Thread: Is there an end to the univers?

  1. #46
    It's full of stars adrianxw's Avatar
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    >>> What comes first, a chicken or an egg?

    The egg. The two parents were not sufficiently chicken like to be called chickens, but their combined genetic material produce a mutation which was now sufficiently chicken like to be called a chicken. Thus, there was not a chicken prior to the production of the first chicken egg.

    An esoteric point, but the fertilised egg cell was already destined to be a chicken before it was encased in the hard shelled "egg".
    Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity unto the dream.

  2. #47
    Guest Sebastiani's Avatar
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    And you see nothing subjective about that point of view? Besides, who decides what's "chicken enough" anyway??
    Code:
    #include <cmath>
    #include <complex>
    bool euler_flip(bool value)
    {
        return std::pow
        (
            std::complex<float>(std::exp(1.0)), 
            std::complex<float>(0, 1) 
            * std::complex<float>(std::atan(1.0)
            *(1 << (value + 2)))
        ).real() < 0;
    }

  3. #48
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    Originally posted by napkin111
    The situation about why can't we see infinite stars is disproven by the fact that light diminishes with distance (shine a flashlight against the wall, back up and it gets dimmer[yeah, I know thats a kindergarten explanation, but its the best I got :P]), they mentioned it in the article also. Even if I am a layman I still like to think a bit dang it :P

    //napKIN
    yes but with an infinate amount of stars
    there would be an infinate amount of light
    so all the particles that diminish the light
    would be so super-charged with energy
    they would glow too and it would just become
    infinately bright.

  4. #49
    napKINfolk.com napkin111's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Brian
    yes but with an infinate amount of stars
    there would be an infinate amount of light
    so all the particles that diminish the light
    would be so super-charged with energy
    they would glow too and it would just become
    infinately bright.
    Ah but there are black holes, which do not reflect light. They just suck it in...And I'm not sure that light like that could "super-charge particles enough that they would glow.

    //napKIN
    "The best way to get answers is to just keep working the problem, recognizing when you are stalled, and directing the search pattern.....Don’t just wait for The Right Thing to strike you – try everything you think might even be in the right direction, so you can collect clues about the nature of the problem."
    -John Carmack

  5. #50
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    think about infinity.

    infinity means there is no limit to it.
    so if you have inifinity stars, everywhere would be 100% star.

  6. #51
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
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    "think about infinity.

    infinity means there is no limit to it.
    so if you have inifinity stars, everywhere would be 100% star."

    Thats not strictly true, you can have an infinite number stars in an infinitely large universe, and still have an infinite amount of empty space left over.

    Imagine if stars where in a grid like array 10 light years apart, in an infinite universe you can still get an infinite number of stars.
    Last edited by Clyde; 12-18-2002 at 07:01 PM.

  7. #52
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    How exactly do you know there are infinite stars?

  8. #53
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
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    Oh, i'm pretty sure there aren't, I was merely pointing out the problem with Brian's reasoning.

  9. #54
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    Ah. I see. I was actually aiming that at him anyway. And one more thing I just thought of: if there are infinite stars, it's infinitely hard to prove it.

  10. #55
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    just a thought.. WUT IF THE GALAXIES WERENT MOVING! how would the collide. there may be evidence that were moving on our happpy lill trail out in hte universe but no clear proof
    Silent to All
    -Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

  11. #56
    Redundantly Redundant RoD's Avatar
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    >>chicken or egg

    Simple. It has been proven that the first chicken was hatched from a geneticly flawed dinosaur egg.

    Therefore, the egg.

  12. #57
    napKINfolk.com napkin111's Avatar
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    Ahh...Clyde beat me to it...shucks...Yeah Brian, just because there is (hypothetically) infinite space, why would it all be stars? Why wouldn't it be Green Jello or "the-stuff-that-grows-under-the-ovens-at-pizza-hut"?

    What comes first, the embryo or the human?

    //napKIN
    "The best way to get answers is to just keep working the problem, recognizing when you are stalled, and directing the search pattern.....Don’t just wait for The Right Thing to strike you – try everything you think might even be in the right direction, so you can collect clues about the nature of the problem."
    -John Carmack

  13. #58
    The Earth is not flat. Clyde's Avatar
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    "It has been proven that the first chicken was hatched from a geneticly flawed dinosaur egg."

    I did not realise that red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) was a dinosaur.

  14. #59
    It's full of stars adrianxw's Avatar
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    Sebastiani:

    >>>
    And you see nothing subjective about that point of view? Besides, who decides what's "chicken enough" anyway??
    <<<

    However you define a chicken, the same argument applies.
    Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity unto the dream.

  15. #60
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    white sky (olbers paradox)

    i haven't exactly read and reread the posts made about this but i don't think this has really been explained yet:

    c1900 it was assumed that the universe was eternal, infinite and static. if that is true then the night sky should be bright. very bright. and hot. <3000K hot. firstly, if you have an infinite universe then if you drew a straight line from the earth in every possible direction you would eventually, somewhere in all that infinity find a star. a light from a star body spreads out over distance (inverse square realtionship as per gravity) but a single photon does not. so some light would be coming from every possible direction in the universe. furthermore although light from further away spreads out more there is a greater volume, hence more stars to produce light. also, since the universe has always been the way it is (and the universe has been for all eternity) light has had all eternity to get wherever it is going.

    this proves the universe is expanding. if the universe is expanding then it is not eternal. if it is not eternal then light has not had time to travel from the most distant reaches of the universe (which is why we can see back in time if we look far enough away). therefore there is a finite observable universe so there is not a star at every concivable line of sight. so our night sky is a nice shade of dark. this does not however mean that the universe is not static.


    while i'm at it:
    the universe is (according to einstein) either a)spherical (closed), b)open or c)flat. what it is exactly depends on the density of matter in the universe. Until recently it was thought if the universe was dense enough for gravity to overcome the outwards explosive force of the big bang the universe would be round and eventually recollapse in a big crunch. and probably explode again. if its density was equal to a critical density it would keep expanding, just stopping to expand at infinity (flat universe) . if its density was rather lower it would merrily expand away forever (open universe). unfourtunately when we came to try and try to measure the density of the universe and compare it to hubbles constant it all rather blew up. it seems there is a dark (non-luminous) energy in the universe pushing everything outwards. which we, until about six years ago didn't have a clue about. and, so far as i know, still don't really. Which, as a certain Prof Hughes would say "is rather embarassing". maybe now we can finally sort out gravity. or get hold of some tachyons. or something nice like that.

    btw there is no fact in science. only what is not yet known to be wrong.

    edit: if anyone wants to know more/dosn't believe me here are some references:

    www.astronomynotes.com - chapter 16, cosmology (Nick Strobel)
    and
    http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N...aching/phy111/ - the three cosmos lectures (Dr Paling, University of Sheffield)
    Last edited by gordy; 01-06-2003 at 05:56 PM.

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