2012 Off topic thread(basketball,movies,etc whatever)

[Svino]

LOL fat AJ. Despite having hung around astronomers since forever, I didn't realize until a few years ago just how ridiculously huge those stars like Cephei A are.

Their size is truly insane to contemplate:

[SPX]

Yeah, to me it's like thinking of a 1 with a million zeroes after it. I just don't really have a legitimate comprehension of such a thing.

[MMA_scientist]

then you think about even the largest known star in comparison to the galaxy, then the facts that there are gazillion galaxies... it is basically incomprehensible, literally, cannot be fathomed.

[SPX]

Yeah, it's crazy shit. Another thing I have trouble with is the concept of "the edge of the universe."

[MMA_scientist]

^ That's because it is bullshit.

[Svino]

then you think about even the largest known star in comparison to the galaxy, then the facts that there are gazillion galaxies... it is basically incomprehensible, literally, cannot be fathomed.

That's why my favorite astronomy photo is the Hubble ultra deep field. It's just incredible how much stuff there is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hubble_ultra_deep_field_high_rez_edit1.jpg

Yeah, it's crazy shit. Another thing I have trouble with is the concept of "the edge of the universe."

Yeah, it's pretty weird. But if it helps, remember that the "total universe" isn't thought to have anything like an edge. Any talk of an edge is of the "observable universe", i.e. the horizon beyond which everything is so far away that even light emitted at the Big Bang wouldn't have enough time to reach us.

[Ludo]

http://www.rashadface.com/index.php/

[MMA_scientist]

Yeah, then you look at all the space in between the galaxies... it is just so much stuff. Then you think about the fact that we can't even figure out the workings of the human diet (much less something like the brain) and it is tiny and right in front of us and fully observable... and you realize, you science people are just making shit up.

Re: the edge of the universe... I have heard astro-physicists talk about the actual edge of the universe, not just the observable one. I guess they were talking about the big bang... the universe expanding. The actual edge of the expansion or creation of the universe. Quite frankly, it seems just as ridiculous and blind as the Native American belief that we are all on a giant turtle shell.

[SPX]

Yeah, it's pretty weird. But if it helps, remember that the "total universe" isn't thought to have anything like an edge. Any talk of an edge is of the "observable universe", i.e. the horizon beyond which everything is so far away that even light emitted at the Big Bang wouldn't have enough time to reach us.

If the universe is actually expanding though, I don't see how there couldn't be an end to it. I don't see how there COULD be or how there COULDN'T be. I always have this image of dudes in a spaceship who crash into the end of the universe and they're like, "What the fuck?! Oh, goddamn it, we hit the edge of the universe!"

But if there is no end to it, does that mean it's truly infinite? No end? Just goes on literally forever and ever and ever? You hop in a spaceship and say, "Fuck it! I'm heading west!" and then just keep going and going and going and going?

I don't get it.

[SPX]

Yeah, then you look at all the space in between the galaxies... it is just so much stuff. Then you think about the fact that we can't even figure out the workings of the human diet (much less something like the brain) and it is tiny and right in front of us and fully observable... and you realize, you science people are just making shit up.

I actually feel this way quite often.

Re: the edge of the universe... I have heard astro-physicists talk about the actual edge of the universe, not just the observable one. I guess they were talking about the big bang... the universe expanding. The actual edge of the expansion or creation of the universe. Quite frankly, it seems just as ridiculous and blind as the Native American belief that we are all on a giant turtle shell.

Yeah, I dunno. I don't get it. Furthermore, if there's an edge, I'm like . . . what's on the other side?

[MMA_scientist]

Yeah, I dunno. I don't get it. Furthermore, if there's an edge, I'm like . . . what's on the other side?

The super universe, obviously.

[MMA_scientist]

and what is it expanding into?

svino, we want answers here.

[SPX]

^^^ Yeah, exactly.

[MMA_scientist]

If you read about it, and I sometimes do, but never really grasp, it is basically always explained in mathmatics. They will even draw a picture of it, the universe as a dense ball of energy before the big bang, or as a sphere or flat or whatever... and they seem totally oblivious the the fact that that have drawn a small picture of the universe on a giant piece of paper. It is like everyone but the physicist wants to know what is filling up the rest of the page...

[Svino]

Well if you want to think about how the universe can be "unbounded but finite", I think the balloon model is helpful: You can imagine being in a 2-D universe, moving around on the surface of a balloon. The expansion of the universe is like the balloon blowing up, so the universe as experienced by those 2-D people within it has no edge and no center.

Now, as MMA_scientist notes, this picture has a flaw which is that the balloon is clearly expanding into a three-dimensional space, that I do not believe has any real analog in the actual "superuniverse". Is there such a thing as "the space that space expands into"? I don't know about that.