Talk:Universe

Age of the Universe

In the article we state: "Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the universe is 13.73 (± 0.12) billion years,[1] and that the diameter of the observable Universe is at least 93 billion light years, or 8.80 ×1026 metres."

People are bound to wonder, if nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, how can the Universe expand from a singularity to 93 billion light years across in 15 billion years? Logic would suggest that 30 billion light years should be the maximum width of the Universe. I'm guessing that it has something to do with the creation of fermions from bosons, but it is beyond my current understanding. Anyway, I think this needs clarification in the article.

Also, I found this, and maybe we should include a link to here:

Expansion of Space:

The metric expansion leads naturally to recession speeds which exceed the "speed of light" c and to distances which exceed c times the age of the universe, which is a frequent source of confusion among amateurs and even professional physicists.[1] The speed c has no special significance at cosmological scales.

This is good, but I don't think this explanation is necessarily complete. I don't think bosons have the same speed restrictions as fermions. In the earliest part of the creation of the universe, didn't bosons form earlier than fermions? Wouldn't that account for some of the size/speed difference?

Thanks206.109.195.126 (talk) 01:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Massless particles, which include the photon, a boson, travel at the speed of light (but there are massive bosons). Massive particles, which include all the elementary fermions, travel slower than light. So it isn't a boson/fermion distinction. But the critical issue here is that objects (say, galaxies) can be receding from each other faster than light, even though they are locally moving at subluminal velocities, because of the expansion of the universe. See Observable universe, or this paper. I'll check the article and see if it explains this yet. False vacuum (talk) 05:00, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Universe Expansion

I was reading about the multiversess at the bottom of the page. According to the diagram, plus previous knowledge, would it be possible that our universe is expanding and therefore compressing the other ones, especially universe 1? And when our universe starts to contract, does it mean that universe 1 is expanding like ours had? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.94.8.26 (talk) 03:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The diagram isn't proven yet. it's just a theory. And i agree that if it were correct, we wold be compressing the other universe. Therefore, what seems more likely is all the universes (no matter how many there are,) are spread out from each other. While it seems to be expand alot from our perspective, it probably is still quite far away from another universe. Permafry42 (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Animation Functionality

The animation titled, "Animation illustrating the metric expansion of the universe." does not function as expected using Firefox 3.03 on the Macintosh. The browser hangs for a minute or two, then fails to display the animation.

        Well, Firefox  3.03 works fine on Windows.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.94.8.26 (talk) 03:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC) 

76.195.163.180 (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2008 (UTC)Mark Mason

Is this still the case? It works fine with FF3.0.4 and IE8 on Vista, but it won't work in IEtab in FF3 at all. It kills FF if you use IEtab. Gopher65_talk 20:21, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Relevance?

There are no outside sources independent of the subject matter declaring its relevance. Should it not be deleted, then? Shadowstalker (talk) 12:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Should what be deleted? Gopher65_talk 15:06, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The Universe, of course.

The article about the Universe, was what I was getting at. Seems as if there aren't any non-involved unbiased sources about it to prove it's relevant.Shadowstalker (talk) 17:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

— Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I can't decide whether this user needs a welcome template or a trout-slapping. I think I will settle for a citation of WP:IAR. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 17:39, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

==Just think how convoluted human reasoning processes can be. We can define the Universe as being a real physical entity that contains "everything that exists" and then subordinate it to a concept that "but it didn't exist in the beginning of time, but had to be created afterwards." We can create a (controversial but necessary) hierarchy of real physical entities from the all inclusive "universe" down to some minimum discrete size particle (graviton?) and then debate endlessly about the actuality of existence of any one them versus certain "energy concentration theories". So now weve got a statement that the Universe is 93 billion light years in diameter but only 13 billion years old and I dont dare dispute that. WFPMWFPM (talk) 16:36, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

== However, above the entity "Universe" it is perfectly logical and therefore permissable to have a set called "other universes" which maybe a zero set or might be a rational for the existence of a larger amount of material than that of "our universe" and might explain original why our universe might start out with original motion properties. But our theories as to the "universality" of physical laws make it unlikely that the fundamental universal processes which we are looking for are the result of such "pertubations". The trouble is, as Newton said, that there are too many variables so let"s continue to improve our computing capability and keep the number of hypothesized variables to a minimum. WFPMWFPM (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

SI Unit usage

"SI units should be secondary, and we should use REAL SI units (Xm?)" (editing comment by Arthur Rubin)

Hi there!

I agree that Metres are a better unit than Kilometres.

But I was just wondering why SI units should be secondary? Just about every known person in the universe uses Metres, and pretty much only astronomers use light-years. Astronomers make up a pretty small percentage of people.

Which brings me to a point: The kind of people that use light-years to measure things are the kind of people who probably already have a pretty fair idea of how big the universe is. The remaining people who look at this article are probably the type who view the light-year as some kind of science-fiction unit, or possibly even a unit of time. For the sake of the majority of people (non-astronomers), it would seem reasonable to list SI units first, and then list Light-years next.

You might argue that the light-year is a natural unit for measurement, since many calculations of universal dimensions are based on measurements of the distance light has travelled, but I would counter that the unit is still inherently arbitrary in using the Earth-specific "year" as a point of reference.

What do you think? InternetMeme (talk) 06:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

In cosmology, light-years and years seem to be the natural units of space and time (respectively). In any case, they're most commonly used in publications and by experts in the field. "93 billion light-years (880 Ym)" seems better than "880 Ym (93 billion light-years)", especially since we'd need to link Ym somehow. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 07:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the speed of light is a natural unit in cosmology (and any other field). But I see no reason whatsoever that the year should be thought of as a natural unit in any field outside of farming. It has no conceivable relevance whatsoever outside our planet as far as I can see. Therefore the light-day, light-month, or light-martian-year might all present themselves as equally suitable candidates. I think the only reason that the light-year could be seen as a natural unit would be due to many years of entrenched and arbitrary habit within the astronomical community. Is there another explanation? And if there isn't another explanation, why should any field outside of cosmology perpetuate the usage of this unit?

My main point, though is one of practicality: What percentage of Wikipedia's readership have an idea of the length of the metre/kilometre? I'd suggest over 75%. What percentage have an idea of the length of a light-year? I'd expect 10% at best. For this reason alone, it makes seven times more sense to present the diameter of the universe in metres/kilometres. Also, although SI prefixes are very useful, I think the usage of a reasonably familiar term such as "trillion" would be more useful than the "atto" prefix. InternetMeme (talk) 14:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should Wikilink light-years? I think using non-SI terminology for SI units is specifically forbidden strongly discouraged by the MoS. As it stands, because of the short and long scales problem, "billion" and "trillion" are technically ambiguous, and Ym is probably recognized by fewer people than recognize light-year. I certainly think light-year should be primary, but that still leaves us with discussion the proper format of the metric unit.

880 Ym

880 septillion metres (note, spelling out the word and using the unit abbreviation is bad)

880 ×10²⁴ m 8.8 ×10²⁶ m

I think the last is probably most understandable. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:31, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I didn't even know what a Ym was until I started reading this discussion. If I'm talking about a number that big I use scientific notation, not Yotta. Using a prefix is just silly in this case. I suspect that no normal person knows what a Ym is, and that few abnormal people do. Think about it: when you talk about the distance between galaxies, what units do you use? Ym, or parsecs/light-years? I've *never* used metres or kilometres to talk about inter-galactic distances. I say "Alpha Centauri is the nearest star, and it's 41 trillion km away! That's like, 4 light-years or so. And the nearest major galaxy is two and a half MILLION light-years away!". That's the only way you can give any real sense of scale. Saying that Andromeda is 2.4*10^18 km away is meaningless to almost everyone, as is saying that it is 2.4 exakilometres away. "Say waaaa...?". People don't understand numbers bigger than trillion (shortscale), because they never come across them in their everyday lives.

I would also argue that light-year is a commonly understood term. People know what light is, and that it moves fast. They know what a year is. Putting the two together to get a *relative* measure of distance in their own mind shouldn't be that hard.Gopher65_talk 16:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, in reply to the second-to-last post; people don't really understand numbers bigger than a billion either. So, rather than trying to relate that kind of distance on ANY scale, why not just write "The universe is big. Really big." And leave it at that? Also, I agree that the yotta prefix isn't very meaningful here. In fact, the entirity of what I'm suggesting here is that we try to convey a sense the size of the universe using only terms that are familiar to the average person. "billions of light-years" and "trillions and trillions of metres" are both difficult quantities to deal with, but at least metres are familiar to most people. Even miles would be more suitable than light-years in that respect.

= Bilions means "times 10E9" and Trillions means "times 10E12". WFPMWFPM (talk) 17:28, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

In reply to the post above, I don't think it's the case that any normal person has any idea of the speed of light. For instance: How long does it take light to get from one end of the room to the other? How long does it take for light to get in to town? What about how long it takes to circle the globe? Now, if you could answer any of those questions without a calculator, then maybe I'm wrong. But I'm betting the average person has no idea of the answers. Therefore, using the speed of light as a reference is basically meaningless to the average person. As an aside, I think it takes light about a seventh of a second to get around the world : ) InternetMeme (talk) 11:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The speed of light is a nanosecond a foot, of course, showing, once again that English units are preferable to metric.

</sarcasm> — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

== Please! Let's not get feet involved in this discussion. How about the cgs system where the velocity of light is 10E7.5 Cm/sec and a light year is 10E18 cm and a parsec is 10E18.5 cm and a MPC is 10E24.5 cm? That teaches us about the relative size of things> WFPMWFPM (talk) 17:21, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, when asked just how fast light is, I usually say something like "It takes us about 3 days to get to the moon. It takes light about 1.5 seconds. It's fast." (Or is 1.5 seconds for a round trip? I can never remember.) When dealing with an article like this, which is clearly a low-information beginner article, I think what we're going for is a relative distance. I mean, the distances involved are too much for any of us to truly understand. Even thinking about the distance between planets is mind-boggling if you try to hold it all to scale while you think about it. So we aren't trying to convey an absolute sense of distance, but rather a relative sense of distance.

I would use light-years as the primary unit, and metres in scientific notation as the secondary unit. But even if everyone agrees to that, it brings up another problem: a surprising number of people don't understand scientific notation. Of course, they won't understand any prefix bigger than trillion either. (Which is what I meant earlier. People know what trillion (short scale) is, even if they have difficulty conceptualizing it.) So What do we use? They don't know exactly what a light-year is, so it is just a random, relative unit to them. They don't understand big prefixes at all, so we can't say exametre or yottametre. They don't understand scientific notation, so we can't say 2.4*10^18, cause that is just a meaningless string of numbers to them. So since we have no meaningful way of really conveying these big numbers, I say we just use whatever units we are most comfortable with, and anyone who doesn't understand them can click the blue link and read up, just like the rest of us do on subjects that we aren't familiar with.Gopher65_talk 15:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

That would be like writing an article about horses, and saying "A horse is a four-legged brown animal that stands approximately 16 hands tall". Hands are the customary measurement unit for horses, so it'd be sensible to use those units, right? But of course, it wouldn't—because the only people that understand what that unit means are the kind of people that already know all about horses.

And in the same way—as far as the average person is concerned—Light-Years are sci-fi units used by spaceship-pilots that have no meaning beyond "incomprehensibly far". So listing the size of the universe in light-years is of no use to anyone, other than the people who are familiar with the unit. And the people who are familiar with the unit are the ones who already have an idea of how big the universe is, because they're astronomers.

Wikipedia is aimed at regular people, not just astronomers. Regular people shouldn't have to learn new units to know how big things are. They shouldn't have to learn how big a "hand" is to know the size of a horse, and they shouldn't have to learn how far a "light-year" is to know the size of the universe. InternetMeme (talk) 12:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyone who has graduated high school should know or at least have heard about scientific notation. The SI part of this article seems like it's more geared to a third grader than a Normal person, and if it's really THAT much trouble to learn scientific notation, link it in the equation. 96.28.245.221 (talk) 21:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

<removing indent> I'd agree, I really would, if you or anyone else could provide a measurement to Andromeda that the average reader will take to mean anything other than "incomprehensibly far". You can't. You know why? Because Andromeda really is incomprehensibly far! It is "far" beyond the human ability to understand. The only way we can attempt to quantify the distance to Andromeda is to use relative, meaningless units. Really, how far is a trillion kilometres? I have no idea. Absolutely none. 2 billion times the distance between Saskatoon and Edmonton? What the heck does that mean? About 6500 times the distance from the earth to the sun? But how far is that? All of these distances are meaningless, because humans can't understand such large values.

Our only option is to use a relative, meaningless unit. Because otherwise we end up writing out 42,000,000,000,000 every time we talk about the distance to the nearest star, because most "normal" people don't understand what scientific notation means. By your reasoning, that means we can't use scientific notation. Since most people don't understand large prefixes, we can't use those either (yottametre? Give me a break). Since most people don't seem to understand that a "million million" means that you multiple 2 "one million"s together, we can't use that either. Personally, I don't want to have to say that Andromeda is 2,365,000,000,000,000,000 kilometres away. Cause to me, that is just as meaningless as saying 2.365*10^19, or 23.65 exametres, or 2.5 million light-years. Are any of those meaningful? No.Gopher65_talk 20:22, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

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A trillion kilometers is 10E12 kilometers which is 10E15 meters which is 10E17 centimeters (cm), which is 1/10 of a light year, which is pretty close for stellar distances.WFPM (talk) 00:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

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What you need is a quantitative concept of the size of the universe. Let's say it is 28,000 Megaparsecs in diameter. Well what's a Megaparsec? Well it's 3,260,000 light years, which is 30% greater than the distance between the milky way and andromeda galaxies. So both galaxies could fit into a cubic megaparsec.And the space of the universe can be considered to be, for galaxy purposes, made up of cubic megaparsecs. And 28,000 cubed times 0.5236 gives the spherical volume of the universe as approximately 1.15 times 10E13 cubic megaparsecs, or 11.5 trillion cubic megaparsecs. WFPMWFPM (talk) 04:08, 8 November 2008 (UTC) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With all due respect to the SI system, if you want to learn to understand astronomical space distances you had better learn about the cgs space measurement system plus the use of exponential notation for both large and/or small distances. For instance the velocity of light is approximately 10E7.5 centimeters/second and since a year is approximately 10E10.5 seconds alight year is thus 10E18 cm. Then a parsec is 3,26 light years or 10E18.5 cm, and a megaparsec is 10E24.5 cm. In small distances, the fermi is 10E-15 meter or 10E-13 cm and the Angstrom is 10E-10 cm or 10E-8 cm. And actually the numerical exponential values are better to remember because they can be worked with mathematically with having to go through translation by us ordinary people. And when you want areas or volumes you merely add exponents. WFPMWFPM (talk) 00:22, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I see you keep inserting "A billion is 10^9 and a trillion is 10^12" in this discussion. Are you absolutely, positively sure about that ;)? Gopher65_talk 04:37, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Universe Exists IN time

Im fairly sure that the universe constitues all matter (space) . Not all time. Since a universe exists in Time, which could be argued to be never ending and always existing, surely the first paragraph of the article should reflect this. I am going to remove the word time from that sentence, if anyone wants to revert, I will understand, but I just feel that a Universe constitutes a snapshot of all that exists, at that moment IN time, a universe is not composed of Time, it merely exists within it. Time could in theory exist without the existance of a universe. Baaleos (talk) 14:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

No. Time is just another dimension of space. Length, Width, Time, and Height are the "proven" spacial dimensions. Time is as much a part of the universe as any of the other three. Gopher65_talk 19:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Taken from the definition of time on Wiki -

Among prominent philosophers, there are two distinct viewpoints on time. One view is that time is part of the fundamental structure of the universe, a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Time travel, in this view, becomes a possibility as other "times" persist like frames of a film strip, spread out across the time line. Sir Isaac Newton subscribed to this realist view, and hence it is sometimes referred to as Newtonian time.[4][5] The opposing view is that time does not refer to any kind of "container" that events and objects "move through", nor to any entity that "flows", but that it is instead part of a fundamental intellectual structure (together with space and number) within which humans sequence and compare events.

I tend to side with the first belief, which states that 'Time is like a container, that events and objects move through.' (Wording taken from the second belief, which is opposed to the first). If the Universe is an object, then it would have moved and progressed through Linear Progression. If it had a birth, there would have been a time before its birth. If the universe did not exist at this point in TIME, and there was no TIME, then the universe would not have Progressed towards a birth. This would suggest that Time can operate independant of a Spacal (Matter) Component. Since we all exist, and the universe did infact come into being, this means that time progressed even without the universe around it existing. Azazeel (talk) 12:46, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

==If you watch a nonmoving cumulous cloud formation in the sky, you note that the clouds dont transition, they just evolve and then diseppear. Of course, we know the chemical/physical, processes going on of cloud and rain occurrence, and know that the molecules of water are accumulating and condensing etc, but we can see that whatever is happening does not involve a directional motion of the system with respect to the system's spacial coordinates. So we know that a physical event can evolve within a fixed frame of reference, and what we need is an incremental dimension/time relationship standard with which to evaluate the relative spacetime value of physical events. And that's what we're trying to do at the cosmology level, with a lot of human disagreement, of course. WFPMWFPM (talk) 22:37, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you need to square the "separateness" of time from space with the connection revealed by general relativity. I've restored the wording in the article for the time [sic] being. Cheers, --PLUMBAGO 13:06, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Adding to what Plumbago said, pulling up a Newtonian view of reality is meaningless since Newton was, well, wrong. Or at least his viewpoint was so narrow and his work so incomplete that it is useless except in very specific circumstances (circumstances like our everyday lives;)). Along the same vein, what philosophers say about time is irrelevant. Philosophers deal in wishes, fantasy, and imagination, not in what is real, or in what is true. All that matters for an argument like this is the evidence that has been gathered using science, and right now that evidence *all* points toward space and time being part and parcel. Time is just another spacial dimension, not some separate entity. Gopher65_talk 23:57, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Energy is not three-dimensional and when it travels through three dimensions it creates time at a rate of 1 second per 299,792,458 meters. You're welcome. polpoint_talk 2:15pm, 10 October 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.110.164.222 (talk) 18:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

==Asimov in developing a study of large numbers came up with the idea that all events are like "scenes" on a stage involving activity in space during a time period. He then promoted the "chronon" as the time period for light to move the diameter of a nucleon (approx 10E-13cm) and came up with a time period of 10E-23.5 sec as the scene event value. Then he discussed the factorial values of possible occurrences of events among the 10E79 nucleons of the universe (during it's estimated 10E17.5+ sec time period of existence) and understandably came up with a rather large number. WFPMWFPM (talk) 17:48, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I am no physicist, but here are my 2 cents. Time by definition is just a reference to sequences or cause-effect. E.g. in a statement "something that happened now was caused by something before it" has an implicit mention of time that provides the meaning of before and now and to assert that 'before' can never happen after 'now' and vice-versa. Apart from cause-effect time also refers to any other related or unrelated sequence of events. Time is not a dimension whether spatial or otherwise. Both matter and energy can change spatial location in either direction and independently of rest of the matter (and energy). Whereas time changes for all the matter at the same time and it can only go in forward direction by definition. Even if there are multiverse, time is still the same for all of them. Past can never be in present or future as future was never in past. Time travel is not possible and never would be. Most modern day sci-fi like corollaries of special-relativity are pseudo-science. Though special-relativity is itself unproven or incorrectly proven concept and hence not science... but that's a totally separate discussion out of scope here. By saying that time did not exist in the singularity before the big-bang is as belief-oriented as saying earth is the center of universe or other illogical things taught in various religions. Science does not teach us to guess and believe when we don't know, but to find out and prove. In the absence of knowledge it is better to say that we do not know what was there before big bang, assuming big-bang is the most plausible theory of creation of universe. --Vineet Aggarwal (talk) 19:58, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Commendable

I've made no contributions to this article, so I feel entitled and obliged to comment "Superb work! Well informed, balanced, pedagogical, up to date, more so on all accounts than any other overview on the subject. Bravo!" Kind regards, Ryttaren (talk) 08:56, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's very kind, Ryttaren — what a wonderful and encouraging surprise! :) Thank you, Willow (talk) 01:47, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Exists -> Existance

I noticed that the Exists link goes to Existential quantification, but I wonder if Existence would be a better link?

Our universe being pulled towards another universe?

Astronomers have stumbled upon an unexplained two-million-mile-per-hour sideways shift in the universe toward a colossal, unseen, unknown gravity source beyond the horizon of the observable universe. [1] - article suggests it's another universe. Doug Weller (talk) 08:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Surely it can't, by definition, be "another" universe: the quote mentions "observable" universe. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Right. This simply means that there is a limit to how far we can see, because of the speed of light (13 billion light years or so). However, they can see Galaxies far away from us being affected by things beyond our light horizon (ie, more than 13 billion light years away). Gopher65_talk 06:06, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Size vs. mass chart request

I'd like to suggest adding a plot to this page that shows the (logarithmic) distribution of object dimensions versus mass, somewhat like the following image:

http://universe-review.ca/I01-00-massize.jpg

(except with data points rather than pictures). The excluded ranges are also informative, so they would be good to include as well. I've seen this illustrated in a couple of science books and the data is available from certain references, but I haven't seen a GDFL'd version. Is anybody interested in putting a chart like this together? Thank you!—RJH (talk) 16:35, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

There are a lot of problems with that image:

• The electron has no detectable size. I'm not sure what the best current upper bound on its radius is, but it's enough to put it well inside the region marked "ruled out by quantum uncertainty." The proton has a radius which is determined by the strong force, and it's slightly outside that region, not on the boundary.
• The mass and radius of the visible universe place it inside the region marked "ruled out by gravity."
• The chart implies that the density of water is somehow related to the electron mass and the "quantum uncertainty" line. This is not true and it makes no sense—for one thing, the density of water is dominated by the mass of the nuclei, not the electrons. This is a pretty significant numerical error, and it looks like both the electron mass and the water density have been shifted to make them appear to meet up.

Once you remove all the mistakes, I'm not sure there's enough useful information left to make the chart worthwhile. -- BenRG (talk) 23:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

== I like it because it promotes the idea of the existence of a hierarchy of things. And I'm sure there is a minimum discrete size for anything that is real. And I'll bet that the electron is as dense as the nucleon because its electromatic force calculations (e/m) imply that. But some pert of it has to interact with light energy (bunches/particles) and maybe it has interacting appendages. WFPMWFPM (talk) 19:41, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Size of the universe

The size just changed from 93 billion light years to 156 billion light years, and the edit summary cited this. According to this discussion with someone who knows more about cosmology (and less about our Original Research policy) than I do, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310571v2 is a better source of information. It says a "Hubble radius" of 4220 Mpc and a "co moving radius of the cosmic microwave background" of 14,000 Mpc which is about 46 billion light years. Art LaPella (talk) 21:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

== The referenced article also says that the time clock of the universe's existence is started at the end of the initial inflationary period, contrary to the Universe article. WFPMWFPM (talk) 23:17, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

O

Fixed. See Observable universe#Misconceptions. Other links to that space.com article should be deleted on sight. -- BenRG (talk) 11:15, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

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=====Consider ths concept being developed here== At some point in space, 13.7 billion light years from here, a universe originated and inflated and its originally radiated energy started toward us. Then, during the following 13+billion years the universe has continued to inflate at an estimated rate of 3.38c. In the meantime we're restricted in the size of potential location distance from the origin site by the posible distance ot travel of the original light energy radiation. This leads to the following concepts: 1, The diameter of the universe at the present time is approximately 92 billion light years, and 2, We are located on a radius point 13.7 billion light years from the origin site. WFPMWFPM (talk) 01:00, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The direct relation between our location and the age of Universe is illogical because that would mean that if there is a civilization on a planet at the boundary of the universe, to them the Universe is 92 billion year old and that contradicts our belief that universe is only 13.7 billion year old. In fact the size and age of universe don't match because for universe to expand to 92 billion light year dia in 13.7 billion years matter would need to travel atleast 3.36 times the speed of light! --Vineet Aggarwal (talk) 20:07, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

1) Since there is no "boundary" to the universe, no one would ever be "on the edge". When they look out, they would see much the same things that we see, no matter where in the universe they are. Saying "but what if they are on the edge of the universe?" is like saying "but what if someone were living on the edge of the Earth!". There is no edge upon the surface of a sphere, and there is no edge to the universe. I'm always at the centre of Earth's surface area, no matter where on the surface I stand; conversely, I'm never at the centre point of Earth's surface area, because there is no centre. The universe is much the same way.

2) Matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light, but space itself can move at any speed. The space around a rotating black hole should regularly be accelerated to speeds greater than that of light. The "edge" of the universe, as we preserve it, is the distance at which the combined expansion of all of the space between us and that distant point exceeds the speed of light. Gopher65_talk 05:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Right, there is no "boundary" of the universe and neither there is an edge. However, the analogy of earth is not correct, because everyone on the surface is near to earth's boundary (leaving just the atmosphere) and center of the earth is where molten iron core is. That is true for all spherical objects irrespective of the size. Perhaps you were talking about earth surface, but that is again incorrect analogy because I wasn't talking about the surface of the universe.

2. You very neatly mentioned "that distant point" and that is exactly what I meant by 'planet at the boundary' (with respect to universe observed from earth) in my original post. Had you not been so picky about my word selection you could have explained me and the rest of the readers how can 'that distant point' be 92b light years away if both the (matter that made) Earth and the (matter that made) 'that distant point' started from the same point (big bang) only 13b years back. And we are not talking about the space here but matter.

Please note that I am bit cynical here because when scientific community starts talking about make-belief then I see no difference between science and bible. Though the later is obviously fiction but the question is how true is science when no one can really answer my question on established concepts and all it ends up as Einsteinian relativity which then I start seeing as pseudo science with all that space-time curvature, time-dilation, and unbelievable things. I agree that most established facts in science today were unbelievable to some earlier generation, but that's how I feel in the absence of proper consistent explanation of these concepts and because of their fallacies leading to hypothetical dark-matter and dark-energy. Vineet Aggarwal (talk) 02:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Can someone explain this sentence: "The universe is very large and possibly infinite in volume;..." I'm no Cosmologist but as far as I know the prevailing view is that the universe is not infinite, it's finite and expanding. Whilst saying it's "possibly" infinite isn't entirely wrong, it doesn't seem probably enough to warrant inclusion. I could state that dark matter is "possibly" made of unseen jelly but that doesn't make it worthy of inclusion. I'm tempted to think this has been put in by someone who prefers a steady state view of the universe, rather than someone writing neutrally. Master z0b (talk) 01:44, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

KAY1985:>>> Im no cosmologist either and far from it but i believe the Universe goes on for infinity and there can not possibly be an end/edge to it. If there is an end to the Universe then what would be beyond that end? it just wouldnt make sense. Therefore I am convinced 100% that there is life out there and definitely believe there are many other planets like our own which support life. I also 100% know that the human race will come to an end before we get anywhere close to finding out the facts of these theories. These are just my beliefs by the way lol<<<KAY1985

Universe(s)?

This article is poorly sourced. Profound truths are contained within grammar and etymology. Fundamental flaw: This article should state from the outset the difference between current, historical and developmental understandings and changes through time of the signification of both the Universe and universe and define, relate and contrast them. How disrespectful we are to our Home and our primary school teachers.
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B9 hummingbird hovering ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:26, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I concur. There is more than enough evidence that there it at least one more universe in our Multiverse, arguably most likely because this universe moves in conjunction with some other mass as big as our universe (eg. another universe.) Because of this, and more outstanding evidence found by several different scientific organizations, with NASA being at the head of the investigation, I present to the community of Wikipedia that THERE IS another universe in the Multiverse, and that therefore this article should be known as OUR universe instead of the very vague term of "universe". So please may an admin edit this article to show that there is more than one universe in the Multiverse. Permafry42 (talk) 13:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

That... is a giant load of garbage. There is no evidence of a Multiverse at this time, and there is no evidence of any universe other than our own, at this time. And there are no practical investigations currently taking place, because we lack the technology to engage in such investigations (unfortunately). In fact, AFAIK, the only mathematical models of the universe that even predict a Multiverse are some of the variants of Superstring Theory, and Superstring "Theory" hasn't even graduated to being science yet; it is still in the realm of philosophy. Gopher65_talk 05:19, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

So your saying Steven Hawking, the world's leading physicist, is a load of broken barbie dolls and smashed up trash bags, even though he took a "theory" and made it a universally used fact. Get with the program. Most physicist, (and I'm sure your not one, otherwise, you would value theories,) are leaning towards believing there are other universe. I agree that, at this point, we can't be certain. But as we are slowly getting more hints that the "theory" is true, we must accept it as true until proven otherwise. P.S.: it's supersymmetric string theory (or string theory), not Superstring theory. if you want to discredit something, call it by its full name. Permafry42 (talk) 19:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Gopher65 even mentioned Steven Hawking nor trashed him as a physicist. And I pretty much agree with Gopher65's opinion on this matter. Sorry I bounce your words back at you, but...Get with the program: Wikipedia is not a forum for novel research; the main idea of Wikipedia is to function as a (more or less) reliable encyclopedia, and thus present the general standpoint of the (in this case) scientific community outside of Wikipedia. Your words Most physicist...[are]...leaning towards believing there are other universe are weasel words, and AFAIK, multiverses are regarded as interesting theories, but they are far from being considered as scientific "truth" in the general scientific community. Until then, let's not pretend theories of multiverses are facts by giving them undue attention in this encyclopedic article.

You said: But as we are slowly getting more hints that the "theory" is true, we must accept it as true until proven otherwise. To me, this sounds somewhat like some kind of religious belief, which sadly reminds me of arguments used by supporters of Intelligent Design. Sorry if I offend you, but that is the feeling I get. If multiverses in the future would be scientifically "proven", I would personally be very excited and thrilled. But, this is not the case today...

In short; AFAIK, multiverses are at the moment far from accepted as scientific "facts" by the external scientific community. Until then, this article should not pretend otherwise. The section Universe#Multiverse can, and IMO should, handle the concept of theoretically multiple universes (along with other sub-articles). That's quite enough. Regards, --Dna-Dennis (talk) 00:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

"Creation myths" clear violation of Wiki's neutrality.

The title, and the following section "Creation myths" is a clear violation of Wiki's neutrality of witch it mocks religious viewpoints as "mythology"

75.179.163.66 (talk) 23:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC) Jade Rat

Check some dictionaries. DVdm (talk) 09:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't get it, what's the issue with calling religious beliefs mythology. Is there a better term? How about 'Stories in religious texts' —Preceding unsigned comment added by VinnieCool (talk • contribs) 22:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not a bad suggestion. Creation in religious texts might be another one. The word stories and myths lead me to believe one is saying that what is being described is untrue. I understand many would believe this to be the case, but it doesn't seem like a neutral way of discussing something in an article. Overall it's not a huge issue though. Sventington the Second 1:04, 12 May 2009.