EILITDC Questions....

[fettoken]

The other way to think of it is that before the Big Bang there was no space or time so there is very specifically and precisely "nothing" outside the universe that was created.



Time dilation has been experimentally proved many many times.

Well, i meant on the scale of taking a spaceship and flying it to Jupiter and back to clock the time.

Humdidum...
http://hermes.ffn.ub.es/luisnavarro/nuevo_maletin/Einstein_GRelativity_1916.pdf

 

[Raven]

Even orbiting the earth, time moves ever so slightly slower. Or at least by our methods of measuring time.

 

[Deebs]

Since our frame of reference is, for the foreseeable future, fixed in this solar system, it isn't a question that can be answered. We can only view the edge of the observable universe, which for us is just over 90 billion light years wide. We are in the exact centre of that observable universe. We can only speculate as to what's outside the observable universe - we have no way of knowing how large the universe is. We'll almost certainly never be able to see beyond the observable universe and therefore we will not be able to see if an "edge" exists.

How do you know we are in the exact centre of the universe? From the same people that said the Sun revolved around the Earth?

Be careful!! @Deebs is having trouble enough with just 1 universe. It we get onto multi-verses, Branes and M-theory I think his brain may explode.

Indeed, EILITDC please!

The other way to think of it is that before the Big Bang there was no space or time so there is very specifically and precisely "nothing" outside the universe that was created.
Time dilation has been experimentally proved many many times.

So what created the big bang if there was no space or time?

The balloon idea doesn't make sense to me because the balloon is in a space that allows it to expand.

Also before the big bang there was "nothing" but there must have been something even if it we don't know what it is or proof that it exists.

Exactly, there must be something there even if we don't understand it or cannot see it?

 

[Tom]

How do you know we are in the exact centre of the universe? From the same people that said the Sun revolved around the Earth?

We're in the exact centre of the observable universe. Our position in the whole universe is unknown.

So what created the big bang if there was no space or time?

Impossible to answer.

Exactly, there must be something there even if we don't understand it or cannot see it?

Why?

 

[Scouse]

@Deebs - @Tom said centre of the observable universe - which is a sphere around the earth where light has had time to reach us so we can observe it. That's different from the centre of the actual universe of course.

 

[dysfunction]

We're in the exact centre of the observable universe. Our position in the whole universe is unknown.



Impossible to answer.



Why?

Why not?

 

[Tom]

Why not?

You only ask this because you cannot truly conceive of nothingness. You exist in a universe of three physical dimensions moving through a fourth, time. This is your entire experience. You might as well try to imagine a brand new colour - it's impossible.

 

[BloodOmen]

But before the big bang there was nothing to ripple through

There in lies the mystery

 

[Zarjazz]

So what created the big bang if there was no space or time?

The Big Bang Theory doesn't answer that question. It simply explains how the universe evolved since the very hot and dense starting conditions. So it's still up for debate but some basic ideas are

• while space and time did not exist mathematics did
• quantum fluctuations (which totally allow something to appear from nothing)
• Brane cosmology (which requires string theory and lots of extra dimensions)

The problem is that none of them are testable (at present) so they are just guesses, not theories.

Exactly, there must be something there even if we don't understand it or cannot see it?

There's no *must* about it. That's your limited 3D monkey brain thinking there

 

[dysfunction]

You only ask this because you cannot truly conceive of nothingness. You exist in a universe of three physical dimensions moving through a fourth, time. This is your entire experience. You might as well try to imagine a brand new colour - it's impossible.

You answered why to the question that there could be something before the universe started. Your above statement isn't an answer. You might as well have said aubergine.

 

[Tom]

No, I answered "why" to Deebs saying that there must have been something before the universe "started". There doesn't have to be anything.

 

[dysfunction]

Yes and then I asked "Why not?"
There could have been.

 

[Job]

I hate it when they describe 2 dimensional beings as being really flat, they even show it with a graphical description of them seeing through a tiny slit.
Well no...they are only 2 dimensional, so they are not flat...they are not there...you need height to make length and width.
It is impossible to describe anything with less than 3 dimensions in the universe thats around us.

 

[Scouse]

It is impossible to describe anything with less than 3 dimensions in the universe thats around us.

Edwin A Abbott did it very well as far back as 1884 in his book Flatland, whilst simultanously describing heirarchical human culture.

 

[Job]

Abstractly yes, but fundamentally, once you go to two dimensions in this universe, you have nothing.

 

[Zarjazz]

...you need height to make length and width.

It is impossible to describe anything with less than 3 dimensions in the universe thats around us.

... once you go to two dimensions in this universe, you have nothing.

 

[Tom]

The only two-dimensional "things" in this universe are either conceptual or abstract.

 

[Job]

Well because, Flatland is a classic example, it talks about lineworld of one dimension....but a line is three dimensional, everything is at least 3 dimensional, even a line only one quark high and one quark wide.
You can abstractly treat it a one dimension by reducing the other two to zero as a thought experiment, but if they were really zero..there would be nothing.

 

[DaGaffer]

Well because, Flatland is a classic example, it talks about lineworld of one dimension....but a line is three dimensional, everything is at least 3 dimensional, even a line only one quark high and one quark wide.
You can abstractly treat it a one dimension by reducing the other two to zero as a thought experiment, but if they were really zero..there would be nothing.

No, there would be two. The fact that you can't get your head around it is irrelevant. And yes, of course its a thought experiment; that's the whole fucking point. Flatland showed the mindfuck of ineracting with a third dimension to demonstrate why we have so much trouble imagining higher dimensions. As is being amply demonstrated on this thread.

 

[Job]

You mean one.
I can understand that maths can work in any number of dimensions and relate back to our interaction level, but the real argument I have is people explaining 2 dimensions using something that is clearly 3.
Really thin is not 2 dimensions.

 

[Raven]

...

 

[DaGaffer]

You mean one.
I can understand that maths can work in any number of dimensions and relate back to our interaction level, but the real argument I have is people explaining 2 dimensions using something that is clearly 3.
Really thin is not 2 dimensions.

Irrelevant. How do you know you don't have bits of yourself sticking out into a higher dimension? For the purposes of the story two dimensional creatures are not aware of a third dimension. That's the point of the thought experiment.

 

[Raven]

I think Job is on about 2d vs 3d in the graphical sense. Rather than actual dimensions.

 

[Zarjazz]

I can understand that maths can work in any number of dimensions and relate back to our interaction level, but the real argument I have is people explaining 2 dimensions using something that is clearly 3.

So you agree that maths can describe how interactions work in any dimension and how that would look to beings in lower dimensions, then contradict yourself in the same sentence.

The only two-dimensional "things" in this universe are either conceptual or abstract.

Not completely true. There are plenty of quantum scale effects that are only explainable if the system has two dimension variables - Quantum Hall Effect, election transmission in graphene, superfluid films and others.

 

[Tom]

You're confusing physical properties with abstract properties. A shadow can be said to be two-dimensional, but it is not an object. And an object that moves only in two dimensions is not a two-dimensional object.

There are no two-dimensional objects in this universe (that we're aware of).

 

[Job]

Who knows...maybed the universe was just two dimensions and suddenly a third appeared..springing the whole thing into life, this of course relies on expansion theories being wrong, but hey...waits for fourth (not time) dimension to appear.

 

[Raven]

Shadows are 3 dimensional. The space between the object casting the shadow and the shadow on the ground is also dark(er)

Even photons are 3 dimensional anyway.

 

[Zarjazz]

Even photons are 3 dimensional anyway.

Well they exist in 3 dimensions but "what is the size of a photon" is not straight forward to answer.

 

[TdC]

Photons are weird fuckers. The double slit experiment where you shoot photons through two apertures and thus prove photons are both a wave and a particle. And then you take it quantum, and prove that one particle goes through both slits at the same time if unobserved *boggle*

 

[dysfunction]

Yes but is boggle a colour.
I have a colour in mind but not sure your mind will cope with it x