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"A mind boggleing question, is there an edge to the universe???"

One thing which always gets me thinking and in the end ususally hitting myself to stop me thinking about it, is the universe. What kind of a strange place do we live in, do you have any theory's which you want to share?
Is there an edge to the universe?
What if we are just living in some small spec of dirt for an aliens world?
How far is as far as the eye can see?
And another thing which really gets me annoyed is this quote: If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
These are the things which can drive a man to madness.
But just remember, E=M C squared.

WolfGirl wrote:
hooplah, do you have a white coat?

Yes, I have several....

Yes a tree makes a noise.

A noise is simply air particles virbrating. So anything that causes air particles to move/vibrate makes a noise.

Simple.

Also, I did know what E=MC^2 means. Bloody A-level physics....

Oh, and believe it or not, I did know about the existence of the fourth dimension.

Length
Breadth
Depth and
Space/Time :-P

:-)

Or if you're Holly from Red Dwarf:

E = Energy
MC = Master of Ceremonies :-D

Goatboy wrote:
> Yeah, what he said.

AND he's a scientist, so he knows this stuff.


hooplah, do you have a white coat?

usually if i can't understand a word in a post that means it's usually right so going to agree with old hooplah there

however with the tree making a noise thing i always thought yes it did make a noise til i saw a simpsons episode when that question popped up and lisa said *but how can sound exist with no one around to hear it* so now i'm just too confused

Damn right...

Yeah, what he said.

AND he's a scientist, so he knows this stuff.

Current thinking dictates that the universe is actually finite in size, though it doesn't have any boundaries to speak of, if you take into account the fourth dimension.

Wow, the forth dimension eh? That sounds a bit sci fi, but not as much as you might think. The forth dimension is commonly refered by astro physicists and other smart people as space/time. Watch enough Science Fiction, or study Physics and you will eventually hear of this fantastically named dimension, usually with reference to time travel or black holes.

Visualising four dimensions is not the simplest of things to do, so it is often reprented in two, with an X axis (time) and Y axis (space).

Now imagine that our universe as being a two dimensional surface of a snooker ball, or any other spherical object you care to picture. That surface has a finite area to it, you can work out what it is using euclidian geometry, that's the nasty normal geometry you do at school. So the sphere has a surface area, but no edges to speak of. If you were to get in a plane and fly across the surface of the earth you would eventually get back to where you started from, without falling of the edge, contrary to what some people might of though not so long ago.

So if our universe exsisted as a two dimensional object, but those dimensions were space and time, by using some fairly heavyweight maths with non euclidean geometry and imaginary numbers (which despite the name, do exsist), you can theorise that the universe has a finite area (won't go on for ever)but for practical purposes (us) it has no boundaries. In theory you could head of in a straight line and the curvature of space caused by the mass of the universe would bring you back to where you started from.

SO after all of that, I think that the universe has no edges.

If a tree falls in the woods it still makes a noise, thermodynamics says so.

E stands for Energy
M for Mass
C squared is the speed of light squared.

The universe is still expanding, the scientists tell us.

But what is it expanding into?

For it to be expanding, there must be a finite end to space. What lies beyond it?

Is the universe just a 'bubble' containing all that we know?

Brain-busting, isn't it?