Is the universe infinite or finite?

[StridAst]

can I have a link to the los alamos thing? And an "easy" way to get to the speed of light is getting rid of "god particles" (mass particles) if we can find them. The problem is slowing from the speed of light....

sure. I saw it on a better scientific journal site. however I can't remember which one, and sci-am has a useful search function. so here's a short and very non technical story about the original release. hope this is good enough. While sci-am does publish a lot of pseudoscience related things =/ anything from Los Alamos is usually quite sound research.

Observations: Faster-than-light electric currents could explain pulsars

 

[ossumguywill]

It sounds like that's really not moving faster than the speed of light at all.... You could do the same thing with dynamite. Space the dynamite 500 kilometers apart in a long chain, blow up each consecutive piece of dynamite 1 millisecond apart, and bam, you have a pressure wave that "moves faster than light". I think the interesting part of the research is the fact that using this technique sort of collimates the radio waves-maybe by constructive interference (that article doesn't really say). It beats the inverse square law like lasers beat the inverse square law-by being focused.

 

[StridAst]

exactly, it beats the law by focusing it in a plane. however, if as referenced in that particular article, this same effect happens around a neutron star naturally. (given they rotate at relativistic speeds) then there is serious potential for similar effects to be throwing off our understanding of many phenomena out there. And while they aren't truly breaking the light barrier, if as they are saying the effect still functions as if it was, then it's sort of a loophole around Either way, cool research which does cast doubt on more of our understanding of the universe

 

[ossumguywill]

Tell me-what happens if you have a rotating metal rod, and let's say part of that rod 5 feet from the center is moving at .999c. What happens to the rod at 10 feet? 20 feet?

 

[Exerd]

Tell me-what happens if you have a rotating metal rod, and let's say part of that rod 5 feet from the center is moving at .999c. What happens to the rod at 10 feet? 20 feet?

The rod at the location you describe simply could not move that fast. Because it is part of a whole, any particles which are part of that rod (and any other system) obey the relativistic principle.

As the outside of the rod is reaching the speed C, its mass becomes larger and thus energy to accelerate becomes larger until infinity, because E=MC². The energy could never be attained as it reached infinity. So, the rod at the location you describe could never reach the speed you describe.

About the topic at hand.

My belief on the universe scale is of a multiverse theory. If we can rewind time towards a big bang, I do not believe the "bang" was sitting there waiting to happen. A universe must have collapsed on the other side of the bang. When that other universe collapsed, its mass crunched and "popped" into our dimension, spewing out a giant burst of matter.

I would believe that if it happened once, the event would be unlimited in scale, and a foam of multiverses would exist outside of our own universe, creating an infinite amount of universes.

I have followed some of the things Dr. Michio Kaku has mentioned in his lectures, in which he thought that to escape the fate of our own universe, someday we would need to jump into another universe in the foam of infinite universes. Structure would not survive, so particles would need to be sent through which reassembled themselves as data to assemble DNA on the other side. Far out, I know, but an interesting take on the challenge of escaping the fate of a dying universe.

Here is something to think about which can stimulate the imagination:

If you play the lottery, and buy just one ticket, you aren't likely to win.

Instead of that one ticket, imagine that you now bought 1 million tickets to the lottery. Saying that you might win once or twice may not be too far fetched with this many tickets on hand.

Now, imagine that you purchased not just a million tickets, but an infinite amount of tickets. Since you have every possible number covered in an infinite amount of repeats, you will have won the lottery an infinite amount of times.

Where am I going with this, exactly?

I am going right for one of the things this thread touches upon. The realization of infinity, and an infinite amount of circumstances.

I want you to visualize what it means to have an infinite amount of space, and an infinite amount of universes. What it means is that you have an infinite amount of circumstances. What it means is that somewhere out there, there is a situation occurring which is exactly like the one you are in now. Not only is that situation occurring somewhere out there, it is occurring somewhere out there an infinite amount of times right as we think about this, in an infinite amount of variable ways! Right now, you are somewhere else. You are getting hit by an asteroid. You are falling off of a cliff. You are winning the lottery! You are being born.

It is the power of infinity. You cannot deny it.

 

[Fonduman]

only if theres fully an infinite amount of matter, even taking into account degrees of infinity.

 

[Exerd]

only if theres fully an infinite amount of matter, even taking into account degrees of infinity.

Of course.

It's all just a thought. The idea is to use your imagination.

 

[ossumguywill]

I really haven't studied this at all, but doesn't the whole virtual particle thing sort of prove multiverses are around? Like the dual slit experiments... it seems to me like the photons must interact through universes. Also, I think multiverses would be a good explanation for vacuum energy, weak bosons, and other particles that pop in and out of existence.

 

[Exerd]

I really haven't studied this at all, but doesn't the whole virtual particle thing sort of prove multiverses are around? Like the dual slit experiments... it seems to me like the photons must interact through universes. Also, I think multiverses would be a good explanation for vacuum energy, weak bosons, and other particles that pop in and out of existence.

Keep in mind, you could be interchanging "universes" with "dimensions", depending on how you think about it.

The way I see it is that dimensions basically exist right on top of one another, like the pages in a book. In the same sense, I see universes equating to books in a library, somewhat next to one another.

Of course, you could have universes in other dimensions which exist on top of other universes in other dimensions. The problem is that no combination of words can essentially describe it. It is something most easily described by mathematics.

I haven't indulged fully in multiverse theory, but the way I understood it for the most part is that there is a foam of universes, all pressing on one another like bubbles. Some start with a big enough "bang" that they may expand forever, some expand and then succumb to the gravity within the system and collapse back into a big crunch, while others may somewhat stabilize for very long periods.

 

[Fonduman]

if you mean how a single photon can interact with the other slit without going through it, causing an interference pattern with itself, i think thats just because the photon has its own probability density waveform that passes through both slits even if the photon doesnt.

 

[ossumguywill]

if you mean how a single photon can interact with the other slit without going through it, causing an interference pattern with itself, i think thats just because the photon has its own probability density waveform that passes through both slits even if the photon doesnt.

I'm pretty sure the photon has to interact with virtual particles.... otherwise the waveform would be the same as a single slit experiment. The photon isn't aware of the other slit....

 

[Leapold]

Everyone who says 'explosion' needs to say 'expansion.' They are different ideas. The actual space is expanding at the speed of light in the outer reaches of the universe, we know this is fact because as we gaze further and futher into space, it becomes so red shifted that we can no longer see any farther. This is because it is expanding so fast, NOT EXPLODING. The matter isn't moving anywhere, the space between the matter is expanding.

 

[ossumguywill]

Everyone who says 'explosion' needs to say 'expansion.' They are different ideas. The actual space is expanding at the speed of light in the outer reaches of the universe, we know this is fact because as we gaze further and futher into space, it becomes so red shifted that we can no longer see any farther. This is because it is expanding so fast, NOT EXPLODING. The matter isn't moving anywhere, the space between the matter is expanding.

err... I'm pretty sure the matter is moving outwards from the point of origin at the big bang. And technically it is exploding, as it's moving faster than the speed of sound :na:

 

[Exerd]

Everyone who says 'explosion' needs to say 'expansion.' They are different ideas. The actual space is expanding at the speed of light in the outer reaches of the universe, we know this is fact because as we gaze further and futher into space, it becomes so red shifted that we can no longer see any farther. This is because it is expanding so fast, NOT EXPLODING. The matter isn't moving anywhere, the space between the matter is expanding.

We know that we can only see ~13.8 billion light years into the cosmic microwave background. But, I have not once read a source saying, "The actual space is expanding at the speed of light in the outer reaches of the universe".

Source?

 

[Leapold]

@blu-ray
'any black hole would create a rip in space-time, which theoretically would form another universe. these universe could be traveled to by launching something/someone through that black hole at light speed.

theory stated.'

Nothing can go through a black hole without being torn into something smaller than neutron star matter.
Nothing can go the speed of light.
Theory demolished.

 

[ossumguywill]

Spaghettification would NOT be fun...