Posted on 09/24/2004 8:17:42 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
Scientists studying the deepest picture of the Universe, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, have been left with a big poser: where are all the stars? The Ultra Deep Field is a view of one patch of sky built from 800 exposures.
The picture shows faint galaxies whose stars were shining just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
"Our results based on the Ultra Deep Field are very intriguing and quite a puzzle," says Dr Andrew Bunker, of Exeter University, UK, who led a team studying the new data."
"They're certainly not what I expected, nor what most of the theorists in astrophysics expected."
"There is not enough activity to explain the re-ionisation of the Universe," Dr Bunker told the BBC. "Perhaps there was more action in terms of star formation even earlier in the history of the Universe - that's one possibility.
"Another exciting possibility is that physics was very different in the early Universe; our understanding of the recipe stars obey when they form is flawed."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Ummmm! Maybe stars expend all their fuel in say 10 billion years, and they're all gone when you look back in time 10 billion years??
The part at the back of my refrigerator.
That stuff is OLD.
Shalom.
Sure, the raisin is always at the center. Why? Because the edge is not observable since the universe is larger than it is old. If the universe is 13 billion years old and 14 billion years across (well, in radius from our position) then a billion years are not observable, therefore we can't see the edge.
Why? Because the center will not move in relation to all other objects, and anything beyond the edge can not be viewed.
No, the edge itself can't be viewed. The problem with looking at this through analogies (models) is that the analogy inevitibably breaks down pretty quickly. You can't infer that every element of the behavior of what is being modeled conforms to the behavior of the model.
If mathematical theories can not be supported with physical examples, then they should be seriously questioned.
In OUR reality, 2 + 2 = 4 and it can be easily demonstrated by combining 4 physical objects.
Non-Euclidean (sp?) geometries proved that mathematical models do not need to be based on physical reality.
Of course, they don't need to be useful, either. But don't go there. It upsets the mathemeticians.
Shalom.
Please explain this to me. If we can detect the early Universe (micro-wave background thermal radiation) from 14 billion years ago, why is it impossible to also detect an edge which is only 1 billion years in distance?
Curious minds would like to know....
"Another exciting possibility is that physics was very different in the early Universe"
I recall reading somewhere that at 1 second the universe was already several light years in diameter. So it seems that the physics of things have changed - or there is something else wrong with the theories.
Isn't ST V the one written and directed by Shatner? Shows, doesn't it?
Fairy dust? The brick wall?
And you are trying to do so on YOUR terms. I suggested a tool that might expand the terms you would be willing to use, but it is obvious from your posts that the only solutions you are entertaining are three-dimensional ones.
OK, I have a giant, incredibly powerful telescope, and I am looking farther and farther out in space, which means I am seeing farther and farther back in time. But, if at one point in the distant past, before the big bang, everything was condensed into a tiny area, how far out into space will I have to look to see the time when everything was not actually farther out in space, but was condensed into a tiny area?
I have a headache.
Because light hasn't had a chance to traverse that billion years yet. If the universe is fourteen billion years across and 13 billion years old, the edge is unobservable.
You can't, you run out of time before you run out of space, at last estimation.
I fully accept the concept of the basic 4D space/time (x, y, z and time) to locate any physical object.
Once again, can you provide us a single physical example, on Earth, where an object can be better located beyond the basic 4D?
Of course, I could always invoke concepts like x, y, z, time, magic, spin, moon phase, menstrual cycles, electrical polarity, astrological sign, etc....
I can easily invent well over 1,000 dimensions to describe any object's location.
REALITY CHECK
Light has been able to reach the Earth from 13 billion years ago, but it is impossible for light which is only 1 billion year away from us, to be totally invisible?
Even I am rather amazed by that statement. Is light (electro-magnetic energy) directional?
Here is another example. But we aren't able to make a scale model, or "picture" it in our minds.
You can easily picture a finite area that has no edge. Take a sphere, for example. A finite, limited two dimensional entity. The limited are of a sphere has no edge or boundary.
But, we can't readily imagine or picture a finite yet boundless volume. We tend to think of reality including an infinite space, with the universe expanding (or existing) at some location inside that space. And given a universe of finite volume and/or mass, we figure we could "get outside" the universe, into that empty space, and look back and see the universe.
But maybe, just maybe, it is not like that at all. Maybe "infinite empty space" does not exist. Even given a universe of finite volume and finite mass, perhaps the finite volume has no edge, no boundary, no "outside of the universe." Maybe space itself is finite! The notion boggles the mind, but it is exactly that notion that posters are attempting to express for your benefit.
Prove it, I can't. Heck, maybe I can't even express the notion well. But that's my best shot at it. Cheers. Ta Ta For Now.
Don't forget the famous inflation hypothesis. That throws the everyday observation experience for a loop. It's not anything we are familiar with from daily life.
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