresponding dodecahedron would become greater than the observable universe and would not leave any observable imprint on the microwave background. A value greater than 1.01, on the other hand, would strengthen the models' cosmological pertinence.

I believe that the WMAP 3-year data gave something like Omega = 1.010 +/- 0.001. Thus this theory seems to balanced on the knife edge. It's an interesting idea, but I have my doubts.

Re:WMAP 3-Year Data?

[lewp]

While this isn't necessarily a widely accepted idea, it's not TimeCube.

Fuck it, then.

CAN'T YOU SEE THAT CUBE IS TRUTH???!!! IGNORE ME AND DIE!!!

Re:WMAP 3-Year Data?

[ClassMyAss]

Sorry, -1 points because you aren't allowed to mention Timecube without putting in a link to Timecube so that everyone can experience cubic salvation. Preferably several.

Seriously, though, I understand something about these topics, and a) I wouldn't be surprised at all if that knifepoint was where the damn value stayed for another decade or so, seeing as Nature (the bitch, not the magazine) seems to quite enjoy placing these geometry-of-space constants so close to the critical values that we can't say a thing for sure. b) is that it's a cute theory and an interesting geometry, but frankly I haven't seen anything so far that convinces me that it's right.

But either way, you're correct - this does not appear to be crackpot stuff (I haven't read the peer-reviewed article, but I'll trust that it's there). You can always tell, because the real loonies always talk about how wrong Einstein was.

Timecube sig:
Ignorance of 4 days is evil, Evil educators teach 1 day. 1 day will destroy humans.

Re:WMAP 3-Year Data?

[dangitman]

You are ACADEMICALLY RETARDED!!!!

Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

But I was trying to yell.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Anomolous Cowturd]

Err... the edges are shared, so there are less than 30. I'm trying to figure out the exact number but my maths is too stale.

Einstein was right...

[d3m0nCr4t]

God doesn't play dice, he plays soccer...

Re:Einstein was right...

[egr]

It's called FOOTBALL!!!! hate this "soccer"-thing

Re:Einstein was right...

[pembo13]

It's called football - you kick it with your foot.

Re:Einstein was right...

[gordo3000]

you know, I don't know of that many things you kick with something other than your foot.......

Re:Einstein was right...

[Dunbal]

It's called football - you kick it with your foot.

      It's called soccer, because the players wear soc...uh never mind.

Re:Einstein was right...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is called Fußball, because you kick it mit dein Fuß. No, I'm sorry, it's actually fotball, because you kick it med din fot. Balompié, , , voetbal, , , or gioco del calcio, which one is it? (Sorry if the Korean, Japanese, Chinese, russian and Greek words aren't showing up)

You see, it depends on the language. You would probably play soccer if you grew up in the States. For me, the game is jalgpall, but I don't mind if some foreigner can't say the word right. When we, the non-English people, study English, we have to learn all the differences between American English and British English. Thank god my teachers didn't make me learn some little far-away dialects, such as Australian English :)

I have to admit that I prefer football, too, because it is the direct translation from my native language. But I laugh at some other differences you argue about in movies/films, such as flashlight/torch, because in my language, the word for this is direct translation of pocket lamp.

Is more tolerance too much to ask from grammar-NAZIS?

Re:Einstein was right...

[cpuffer_hammer]

As apposed to Amarican Rugby, Rugby is a better link to what we Americans call Football.

Re:Einstein was right...

[waterford0069]

Maybe not...

Role 1d12 to hit!

Re:Einstein was right...

[Paradise Pete]

You see, it depends on the language.

In Spanish I think it's La Pintura Secando, or something like that.

Re:Einstein was right...

[Paradise Pete]

you know, I don't know of that many things you kick with something other than your foot.......

Let's see. Some things you can kick without a foot:

- Habits.
- Bad tenants, out.
- it, up a notch.

Re:Einstein was right...

[Tim C]

Is more tolerance too much to ask from grammar-NAZIS?

Not to mention that while football is by far the most common name here in the UK, we do call it soccer too (where do you think the Yanks got the word from?)

(Oh, and as I'm a grammar nazi too, I feel compelled to point out that "nazi" shouldn't be capitalised like that ;) )

Re:Einstein was right...

[ccarvalho]

Yes, He plays dice, and WE are dice.
That's why we feel headacke sometimes.

Re:Einstein was right...

[Anonymous Coward]

So God isn't American?

Soccor Balls

[RedWizzard]

Soccor Balls are not dodecahedra. They're truncated icosahedra.

Re:Soccor Balls

[nycdjmonkey]

I remember reading the truncated icosahedron entry at Mathworld a while back.

Did anybody else notice that "the configuration of the lenses used for focusing the explosive shock waves of the detonators in the Fat Man atomic bomb" were built in the shape of a truncated icosahedron? How perfect would that be... if we used the shape of the universe to blow it up.

-m

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[timgoh0]

Actually, it's a spheroid, 705 meters in diameter.

Oblig. Simpsons

[SeaFox]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, doooooonnuutsss. :-P~~~~~~~~~~~

Not mirrors

[bubbl07]

It's actually just a series of tubes, and it's definitely not a dump truck.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Anomolous Cowturd]

Hmm.. just counted the edges on a d12. Maybe there are 30 after all.

The shape of the universe is

[Reed Solomon]

The shape of the universe is... (rolls dice) dice shaped! It's all one big boring D&D game

Re:The shape of the universe is

[egr]

everyone knows that life is just a reality show, it ends with one-way mirrors, so that the other universes can enjoy the show

Re:The shape of the universe is

[Anonymous Coward]

The shape of the universe is... (rolls dice) dice shaped! It's all one big boring D&D game

In light of this new information, I propose that we rename the Big Bang and Big Crunch as "The Critical Hit" and "The Critical Fumble" respectively.

It might also explain why God doesn't go round smiting as many people as he used to. Just another player who grew away from the hobby.

Re:The shape of the universe is

[nowhere.elysium]

Really? Does that mean that my +3 Charisma talisman will amount to something? Sweet...

Re:The shape of the universe is

[spun]

You mean we're all really just a bunch of elves and gnomes sitting around playing a game of "Cubicles & Managers?"

Fascinating stuff, but rotten analogy

[Quiet_Desperation]

If you leave one face and return via the opposite face, that ain't a mirror. It's transmission from the opposite "side" of the cosmos, not reflection back.

Re:Fascinating stuff, but rotten analogy

[xenocide2]

I think the hall of mirrors concept was that if you place a few lights in a room full of mirrors, you get the illusion of a significantly complex and varied system. However, it seems that they're mostly talking about some very distant edges, so that all we can see of the universe from such "edges" is faint and sporadic background noise.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[osu-neko]

Err... the edges are shared, so there are less than 30. I'm trying to figure out the exact number but my maths is too stale.

No, the exact number would in fact be 30. The edges are indeed shared, which is why there are less than 60 (5 * 12) edges.

So...

[redblue]

... what's the upper limit of my harem size?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely zero.

Re:So...

[Hal_Porter]

I make it 0.42, a bit like Boxing Helena.

You trip...

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

You trip because those bastards as OSHA didn't get a warning sign put up. Time to sue the universe, sight cases of previous soccer ball injuries as proof of negligent design by the creator/creator(s)/thing/fuji heavy industries/spagetti monster/who ever made this thing.

Re:You trip...

[ikkonoishi]

Like these?

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[shawn(at)fsu]

Aren't there some elepahnts in the mix too?

no, only academia

[oohshiny]

If you have noisy data and you keep analyzing it enough, you'll eventually find some bizarre model that fits it better than a more plausible model.

It's probably best not to have a firm opinion on the shape of the universe until a lot more data is in.

Re:no, only academia

[servognome]

It's probably best not to have a firm opinion on the shape of the universe until a lot more data is in.

But that doesn't get you funding

Re:no, only academia

[ceoyoyo]

On the other hand, if you come up with some theories while you're waiting for the new data to come in, you can use them to make predictions that are confirmed or contradicted by the new data.

Re:no, only academia

[oohshiny]

Yes, indeed. The issue here is that what masquerades as a "theory" actually isn't one, since the part that would make it falsifiable--a solid statistical foundation--is missing. Despite all the math and simulation, this is merely an idea for a theory, not an actual scientific theory.

Re:no, only academia

[ceoyoyo]

Let's see... cosmologists come up with a bunch of possible topologies for the universe. Each one predicts a particular distribution of CMB and works in a particular range of curvature. The more complex ones predict additional things, like reflections of CMB and high redshift galaxies.

Yup, nothing falsifiable there! Even the ARTICLE said that if the curvature was below a certain value (to three decimal places) then the universe would be big enough that if it was dodecahedral it wouldn't be distinguishable from a sphere and the theory would be useless.

I think your criticism is misplaced. This is a mathematical model that makes at least three specific, verifiable predictions.

Multiple images of a photon?

[Anonymous Coward]

That might be the worst possible example. Photons don't have their image taken, they are the image *carrier*. Also they are a quantum: each can only be seen once, even in a room full of mirrors.

Re:Multiple images of a photon?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

This should be modded up. Photons are the tools by which things are imaged, not things to be imaged themselves. I really hate pop science articles...

Re:Multiple images of a photon?

[Anonymous Coward]

You only think photons are tools for imaging because your eyes have evolved to be only sensitive to photons. An electron microscope for example uses electrons to create an image of objects... so your assumption is wrong.

Re:Multiple images of a photon?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

My assumption isn't wrong. Electron microscopists simply abused the millennia old word 'image' to include 'images' produced by electrons.

An electron based 'imager' of photons would be a cool thing to see though :-) And don't forget that when you start including loop terms from QED you find that photons do scatter off photons. But that's getting silly.

Would not surprise me.

[gweihir]

Afte all the orther misconceptions about the shape of the universe, the ''infinite'' model could well be wrong again...

Re:Would not surprise me.

[aussie_a]

I thought it was commonly accepted by scientists that the universe was finite?

Re:Would not surprise me.

[gweihir]

Well, no. But the part were anything is in, is finite...

This new model is finite in a different sense.

Come off it...

[OneSmartFellow]

...we all know the universe is shaped like a small fart.

Viscious Aliens From The Planet Wedgie

[KiraFace]

Like the old game "Hemmoroids"... When you went off the edge of the map you came back on the opposite side...

Re:Viscious Aliens From The Planet Wedgie

[Anonymous Coward]

Like a lot of games, most famously pacman ..

Vote for Pedro!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's Moriarty?

heat death

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe is an open system.

Re:heat death

[hemanman]

Ohh, so thats why there are no API-docs available?!?

-H

History

[dcollins]

The freaky thing is that the dodecahedron has been associated since ancient times as representing "the Universe".

http://www.kheper.net/topics/cosmology/solids.html

Re:History

[Aladrin]

How do you think they got their theory?

1: "Guys... We need a theory. Our funding is gonna get cut."
2: "What about the shape of the universe, that hasn't been done for a while?"
1: "What's Google say?"
2: "Hmmm..." http://www.google.com/search?q=shape+of+the+univer se+dodecahedron+-wmap&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr= (Because WMAP is the only other reference that says this, I removed it from the search.
2: "Dodecahedron. But there's no proof, and it's an ancient myth-thing."
1: "I think we could prove that, given enough money. Write up the funding request."

Re:History

[TapeCutter]

Yeah, 'cause we all "know" science is "just another opinion" up for sale. /sarcasm

BTW: Your point numbering system is as fucked up as that old funding "joke".

Re:History

[Aladrin]

OMG. I knew I should have spelled it out so idiots could read it. 1 = scientist 1. 2 = scientist 2. It's SPEECH, not a 'point numbering system.'

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

OTOH cynic pricks like you never contributed anything worthwhile to science..

Instead of coming up with reasons why something is impossible, thats easy, how about some plausible reasoning. Like were inside a "gigantic" molecule, in an even bigger macro-verse, however to escape our "football" may not be that easy, but maybe possible.

No, that would be fun. That would make people start to think instead of accepting the dogmas of science.

Re:History

[Breakfast Pants]

I just read it again, and I don't see a subsection '1. 2'

Re:History

[TapeCutter]

I have to admit that was an amusing way of changing the subject, however my point still stands.

Parroting the spin that peer-reviewed science can be bought just gives nut job's with their creation stickers and "Phd's" in ufology more power. But by far the worst aspect of spreading that false meme (consiously or otherwise) is that it gives tacit approval for politicians and mass-media to ignore science and consult astrologers when it's "in our best interests". Go into any newsagent and you will find the "science" section chock full of ufology, astrology and phycic magazines.

Skepticism is healthy and the best practioners of science are true skeptics in the vein of Carl Sagan and James Randi. The one thing all good skeptics have in common is the tendency to apply the same standards to their own thinking without restricting their imagination. If you can do that and still insist that "science can be bought" I and many others would be interested to see your evidence.

We all know "think-tank" and "lobbyist" are often inseprable, but exactly how do you "buy" peer-reviews in journals such as Nature or Science, let alone enthusiastic confirmations from your competitors that dot the rest of the nation/planet? /rant.

Re:History

[Aladrin]

It was more joke than anything, but there's enough truth to argue the point.

First off, I'm sure there are plenty of scientists who are interested in researching their fields, not in the money. I'd even wager that most of them were true to their field.

But the fact remains that money IS necessary for them to carry on their projects, and they DO need to make sure it keeps coming in, even when they don't have any breakthroughs or even anything interesting to show for their last 3 years. Some of them get desperate and decides to make up discoveries or submit a theory as if it's a fact. And if they can get it on Slashdot, they are virtually assured of getting funding as 'the next big thing.'

No, I'm not bothering to cite examples, as it hasn't been that long since Slashdot had a few articles about faked data or theories that were stated as fact by the media.

It happens.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to burst your bubble, but funding agencies don't care whether somebody's work was posted to Slashdot.

Overhyping does exist; scientists have been known to overstate the significance and/or reliability of their results. (Convincing their peers of this is another matter.) However, except for some very rare cases of outright fraud, nobody just "makes up discoveries", and while the media often can't tell the difference between a theory and a fact, the scientific community can.

Re:History

[TapeCutter]

"But the fact remains that money IS necessary for them to carry on their projects......And if they can get it on Slashdot, they are virtually assured of getting funding as 'the next big thing.'"

Nobody is disputing the fact that scientists have to eat, or that fact that corporations are free to piss their money away on vapourware. If you insist on buying what the ufologists are selling I can't stop you and given the state of many other public institutions I really can't blame you.

Re:History

[mapkinase]

Among five ideal polyhedra it is just the most round-shaped. Earth (cube) is round as well, but it seemed rougher to people living on it because of all landscaping has been performed by moving tectonic plates.

I foresee a horror flick titled "Dodecahedron".

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Anonymous Coward]

Next April, it's going to be "OMG Turtles" on Slashdot.

So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[Ignis Flatus]

Back in school, we did mathematical transforms on equations to make them easier to deal with. Z-transforms, S-transforms, imaginary numbers, etc. But the thing about mathematical transforms is that although they may make your engineering calculations (or in this case, physics equations) easier to deal with, that doesn't mean they represent an idea that means much physically, they're just convenient for the task at hand.

Any insight from the physics nerds? Is this just a way of dealing with all the (so far unproven) dimensions of string theory? What's the real deal here?

Re:So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[Basehart]

"What's the real deal here?"

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Re:So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[Hal_Porter]

Yeah, exactly. The equations may have imaginary numbers and so on in them, but it doesn't have any physical meaning.

The only thing I can see is that if you had two theories, one which had outlandish things like parallel dimensions in it and one without and the nonintuitive one fit the experimental data better than the intuitive one, maybe with some advanced engineering you could do some cool stuff, like faster than light travel, that would be impossible in the intuitive but simplistic theory.

Re:So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with string theory or extra dimensions. And it is quite physical, not some "mathematical transform" (whatever that means). General relativity doesn't dictate what shape space has to have; that's for us to measure. It could have the shape of a (3 dimensional version of) a sphere, a plane, a torus, etc.

This isn't some abstraction — in the case of, say, a torus, you could literally, physically travel around the universe in a straight line and end up back where you started (assuming the universe isn't expanding faster than you can travel).

This in fact is how they search for these weird topologies; they look for correlations in the cosmic background radiation where light could have travelled around and appeared somewhere else in the sky, so you see "duplicate" images of patterns in the radiation (displaced in time).

Whether our universe actually is shaped like that is another matter, but it's a logical possibility and deserves investigation.

Re:So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[metamatic]

This has nothing to do with string theory or extra dimensions.

Maybe not, but it's interestingly coincidental that a dodecahedron has 12 sides and string theory has around 11 dimensions.

Re:So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those transforms do mean something in the real world. They have to somehow relate to the original problem otherwise you wouldn't be solving anything, right?

Anyway, integral transforms for example, will "project" your problem into a vector space. Say the finite sine transform will resolve whatever problem you have into its frequencies (the space of sines) and then you can solve that problem instead, which is often easier.

Re:So... just how "real" is this theory, anyway?

[Ignis Flatus]

I agree, it deserves investigation. It could also be that the universe simply has a regular structure. Or once did, at least.

On the subject of universe topology:

[ColaMan]

Hey.

What was the name of that short story about a guy that was driving his car round a particular mountain bend and accidentally finds a tiny pocket universe?

Anyone remember?

I've been reminded of it by this story and now I NEED TO KNOW, dammit.

Re:On the subject of universe topology:

[Anonymous Coward]

I read a story like this about 10 or 15 years ago in Asimov's Science Fiction. In your story, was it the flashing of the reflectors on the road barrier that opened up the pocket universe?

If so, I've been trying to hunt this story down, as well.

A girlfriend threw away my collection of Asimov's a few years ago. :(

Re:On the subject of universe topology:

[Anonymous Coward]

You may be thinking of Stephen King's short story Mrs. Todd's Shortcut from the book Skeleton Crew.

Re:On the subject of universe topology:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you made a typo. Did you mean to say "an EX-Girlfriend threw away your collection of Asimovs a few years ago."
or "A girlFIEND threw away my collection of Asimovs a few years ago."

Re:On the subject of universe topology:

[swilly]

The basic idea you describe is pretty generic and has probably been done by several authors.

Louis L'Amour wrote a book like this called The Haunted Mesa. Apparently the parallel universe is where the Anasazi went. Much different from the stuff he usually wrote, but it's not a bad read.

Moriarty Explained - Re:Vote for Pedro!

[lotusleaf]

"Who's Moriarty?"

That's probably what the person who modded my parent post down was asking themselves, too, I'd guess. Shame on those of you who missed the ST:TNG reference! :P

Please see the Wikipedia page for Professor Moriarty and on that page, scroll down to where it says "Moriarty in pop culture" where it includes the bit about the ST:TNG episode where "the three trapped crewmembers programmed the holodeck inside the holodeck to create a holographic simulation of the outside world, leaving Moriarty and the Countess safely stored in a databank aboard the Enterprise." At the end of the episode, Picard mentions something about how we all may simply be inside such a device sitting on someone's desk somewhere.

Re:Moriarty Explained - Re:Vote for Pedro!

[Anonymous Coward]

You young whippersnapper... go listen to the [i]Goon Show[/i].

That's just a force field...

[Logiksan]

...put up by aliens to prevent humans from getting too far ahead of themselves.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[dangitman]

It's a good idea not to rely on D&D for your mathematics education.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[aussie_a]

There is nothing wrong with using a physical object that shares the same shape as the universe theoretically does in order to detect something that is common in both.

Er, huh?

[Peet42]

Multiple images of a planet I can understand, but multiple images of a photon??? IIRC they only exist in one place and you can't "image" them until they interact with your eye/a sensor. Hmmm.

Oblig Futurama

[D3m0n0fTh3Fall]

"I call it a Hawking hole"

You people may live in a soccer ball universe...

[Noxal]

...but I live in a giant bucket.

Bubble theory

[RafaelGCPP]

The atom is a bunch of bubbles floating around another bubble...
We live on a bubble, that goes around another bubble...
What if the universe is actually a HUGE bubble, floating around other bubbles??

That means BEER IS A UNIVERSE IN ITSELF!!! COOL!!!

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[TapeCutter]

The answer is always 42, you can't argue with Douglas Adams.

BTW: Put down the slide rule, you just need to realise every edge has exactly two adjacent faces.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[SirWinston]

"If there's nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe!"--Beverly Crusher

Damn it, Wesley! Stop playing with static warp bubbles.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[dangitman]

It was a joke. i.e - not to be taken seriously.

I have a +8 turd of bullshit artistry. If I win a battle against a coprophiliac, how much bullshit do I have left?

Ob

[Bastard of Subhumani]

But what, pray tell, are the elephants standing on?

Re:Ob

[Dunbal]

But what, pray tell, are the elephants standing on?

      A giant space turtle of course. And before you ask what the turtle is standing on - it's a TURTLE, it doesn't need to stand on anything. It just swims through space going about it's business. Probably the only creature that knows exactly where it's headed, too. (Apologies to Terry Pratchett).

Re:Ob

[Gilmoure]

No, it's just Turtles, all the way down.

After I mentioned this to my girlfriend...

[exspecto]

she looked out into space and asked me if this universe made her look fat.

What a coincidence

[flyneye]

WOW,only minutes ago I awoke from a dream of a universe like that and full of recursion in our own human commerce .
perhaps what we view from a telescope is ourselves time warped and 36 degrees away.
Hopefully our sun isn't any of the spectacular novae we're seeing.If it is,however,hopefully the timespace math will put it far in the future or far in the past.I've sort of wondered if the big bang doesn't expand and contract from a singularity like one of those geodesic toys that folds out to large proportions and back only to repeat.No,kidding just minutes ago I was dreaming this.

Re:What a coincidence

[SaDan]

Might be best to lay off the Taco Bell before sleeping.

Re:What a coincidence

[flyneye]

Yeah,could be my eating weird stuff before bed.Still a strange coincidence.I spent the day thinking about the game "asteroids" where the ship leaving the screen on the right appears on the left,up reappears down,etc.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

damn it I can't remember where that's from

The Exterior

[Kamiza Ikioi]

If something has an interior, that to me at least would logically mean there is an exterior. What's on the exterior?

It is something to ponder about. If there is an exterior, and its all mirrored on the interior, then there's no way to look beyond those mirrors. The only way to see the exterior and what may lie beyond it is if what is on the exterior comes into the interior. If the universe has a boundary, then it lies beyond time, space, beyond dark matter, beyond void. It is then, really, infinite of time and space. Without time or space, with no relational "size" or "limit", it is effectively the omnipresent of the exterior. Are we a "soccer ball" in its view, and if so, can it kick us around at will, if it has a will?

And if you think all that is very possible, the only question to ask is, can it penetrate the interior of the universe? What stops it? Could it be the exterior itself, the being its own boundary? Unless there are multiple universes, are we the sole object of its attention, its only interest?

If all that is true, then while we cannot measure or weigh what is outside of us, it can surely measure and weigh what it encompasses. It knows our sum total, and we have no comprehension of its nature. Our science for all its complexity falls short of understanding the universe compared to a single comprehending glance from the outside. A man can't pick himself off the ground using only his own hands anymore than we can comprehend the full view of the universe, interior and exterior using only the things within the universe.

But, nothing exists on the exterior, right. The universe is just a ball floating in void, the void of which we can't even mentally comprehend, because it has no space or time. Then again, I once heard of a theory on the subject...

Re:The Exterior

[eebra82]

Just because it is hard to imagine does not mean that it is impossible or improbable. You must realize that everything within our known universe is based (or at least believed to be based) on Newtonian laws.

Once you take a trip outside of the universe, these laws no longer apply. What's there, what it looks like and how it feels is something you won't be able to intercept as a human, but you'd probably not even be able to exist or pass that limit anyway.

I personally don't believe we have a limited universe. I see it as limitless in the sense that "nothingness" and vacuum can go on forever, since it doesn't require any particles or matter. I do however believe that the Big Bang theory is accurate, but I do not think that it is a unique event in the universe. There are probably billions of universes as we know ours, only so far away that we are unable to spot them - yet? Scary thought, huh? But on the other hand, why should our universe be the only existing materia? Why can't there be another billion universes apart from each other with billions and billions of light years apart from each other? One thing I have learned about the universe is to think outside the box. It's just like when Hubble took that Ultra Deep Space picture that I realized what an enormous place we live in and what a small piece of the universe that photograph captured, and yet, what a small piece we must know that exists.

Re:The Exterior

[bockelboy]

If something has an interior, that to me at least would logically mean there is an exterior. What's on the exterior?

False, in general (I'm not sure about this specific case, however). Go look up a Klein bottle. It is a mathematical object with no defineable interior or exterior (which makes it very hard to integrate over, in the traditional sense. Damned non-orientable objects.)

Futurama depiction

Re:The Exterior

[grikdog]

Obviously, the universe is recursive. Therefore, what's "outside" is the same as what's "inside," only bigger. Then, when we look around to find what's "inside" us, what to our wondering eyes should appear? Black holes! Nifty. In which case, speaking of abandoned IP, Time is the gnarly stuff that happens on the inner side of an event horizon....?

Re:The Exterior

[Mr. Slippery]

Go look up a Klein bottle.

Better yet, buy one.

Re:The Exterior

[Xybot]

How many sides does a moebius strip have?

Re:The Exterior

[Kamiza Ikioi]

There's a theory out now about actually reading what's inside a Black Hole by studying escaping anti-matter. Kind of harkens back to the old Star Trek episode with the alternate universe where everything seems reversed. The idea of a multiverse of relational sizes is an interesting one. The only question is how they would relate to each other. A single atom falling into a black hole would have to "reduce", or it would quite literally smash the universe(s) within our universe into pieces. If that's true, a single atom from the universe "above" us could destroy us in an instant. Maybe that would explain Big Bang, haha. However, I have to think that the theory falls a bit short in a few ways. First, if there is reducing, then it's just simple relativity, and there's not really smaller, but only the observation of small (like someone standing really far away). And, we already can observe that, so it just becomes a normal worm holing effect, and we still have to wonder on the boundaries of the universe in any finite theory. On the other hand, if there is no reduction, then there's a question of multiplicity. Are there universes so small that they actually fill all of our "empty" space, and make electrons look like galaxies (in a manner of speaking)? If so, do we shake trillions upon trillions of vast empires simply by sneezing? While simple interactions may not actually do that, what about processes like thermonuclear fusion? Atom smashing? Could atomic reactions themselves be destructive forces to ultra-small universes? If so, how would we even come close to defining morality in that since, living on the death of countless universes? And, when will our universe eventually fall into the sun of a larger universe? Hmmm, no, that theory, to me at least, asks far more questions than it answer. It would have to come a long way before I could personally consider it. Though it does make for great TV, hehe.

Re:The Exterior

[Kamiza Ikioi]

How many interiors does a moebius strip have?

Re:The Exterior

[Kamiza Ikioi]

I'll buy one just as soon as you can tell me if I'm inside or outside a Klein bottle. ;)

All interiors have an exterior. If you have not one, you have not the other, and vice versa. That which lacks one, lacks both. If the universe has an interior, it has an exterior. If it has no exterior, it has no interior, and vice versa.

The last good explanation of physics involving a surface was, if I remember correctly, Einstein explaining holes in space time (worm holes) using a bent piece of paper and a pencil. I've yet to see any more exact or simpler explanation of astrophysics. Klein bottles hardly explain the universe, though. If the universe is a Klein bottle, then its borders lie at some point, from which you can travel infinitely from. You may as well say a glass Kline bottle is the real universal boundary, because that's exactly what it would be. So, you imagine a bigger and bigger bottle... but relatively speaking from an infinite distance away from those borders, it's still the same size as a glass Klein bottle... a point. That's hardly a border just because you have a Klein bottle on your desk, regardless of its size or shape.

Re:The Exterior

[grikdog]

Nothing so conventional, I'd guess. I'd hazard to mumble that there's no "size" dimension that makes sense on the "other side" of a black hole, and that what you get is matter/energy smeared into concentric shells of reference. That way Time can be momentary, another old bit of Zen, so what the "inner" universe looks like would be a pure mutual implicate relative to an observer -- like this one.

Re:The Exterior

[Anonymous Coward]

If something has an interior, that to me at least would logically mean there is an exterior.

No, that's not logic, that's intuition. You have not offered a logical argument, you have offered an intuitive argument. If you phrased it in logical terms, it would be fairly easy to show that the existence of an interior does not imply the existence of an exterior.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[sDtek]

History of Time. --The guy in the wheelchair with that creepy voice.. but pretty smart

Not much evidence

[Thomas the Doubter]

There is a problem with Physics these days, in that theory seems to be prior to observation. I would be much more interested in this pretty-picture geometry of the universe if we did in fact see multiple similar observations of galaxies and other objects which were at 36 degrees offset from each other.
Witness the contrast with Biology. The structure of DNA was proposed based upon exhaustive analysis of actual molecular images, as well as the interatomic forces involved.
Thomas

Re:Not much evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a problem with Physics these days, in that theory seems to be prior to observation.

Did you bother to read the article? The theory of multiply-connected spaces has been around for a long time, but this specific claim of a dodecahedral universe was based on details of the CMBR spectrum found in the first-year WMAP observational data.

I would be much more interested in this pretty-picture geometry of the universe if we did in fact see multiple similar observations of galaxies and other objects which were at 36 degrees offset from each other.

We may not be able to see multiple galaxies even in a dodecahedral universe, if the light from galaxies hasn't had time to reach us. That's one reason why the much earlier CMBR is important to these searches. Better CMBR data will resolve the issue.

Re:Not much evidence

[hr raattgift]

Hypothesis is prior to observation, as in any scientific discipline.

The relevant hypotheses don't erupt by magic, they're well-grounded in more than a decade of ever-closer observation of temperature fluctuations in the CMBR. The operating theory is that these small fluctuations are the images of local energy variations in the early universe, and that since the time of those local variations, gravity (within the framework of GR) has acted to shape the large scale structure of the Universe (galaxies etc.).

This particular hypothesis makes several specific predictions about the CMBR. If it is wrong in any of these predictions, it will have to be abandoned as non-physical.

DNA was also understood (and misunderstood) in steps starting with Miescher and Altmann's isolation of it. It took some work to arrive at the hypothesis that DNA is a phosphate-sugar-base polymer (Caspersson and Hammersten) and that was well before the use of X-rays to study the molecule, first by denaturation then through X-ray diffraction analysis (Astbury). It wasn't until the 1950s that strong hypotheses about the structure of DNA arose (Cambridge, Caltech and KCL). Each group ended up with a number of hypotheses unsupported by their own (and the others') data, and each group developed new hypotheses taking into account other research work into the chemical properties of DNA (especially Chargaff's observations of the constantly equal proportions of A+T and C+G).

The Cambridge team had already been operating within a framework which would become their Central Dogma by the time they had sufficient evidence (early 1953) to announce their double helix model. That is, they had already developed a theory that the transfer of information (in the residue sense) from DNA to protein was a one-way process, and that no information was tranferred from protein to protein.

The Central Dogma theoretical framework was developed "prior to observation", but it made specific predictions about what would be observed in future experiments on DNA, just as the cosmological theory you seem unhappy with makes specific predictions about what the WMAP experiment's observations will include. In the "Central Dogma" case the theory held up well in the general case, however it is now known to be incomplete, particularly with respect to non nuclear heritable conformation-changing proteins (McClintock) and new work on chaperonins and stress proteins (particularly Lundquist).

Returning to cosmology, this particular hypothesis has arisen out of decades of work on big bang theory and Cosmic Inflation, both of which arose as theories in advance of sufficiently detailed examination of the CMBR (indeed, the CMBR had not been discovered before BBT, however it was one of BBT's predictions -- another one of those "theory before observation" things that you object to). It was consistent with known observations, is plausible, and is readily falsifiable. (In fact, it is pretty likely to be falsified now that the new WMAP data have arrived, that will narrow the error bars on omega, and are likely to narrow them away from the high limit below which this hypothesis can be physical.)

if we did in fact see multiple similar observations of galaxies and other objects which were at 36 degrees offset from each other

The hypothesis has a reasonable explanation for redshift versus the "reflections", but no hypothesis would be safe resting only upon the possibility of identifying duplication at galactic or "Great Wall" scales, because we will not have instruments able to search for those for many years to come. HUDF-style observations examine only tiny slivers of the sky and require considerable time. Although a direct search using ultra-deep-field observations is plausible, it's not very practical because of the time requirements and the non-resilience to small aiming errors. More importantly, its originators carefully developed observational tests which could be performed by known-to-be-s

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[rikkards]

Err... the edges are shared, so there are less than 30. I'm trying to figure out the exact number but my maths is too stale.

But what if the faces are beveled at the edges?

multiple images of the same stars at different age

[Herve5]

Such a theory results in you being able to get pictures of the same star environments at different places but at different ages (because of the speed of light) so in fact you may not be able to recognize this.
Indeed you could recognize it when observing the stars around a "window" frame, because in this area, you'll indeed get images of the same "frame" at two different places in the sky, with stars of the same age.
If you manage to match two such "frame" zones in the sky, then you have proven the theory. This is, in a simplified way, how the supporters of these theories proceed.
The problem is, to detect the frames one must (a) be sure of their shape (why regular ones, why not circular windows, etc.) and (b) having selected one shape and size, scan the entire deep sky with it trying to match two zones -this activity requires more precise deep sky catalogs that we have (necessitating e. g. results from ESA's future Herschel/Planck satellites) and a computing time now evaluated in centuries IIRC.

In other words: nice unverifyable theory.

Gravity

[Antony-Kyre]

I think the word I'm looking for is hypercube, but I mean to apply it to the number of sides a dodecahedron has.

Going through one side will result ending up coming through another side. (Anyone ever have dreams of being stuck in a room, you go through the door, only to end up in the same room as before?)

Picture yourself in an empty room like this. You can see through the sides, and you see yourself like in a hall of mirrors. You pass through the walls only to end up in the same room.

Imagine release millions of tiny superballs, which we will call photons, in the room. Now, imagine there is another object, a big round object in the room, that isn't moving to start with.

All these superballs going in every single direction start bouncing off you, pushing you around. However, since there were few, if any, superballs between you and the big round object to begin with, there is less "pressure" inbetween you and the object, so the superballs on the outside push you towards it.

The big round object is moving slower as the superballs bounce off of it because it has more mass, however, you are pushed towards it ever quicker. More and more, you fall faster and faster towards it.

Re:Gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

This is completely speculative and wrong. The Sun is the source of 99.9% of photons ("superballs") in our Solar System. Some how I don't see them blowing us away with their powerful anti-gravity effect. Yet another physics theory by a non physicist.

Re:Gravity

[Antony-Kyre]

For one, you assume too much.

Second of all, let me make a correction in what I typed up before I went to bed. I shouldn't have used the term photons. I should have said high frequency cosmic energy.

Still, I believe it would come from the sun, stars, and nebulae in our Uuniverse. Afterall, if the Universe is a finite dodecahedron with each side transporting material to another one of it's sides, then high frequency cosmic energy would end up leaving one side and coming through another and would keep traveling until it hits what we deem as matter.

Now, do you have anything intelligent to put forth in this discussion, or are you just going around trolling for attention?

Re:Gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

What you are describing is a form of what is known as 'push gravity', the most notable example of which is Le Sage gravity. To make a long story short, push-gravity models generically have (at least) two major flaws; they predict a drag force on and aberration of orbiting bodies that is not observed, and they are difficult to reconcile with the laws of relativity. Feynman discusses (and dismisses) such models briefly in, I think, The Character of Physical Law. Actually, 'push gravity' is perhaps the most reinvented layman theory of physics; I've seen people propose it dozens of times on the Internet.

Re:Gravity

[Antony-Kyre]

Who says drag has to be experienced in soley in the physical? I'd think it's entirely possibly that it's possible to drag time. Something could be moving at the same speed with or without the drag, but with the drag, the relative time the body/object experiences is slowed. In other words, if x, y, and z are distance, then the speed of t, which is time, goes slower for the object.

Re:Gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

Who says drag has to be experienced in soley in the physical? I'd think it's entirely possibly that it's possible to drag time.

Those are nice words, but when particles collide with an object, they impart momentum and exert a frictional drag force that is not observed, not to mention the unobserved aberration and other effects which do not agree with reality.

Something could be moving at the same speed with or without the drag, but with the drag, the relative time the body/object experiences is slowed. In other words, if x, y, and z are distance, then the speed of t, which is time, goes slower for the object.

That irrelevant to the fact that your theory doesn't work as a theory of gravity, time dilation or not. You would learn this if you tried to write down an actual theory instead of tossing words around.

Re:Gravity

[Antony-Kyre]

Sorry, but I am still going to have to disagree. Just because a theory hasn't made it to the point of writing it down doesn't make it untrue.

Re:Gravity

[master_p]

"bla bla...Going through one side will result ending up coming through another side...bla bla"

You could simply have said 'pacman'...

Re:Gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because a theory hasn't made it to the point of writing it down doesn't make it untrue.

In other words, "I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I'm still going to assert I'm right".

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. If you postulate that gravity is due to a bath of particles pushing on massive bodies, that pushing will produce a drag force. It has to — it's the force of the particles on the bodies. Likewise, there will be an orbital aberration, due to the transit time of the particles. Neither of those effects are observed, and no "dragging of time" (whatever that means) is going to change that. Your theory is falsified by data. I'm sorry you liked it, but not everyone's favorite theory gets to be true.

Re:Gravity

[djdavetrouble]

Wheres that
"You're too stupid to understand the Timecube, dumbass" guy when you need him ?

Re:Gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

the movie was better. its called 'cube.' the second one in the trilogy is the only one that involves a 'hypercube' a.k.a. 'tesseract.' all are worth watching though - totally sick.

Re:mmmmmmm dodecadonuts

[jbengt]

What is being described as a soccerball with opposite ends connected is essentially a dodeca-donut.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I heard it from a comedian, I've never seen a film of that name... so maybe it's well known

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Gilmoure]

I think the article said that the edges might have three adjacent faces. That makes my brain hurt. I think I'll go be a bridge support somewhere.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[complete loony]

It could be a discworld reference... Under the disk is the elephants, then a turtle. And under that? Then it's turtles all the way down.

Now I get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just like Asteroids.

Or Pac-Man...

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[complete loony]

If a black hole curves space a lot, could the whole universe be curved a little? Resulting in a similar kind of event horizon?

Universe: everything

[Elentari]

I don't understand the concept of a "shaped universe", because the word's meant to describe absolutely everything in existence, as far as I know. Maybe the definition's been altered. If it were to have a shape, then it would have boundaries, meaning there would be scope for something outside these boundaries. Nothing has edges without something else pushing against them to define those edges. If there were something outside of these boundaries, then the universe is not composed of everything in existence, meaning it's not the universe.

Re:Universe: everything

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were to have a shape, then it would have boundaries, meaning there would be scope for something outside these boundaries.

A spherical surface has a shape, but it does not have boundaries. In particular, a two-dimensional spherical surface does not imply the existence of a three (or higher) dimensional space in which that surface is embedded.

Must be finite!

[Anonymous Coward]

Take travelling back in time as an example, for it to be possible, each physical change in the universe must be stored somewhere.. How else could you travel back in time? Now, that's an awful lot of data to store, and a real waste of resources, because if the past was statically stored, then why remember something directly and store it in a neureal net, instead of simply storing reference coordinates back in time? Nature would already have used it to its benefit..

The only reasonable conclusion is that space is a finite area of storage.

Re:multiple images of the same stars at different

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words: nice unverifyable theory.

The theory can be verified with improved measurements of the cosmic background radiation, as mentioned in the article. They look for statistical correlations in CBR fluctuations (the "matched circles" in the article). They don't have to look for identical regions in the sky and they certainly don't try to match individual stars.

Series of tubes...

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to think of it more like the crotch on a pair of pants - imagine that each pentagon has a tube connected to it, and you run it to the other side and connect it up with the appropriate twist.

So you are saying the Universe is nothing more than a series of tubes? Are you a senator? Alright, come out with it!

Dodecahedron?

[fltsimbuff]

Dodecahedron? I don't think so. We all know that the universe is a tiny glass sphere that higher beings use in marbles competitions.

Mulder was right!

[SQLGuru]

There are aliens out there......they are *US*. If we look far enough, we will eventually see ourselves. Only rotated 36 degrees (several times over).

Layne

false?

[The Creator]

>Is it possible for a video game character to leave a computer game and enter the real world (or at least what we consider to be the real world)? Only through the intervention of it's creators (i.e. us).

Or through a bug in the system.

Re:false?

[Gulthek]

Whoa. What bug has ever allowed a videogame character to enter the real world?

Unless by 'real world' you mean onto a sector of hard drive space they weren't meant to occupy?

Re:false?

[Anonymous Coward]

But haven't you ever played Star Ocean: Till the End of Time!? We can enter the 4D world if we are imbued with the right runes!

Re:false?

[WeblionX]

It's kind of like TRON, but in reverse.

Re:false?

[The Creator]

Well none yet. But on the other hand, what intentional acts have resulted in that?

Re:false?

[edschurr]

What if the host computer for the simulation is ultimately connected to assembly-line processes? A simulated character could possibly load its own brain into the real-world (via a fantastic feat of reverse engineering and luck that the programming was shoddy). The original mind would be stuck in the simulation, but a copy of the mind could exist in the real-world, or at least the original could remotely control it.

Re:false?

[Xylene2301]

see the scifi movie the 13th floor.

Ob simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

Stephen Hawking: "Homer, your theory of a donut-shaped universe is intriguing."

We're living in Doom?

[Money for Nothin']

They mean to say the universe is really just one big Hall of Mirrors Effect? :-P

Finite Space?

[Evenstone]

How can space have a shape / size? Isn't space technically just.. space? How can something that doesn't exist be measured? Space is just our concept of nothingness.

Re:Finite Space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Space may be your concept of nothingness, but according to a physicist, space does exist, and it has at least one measurable physical property: geometry. Specifically, a notion of distance and angle. Moreover, in Einstein's general relativity this property is dynamical, and can change in response to interactions between physical bodies.

Total BS

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article: "Most astronomers think that the universe is infinite" This statement is true only if the phrase "most astronomers" is defined as "no astronomers". In other words, whoever wrote the article is talking out of their ass.

Re:Total BS

[Anonymous Coward]

As the article mentions, the standard modern cosmological theory is the inflationary model, which involves a flat, infinite universe. Most astronomers do in fact subscribe to inflationary cosmology, particularly in light of the WMAP results discussed in the article, which showed evidence of the acoustic peak structure in the CMBR angular power spectrum that is predicted by inflation.

XTC proposed this theory 24 years ago

[shwonline]

From Senses Working Overtime: "...And all the world is football-shaped..."

Obligatory reference

[12357bd]

'The Road to Reality' (Roger Penrose) http://www.amazon.com/Road-Reality-Complete-Guide- Universe/dp/0679454438/
Great discussion about physics laws and math, one of the bests titles of Mr Penrose, and yes, the ' dodecahedral/tetrahedral/octahedral space' possibilities are also explained from the ground up.

oblig

[Saikik]

In soviet soccer, ball contains field.

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[ceoyoyo]

What shape do turtles have on their shells? It's a hexagon, isn't it, not a pentagon?

It's about "time"...

[pr0digy25]

..I've said this for ages... the number of distant stars/galaxies is probably smaller htan we think, rather we are seeing "many reflections" of these entities from various points of time bouncing around inside our "soccer ball".

MOD PARENT UP

[djeca]

Oh, certainly, sir.

Look, my liege!
[trumpets]

Yay noneuclidean geometry

[sycomonkey]

I'm not an astrophysist (though I wanted to be one in high school), but I rather like the simpiler concept of the universe being finite, though rather large by this point, in that if you look in one direction far enough your line of sight will loop back to see your current location (though of course several billion years ago). Sort of like in Asteroids where if you fly past the left edge of the screen, your ship shows up on the right side. Which makes me wonder weather or not some of the galaxies in the hubble deep field is ours.

Then that means...

[Arceliar]

D&D should switch from a d20 system to a d12?

Yes, THAT was my first thought in hearing the universe might be 12 sided...

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[marcosdumay]

Didn't D&D use d6? Or I must go back to Gurps?

Re:Everyone knows the TRUE shape of the universe..

[Mateito]

Hmm.. just counted the edges on a d12. Maybe there are 30 after all.

Its definitely 30 vertices, as I just made a stellated dodecahedron out of bamboo BBQ skewers to put on top of our christmas tree. The shape took exactly 30 kebab sticks, and you can see the 12 pentagon faced solid in the middle of the Christmas Star.

What if...

[kitsunewarlock]

Now don't call me crazy now...but what if the universe really is just an infinate space going on forever and ever and we are all just wasting our time with these fascinating theories? I mean, what if the universe just is "there" and just "is". No expansion or shapes, just infinate in all directions.
Well personally I believe in the infinite expansion of matter. That is, there is one clump of matter that explodes (the explosion being labeled a "star") and bursts forth with a ton of energy, creating orbits of these clumps of energy and mass that themselves do the same thing.

Ahem...

[Anonymous Coward]

Asteroids!

You can check in any time you like..

[StikyPad]

when one goes out from a pentagonal face, one immediately comes back inside the ball from the opposite face after a 36 degree rotation.

Ah, so the universe is exactly like New York then.

Quantum Foam

[lateralchaos]

Makes Me Roam.

my main problem with this

[Pr0xY]

ok, here's my issue with theories that the universe is finite.

Basically, it boils down to if the universe is finite, it therefore has shape and bounds right? In this particular case, we are comparing it to a soccer ball. But if it has bounds, then what is beyond those bounds? Is our "universe" inside a larger finite shape? or is what contains our universe infinite?

I assume they mean to imply that it would defy the rules of the "universe" to be able to escape it into said container, but that doesn't eliminate the fact that if the universe is finite, then the question remains, what is outside of our universe? I don't think "nothing" is appropriate either.

Basically, I suppose it is a matter of definition, to me universe means "all that exists", but if what we know as the universe has bounds and therefore exists inside some other possibly impossible to define region, then we aren't really talking about a universe anymore, we are talking about a limited subset of what I would call the universe.

Also, what if what we call a universe is one of many soccer balls (Imagine a ball bin in a store)? Are we still talking about each ball being the universe, I would think the bin is the universe then right? And if so, is it possible to break from one ball into another without doing damage to either ball?

I'm no theoretical astrophysicist, but I believe we need some better definitions about what we are actually talking about, cause really once you give way to possibility of a multiverse, you by definition no longer have a universe, since it means "everything" and therefore can only be one.

Just some thoughts.

proxy

Re:my main problem with this

[tttonyyy]

I think you're missing the point a bit. Much like asteroids, where if you go off one side of the screen your ship appears on the other, the article descibes a universe where as you go out one side, you enter the other side. The difference is that as you enter the other side, the universe is effectively rotated by 36 degrees. So its possible you could see yourself if you looked far enough into the distance, but your view of yourself would be rotated.

So, there is no outside, as such, at least in the dimensions we understand.

Re:my main problem with this

[Ambitwistor]

Basically, it boils down to if the universe is finite, it therefore has shape and bounds right?

It has a shape (regardless of whether or not it is finite), but it doesn't have to have bounds (even if finite). A spherical surface is finite, but unbounded.

In this particular case, we are comparing it to a soccer ball.

Actually, we're comparing it to a soccer ball (well, not really) with some of its faces topologically identified. If you take a square and topologically identify opposite edges, you get a finite and unbounded torus. The topology discussed here is more complicated.

But if it has bounds, then what is beyond those bounds? Is our "universe" inside a larger finite shape? or is what contains our universe infinite?

The universe is not believed to have bounds or to be contained inside any higher-dimensional space, except in certain speculative "braneworld" scenarios. Thus, in standard cosmology, there is no such thing as "outside of our universe".

Sorry, but that's incorrect.

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Mathematically, then, we are "inside" every Klein bottle in the world. Of the principle, most people don't go around considering themselves inside thousands of bottles. This would be an incorrect assumption of faulty logic.

Just became you can turn your shirt inside out (or twist it into a single curved plane), doesn't mean you have put the world inside your shirt. It means you have a twisted shirt.

A Klein bottle has no interior or exterior, actually. So, no, I'm 100% correct. If you have an interior, you must have an exterior. If you have no exterior, you have no interior.

So, if we are on the interior, there must be an exterior. If not, then the universe is simply infinite as there are no spacial boundaries, but only defined pathways, like a cubical maze. Cubicles don't technically have an interior or exterior. An office, on the other hand, has an interior once the door is close. As soon as the interior is defined, the exterior is defined. They define each other, in fact. They can never be mutually exclusive.

Re:Sorry, but that's incorrect.

[spun]

You are attempting to apply common sense notions to a field where those notions make no sense. Either you have the math to be able to logically figure out why your common sense notions do not apply, or you pretty much have to take it on faith that the theorists are right and the whole notion of "inside/outside" breaks down when we are talking about the universe.

Think about it this way: inside the universe, everything breaks down into polar opposites. One pair of polar opposites is called "defined/undefined." "Polar opposites" is a defintion. "Outside the universe" is undefined. There are no polar opposites outside the universe. Therefore, there is no outside the universe. ;-)

Kind of....

[Tzarius]

Not sure if it's actually gravity or "dark energy" behind it, but the Hubble sphere defines the area outside of which no light or information can reach us. From what I've read, if the expansion of the universe is accelerating, then the Hubble sphere will contract. First red-shifting the most distant stars into blackness, then moving closer and closer until we can only see the stars in our own galaxy (but by then, the expansion may have become strong enough to adversely affect life on Earth...)

There is no universe

[zwarte piet]

The "universe" is just a set of restrictions on your perception.

Border of Nothing

[ccarvalho]

If the universe is really finite so what has place beyond that limit?

Since when was it supposed to be infinite?

[4D6963]

Most astronomers think that the universe is infinite

No? I thought they didn't and rather thought that the universe was about 180 billion ly large and that we were somewhere in there, not being able to tell where exactly since we can only see about 13.8 billion ly away. And don't tell me that we/they are supposed to think that there's something (even if it's only vaccum) out of this huge 180 billion ly large ball because we couldn't get there even if we were on the edge of the universe (I wonder what we'd see tho)

And by the way, why do we care about the background microwave radiation to determine the shape of the universe? I mean what does it have to do with it, besides to give information about the early universe? I haven't read the whole article by the way, oh well, if you have, you need to ask yourself questions about the (mis)use of your free time.

Re:Since when was it supposed to be infinite?

[Ambitwistor]

I thought they didn't and rather thought that the universe was about 180 billion ly large and that we were somewhere in there, not being able to tell where exactly since we can only see about 13.8 billion ly away. Astronomers think the universe is about 13.8 billion years old. They think the observable universe (the part we can see) extends about 50 billion lightyears in any direction. The entire universe is often believed to be infinite within the context of inflationary cosmology.

And don't tell me that we/they are supposed to think that there's something (even if it's only vaccum) out of this huge 180 billion ly large ball because we couldn't get there even if we were on the edge of the universe (I wonder what we'd see tho) There is no edge of the universe, as far as we know. The universe is either believed to be infinite or finite but unbounded; in either case, there is no edge.

And by the way, why do we care about the background microwave radiation to determine the shape of the universe? I mean what does it have to do with it, besides to give information about the early universe? We care for the reason you state: it gives information about the early universe. If the universe is finite and multiply-connected, as suggested in this story, it's possible for light to circumnavigate the universe and reappear somewhere else, giving multiple images of the same source. Light emitted recently won't have had time to travel that far, but light emitted long ago (such as the CMBR) may have.

Re:Since when was it supposed to be infinite?

[4D6963]

Thanks for your reply, that was instructive.

Theory of multiple universes

[ccarvalho]

So what about the theory of multiple universes. If this border theory is correct we still can guess
that _our_ universe is finite, but this universe is just one of many out there. Like that
turtle over turtles universe :)
What about zillions of Big Bangs in those zillions universes? What about Matrix? Oh God!!!
We live in Matrix and brrr bzzzzz tzzz

process killed by signal - 9

MMmmMMmm

[supermegadope]

Mmmm...Never ending space donut "you can make a torus (donut shape) from a flat piece of paper by first rolling it up into a tube (identifying the top edge with the bottom edge) and then looping the tube around (identifying the two ends of the tube with each other)." --SMD

Familiar...

[bjk002]

"Such a person may appear at times clairvoyant or at least extremely intelligent, but much of the time incoherent and simply apart from the human race"

Sounds alot like my wife. Perhaps we should have her disected.

Am I that far out in my thinking?

[bjk002]

I would have thought this question to have been asked somewhere within this thread, but it has not.

If then, the universe as we know it looks like a soccer ball, how many other soccer balls are there?

Re:Am I that far out in my thinking?

[ccarvalho]

Would be boring to play soccer all alone.

mutually exclusive concepts

[emilper]

ok, let's make it clear: I claim no authority in the higher crafts and I had no intention of insulting you, and if anything was insulting in what I wrote, put it down on my poor English and ... ignorance. Don't need to remind me that, I already know :-) . Still, as long as I don't attempt to publish in peer reviewed journals and I cannot do more damage than annoying other /.-ers, I think have the right to have an oppinion and that is: the task of science is to produce intelectual tools to deal with observed phenomena, not discover "realia". The moment it claims to discover intrinsic laws that govern, the shape of the universe etc. and ask us, the ignoramuses, to believe in them, it stops being science and the only missing connection with religion is asking for human sacrifices. But I am an ignorant, what can be expected fo me ...

"Theological theories unify, physical theories unify, therefore physics = theology" ... you must be in a hurry. I never claimed that. I claimed that theories that mix unmixable things seem to carry more traction and the logical and debatable theories don't. Maybe because the later leave too much room for debate and dissent, while the former do not so they are more efficient in supporting stable power structures (such as churches and scientific hierarchies). Should I put "seem to" and "maybe" in bold letters to make it even more evident that's just /. talk ?

"same observed speed" across "two different frame of reference" looks pretty much exclusive to me. They might not really be exclusive, since M. and M. observed something else, but, as far as my ignorance helps me, it does not work for anything else but electromagnetic radiation.

Just in case J.P. Luminet or somebody more informed than I am is watching: would it have been possible to observe these regularities if Earth was not located somewhere close to the center of the dodecahedron ? Is the background radiation distribution influenced by large masses located between us and the boundaries of the dodecahedron?

Better Analogy

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Well, I'm talking in notions about this theory, of course.

Think of a 2 diminsional plane. A plane is infinite. If the universe is defined this way, this is an inifinite universe.

However, this theory says it mirrors. So, it is more like a computer monitor that either A) reflects the mouse pointer, turning it 180 degrees and as you keep moving up and hit the edge, you start coming back down, even though you keep moving up, and so on. Things just bounce around forever in perfect Newtonian laws. Or B) you can set your monitor up to "wormhole" the mouse from the top to the bottom. When you hit the top edge, the mouse reappears at the bottom and keeps going up again.

Now, what's outside the screen? From the relative view of the screen, it is inifite. But this isn't true. I'm outside the screen. My Pepsi is sitting outside the screen. There are multiple screens around my room, completely unaware of each other. And yet, I sit on the exterior of them. I comprehend them, but they comprehend me not. In their 2 diminsional universe, they haven't the physical capability to comprehend me. I can observe and affect its world, but it cannot observe or affect mine, unless I give it the means to, with something like a webcam.

Now, applying this to our universe, this theory supposes a 4 diminsional model of the universe with the "edges" mirroring (or could worm hole, and have a similar, but opposite effect).

To us, it is infinite in our observations, or limitted if we come to an understanding about what's going on. We may be able to find an edge to define, just like my screen has a pixel at 0,0, and the computer defines this as an edge, that there is no -1, 0 or 0, -1 or -1, -1.

So you are perfectly correct. Outside the universe is undefined. However, if this theory is correct, it still must exist. Otherwise, we come to this conclusion:

We find in the future that the distance between the "mirrors" is X lightyears. Why that size and not another? If it fluxuates at all, it is expanding "into" something or contracting "from" something.

Now, some said that I call the exterior unimaginable. This is not so. I say it is unobservable. We'd have to break through an edge into a place without our laws of time and space. I am, in this case, defining an edge as the limit of time and space, and beyond it either no time and space, or at least, seperate time and space, but the two never meet. But one may affect the other in some way we can't comprehend. Just like the screen I'm typing on cannot comprehend the keyboard that is affecting it as I type.

And so, I'm agreeing with you. There is defined (interior) and undefined (exterior). It is beyond our reality to have the ability to define it. However, I would hold to an infinite "superverse" theory. Our reality, our galaxies, our universe as we know it in 4D time and space (and other possible dimisions we can observe or define) exists as a bubble of some shape, size, and configuration. But it has an exterior that is undefined, which has such a difference from us as to be forever undefined, as we cannot observe it.

I see it this way, and this is just my personal observation on this theory. It's either we are interior/exterior, or we are infinite. If there are bounds, something set those bounds by some law. Either the bounds are inifinite in time for a reason we'll never be able to comprehend, or they are moving to some law.

One might say that the universe, being a giant computer, is expanding those bounds of "undefined" by "solving" and making more of it "defined". But, that still says there is an exterior of undefined.

So, I agree with you. I'm just calling the undefined the exterior. There exists "pixels" we can't define because they exist outside our comprehension, like i.

My entire question, which is more philosophy than science theory is, what exists in the i area. Does it have its own reality? Does it infinitely encompass us. Does it observe and/or affect us

Re:Better Analogy

[spun]

You don't get the most important concept. There is no such thing as an external scale. There are only internal scales created by internal processes. Thi is a frightening concept for most people to grasp, as it means that not only is everything relative, there is no possibility of an absolute. There is no outside. Think about it, if there were an outside, there would need to be an outside of the outside, and an outside of the outside of the outside, and so on. In fact, as this is an infinite regress, you would never get to the "real" outside, as it is infinitely far away. Every outside is also an inside, right? So there can be no final outside, as every possible outside is also inside something else.

This is a problem with dualistic thinking and dualistic language. You are used to a dualistic way of thinking, and you are used to thinking of the universe in dualistic terms. You can't even begin to think non-dualistically, as every time you begin to you are forced to put your thoughts into dualistic terms. Saying "it's all one" is meaningless: "It" is not "one," that is still dualistic.

A "superverse" is technically possible, but that means one of two things: either it interacts with us, in which case "inside" and "outside" are relative and meaningless terms, or it doesn't interact with us, in which case as far as we are concerned, it doesn't exist. Hope that helps.

Re:Better Analogy

[Ambitwistor]

However, this theory says it mirrors. So, it is more like a computer monitor that either A) reflects the mouse pointer, turning it 180 degrees and as you keep moving up and hit the edge, you start coming back down, even though you keep moving up, and so on. Things just bounce around forever in perfect Newtonian laws. Or B) you can set your monitor up to "wormhole" the mouse from the top to the bottom. When you hit the top edge, the mouse reappears at the bottom and keeps going up again. It's analogous to (B), in fact.

So you are perfectly correct. Outside the universe is undefined. However, if this theory is correct, it still must exist. No. A space defined by topological "mirroring" does not have to have an "outside".

Otherwise, we come to this conclusion:

We find in the future that the distance between the "mirrors" is X lightyears. Why that size and not another? You can ask the same question of any universe, not just a "mirrored" universe. And the question has nothing to do with whether the universe has an "outside".

If it fluxuates at all, it is expanding "into" something or contracting "from" something. A universe can expand without there being something "outside" the universe into which it expands. The expansion of space can be defined purely intrinsic to that space, without reference to any exterior embedding space.

It is possible for our universe to be embedded in a larger, "outside" space, but it is not necessary.

sigh

[namco]

I really don't like the idea of scientists using the term soccer shaped. Back in the UK where football (or soccer as it is referred to in the US) is something of an obsession on the whole "eat football, sleep football". Once they get word of this, there'll be no stopping them....