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Where does space end?!

StarryEyes

By StarryEyes
in The Astro Lounge

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StarryEyes

StarryEyes

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Don't know if this has been brought up on here before but it is something that has always made my brain hurt or want to explode.

So where does space end? Or does it? Or if we kept traveling through space would we eventually end up back where we started?

See what I mean about it making my brain hurt?!

It just seems incomprehensible that it just goes on for infinity.

Is it just incomprehensible because everything else we know ends somewhere or at sometime?

Please post your thoughts.

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AliMac

AliMac

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If Iain Banks is to be believed (and before you ask, yes I do get all my cosmology from SciFi), if you set off in a straight line you will eventually end up where you started. The universe is, in this model, a four-dimensional sphere, or Hypersphere. In the same way, a sphere is a three-dimensional circle. Of course this may all be tosh that I picked up while reading Excession when drunk. But it does sound good.

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Earl

Earl

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Well, why should it be comprehensible to primates of a planet of one star in 100 billion of one galaxy among 100 billion?

Because we strive to expand our knowledge, it was impossible to fly, we did it, we broke the sound barrier, we landed on the moon, what are we yet to do that is fantastically stupidly impossible and foolish to even think about..

Saying that there are some basic things that need to be sorted be fore we go striving for our dreams.

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mikeknowle

mikeknowle

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Well there is a theory that our universe is only 1 of many parallel ones, like soap bubbles. In this theory there are up to 10 or 11 dimensions, with each universe exisiting sepearately by with some particles able to cross the 'membrane'. This partly explains why gravity is so weak, the curious nature of dark energy/matter etc.

Now I have to go and lie down as my head hurts.....

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mikeknowle

mikeknowle

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Too right...

And the one where he gets visited by his future-self:

Rimmer (Future): No, look, I'm you from the future. I've come to warn you in three million years you'll be dead.

Rimmer (Past) [sarcastically]: Will I really!?!

Rimmer (Future) : Yes, unless you do somthing about it now.

Rimmer (Past) : What do you suggest? Give up white bread, more roughage?

:)

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bm1980

bm1980

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so you mean like smeg head rimmer getting a visit from ace rimmer...all those hours n hours spent watching red dwarf and everything they said is true. :-)

lol red dwarf tought me eveything i know about space :)

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junior

junior

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If the universe is spherical for example like the earth and no matter what direction you travelled you would end back up where you started.

Then what is outside of the sphere (the earths atmosphere)?

I have a funny feeling that this is a topic best understood with alcohol!!!

EDIT: Just to add to this, if as i think it has been mentioned before that the universe is just expanding with the big bang then the end would possible be where everything ceases to exist. If you travelled into this area then you would cease to exist. Eventually the effects of the "Big Bang" will halt and the universe will stop expanding and collapse in on its self potentially restarting the whole cycle of again.

But like i said i think i need more alcohol!!

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themos

themos

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Then what is outside of the sphere (the earths atmosphere)?

There is no outside. That would be an extra dimension. I suppose you can always ask why are there no more dimensions.

Look, the only reason that particular example was given is that we don't have experience of closed 2d surfaces and we can only visualise them in 3d, adding a dimension and then constraining motion somehow (as in "stay on the surface of this sphere"). But it's only used to draw pictures, we can do the mathematics without pictures (after training, of course) and that's good otherwise we wouldn't be able to do math with 10 dimensional spaces.

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vulcan

vulcan

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The limitations of a 3/4 dimentional universe may suggest such conclusions but a 'multiverse' with 'up to'™ eleven dimensions have beeen postulated at which point, drunk or sober, my head gets itchy on the inside - and scratching doesn't help. Check out the works of Hugh Everett - brilliant, but died from drinking aged 51!

Hught Everett. Qantum mechanic. No job too small!

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Pug

Pug

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Have been trying to explain interstella distances to some friends this evening (whilst drunk and not understanding them myself). They liked saturn, the moon and the nebula in orion though.

As has been said in previous posts, I leant most of what I know through red dwarf and Iain Banks!

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