Is it true re: estimated size of the actual vs. the known universe? Please help. Thank you.

Hello ATS Spaceheads,

I have a question.

I saw a presentation once (can't locate it now) where they said that if the known universe (with instruments) were shrunk down to the size of a golf ball, that the ACTUAL Universe would be some number of light years across, somewhere from a few to ten.

This is due, allegedly, to the measurement of the near (but not quite) "flatness" of the universe.

Is this true?

Here's an excellent view of the KNOWN universe compliments of instruments like Hubble called the Sloan Digital Survey.


My God someone's got to set that to Beethoven or Mozart!

Thus, the whole of the sky is really bejeweled, the whole thing and nearly forever, but not quite, and it's still growing and expanding and creating and recreating & spawning new stars, new worlds, new life? well of course even if there were less than 1 such Earth analogue of some kind in every galaxy.

But if the KNOWN universe, which is breathtakingly HUGE were only a golf ball in magnitude relative to the distance to our nearest star Alpha Centauri, 4.24 light years away, then that exceeds the human mind's ability to even begin to grasp.

If it's not known, then I would perhaps feel a little more comfortable!

What say you?

They recently overstepped and said they found the edge....b's

Scripture has God saying He'll give up if anyone can tell Him the boundaries of the universe

Everyone waits for Phage (who's great with Google search).

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
They recently overstepped and said they found the edge....b's

Scripture has God saying He'll give up if anyone can tell Him the boundaries of the universe

That's because God has a great sense of humor!

That we've been included in this plan is the real marvel, even in spite of ourselves God's love envelopes us in the middle of it all like a crowning glory & the unwitting bride to be.

The Bible is also about a divine romance.

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Is the golf ball on an 18 hole course or a put-put in a run down mall?

originally posted by: Stupidsecrets
a reply to: GBP/JPY

Is the golf ball on an 18 hole course or a put-put in a run down mall?

It looks like right now it's an 18 hole, then, eventually, it becomes a put put in a run down mall, sadly. Enjoy it while we can!

You mentioned the shape of the universe and its flatness, and this sprung to my mind. Somewhat relevant. Curious graphic/theories. Looking at google the flatness problem does appear to exist.

I just want to clarify that the links are related to flatness and not the image I presented.
curious.astro.cornell.edu... anced

astronomy.swin.edu.au...

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

This is a quick, decent read on the subject.

medium.com...

From what I gather, the actual universe could be 23 trillion light years across(observable being only over 90 billion light years across), to unimaginably larger than that, to infinite. We just do not know, and most likely will never know. It’s fun to try to imagine in your head. It gets pretty freaky.

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
Hello ATS Spaceheads,

I have a question.

I saw a presentation once (can't locate it now) where they said that if the known universe (with instruments) were shrunk down to the size of a golf ball, that the ACTUAL Universe would be some number of light years across, somewhere from a few to ten.

This is due, allegedly, to the measurement of the near (but not quite) "flatness" of the universe.

Is this true?

Here's an excellent view of the KNOWN universe compliments of instruments like Hubble called the Sloan Digital Survey.

My God someone's got to set that to Beethoven or Mozart!

Thus, the whole of the sky is really bejeweled, the whole thing and nearly forever, but not quite, and it's still growing and expanding and creating and recreating & spawning new stars, new worlds, new life? well of course even if there were less than 1 such Earth analogue of some kind in every galaxy.

But if the KNOWN universe, which is breathtakingly HUGE were only a golf ball in magnitude relative to the distance to our nearest star Alpha Centauri, 4.24 light years away, then that exceeds the human mind's ability to even begin to grasp.

If it's not known, then I would perhaps feel a little more comfortable!

What say you?

Due to the expansion of space, the further you go away from the Earth, the faster objects are supposed to be moving away from us (according to the Hubble constant).

What this means is, that at some point, the light from extremely distant objects will stop being able to reach us. Either the speed away from us will be too great and/or the distance the light would have to travel will be too great, so the light can never reach us.

This puts a boundary on the observable universe that is always less than the actual edge of spacetime.

Because we don't know (and cannot know) the expansion speed of spacetime, any quoted figures on it are entirely guesses, because we can never measure what is already out past the edge of the observable universe.

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Black holes create white holes. So there's a good chance our Big Bang was the result of star collapsing into a black hole in another previously existing space-time dimension. And all the stars of sufficient mass in our Universe capable of collapsing into black holes will create new big-bang Universes within the quantum foam of reality. The net result of this bigger idea of time is eventually ever possible quantum state gets realized until every possible possibility gets realized at least once. Once every possibility is realized God's omnipotent consciousness will be fully complete.

Time is always much bigger than anything we could ever possibly comprehend no matter how much we think about it.

What are white holes?

I'll give this one a shot. The "visible universe" has a defined size based on way the universe is expanding. The short version is that as the universe expands, generally everything appears to be moving away from everything else, a bi-product of this is that the further away something is from an observer the faster it appears to recede (like dots on the surface of an inflating balloon). This increase is explained by the Hubble Constant. Interestingly, once an object is around 18 billion light years away it should be traveling away from an observer at the speed of light therefor defining a limit to the observable size of the universe. We are simply unable to see past this point as the light will never reach us. Our current theories as to the size of the actual universe are both diverse and very limited, but it is generally believed that the visible portion is likely a small speck in comparison to the greater universe, but unfortunately the true size of the greater universe will remain unknowable due to the fundamental laws of physics and the limitations of our human nervous systems' ability to observe.

We're just not wired to know everything, it seems.

The universe could be infinite if it's perfectly flat, the true answer is that we simply don't know. We measure no curvature implying it's infinite but it could be so massive we cannot detect the curvature. There are however multiple good reasons to believe it's infinite and flat, the most important being that energy is conserved in a flat universe.

Best information on this, is actually in the Tegmark multi-verse paper.

Astronomy is limited by the passage of light in what we can determine. On the quantum scale light again has it's limitations with what we can see. Is the Plank length really where it all stops or do we just have to dig down another level to understand what it means?

If we did have some cool spaceship with infinite speed would we hit a wall because space fails to exist?

well it's pretty much all an educated guess, from an earthly viewpoint. who really knows?

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Besides this (your subject matter), I have often wondered if the "universe" we know of (both observable and beyond the observable), isn't akin to a single cell of a much larger organism.

If our actual "universe" (all the "stuff" we can observe and all the stuff we can't see that's still contiguous with it beyond our sight) is followed by another 50 trillion empty light years and then another bunch of "stuff" just like ours, would we know? I don't know how we could possibly measure it.

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Black holes create white holes. So there's a good chance our Big Bang was the result of star collapsing into a black hole in another previously existing space-time dimension. And all the stars of sufficient mass in our Universe capable of collapsing into black holes will create new big-bang Universes within the quantum foam of reality. The net result of this bigger idea of time is eventually ever possible quantum state gets realized until every possible possibility gets realized at least once. Once every possibility is realized God's omnipotent consciousness will be fully complete.

Time is always much bigger than anything we could ever possibly comprehend no matter how much we think about it.

What are white holes?

Both are yet still "theoretical"
You did read the part of your own linked subject matter that says "today is imagination day" when speaking of "white holes" , yes ?
You seem pretty dang sure of yourself . No astronomer or physicist even come close to your definitive "black holes create white holes statement . And would never dare.
(bold by me for subject matter)

Denying ignorance
Why ?
Has to be done as folks get carried away.

According to Dr Alan Guths Theory of Cosmic Inflation, if it is assumed that cosmic inflation began at ten to the negative 37th of a second after the Big Bang and that the size of the Universe before inflation began was equal to its age x the speed of light then it would suggest the entire Universe is 150 sextillion times larger than the observable Universe. If the observable Universe was the size of a lightbulb then the entire Universe would be the size of Pluto. Of course this is just a theory.

So then, as an approximation, it's true.

That's freaky!

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
Scripture has God saying He'll give up if anyone can tell Him the boundaries of the universe

The boundary of the universe is the limit of your mind to comprehend it.
Nice knowing you, God. Don't forget to validate.