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New Research Suggests the Universe May Be a Giant Loop
www.popularmechanics.com ^ | By Jennifer Leman Nov 5, 2019

Posted on 11/08/2019 6:41:15 AM PST by Red Badger

Picture Credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration

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New, contested research suggests our universe may actually be a closed loop instead of a vast, never-ending expanse.

The theory has drawn sharp criticism from other cosmologists.

Confirmation of this theory could completely unravel everything scientists know and understand about our universe.

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Imagine jetting out into the universe. You sail past Mars, Neptune, and Pluto, far out past the milky way and into the frothy nothingness of space. What might you find if you travelled far enough?

Well, you might actually end up right back where you started.

There's a small chance the universe may actually be a big loop, a team of researchers report in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. The scientists—University of Manchester cosmologist Eleonora Di Valentino, Sapienza University of Rome cosmologist Alessandro Melchiorri, and Johns Hopkins University cosmologist Joseph Silk—reanalyzed data from cosmic background radiation—the oldest observable stuff in the universe and left over signals from the Big Bang—and found a puzzling anomaly.

A review of data from the European Space Agency’s Planck Experiment revealed significantly more instances of gravitational lensing of the microwave light that makes up cosmic background radiation than expected. This is particularly puzzling, because scientists aren’t currently able to explain how gravity would be able to bend this much microwave light.

To account for the discrepancy in their calculations, the scientists added a variable, called A_lens, to their model of the universe. But that variable comes out of left field and is difficult to reconcile with known parameters such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity, the scientists admit. And here’s the thing: According to Live Science, the team reached its conclusion with a standard deviation of 3.5 sigma, far below the 5 sigma confidence interval that physicists rely on in order to confirm a theory.

Recently, another paper came to a similar conclusion, but with even less statistical confidence. A paper recently posted to the pre-print server arXiv by University of Cambridge cosmologists George Efstathiou and Steven Gratton, for example, analyzed a smaller portion of the same Planck Collaboration data, and found that evidence for a closed loop system, according to Live Science. When the duo compared their results with other datasets, however, evidence pointed supported a flat, infinite universe.

Confirmation of this theory would pose a massive problem for physicists, and unravel much of what we know about the universe. Only time and more research will help us better understand what shape we’re in.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; History; Science; UFO's
KEYWORDS: apod; astronomy; ggg; history; quantumloopgravity; science; stringtheory
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To: _Jim

“If’n you had a ‘brain’ in your head (you apparently don’t) you would know that calculus and the sciences use the natural radian unit ALMOST exclusively in formulas and calculations ...”

If you had a “brain” in your head, you might be able to conceive why someone might choose to use the much more commonly understood unit of “degree” on an open, non-scientific public forum to make a comment explaining a pretty simple problem that any laymen could understand if explained in the correct terms.

Or is that reasoning just a little too complicated for you to figure out?


101 posted on 11/08/2019 1:56:56 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: _Jim

“its NOT spam, and you started it”

It is spam since it’s completely irrelevant to the article being commented on, and you replied to me with this irrelevancy, I didn’t “start” anything.


102 posted on 11/08/2019 1:58:01 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Red Badger
This is actually a very old theory.

Read it back when I was a kid and that was a few days ago.

103 posted on 11/08/2019 2:04:58 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear (A hero is a hero no matter what medal they give him. Likewise a schmuck is still a schmuck.)
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To: Red Badger

Title/Author please!


104 posted on 11/08/2019 6:25:06 PM PST by ExGeeEye (For dark is the suede that mows like a harvest.)
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To: Red Badger
our universe may actually be a closed loop

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Out of luck and fresh out of inspiration, Bill and Ted set out on a time travel adventure to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe.

https://www.billandted3.com/about-bill-and-ted-3-bill-and-ted-face-the-music.html

105 posted on 11/08/2019 6:53:40 PM PST by Ezekiel (The pun is mightier than the s-word. Goy to the World!)
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To: cuban leaf
"I like to tell high school kids... "

Thank you for posting. I do not understand what you mean, though. Your words seem to contradict because "travel" and "speed" do not go with "are everywhere at once."

Thanks in advance for any clarification . I do like mental experiments, though the idea of travel at the speed of light is so difficult. If you accelerated to almost the speed of light somehow, it would take all the stored energy of the universe to push you up that last little bit to get to that speed. Would that be a velocity? What "direction" would you be going?

106 posted on 11/09/2019 8:20:23 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: Boogieman
"Our triangles add up to 180 degrees... "

Thanks for posting. My question to you is how do you know your protractor is not bending as you measure the angle? Where can I read about those "measurements by scientists"? Thank you!

107 posted on 11/09/2019 8:28:09 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: Red Badger

Radians and degrees?
When doing trigonometry on the unit circle, radian measure is way easier for me to use in the calculations. If doing angles as fractions, using degree measure is easier because that number, 360, has the most even fractional divisions.


108 posted on 11/09/2019 8:38:11 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: Red Badger; 6SJ7; AdmSmith; AFPhys; Arkinsaw; allmost; aristotleman; autumnraine; bajabaja; ...
Thanks Red Badger.

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109 posted on 11/09/2019 8:54:27 AM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: BDParrish

According to einstein’s theory, the faster you travel, the slower time passes. And it eventually reaches “zero” at the speed of light. Theoretically, mass can’t travel at the speed of light because it also increases as does the power needed to increase speed, eventually requiring “infinite” power, which is also theoretically impossible.

But light, being energy, has no problem with it. So, if something is traveling at the speed of light, and has consciousness, from its perspective, no time passes on a journey of one light year, which means you are at both your beginning point and end point - and at every point in between - at the same time.

And between you and that galaxy you are looking at through a telescope that may be millions of light years away, every point between you and that galaxy contains the light being transmitted by that galaxy for as long as it exists and you can see it. And that light is being projected in an infinite number of “lines” because it’s projection is spherical. Meaning the light from that galaxy is, from the light’s point of view, everywhere at once. And that goes for the light of every star and galaxy you can see. This brings up another point: The universe is absolutely CRAMMED with light. It is everywhere. And it is everywhere at the same time.

And God is light.


110 posted on 11/10/2019 6:08:18 AM PST by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: cuban leaf

Thank you! What are we measuring when we measure of calculate the speed of light?


111 posted on 11/10/2019 6:18:31 AM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: BDParrish

What are we measuring when we measure of calculate the speed of light?


I don’t understand the question. I’m stuck on the word “of”.


112 posted on 11/10/2019 6:40:26 AM PST by cuban leaf (The political war playing out in every country now: Globalists vs Nationalists)
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To: cuban leaf

LOL Good one! Thanks for your comments I enjoyed this thread very much.


113 posted on 11/11/2019 2:40:43 PM PST by BDParrish ( Please correct me! I never learned anything from anybody who already agreed with me.)
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To: BDParrish

The Powers-That-Be have designated ‘Radians’ as THE International [SI] unit of circular/angular measurements......In a hundred years ‘degrees’ with respect to circles will be an anachronism, like pecks and bushels........................


114 posted on 11/12/2019 6:26:20 AM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain...................)
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To: Red Badger

Maybe the universe is a mobius strip.


115 posted on 02/22/2020 3:13:22 AM PST by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey season!)
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To: oblomov

” Think of a Moebius strip.
Now try to think of a three-dimensional version of a Moebius strip. “

Klein bottle


116 posted on 05/13/2020 4:34:38 PM PDT by Reynoldo
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To: GCFADG
A closed loop within what? Can't get around infinity.

How about a mobile strip?

(partly sarcasm)

117 posted on 05/31/2020 5:38:16 AM PDT by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey season!)
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