We know from things like the Coriolis effect that scale can have an awfully big influence on systems, and that where something holds true at one scale, the same effect may not necessarily translate to a different scale.

We should always be questioning the 'established facts' with a view to us finding some new scenario or other where they don't hold true.


S

Gosh, that's awesome. My 7 year old loved it! I've shared it on Facebook for my friends' kids. Really puts it into perspective...

Is there a "ground zero"for the universe?I mean if there was a "big bang"then there must be a place where that occurred?Assuming the universe is expanding like a balloon or lets say like an air bubble ascending from the ocean depths getting bigger and bigger then there must be a starting point?

The big bang happened everywhere, because everywhere was in the big bang.

We live, our existence, everything we comprehend, happens on the surface of the 4D entity known as spacetime - all of which came from a singularity (give or take some QM).

You can't really comprehend it, not the full thing, with a brain that was developed for roaming the savannah. To make sense, to describe and to understand, takes mathematics.

That's why you can't understand the 4D shape of the universe and ask "what did it expand into" - and why talk of open or closed universes always end up with "but what's outside it".

Think I will stick to what lure to use tomorrow!!!

The big bang happened in one spot then expanded into everything that we have now. There's lots of differing opinions on the properties of the cosmos, believe whatever you want and you'll be sure to find some eminent expert who has written a book supporting your opinion. I like the book "The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene, he often reports the differing opinions of well know experts and lets you figure out what you want to believe, he gives you all the information that you need to do this. There's a book called "The Nature of Space Time" which is a debate between Hawking & Penrose on all the things that they disagree on, to read and understand their arguments you'll need a thorough understanding of The Theory of Relativity along with Advanced Calculus. I wasted my money on that book it was well beyond me. On Einstein's works, many of them have still not been resolved, most of his papers were put forward to be discussed, they are still works in progress, he spent most of his life working on them with others and gradually providing beautiful answers.

The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate (Brian Schmidt et al Nobel physics prize recently). The universe is in space time - be it 4 or more dimensions. Space time has been expanding since the big bang. Light from the furthest points in the universe will never reach earth because those distant objects are moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so light from them never gets here. The bigger the universe gets the less of it we will be able to see.

I like Brian Greene's book as well. He's a good writer.

Theory today, history tomorrow.

There used to be a consensus that the world was flat.

.....and it still is in my world.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before

Given the chance, how many of you would take a trip to space?

The opportunity is just around the corner. It's just down to money I suppose, like most things in life.


I'd go tomorrow given the chance, mind you, watching the film 'Gravity' in an IMAX cinema was pretty damn close. It was just amazing!

Nobody referencing the BICEP2 experiment and the evidence for early universe expansion?

Faster than light expansion of the proto universe - 'proof' for inflation-related big bang theories?

It's big news, with a bunch of consequences, yet it's passed most people by.

Author of the inflation theory gets word that evidence has been found (and he's thus in the frame for a Nobel prize!) ...

We had to wait for the official announcement.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/...smic-inflation

A 1977 phonograph record!

God did such a great job when creating the universe that scientists still only know a tiny amount about it.

But curiously managed to get the ordering of that creation totally wrong when boasting about it to a bunch of smelly ex-shepherds on a confined region....At a rough calc, that means := 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible attempts to get the story straight, but still failing spectacularly to get 'stars' before 'grass' in the timeline.

"You know, I've always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Universe...."