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.
“ The universe could be a giant loo.”
The universe is San Francisco?
We’re on it!
What about the “triangle” problem? If we live in a flat universe, the angles in triangles add up to 180 degrees. If the universe is curved, angles would add up to more than 180 degrees.
Measurements by scientists have shown to a very high degree of confidence that our triangles indeed add up to close to exactly 180 degrees.
Well, imagine the universe is a 2-dimensional plane in 3-d space. If you add a little 3-d curvature to the plane, like bending a sheet of paper, then eventually, if the plane is big enough, it must curve around until the opposite edges meet somewhere. There’s your “closed loop”.
Same principle would apply to our 3-d universe if it is curved in the 4th dimension.
180 degrees, 360 degrees, et al, are arbitrary numbers and measurements.
Try using radians...............
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
“180 degrees, 360 degrees, et al, are arbitrary numbers and measurements.
Try using radians...............”
Radians are just as arbitrary as degrees. The problem remains the same no matter what unit of measurement you choose. If space is curved, then a triangle must have more that 1 Pi radians total in its angles. We haven’t observed that.
Then imagine where the 4th dimension is.
Maybe it is a Moebius strip?
Our brains simply aren’t capable of conceiving that.
I mean, we can make a 4 dimensional math problem and do all the calculations correctly. We can treat time like a “4th dimension” and plot our trajectory through that space. Still, we can never conceive of where “the past” might go off to once we aren’t in it anymore.
In the simplest terms a “dimension” is just a direction that we have freedom of movement in that is perpendicular to all the other directions we have freedom of movement in. We can only move in 3 directions that meet that definition, and we can only perceive the world around us as a space that is bounded by those 3 dimensions defined by those directions. However we can conceive of certain effects a 4th dimension might have on our the 3 dimensions we perceive, and one of those is this “triangle problem”, which is something we can actually make measurements of and evaluate.
I know what a radian is. What’s your point?
It’s a ‘natural’ derived measurement, with no need for a physical or literal standard to represent it.
A ‘degree’ can be anything, of any size value, but because we have a year of 365 days, 360 by the old Roman calendars, we got stuck into 360 degree circles.
We could just have easily used 1000 degrees to a circle, and came up with some easily manipulated numbers. The trigonometry would be the same, jut with a different set of standards.
.........
That would explain the “Ground Hog Day” effect....
This works hand-in-hand why Radial engines are always an _odd_ number of cylinders (and not even); it makes the firing order (for a four cycle engine) for every other ‘turn’ of the crankshaft ‘work’ for each cylinder ...
We can discuss separately how the individual connecting rods ‘mate up’.
re: “Then imagine where the 4th dimension is.”
Was he thinking the Fifth Dimension maybe? Its where the sun shines it -
The 5th Dimension = AQUARIUS = Let The Sunshine In
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSr9BbhoJQ&feature=youtu.be
re: “Radians are just as arbitrary as degrees.”
Oops.
Definition, Radian
Radian describes the plane angle subtended by a circular arc as the length of the arc divided by the radius of the arc.
One radian is the angle subtended at the center of a circle by an arc that is equal in length to the radius of the circle.
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