Agent Monkeysee on 17/7/2006 at 14:52
yup
extra:cool:characters
TheGreatGodPan on 18/7/2006 at 23:21
Quote Posted by frozenman
What the hell does it mean if the universe is curved or torus-shaped? If you walk all the way past the left edge of the screen you pop out on the right?
If you could end up back where you started going in any of the four dimensions, wouldn't it be an (at least) 4-dimensional hypertorus or something like that? If you wanted to find out if you were on a sphere or torus you could try going all around in the same dimension from different starting points, and if it was a sphere it would always be the same distance, whereas the outer track would be longer than the inner for a torus.
descenterace on 19/7/2006 at 06:07
But that depends on how space is stretched across the 'surface'.
Keeper Mallinson on 19/7/2006 at 19:53
But if the blast from the big bang caused things to go outwards, how would it form in such an irregular shape? Wouldn't it be roughly spherical?
Agent Monkeysee on 19/7/2006 at 22:18
Quote Posted by Keeper Mallinson
But if the blast from the big bang caused things to go outwards, how would it form in such an irregular shape? Wouldn't it be roughly spherical?
The Big Bang didn't cause anything to go outwards because there's nothing to go outwards into. You're picturing an explosion expanding into vacant space. The Big Bang created space and whatever topology that space has.
Para?noid on 19/7/2006 at 22:43
Quote Posted by Keeper Mallinson
But if the blast from the big bang caused things to go outwards, how would it form in such an irregular shape? Wouldn't it be roughly spherical?
I'm not even remotely savvy on the finer points of this but I think the universe acts like the Earth in that is a 'manifold' - the geometry appears differently at different "levels". For instance, if I draw a perfectly straight line in the sand and we all stand around it and go "wow that's a straight line" and then we zoom out and out the line appears to become bent (assume that we can still see it) as we notice the curvature of the Earth.
Of course this could possibly be complete bullshit
Mortal Monkey on 20/7/2006 at 10:38
Quote Posted by Agent Monkeysee
The Big Bang didn't cause anything to go outwards because there's nothing to go outwards into. You're picturing an explosion expanding into vacant space. The Big Bang created space and whatever topology that space has.
My Big Bang didn't, nor did google's. According to us, The Big Bang was the explosion of matter into empty space. But then again you have a degree in something to do with higher dimensions, so you probably know better!
Also Mallison, this curvature is in the 4th (and 5th?) dimension, thus would probably not have much to do with an explosion in our 3 spatial dimensions.
Para?noid on 20/7/2006 at 10:49
Quote Posted by Mortal Monkey
My Big Bang didn't, nor did google's. According to us, The Big Bang was the explosion of matter into empty space. But then again you have a degree in something to do with higher dimensions, so you probably know better!
Uh, "space" didn't exist before, or outside the Big Bang. The Big Bang created "space", and for that matter, time.
<a href="http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/before_the_big_bang_there_was__.htm">New York Times</a>
Quote:
If we imagine the universe shrinking backward, like a film in reverse, the density of matter and energy rises toward infinity as we approach the moment of origin. Smoke pours from the computer, and space and time themselves dissolve into a quantum "foam." "Our rulers and our clocks break," explained Dr. Andrei Linde, a cosmologist at Stanford University. "To ask what is before this moment is a self-contradiction."
Agent Monkeysee on 20/7/2006 at 15:09
Quote Posted by Mortal Monkey
My Big Bang didn't, nor did google's. According to us, The Big Bang was the explosion of matter into empty space. But then again you have a degree in something to do with higher dimensions, so you probably know better!
Check your sources, bud. That's just plain wrong. The Big Bang is not, and never was postulated to be, an explosion of matter. It was the creation of the Universe from a theoretical singularity. That
includes the creation of space itself.
Stitch on 20/7/2006 at 15:42
Quote Posted by Mortal Monkey
But then again you have a degree in something to do with higher dimensions, so you probably know better!
Snark only works if you're in the right, bud. Being a smartass with no real understanding of the topic just makes you look like ZylonBane.
