Amazing Animation About Our Universe

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: JasonCoder
Nothing, you are the farthest south you're going to get. Unless you stay there long enough for the magnetic pole to shift, that's it.

Precisely my point.
Asking "What was before the Big Bang" is like asking, "what is south of the south pole?" Both are like the "endpoints" of a sphere.

(And no matter how long you sit at the south pole, it's never going to change. The south magnetic pole will change, but the south pole never will, at least not until Earth somehow disintegrates in the very distant future, once its protons start to decay away, or when Q decides to vaporize the planet. )

Ok, so that theory has nothing in existence before the Big Bang? So what caused the Big Bang then - if there was zip, zero, zilch in existence? I realize this isn't an easy question but I feel like that theory is awfully easy to shoot holes in.

The theory has "something" in existence. Fritzo was a vowel off - brane theory. Massive structures out there somewhere collide, and the result of this impact is a tiny bubble of spacetime, complete with concretions of energy, and even more densely packed stuff - matter.

ultimately, we are never going to be able to comprehend the beginning. We go far enough back to right before the big bang, and there is a super collection of hydrogen and helium that kick-starts all the first stars.
remember, massive stars create the heavy elements during fusion (heavy elements in this case = elements larger than He, basically everything other than H and He).
however, what created the protons, electrons, neutrons, neutrinos, positrons, and everything else? who the hell knows. Maybe the big bang was the death of a super massive star that is technically apart of a super massive universe that subscribes to different physics? So we are a universe within a universe? At this point, we could come up with the craziest of theories and are all technically just as believable as the last. The only thing we can go by is the evidence that basically points to the Big Bang. Everything before that is pure bullshit guesses. And I like those kind, as it provides a little bit of fun and allows the creation of personal philosophy for those that want it. I refuse to subscribe to what I believe is religious bullshit, and rather enjoy subscribing to my own thoughts about the humble beginnings of our universe and what may have existed before.
crazy, eh?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: destrekor
ultimately, we are never going to be able to comprehend the beginning. We go far enough back to right before the big bang, and there is a super collection of hydrogen and helium that kick-starts all the first stars.
remember, massive stars create the heavy elements during fusion (heavy elements in this case = elements larger than He, basically everything other than H and He).
however, what created the protons, electrons, neutrons, neutrinos, positrons, and everything else? who the hell knows. Maybe the big bang was the death of a super massive star that is technically apart of a super massive universe that subscribes to different physics? So we are a universe within a universe? At this point, we could come up with the craziest of theories and are all technically just as believable as the last. The only thing we can go by is the evidence that basically points to the Big Bang. Everything before that is pure bullshit guesses. And I like those kind, as it provides a little bit of fun and allows the creation of personal philosophy for those that want it. I refuse to subscribe to what I believe is religious bullshit, and rather enjoy subscribing to my own thoughts about the humble beginnings of our universe and what may have existed before.
crazy, eh?

Stephen Hawking said something to the effect that since we're within our own real of space and time, whatever existed "before" our Universe can't have any effect on what transpires here, so it doesn't really matter what's outside.
Or something like that.

I've heard ideas that we exist inside a black hole, or even inside a magnetar.

My idea of protons and the various components of matter is that they're just tightly condensed or bound energy, like raindrops condensed out of vapor. Big Bang happens, and you've got a huge sea of densely-packed photons. As it all spreads and starts to cool, some of it condenses out into protons and electrons, which bind as the first hydrogen atoms.
And from there, it pretty well follows current theories of the Big Bang model - as the Universe cools down, gravity becomes the major working force in terms of forming structures, such as stars and galaxies. Stars produce heavy elements, many of them are formed, and die. Little pockets of heavy elements are leftover here and there, and sometimes, one of them develops little creatures that look around with intelligence, and utter unto the void, "Whazaaaaap!"

 

[LongCoolMother]

and those are just individual stars. consider the billions of of galaxies in the visible universe-- and the hundreds of thousands of millions of stars in each galaxy. look at the hubble deep field or ultra deep field. those galaxies appear in an unremarkable portion of the night sky less than the area of a dime held at arm's length.

yes, the universe is magnificent alright...

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
and those are just individual stars. consider the billions of of galaxies in the visible universe-- and the hundreds of thousands of millions of stars in each galaxy. look at the hubble deep field or ultra deep field. those galaxies appear in an unremarkable portion of the night sky less than the area of a dime held at arm's length.

yes, the universe is magnificent alright...

And that is precisely why I think people who don't believe in extraterrestrial life are insane. It's mathematically impossible that we are the only lifeforms in the universe.

The observable universe has 70 sextillion stars. Let's write that out in long form:

70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars

It is widely believed that the observable universe is only a minuscule fraction of the entire universe, simply because it's expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light (and is currently at least 93 billion light years across, although we're not sure if it even has an end-point).

Humans have existed as a species for 200,000 years. Our reign on this planet has been short. We've been studying modern astronomy and physics for about 500 years. To imply that we know even a fraction of the knowledge about what possibly exists in our universe is false. Life, both intelligent and simple, exists in other parts of our universe; the incalculable combinations of matter, light, energy, etc. out there can produce life in innumerable ways, especially over a period of 13 billion years.

But the universe is so unimaginably large, life from different planets will most likely go undetected from by each other. Intelligent life has to reach a certain level of advancement before it even has the capability to detect extraterrestrial life. A far higher level of advancement is required before they can actively explore for it (a level humanity has failed to reach thus far).

Even if we do survive as a species long enough to explore space, it will likely take thousands of generations of colonization and exploration to successfully find extraterrestrial life.

We've been born into interesting times. We're really in the first stages of infancy for humanity. The most important advancements for our civilization have come within the last 150 years; a tiny speck on the time-scale of existence. If we don't wipe ourselves out through war (nuclear, biological, chemical), and somehow unite the leading nations of our world under a banner of cooperation, we might be ready to take the next small step towards becoming an advanced civilization. Spend less money killing each other and more money moving our species beyond worrying about hunger, disease and old age; then we can stop living in this rat-race and start tackling the bigger questions that our universe poses.

 

[Analog]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Not so Mr. Cho...check out Brine theory and why physicists are starting to believe there are multiple universes floating around as bubbles. When two universes collide their brines mix to create a new universe, with it's own unique laws of physics. Mind blowing stuff.

I know about string theory thanks. I also know that it has 0 experimental backing thus far

And you meant to say "branes".

Yes, branes are short for membranes.

String theory, although cool, is nothing more than a philosophy. A theory has at least something that can be tested.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Dunbar
That's nothing, the universe is what, 13.5 billion light years across? I've actually been enjoying the show The Universe. Never really had much interest in this stuff until I saw that show.

edit, it's actually 150 billion light years (so I was off by a few billion...) 13.5 billion is the age of the universe.

So the universe expands quicker than the speed of light?

edit:
theory of relativity?

 

[BrokenVisage]

Originally posted by: astroidea

Originally posted by: Dunbar
That's nothing, the universe is what, 13.5 billion light years across? I've actually been enjoying the show The Universe. Never really had much interest in this stuff until I saw that show.

edit, it's actually 150 billion light years (so I was off by a few billion...) 13.5 billion is the age of the universe.

So the universe expands quicker than the speed of light?

edit:
theory of relativity?

Precisely, I'd stick with the 13.5 billion year old Universe, I have no idea where you got 150 from but with only 4 Astro 101 credits under my belt even I know that's just not right.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: astroidea

Originally posted by: Dunbar
That's nothing, the universe is what, 13.5 billion light years across? I've actually been enjoying the show The Universe. Never really had much interest in this stuff until I saw that show.

edit, it's actually 150 billion light years (so I was off by a few billion...) 13.5 billion is the age of the universe.

So the universe expands quicker than the speed of light?

edit:
theory of relativity?

Space itself is also expanding. Light will move at a finite speed along the moving "medium" of space.
Concerning the expansion itself, I don't know how fast that could move. What's the speed of space?


Source for 156 billion light years wide
92-94 billion light years wide - the 156 billion light-year dimension is listed there as inaccurate.
Estimated volume: 3.56×10^80 cubic meters.:laugh:

And check out the pages on superclusters - huge cloud formations of galaxies.

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Not so Mr. Cho...check out Brine theory and why physicists are starting to believe there are multiple universes floating around as bubbles. When two universes collide their brines mix to create a new universe, with it's own unique laws of physics. Mind blowing stuff.

I know about string theory thanks. I also know that it has 0 experimental backing thus far

And you meant to say "branes".

LOL- that's what I get for posting at 2:00am

 

[JasonCoder]

Originally posted by: DanTMWTMP
damn this thread is too deep. Due to this thread, I searched wikipedia for all kinda of information and theories.

*head explodes*

I know what you mean. I got through one page on the big bang theory and had to take an excedrin. Well not really, but you know what the folks splainin this need to do? Through in some humor now and then. Keeps people interested. I know it's a dry subject but damn.

 

[hellokeith]

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[SunnyD]

Whoever said humanity is in it's infancy... yup. You're right... it's time to change our diaper!

 

[Nemesis 1]

OPs link isn't working for myself . Could someone PLEASE give another link.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: Cristatus
I never knew there were such large objects.

I had heard about supergiants and all, and I'm sure my HS physics teacher talked about their sizes compared to our, but it doesn't really hit you until you put them into perspective like this.

QFT. i mean, i knew there were huge objects, but this makes you realize how huge!