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Astronomers Find Huge Hole in Universe
realwx writes "Astronomers are surprised by a recent discovery of a space hole that is nearly a billion light years across. "Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said researcher Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota. Rudnick's colleague Liliya R. Williams also had not anticipated this finding. "What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe," said Williams, also of the University of Minnesota.""
Now this is *big* news ! The scientific world is waiting for good explanations.
More info here (with pictures..)
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2007/coldspot/index.shtml
Close enough?
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Yep, and if that gives one a big "huh!" look, the idea is that space expands by increasing the distance between matter, "stretching" spacetime itself, and doesn't expand inside something. There is no "something" on the outside, not even vacuum, because vacuum is a lack of matter, not a lack of spacetime. So it's a bit like a surface of a balloon expanding if you blow it up (= big bang), and wherever you go on that surface, you are always at the "center" from your point of view.
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Any paper on that subject would be rejected for publication. There is no specific location where the Big Bang occured, as at that time there were no distances and no distinguishable locations. You seem to be thinking of the Big Bang as an explosion of matter expanding outward into a pre-existing empty void. This is false. Imagine ants crawling on an expanding balloon saying "Gee, I wonder where on the surface of this balloon the Big Blow happened?" Your question is nonsensical in the same way. (Well, nearly the same way. Because if the ants discovered their balloon is embedded in 3d world, they could probably deduce where in 3d space the expansion started. We have no reason to suspect our spacetime manifold is embedded in any higher space, as the 2d manifold of a balloon is in our space.)
No, it's completely wrong.
Every point in the universe today is where the Big Bang occurred. You can see it right now. Just look around you.
Understand that space itself expanded from the starting point. All points of space in the universe today where infinitely closer together 13.7 billion years ago. The Big Bang did not expand outward into a mostly empty universe. The Big Bang occurred in a universe that was entirely full of extremely dense matter. As space expanded, the matter became less packed. You get the idea...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Not. It says that the only thing you can say is that you perceive them as happening right now, but you know they happened at different times in the past. A different observer would not certainly not perceive the same simultaneity - obviously, because they are in a differnt place so would have different speed-of-light delays. But if they worked back to when the supernovae "really" happened, they would not necessarily see the suparnovae being the same time-distance away, or with the same time-distance between them.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
For an excellent discussion on the topic of space-time, pick up Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos.
Great read for the technically adept layman on what space-time is and how it "works".
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Unfortunately, I think your view is way too optimistic :-(
It is the great emptiness (think Alan Dean Foster's Commonwealth universe)
On the bright side, it won't be here to eat us for at least 10,000 years, by which time, Flinx, the Krang, the Ulru-Uljurans, etc. will hopefully manage to destroy it.
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Actually the article said it was devoid of "dark matter", they freely admit they have no idea what this void is.
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Yes, but you are also sitting at the start point of the big bang. Every spot in the universe can make the same claim. "Big bang" is a cool name for it, but it's a bit of a misnomer, as there wasn't anywhere for an actual explosion to occur when it happened. Thinking of the big bang as having a point of origin is a bit like asking "what's outside the universe?" Just as with Oakland, there's no there there. I'd recommend Brian Green's The Elegeant Universe. It's focus is string theory, but to get there you have to go through relativity, the big bang theory and quantum mechanics, as they're all related. He's a gifted science writer and ties it all together in a very accessible way.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
Be sure to look at the whole "first goatse" set - he has one of Ron Jeremy looking at it.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Don't forget a liberal's integrity.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I love that the title of your comment is "Ya forgot to read the ending..." The ending of the Bible is Revelations. That's a pretty convoluted book that does more resemble a slasher novel than a love story. It makes a fitting end to the Bible.
With your above white-wash of the book, I am honestly questioning whether you have read the entire book. I have read the entire Bible (which probably puts me into something like a 10% group). While it does have the occasional uplifting section, the Be-attitudes, for example. But the truth is that the vast majority of it revolves around people slaughtering one another in one grotesque fashion after another. That would still fit with your above description, if it weren't for the fact that it is, more-often-than-not, God commanding people to do the killing. It's not as if the killing is occurring and God is disappointed. No, he is the one either commanding the killing (think Israel's destruction of Canaan) or even himself doing it (the flood).
You should read the whole book sometime. It's horrifying!