Could the earth be the center of the universe?

I couldn't find this on here yet. It is a very good artical from Scientific America.

Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?

I thought it was interesting that the thought that we may have a special position in the universe is being published.

What do you guys think?

[edit on 23-3-2009 by lucidclouds]

I'm not entirely sure about the 'centre of the universe' issue. However, if that's the case, then maybe it goes some way to explaining why our planet appears to a hotspot for alien visitation. Surely scientifically advanced alien races would be incredibly curious about probing or visiting the 'centre of the universe'?

If you believe the big bang theory then no since everything is moving away from the centre of the cosmic puke.

S&F for you, avery interesting article that I look forward to seeing peer reviews of. We don't know as much as we think - or maybe we once did!

The article doesn't suggest that we are at the "centre of the universe", only that our specific position may be sufficiently different from the rest of the universe to invalidate our observations as applicable as a constant to the rest of the universe..

Kind of like living in a city, looking out of your window and seeing lots of buildings and assuming that the rest of the country must look the same.

This is largely a repudiation of the constancy of the universe; as the article puts it, "Huge efforts have been made in constructing state-of-the-art models of the universe based on the cosmological principle a generalization of the Copernican principle that states that at any moment in time all points and directions in space look the same".

To common sense this seems a ridiculous notion (as per looking out of your window...) but I am sure the scientists know what they're talking about - but only if they're wearing lab coats. And have lots of pens in their top pocket. Otherwise their opinion is not worth a penny. Fact.

The article proposes that until we know more about the true consistency of the universe and can determine that localised density phenomena does not have a significant effect on calculations using existing models, then we cannot be sure about the expansion of the universe and using existing measurement methods to illustrate the need for a "dark matter".

Interesting read, Ta for sharing.

Originally posted by Merriman Weir
I'm not entirely sure about the 'centre of the universe' issue. However, if that's the case, then maybe it goes some way to explaining why our planet appears to a hotspot for alien visitation. Surely scientifically advanced alien races would be incredibly curious about probing or visiting the 'centre of the universe'?

The article is very interresting but I fail to see where is says that we are the center of the universe. As for earth being a hotspot for alien visitation, I find it even harder to believe. We don't have anything to compare earth to. If alien visitation is a fact, how do we know that other planet are not a hotspot as we are ?

i shall read the article after i've posted this un-influenced thought first.


modern science tells us that in any and every direction we point our telescopes... the furtherest we can observe is 14+ billion light-years distant


it is also theorized that another civilization 10billion light-years removed from our place in the universe ...
would also have a 14+billion light-year observable limit of the universe.

thus the 14+ billion LY expanse is the 'size' of the universe,
and every observation point is the center of the universe


thanks,
now i will read the article

Well considering the earth is only a handful of billions of years old, and the universe is aged at somewhere around 14 billions of years old (not 100%sure)....and also taking into account that the universe is expanding at a tremendous rate from a central point...

then no, the earth isnt the centre of the universe

I bet that there are intelligent civilizations (other than human) in our universe whom probably think the same thing.. that they are the 'center of the universe'.

I haven't read the article, but I will never accept that we are the center.. because the whole concept is an attempt to placing far more importance on the human race compared to the rest of our universe. Frankly, I don't think that is the case.. we are not that important in comparison to the bigger picture IMO.

Peace

Reading this article is like listening to two people with ADD try to talk to you at once. It goes on to talk about the Universe expanding... and without explanation, throws in "We're in a special place".


Whatever, no, we're not even near the center of our own galaxy, let alone the universe. We're on the outer edges of our galaxy, and our galaxy, well, is who-knows-where, in this huge mess that is the universe.

The fact that everything is expanding doesn't have any correlation with some half thought concept of being in the center of it.


I mean, if there was evidence presented, sure, I'd start thinking otherwise... but all they've done is thrown two concepts together in a long article and never linked the two.

Im going to read the article, but one point i would like to point out,

Isnt the universe infinite? There is no center or for that matter and edge. Infinite. Our Brains cannot process infinity so we find solutions to make things fit. But we have learned that there is no end to learning, so in a couple hundred years (providing the elite don`t burn us down with nukes first) we will "find out" that the universe is 28 billion years old. It can never end. It will never end. That is Infinity.

Center of the Universe, ha, how typical of humans to think that there are the center of everything.

Science tells us that the Universe is expanding, and at an exponential rate. With such a currently ongoing immense change, I fail to see how we could be the 'center' if this does not remain constant.. so were we the 'center' of the universe for one day?

I don't get it.

The article seems to briefly refute Copernicus's theory, but it doesn't really say much more. Where does the article support the claim that the space around the Earth could be the center of the universe?

Because our part in the universe has a faster expansion rate than a lot of other parts, doesn't make it unique. The article mentions several "quantum seeds" which created multiple spots with fast expansion. It doesn't suggest that one of these spots could be the center of the universe.

Yes we are in center of the Universe.
And more, my house is in the right spot of the center.
I can prove to you with pictures. if a sit all day I can see the sun and the whole universe rotate around me.

/hand in face

Ok folks, we special but not so special. I believe that Earth is not only planet to put people living in slavery for anal probing. In a gray/"what so ever name for a alien" way.

And for the thing we can not understand what dark energy is, well I don't know is really energy but the scientist had a necessary to put a name on the odd thing.
IMO dark because can't see or measure, and energy because its not physical matter. And the name was born dark energy (xaram)

Okay its not saying we are the center of the universe, but its showing that scientist are questioning the copernican principle, which says that the earth is not the center or favoured position.

And its something that is being backed by the scientific community. Such a basic principle being questioned with backing is big, if it continues.

In my point of view, if we want to put a mathematical formula to express how universe work, all that we learn from our past history is complete wrong because its incomplete in many ways, but its ok to measures things in our reach, the thinks we can see and feel. Like distances and forms of energy and stuff.

The universe is more complex that we want to put it. Try multiply 1000x times any complex idea and maybe you can grasp some real truth about it.

Earth in the middle of some vast and complex system is a complete simplistic idea, egocentric and lack of different view angles.

Dark energy for me maybe is only a byproduct of something we can't see in this dimensional realm.

At one point in history it was posited that the earth was at the center of the universe, and all else arranged in concentric shells around it. Later came optical telescopes and the viewpoint shifted. Then the observations revealed we are in orbit with billions of other stars about a common center, and called the structure a galaxy. This was followed by the understanding that there billions of observable galaxies.

At each point, the perceived size of the universe increased enormously, and our planet no longer seemed to occupy a special place.

I have noticed over the years that the big bang theory of the origin of the universe needed adjustments, and modification, and overall seems very unlikely (like, what came before that?). Instead of thinking that the red-shift seen in very distant objects was due to space being stretched out (stretched out into what?) after the 'big bang', would it not be simpler to think that the light loses energy after such a long trip? And that the universe may actually be infinitely big, with no beginning or end. Or is the idea of an infinite universe too much of a bother?

Interesting thread and even more interesting are the replies.

I for one do not believe we are the center of the universe. As far as infinite and ever expanding goes, this seems reasonable, but if it is ever expanding, there would be a center point it is just ever expanding in all directions from that center point. I doubt that we as humans will ever be able to determine where the center is, the task would be too daunting. If at some point in the future, we colaborated with other sentient species from other gallaxies, I doubt it would be found.

If however, we ever did tetermine the center, what would we find there, a thriving civilization, more advanced than anything we know, and that is saying at the time we would be far more advanced than we are now, or would we find a dead world that had been evacuated and it's population dispersed into the universe in order to help servive whatever decimated their planet. Two other thoughts as to wht may be at the center, God being the one that would seem plausible for the religious folks, but for me, I fro some reason believe it would be void of anything, A blank spot in the universe with a force pushing the galaxies out and away from it, increasing the distances between galaxies.

[edit on 5/6/2009 by AlienCarnage]

reply to post by lucidclouds


According to modern cosmology and the "Big Bang" (really wasn't a "bang" noise) there is no 'center' of the Universe, everything is expanding everywhere.

The balloon analogy is very good but needs to be understood properly--otherwise it can cause more confusion. As Hoyle said, "There are several important respects in which it is definitely misleading." It is important to appreciate that three-dimensional space is to be compared with the two-dimensional surface of the balloon. The surface is homogeneous with no point that should be picked out as the centre. The centre of the balloon itself is not on the surface, and should not be thought of as the centre of the universe. If it helps, you can think of the radial direction in the balloon as time. This was what Hoyle suggested, but it can also be confusing. It is better to regard points off the surface as not being part of the universe at all. As Gauss discovered at the beginning of the 19th century, properties of space such as curvature can be described in terms of intrinsic quantities that can be measured without needing to think about what it is curving in. So space can be curved without there being any other dimensions "outside". Gauss even tried to determine the curvature of space by measuring the angles of a large triangle between three hill tops.

When thinking about the balloon analogy you must remember that. . .

The 2-dimensional surface of the balloon is analogous to the 3 dimensions of space.
The 3-dimensional space in which the balloon is embedded is not analogous to any higher dimensional physical space.
The centre of the balloon does not correspond to anything physical.
The universe may be finite in size and growing like the surface of an expanding balloon, but it could also be infinite.
Galaxies move apart like points on the expanding balloon, but the galaxies themselves do not expand because they are gravitationally bound.

You might ask wasn't the Big Bang an explosion...

In a conventional explosion, material expands out from a central point. A short moment after the explosion starts, the centre will be the hottest point. Later there will be a spherical shell of material expanding away from the centre until gravity brings it back down to Earth. The Big Bang--as far as we understand it--was not an explosion like that at all. It was an explosion of space, not an explosion in space. According to the standard models there was no space and time before the Big Bang. There was not even a "before" to speak of. So, the Big Bang was very different from any explosion we are accustomed to and it does not need to have a central point.

If the Big Bang were an ordinary explosion in an already existing space, we would be able to look out and see the expanding edge of the explosion with empty space beyond. Instead, we see back towards the Big Bang itself and detect a faint background glow from the hot primordial gases of the early universe. This "cosmic microwave background radiation" is uniform in all directions. This tells us that it is not matter that is expanding outwards from a point, but rather it is space itself that expands evenly.

It is important to stress that other observations support the view that there is no centre to the universe, at least insofar as observations can reach. The fact that the universe is expanding uniformly would not rule out the possibility that there is some denser, hotter place that might be called the centre, but careful studies of the distribution and motion of galaxies confirm that it is homogeneous on the largest scales we can see, with no sign of a special point to call the centre.

math.ucr.edu

Here is the earliest picture of the Universe we have, it comes from the WMAP microwave probe.


WMAP image of the observable Universe collected from 3 years of data

The detailed, all-sky picture of the infant universe from three years of WMAP data. The image reveals 13.7 billion year old temperature fluctuations (shown as color differences) that correspond to the seeds that grew to become the galaxies. The signal from the our Galaxy was subtracted using the multi-frequency data. This image shows a temperature range of ± 200 microKelvin.

Image and text courtesy of map.gsfc.nasa.gov

This pretty much confirms the homogeneous form of the Universe, although more tests are needed. So there you go, take a look for your self and see if you can spot a 'center'. It kinda' looks like a Robin egg doesn't it, lol.








[edit on 5/6/2009 by jkrog08]

reply to post by jkrog08


In the image you provide it is not difficult to show the center just as a robin's egg also has a center.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0ca19d1e2992.gif[/atsimg]

Of course I may be misintertpreting or over simplifying something.

[edit on 5/7/2009 by AlienCarnage]