Space and Beyond

[Melufa]

Space is a very mysterious and bewildering thing, ne? What are your views on what makes the universe tick?

I've been looking into Einstein's Theory of Gravitation, and some of the things I've learned blew my mind.
Time as a Fourth Dimension, that gets you wondering, eh?
Time travel in theory

All great topics, indulge me

[Xog]

I'm amazed about infinity. It just NEVER ends.. its something, and the one thing thats infinite.. it makes you wonder if other things can be infinite, and if so, how? Space just doesn't end. If theres a brick wall, whats behind it? and if there WAS a brick wall, where would it start? where would it end?? There is no top or bottom.. no ground, no ceiling. Oh god, you got me started. I'm just gonna leave it at this and go to bed.

[ÆNIMA]

There are theories that the universe does have boundaries, and that it starts to curve once you get to a certain point. Theoretically if you go travelling in one direction for long enough, you'll end up right where you started.

Also, the deeper you look into space the farther in the past you're looking. This all has to do with light speed and what not. It's very likely that many of the stars you see in the night sky don't even exist anymore. Likewise there could be many stars that already exist that we won't see for centuries to come.

The idea that time is a fourth dimension is pretty old...the idea that there are possible a total of 11 dimensions all together is relatively new. You'll have to delve into String Theory for the specifics about that though.

The kind of thing that I'm awed about in space is the Nebulas. You know those pictures of the colorful gas clouds? Well each point of light in that cloud is a star, probably a star bigger than our own sun. For me...that puts into perspective as to how big those Nebuli (sp?) really are. In perspective of things like that, we are tiny...we mean nothing to the Universe, however we mean everything to God (at least in certain religions). But on the opposite side of the spectrum, atoms and quantum particles are so small that it's hard to fathom...to think that these tiny things can combine to create a galaxy or a nebula leaves you to wonder...did the dice fall just the right way, or did someone with a high knowledge of physics know how to tweak the dials to get these creations?

[Melufa]

Oh? The curved universe? That's where wormholes come into play. It is said that the universe goes on, curving upward and over the previous space. Like a C. With wormholes you can get into time travel. If it were ever possible to contain a wormhole, and you had a vessel capable of lightspeed, could you not have a basic "time" machine?

Consider the contained wormhole. A wormhole connects one point in space to another, right? Well, you take one side of the wormhole you set in point A in the "present" and then the other point of the wormhole, fly around at the Earth at the speed of light, and when you land, time has elapsed much faster on Earth. You could then pass through the contained wormhole to the first, briding the time gap, eh? But this is, of course, mostly speculation.

The whole relativity concept has had several strong points in favor of its existence. Like when the guys took two synchronized atomic clocks and set one on the ground, and another in a plane, flew it around the world, and landed it. The researchers found that the atomic clock in the airplane read several nanoseconds early than the one on the ground. Mindblowing, eh?

[Melufa]

And to acknowledge your nebula topic, it is quite amazing. It makes you wonder truly if someone, or thing, set the universe into play. Like a giant tinker's toy, you could say. Hehe, the "clockwork universe."

[ÆNIMA]

It's pretty well accepted among the science community that time travel to the past is impossible, but time travel to the future is feasable.

I think it's been proven that wormholes exist in the quantam level, the trick is to make the wormholes large enough AND stable long enough for our use...and of course the wormhole has to go somewhere...I personally don't think that scientists will slowly study this subject and eventually reach a good solution, but I think someone's going to figure it out all at once, he/she'll be labelled as a genious. But heh...just speculation:P

[Vitron2]

Ah, time travel. This an idea that has perplexed and intrigued scientists and movie watchers alike, and it is possible. The universe is made up of 11 dimensions. 10 of which are space dimensions and the 11th is time. After the initial expansion of the universe (I’m talking about 1^-43s time frame) all but 4 of those dimensions stopped expanding. Since we only exist in those 4 we will concentrate on them.

In all 3 space dimensions it is possible to go in 2 directions. You can choose to go up or down. You can choose to go left or right, forward or backwards. These are very flexible dimensions that allow you to travel along their length either way. Time on the other hand is a restricting dimension, instead of being the lines that all three space dimensions take up, time is a ray that travels in one direction.

“But wait”, you say, “you just said we could travel through time?!”

We can and we are at this very moment but we have more control over time. While we may not be able to choose the direction that we are traveling along the time line. (We can only go forward, never backwards) We can choose the speed at which we travel along it. By manipulating our speed we are able to change how fast we are traveling along the time line in comparison to the rest of the universe.

Here is something you can do. Since the faster you go the slower time (relative to the outside world) will appear to be passing we can perform a thought experiment. First you need to figure out which way the earth is rotating (Shouldn’t be to hard ) Now, run in the direction away from the direction the earth is spinning. Then turn around and run towards the direction which the earth is rotating. Now, in essence (On a very very small scale) you have manipulated the speed at which you are traveling through time. Since you have changed your speed you have basically controlled time.

So at the faster speeds we could, travel through time (forwards only). So we could decide that we wanted to go forward 50 years in 1 day, jump in our space ship and blast off to the correct speed to accomplish this. When we land back on the earth in one day for us, 50 years would have passed on Earth, so you would have traveled 50 years through time.

Now onto wormholes… Wormholes do exist at the plank level. Now if any of you remember your high school physics class you would know that Max Plank theorized quantum theory. The plank level is the size where mass can be changed to energy and back to mass in a “sea” of bubbling foam. Now to make it where we could travel though a wormhole, we would need to be able to find away to keep it open long enough so we could pass through it. At the current time we would have no way to protect ourselves from the extreme gravitational forces that would be exerted by the wormhole. We would be stretched into a long line of particles several miles long and converted to a chaotic energy stream with no hope of coming out alive.

So maybe someday we will find a loophole around this. But for now, wormholes, are nothing but a one way street.


Vitron

[cundor]

I like Hawking's theory ... He has real cool views on the universe and it's origin/ending. I really like the part where he explains that the universe origins from one singularity and finally will end in a singularity...kinda intresting.

[ÆNIMA]

Vitron, the last sentence of your last paragraph explained what a large black hole does.

The travelling at great speeds to go 50 years into the future is what the Twin Paradox explains...if anyone would like to read more indepthly about it...you now know what to google

Cundor, my own idea of how the universe is shaped and moving illustrates that same idea.

Imagine the universe is a sphere, and all the matter is contained on the inside of the sphere. At the top point (before the Big Bang) you have your singularity. The Big Bang occurs and matter is flung downwards toward the middle of the sphere. Before any matter reaches the middle, everything is expanding, cooling down, and slowing down. Simply because the matter is travelling from a smaller space to a larger space (from the top of the sphere to the middle...an ellipse could possibly be a working shape also). So once the matter starts to reach the middle, it will start to speed up, heat up...and come closer together. Because you're going from a larger space into a smaller space (I am implying that there are boundaries to our universe). And in effect you'll get the opposite of the Big Bang, call it a Great Gathering if you will...all the matter will condense into the bottom of the sphere and eventually become a singularity. And quite possible...it'll become unstable, and blow up...all over again.

Again, that's my own theory...and a few people have told me that a theory is only half a theory if there's no math to back it up.

[Fit of Rage]

I'd reccomend that everyone here read The Universe in a Nutshell if you haven't already done so.

And Aen, as far as I'm aware, you're correct, since theorums in math (geometry specifically) and postulates are backed up by math, but are still considered only theorums and postulates, as oppsed to defined forumulas. However, an idea is only a fact if there's math to prove it in all circumstances.

[ÆNIMA]

Well no, a theory's always going to be a theory unless someone can observe the idea taking place..then it can be considered fact, but not all facts are total and complete..there's always exceptions in different circumstances.

[Melufa]

As explained by my Chem teacher, a theory is something that sets out to explain why something happens, where a law is something that simply states what has been observed.

[Vitron2]

Originally posted by ÆNIMA
Vitron, the last sentence of your last paragraph explained what a large black hole does.

Yes, and no. Since to create a wormhole large enough to pass through you would need to create a very dense (and large) energy field. And energy is able to produce gravitational fields the same way mass is. (since E=Mc^2 you have to have a huge quantity of energy to equal a small quantity of mass) So, to create a wormhole, you create your own version of a black hole. So to use the wormhole you need a way to create a gravitational bubble that will allow you to pass through the wormhole without being subjected the artificial gravity field you just created.

Now, if you could create the wormhole that connected two points without the need for the energy field then you would have it made as long as you were able to keep it stabilized.

About the universe expanding and then collapsing and then expanding again- Yes, that is a theory that used to exist but it was determined that the atrophy exhibited by the universe would mean that the universe would only be able "bounce back" (collapse and then expand again) a few times at best. To compare, Engines are about 40% efficient, human's are 1% efficient, and the universe is around .00000001% efficient. (but it was very cool that you were able to come up with that on your own)


Vitron

[ÆNIMA]

Heh ya...

Well my idea with that is that because of the Law of Thermodynamics, no energy is destroyed...it all stays in the universe (at least I like to hope so) and all energy and matter will gather again and expand again...and since you're not losing any energy, it could go on infinetly.

[Vitron2]

All the energy is still there, but a lot would be in non-usuable.

1st Law: The total amount of mass-energy in the universe is constant.

2nd Law: The amount of energy available for work is running out, or entropy is increasing to a maximum.

If the total amount of mass-energy is limited, and the amount of usable energy is decreasing. For example, after only a few amount of bouces all radioactive atoms would have decayed, every part of the universe would be the same temperature, and no further work would be possible so when it collapsed in on itself it would not have enough usable energy to expand again.


Vitron