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JuanDeFuca
Big Wall climber
Stoney Point
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 8, 2006 - 01:10am PT
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In many books I see the analogy of the universe as a balloon with the galaxies on its surface. Does the universe exist inside the balloon?
When we observe the universe are we looking around the surface of balloon or through it?
When we look out into space the objects the furthest away seem to be moving the fastest. How does that work in a balloon analogy?
If the universe (space?) is expanding does that mean the space inside my room here is expanding to?
What is space, is it the just the void, or does it have substance.
I really would like a better understanding of this and I know we have some PHD type's present.
Juanito
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WBraun
climber
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There is not just one universe. Everything we can see in the sky is within only one universe, as there is a very thick outer covering of each universe so it is not possible for light to travel from one universe to another.
Therefore, by our observations and experiments we can never detect these other universes.
I will now be burned at the stake .......
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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no burning at the stake Werner...
Juan wrote:
In many books I see the analogy of the universe as a balloon with the galaxies on its surface. Does the universe exist inside the balloon?
The problem is to describe a 4 dimensional universe 3 space dimensions and 1 time dimension, so the balloon analogy is used to get you thinking about living on the surface of the balloon (in 2D) while the balloon expands (in 3D) as our universe expands in 4D (you live in the 3D and there is something you perceive as time...). The universe does not exist inside the balloon, but on the balloon surface.
When we observe the universe are we looking around the surface of balloon or through it?
In this analogy, we look on the surface of the balloon, the "light" in the balloon universe travels along the surface of the balloon.
When we look out into space the objects the furthest away seem to be moving the fastest. How does that work in a balloon analogy?
Pick a point, as the balloon expands, points furtherest from the one we picked move away faster then close by ones. Perhaps it is easiest to see by doing it... assume a spherical balloon. The arc length is just the balloon radius multiplied by the angular separation of the points. The rate of change of the arc length is just the rate of change of the radius, multiplied by the angular separation. So if the angular separation is large, the rate of change of the arc length will be large.
If the universe (space?) is expanding does that mean the space inside my room here is expanding to?
Yes. The rate of expansion, the Hubble constant, is something like 100 km/s/megaparsec. A megaparsec is approx 3E22 m, so the expansion is 1/3E-19 (m/s)/m, so if the walls of your room are 3 m apart, they are expanding away from each other at the rate of something like 1E-19 m/s... you probably don't notice this.
What is space, is it the just the void, or does it have substance.
Not just what is space, but what is space-time... good question and very deep. It is possible that space-time is an "emergent property" of the underlying physics and not the fundamental stage on which reality plays... so "space-time" probably isn't a something in the sense you meant above. Matter (and energy) occupy space-time, in a vacuum (no matter, no energy) there are still physical processes taking place over short time periods which are creating matter (and energy) and annihilating it... but this takes place in the space-time setting.
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maculated
Trad climber
San Luis Obispo, CA
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Wow, Ed. Thanks for taking the time to respond to that.
Now I remember why I don't look up and ponder the stars too much . . .
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WoodyS
Trad climber
Riverside
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I've read a number of books for laymen on this and related subjects. I went through my library in search of a particular book that may have been the best of the lot. I think it's "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat" by John Gribben. I'm sure others more qualified might have other books in mind. This can be mindbending stuff, yet fascinating when put forth in a manner a layperson can grasp.
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hobo
Trad climber
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Dance of the Wu-Li masters is also quite good. Also is an entry level physics class.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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we had an early return from the Valley yesterday where I blew an aid piece (second from the ground) and hit the ground hard, fortunately my ass cheek took the blow... but I did see stars when my helmeted head accelerated to a stop... now a nice large tender bruise is forming. BUT, practice makes perfect. What does this have to do with the state of the universe?
My brain was still working (that's good)
and
Gravity is a bitch.
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WBraun
climber
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Ed were you at the base of el cap yesterday?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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no Werner, at Chuchbowl since we had only free climbed and never aided the Churchbowl Tree...
...and yesterday was a great time to do it because it didn't seem reasonable that anyone would want to free it (no one came by while we were there).
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Ed wrote
"but I did see stars when my helmeted head accelerated to a stop... now a nice large tender bruise is forming. BUT, practice makes perfect. What does this have to do with the state of the universe? "
Your ass hit a critical mass and you saw stars which don't exist in the Newtonian way that we think of stars being things we wish on when we're on a dicey piece.
How was your space time continuim between realizing the piece ripped and realizing you weren't badly hurt?
Prove that the Universe isn't a dream within some vast consciousness.
Peace
karl
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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not critical mass, I got up and finished the lead. The lesson? C1 shouldn't have dicey pieces.
The space-time continuum was like it always is on a fall: I closed my eyes and recall the sliding sound, at some point I opened my eyes to see the horizon rotating clockwise (as I rotated counter-clockwise) and then there was the hit and my lights went out and the stars come out... definitely thinking concussion, but a very mild one thanks to the helment. I usually have a good idea of when I'm going to be hurt, I wasn't worried in this one even with that bloody rock sticking out at the base of the climb. Gary worried a lot more than I.
Define "dream" and "conciousness" and I will work on a proof.
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WBraun
climber
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Wow, glad you were not hurt bad Ed. I was at Arch Rock yesterday, I didn't think anyone would be climbing in the Valley floor itself, as it is a lot warmer in the lower Merced area. The temps really dropped today.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Let's say Ed, that you yourself could dream for 1000 years straight, and that the characters in your dream, including you if you dreamed yourself, had a much better consistency in the laws, continuity, and actions possible and impossible in that dream. Having forgot that you were dreaming, how would the characters in the dream prove or disprove that they existed within a greater consciousness, that they were dream characters?
Peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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Dreams are the reflections of your waking states.
California is a state in the USA, where is the state of the Universe in?
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Let's not get too locked on into the physiology of dreaming and look at it as the contruct of consciousness and how relativities might play out within consciousness.
After all Werner, don't the Vedas say that Vishnu dreams the universe?
Peace
karl
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WBraun
climber
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Yes, Maha Vishnu, but not like our mundane dreams.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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I'm just trying to use an analogy to illustrate a practical understanding of the potential of our universe being non-physical the way we think of physical.
Now Science has already gone 98% of the way in showing the Universe is made of vibrating energy and even so called particles are so widely distributed that nothing is remotely "solid" except in relation to other objects of similar density.
We can see how we create apparent worlds within during our dreams. They seem real and solid when we forget ourselves in them. That's a way to understand how this wild universe is possible. So space time is curved and somehow contained in a balloon? It's doesn't take much questioning before the limitations of this answer are reached.
Always good to blow your mind. We're too locked up in our assumptions about things.
PEace
karl
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Ouch!
climber
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Time is expanding along with the universe. I used to be able to do things much quicker.
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Brutus of Wyde
climber
Old Climbers' Home, Oakland CA
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“how would the characters in the dream prove or disprove that they existed within a greater consciousness, that they were dream characters?”
They would pinch themselves.
That is what climbing offwidths is, on a macro scale… Pinching one’s self, loosely. “OW”.
“California is a state in the USA, where is the state of the Universe in?”
The Universe is in a state of confusion. Chaos, choss, Chaucer, Chaosiest. whatever.
Smack Dab in the middle of nowhere. Glad my name’s not Dab.
Dab lives down the hall. He wears dentures, just like me.
Brutus, Dab gum it.
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Batrock
Trad climber
Burbank
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This morning while sitting in church I was thinking of the universe, big bang, expanding universe, beginings, the end. Heady stuff to say the least. What was there before the Big Bang? What is outside our universe. I was sitting in a evangelical church so I dare not share my thoughts:) Nobody is going to change my faith but I dont see a problem with the Big Bang, expanding universe coexisting with my faith. I love thinking about this kind of stuff.
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