Wild New Study Suggests The Universe Is a Closed Sphere, Not Flat

[Fort Fun Indiana]

So... was the universe CREATED, as the Bible suggests?

As literally every religion with gods, ever, suggests. The Bible came along pretty late to the party.

 

[007]

So... was the universe CREATED, as the Bible suggests?

As literally every religion with gods, ever, suggests. The Bible came along pretty late to the party.

Irrelevant to the question... was the universe created? I don't care by who.

What if we're so infinitesimally small that it would take a microscope beyond our imagination to see us, because beyond what we can see is a much LARGER universe?

What if in the next split second we could be gone... the entire universe gone?

Whatever made this frickin' thing obviously has the power to destroy it same as they, it, whoever made it.

 

[zaangalewa]

When you're inside something, it's hard to see its shape. We're still finding out new things about the shape of our galaxy.

The shape of the Universe? That's a lot harder to gauge, but years of observational data, cosmological models and physics suggest it's flat. Send a beam of photons out across the void, and it will just keep going in a straight line.


A new study argues otherwise. Based on data released last year collected by the European Space Agency's Planck satellite, astronomers have argued the case that the Universe is actually curved and closed, like an inflating sphere.
Wild New Study Suggests The Universe Is a Closed Sphere, Not Flat

That's interesting.

Sounds not very plausible in my ears. I read one or two years ago an article, where some physicists measured a triangle in the universe over the size of billions of lightyears. If the sum of all angles = 180° then the space is flat (=> Euclidian geometry is useful also in very big distances). And that's exactly what they found out - even in this gigantic distance.

Ah - found a video about:

One thing I don't understand about the study in the video is that gravitational curvature is in the four dimensions of space and time. The use of angular size in the video only measures the space curvature and ignores time.

I don't see your problem. We see (because the universe expands) always only an area of the universe which is in the past.

If space is flat it's hard to imagine that you can see the CMB

Casper-Melchior-Balthasar? The names of the three holy kings of wisdom? ... ah no: cosmic microwave background.

no matter where you look.

Needs a lot of equipment to see it and to make a picture of it.

If our sight followed the curvature of the earth, with a strong telescope you would always see the back of your head.

No. Light not follows the curvature of the Earth.

However when it comes to the universe, the back of your head didn't exist in the distant past, so you will only see the cosmic burst that gave the CMB. The CMB seems to indicate that the universe is closed and curved.

To see the microwave background means just simple to take a look around into a region of the universe which existed 380,000 years after the big bang. The universe had a temperature of 3000°K at this time. Now it are 3°K.

 

[Wuwei]

That's true of all spheres in the picture. Of all looking, actually.

Yes, that's true of all spheres, but the outermost sphere is where everything is right now, but not what we see. It is generally more interesting to analyze what we now see than what dinosaurs saw.

You are still making the same error of analogizing an expansion "into" something.

I don't think there is an error. What the diagram shows is the complete history of the universe in both space and time. It shows the history of expansion and George Gamov's "world lines" that go back to all the visible past. In that sense it is not expanding into anything. It is a static 2-D representation of a past and present.

Your sight lines still only fall on the surface of the sphere.

Not in this diagrammatic model since the outermost sphere is right now. A galaxy a billion light years away that we see now is is by definition a billion years in the past and falls on a different spherical surface. The smaller spheres don't exist anymore. The sight lines cannot fall on the same sphere because the finite speed of light makes it impossible.

The picture is misleading in a few ways, not least of which is that it doesn't explain that it is a "reduced dimension" analogy, and we are 2D creatures on these closed surfaces. You aren't looking backwards at any "smaller, concentric spheres". There are no "spheres", only a 2D surface, in the reduced-dimension analogy image you posted. The only thing that matters is the 2D surface of the spheres, and these surfaces aren't actually "expanding into" anything. That's another way the picture is a bit misleading. But you had it right when you said we could not see the back of our own heads.

Ah yes, I see the problem. I should have made it more clear that when I said "sphere" I should have said "spherical surface." So, substitute the phrase "spherical surface". There was no intention that the diagram represented a solid enclosure of the universe. It's just a surface 2-D toy model illustrating both spatial curvature and temporal evolution.

In short, the largest spherical surface represents the way things are currently, but it doesn't represent what we see. The images from a telescope are from the smaller spheres in the past which no longer exist.

The following diagram is another common way of representing space-time of the expanding universe, but it does not represent the curvature of space because each cross section is a flat disk, not a sphere. I like the spherical diagram because it explains more vividly why the CMB seems to surround and enclose us, but is actually a small sphere in the deep past.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Irrelevant to the question... was the universe created?

Uh....maybe?

It is a static 2-D representation of a past and present.

But it still tricks the mind into making errors, as one almost cannot help but include the "above" and "below" in one's thoughts and comments on it, such as your using the word "concentric". "Above" and "below" the surface do not exist. I know the dimension up/down is supposed to be time, but that renders the image misleading as well, as the surface of the sphere bends into this 'up/down' dimension in a misleading way, fooling the mind into conflating spatial dimension wth time. Because the image conflates these, incorrectly.

 

[Wuwei]

But it still tricks the mind into making errors, as one almost cannot help but include the "above" and "below" in one's thoughts and comments on it, such as your using the word "concentric". "Above" and "below" the surface do not exist. I know the dimension up/down is supposed to be time, but that renders the image misleading as well, as the surface of the sphere bends into this 'up/down' dimension in a misleading way, fooling the mind into conflating spatial dimension wth time. Because the image conflates these, incorrectly.

I think there may be a disconnect.
Time is a radial dimension. Space is a locally normal plane to that line. (Technically called a conformal mapping.) That is, the time dimension is perpendicular to the local tangential plane in each spherical surface. So the space and time axes are always locally orthogonal. Under that definition of the coordinate system there is no conflation of space and time. I think that picture brings clarity to the universe dynamics.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Time is a radial dimension

Thats still a spatial dimension, in the image. The only reason you have the luxury of calking it "radial" is due to the arbitrary choice to represent the universe as the surface of a sphere. If the universe were flat, the time dimension would just be up/down, in the image. In fact, it still is, when zooming in on a local area of the surface.

The image is useful in some ways, but leads to errors. Not least of which is the persistent misconception that our universe is expanding "into" something. So the image cam actually make the CMB harder to understand.

 

[Wuwei]

Time is a radial dimension

Thats still a spatial dimension, in the image..

Of course in a graph time is a spatial dimension on paper. Lots of graphs do that. You have to understand that the graph is not literal but a convenient picture of the relation of different variables.

The only reason you have the luxury of calking it "radial" is due to the arbitrary choice to represent the universe as the surface of a sphere. If the universe were flat, the time dimension would just be up/down, in the image. In fact, it still is, when zooming in on a local area of the surface.

That is exactly right. I'm assuming the universe is curved -- a non-Euclidian metric, or more specifically a hypersphere.

The image is useful in some ways, but leads to errors. Not least of which is the persistent misconception that our universe is expanding "into" something. So the image cam actually make the CMB harder to understand.

I really don't understand the objection to the universe expanding into something. The measured time from the CMB on out is always increasing, so something is expanding if not just time. Do you have an alternate way of describing the red shift without expansion? If you have a flat universe you would have a very hard time explaining why we see the CMB in all directions.

.

 

[DOTR]

So... was the universe CREATED, as the Bible suggests?

Perhaps we're finally seeing what God created?

No? Not God? Then who or what created this damn thing? What in the hell are we living in?

Is it even real, or a matrix?

I believe it was CS Lewis who said when science climbs the last mountain it will find a philosopher already sitting there.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Of course in a graph time is a spatial dimension on paper. Lots of graphs do that. You have to understand that the graph is not literal but a convenient picture of the relation of different variables.

Right. Its a representation. But presenting this way, and especially in the way it is presented in the misleading image, can lead to errors. I still think you are stuck on "space expanding into something". Do you get why, to see the CMB, we had to map the entire sky, instead of pointing our telescopes at a point in the sky? Because the notion that one could "look away" from the CMB, which you introduced, belies a misundertanding.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I believe it was CS Lewis who said when science climbs the last mountain it will find a philosopher already sitting there.

Which is a perfect example of the lazy , tautological nonsense that the preening, prancing CS Lewis loved to promote himself with.

 

[Wuwei]

I still think you are stuck on "space expanding into something".

I disagree.

I largely agree with what most cosmologists today think. There is a plethora of images on the web that show similar diagrams of expansion. Space just expands. It doesn't need to expand into something. Why do you think expanding into something is an issue.

Do you get why, to see the CMB, we had to map the entire sky, instead of pointing our telescopes at a point in the sky? Because the notion that one could "look away" from the CMB, which you introduced, belies a misundertanding.

Yes. I already explained that. No matter where you look you are looking into the past and the CMB is the limit of the deepest visual past. Even though it is the smallest sphere in the history of the universe it fills the entire sky for that reason.

Please don't hold me to the "look away from the CMB". I already told you it was an awkward misstatement.

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[zaangalewa]

I still think you are stuck on "space expanding into something".

I disagree.

I largely agree with what most cosmologists today think. There is a plethora of images on the web that show similar diagrams of expansion. Space just expands. It doesn't need to expand into something. Why do you think expanding into something is an issue. ...

I would say that's a very sophisticated problem. Most people imagine the universe is expanding into an endless space. That's the normal calculation. It's impossible to imagine space expands on its own (in the empty regions between the galaxies), so the universe expands into a nothing, while the universe is without border and every point is always only in the middle of the universe. Nevertheless this is the result and inter-subjective (or even objective) truth, which "we" found until today. But what is the full real truth? Why for heavens sake accelerates this expansion of the space since some billion years? Such a question is completely absurde, because the answer has to be somewhere in front of our eyes - and we still don't see it ... and theoretically live today lots of Archimedes', da Vincis', Einsteins and so on.

 

[Wuwei]

I would say that's a very sophisticated problem. Most people imagine the universe is expanding into an endless space. That's the normal calculation. It's impossible to imagine space expands on its own (in the empty regions between the galaxies), so the universe expands into a nothing, while the universe is without border and every point is always only in the middle of the universe. Nevertheless this is the result and inter-subjective (or even objective) truth, which "we" found until today. But what is the full real truth? Why for heavens sake accelerates this expansion of the space since some billion years? Such a question is completely absurde, because the answer has to be somewhere in front of our eyes - and we still don't see it ... and theoretically live today lots of Archimedes', da Vincis', Einsteins and so on.

Sophisticated yes. And it gets weirder there are also several other dimensions tightly coiled. Mathematically its called the Calabi-Yau manifold. These microscopic dimensions from string theory (a failure so far) are intertwined like this. But the failure makes a nice picture.
BTW I enjoyed the Canto you posted.

 

[DOTR]

I still think you are stuck on "space expanding into something".

I disagree.

I largely agree with what most cosmologists today think. There is a plethora of images on the web that show similar diagrams of expansion. Space just expands. It doesn't need to expand into something. Why do you think expanding into something is an issue.

Do you get why, to see the CMB, we had to map the entire sky, instead of pointing our telescopes at a point in the sky? Because the notion that one could "look away" from the CMB, which you introduced, belies a misundertanding.

Yes. I already explained that. No matter where you look you are looking into the past and the CMB is the limit of the deepest visual past. Even though it is the smallest sphere in the history of the universe it fills the entire sky for that reason.

Please don't hold me to the "look away from the CMB". I already told you it was an awkward misstatement.

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Then does the universe have a border?

 

[Wuwei]

Then does the universe have a border?

The spatial part has no border. Think of people who must stick to the surface of a sphere. There may be a large area for them to roam, but they will find no border. (Except for walls, cliffs and other impediments.)

I don't know if this is how astrophysics thinks of it, but it seems like time has one boundary at the onset of the big bang and another boundary of right now.
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[Fort Fun Indiana]

Why do you think expanding into something is an issue.

Because you introduced the idea of "looking away" from the CMB. These two are, essentially, the same error. I had not seen that you said it was a misstatement. Noted!

The "smallest sphere" is not necessary nomenclature. There may be no "sphere" at all.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I don't know if this is how astrophysics thinks of it, but it seems like time has one boundary at the onset of the big bang and another boundary of right now.

Well, one of Hawking's last works was to posit that a boundless universe was also boundless in time, not just space. He used the concept of imaginary time to eliminate the time boundary at the "beginning" of our universe. I will find the article and post it.

 

[Wuwei]

Because you introduced the idea of "looking away" from the CMB. These two are, essentially, the same error. I had not seen that you said it was a misstatement. Noted!

I said it was a misstatement here:

Spatially you are looking away from the CMB

False. You are always looking directly into CMB radiation, no matter which direction you face.

Of course... I worded it poorly. It was in the context of a possible misunderstanding of the less than ideal graphic. My actual wording was "Spatially you are looking away from the CMB (albeit in a simplified picture of the expanding universe).

I should have said, no matter where you look in the rightmost sphere, you are still looking in the past -- toward a smaller earlier sphere, and ultimately looking at the CMB.

As I said, mentally visualizing (it's too hard to draw) the spheres as concentric is a much better picture for illustrating the space time geometry more directly. It separates space and time into locally orthogonal axes. That way it's easier to illustrate that you are always looking toward the CMB even though it's the smallest sphere.
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The "smallest sphere" is not necessary nomenclature. There may be no "sphere" at all.

What do you think it might be if not spherical?
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[Wuwei]

Well, one of Hawking's last works was to posit that a boundless universe was also boundless in time, not just space. He used the concept of imaginary time to eliminate the time boundary at the "beginning" of our universe. I will find the article and post it.

No need to post it. I read it some time ago. There are lots of concepts posited about the nature of the universe. Hawking's is one of them.

I was just hypothesizing too. No need to give me much credence.