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Some "What If" Science-y questions for discussion!

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  • Some "What If" Science-y questions for discussion!

    Question 1: What if the universe is really shaped like a fractal?

    Question 2: If there was nothing in the void to cause the singularity, what caused the singularity?

    Question 3: Is "time" a line segment or a ray? In other words, if the Universe is around after the last atom decays, that means that time is a ray (it keeps going as long as space exists). If space itself ceases to exist, then time would as well, and therefore time would be a line segment.

    Annnnd...Discuss!
    Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

  • #2
    Quoth mjr View Post
    Question 1: What if the universe is really shaped like a fractal?
    Define "fractal". Honestly, that sounds like string theory, where there are supposedly something like 11 dimensions, but most are "curled up" so we can't experience them, or whatever. I don't buy it, but the theories persist.

    Quoth mjr View Post
    Question 2: If there was nothing in the void to cause the singularity, what caused the singularity?
    That one's easy, quantum fluctuations. Next!

    Quoth mjr View Post
    Question 3: Is "time" a line segment or a ray? In other words, if the Universe is around after the last atom decays, that means that time is a ray (it keeps going as long as space exists). If space itself ceases to exist, then time would as well, and therefore time would be a line segment.
    There is some thought that it could be a line, not a ray or a segment. And other thoughts that it could be more than 1-dimensional, although I have no idea how that would work.

    Quoth mjr View Post
    Annnnd...Discuss!
    Question 4: What is the universe expanding into? And I don't want the standard answer of "itself". What's outside the universe?

    Question 4a: What's outside of that?

    Question 4b: What's outside of that?

    Question 5: Is it elephants all the way down?
    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you speak with the Fraud department. -- CrazedClerkthe2nd
    OW! Rolled my eyes too hard, saw my brain. -- Seanette
    she seems to top me in crazy, and I'm enough crazy for my family. -- Cooper
    Yes, I am evil. What's your point? -- Jester

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    • #3
      Quoth mjr View Post
      Question 1: What if the universe is really shaped like a fractal?
      It seems that the universe would be easier to map if it really was a fractal, and thus followed some sort of a pattern. A very complex pattern, granted. But if it followed any sort of pattern, we'd be better able to predict where to find matter out there.

      Question 2: If there was nothing in the void to cause the singularity, what caused the singularity?
      I think this is a question we're never going to have a satisfying answer for. If time began with the expansion of the singularity, then all physics as we know it breaks down "before" the singularity.

      Question 3: Is "time" a line segment or a ray? In other words, if the Universe is around after the last atom decays, that means that time is a ray (it keeps going as long as space exists). If space itself ceases to exist, then time would as well, and therefore time would be a line segment.
      I think, with the heat death of the universe, the concept of time ceases to have any meaning. Therefore, whether time continues to exist would be moot.

      Quoth Deserted View Post
      Question 4: What is the universe expanding into? And I don't want the standard answer of "itself". What's outside the universe?
      As I understand it, the universe doesn't have an edge. It fills all the space that exists. So the idea of the universe expanding "into" something doesn't make any sense.

      Or maybe it does have an edge, but we can't perceive it because it's too far away from us. And then whatever's "beyond" the universe is also too far away for us to perceive.
      "I look at the stars. It's a clear night and the Milky Way seems so near. That's where I'll be going soon. "We are all star stuff." I suddenly remember Delenn's line from Joe's script. Not a bad prospect. I am not afraid. In the meantime, let me close my eyes and sense the beauty around me. And take that breath under the dark sky full of stars. Breathe in. Breathe out. That's all."
      -Mira Furlan

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      • #4
        Quoth Deserted View Post
        ...Question 5: Is it elephants all the way down?
        Yertle says it's turtles.
        I am not an a**hole. I am a hemorrhoid. I irritate a**holes!
        Procrastination: Forward planning to insure there is something to do tomorrow.
        Derails threads faster than a pocket nuke.

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        • #5
          1. It may well be, especially if our observable universe is, in fact, a simulation. (It's a theory seriously under consideration)

          2. Should the simulation theory turn out to be true, that also answers this and all other questions regarding 'why' our universe has any particular parameters, features, or occurrences.

          Another potential answer not requiring that our universe be a simulation is that the 'fluctuation' involved only energy or energy potentials. All matter is, if you go down far enough, energy. It just may take energies beyond anything possible NOW to set off universe formation. Possibly the 'void' was a collection of all the matter and energy compressed into something analogous to a black hole, and something happened to allow it all to escape all at once. Maybe there's an upper limit to the size a black hole can attain and at some point one or more black holes in our current universe will exceed it and explode, creating new universes. This may or may not happen in any way that we can directly observe. Or even in any way that we might indirectly observe but my imagination is limited.

          Wait, wasn't there another question?

          3. "Time" as humans think of it would be mostly an abstraction. What you're asking about is duration and I think it's pretty self demonstrable. Duration continues, whether you observe it or not, and regardless of how you observe it. Duration is the steady orbit of moons around planet, planets about their stars, and the orbits of those stars in their galaxies, and the orbits of the galaxies around each other and even the vibrations of the free-floating molecules out where there's almost nothing. It's always changing, sure, but it's also always HAPPENING. You cannot stop it, not for an instant. You can only even influence it on strictly small and local scales.

          Duration is not dependent on the existence of the universe. Duration will occur any'time' and any'place' there is energy, and is expressed in change in that energy. The existence of the universe, however, cannot continue in any meaningful way without duration.
          You're only delaying the inevitable, you run at your own expense. The repo man gets paid to chase you. ~Argabarga

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          • #6
            Quoth mjr View Post
            Question 1: What if the universe is really shaped like a fractal?
            The universe is what it is. Whether it is shaped like a fractal, a donut or any other shape doesn't matter. We are merely describing the universe, not defining it.

            Quoth mjr View Post
            Question 2: If there was nothing in the void to cause the singularity, what caused the singularity?
            The singularity is a speculation. It might be the best one we have, but in reality, we don't know.

            What void? Do we even know if a void existed? Outside of Genesis 1:2.

            Quoth mjr View Post
            Question 3: Is "time" a line segment or a ray? In other words, if the Universe is around after the last atom decays, that means that time is a ray (it keeps going as long as space exists). If space itself ceases to exist, then time would as well, and therefore time would be a line segment.
            As far as we can tell, time only moves in one direction, from the past to the future. It is part of the 4-dimensional space-time continuum and will never be separate from it. Unless you visit that fifth dimension beyond space and time known as the Twilight Zone.
            "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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            • #7
              Quoth Kittish View Post
              1. It may well be, especially if our observable universe is, in fact, a simulation. (It's a theory seriously under consideration)

              2. Should the simulation theory turn out to be true, that also answers this and all other questions regarding 'why' our universe has any particular parameters, features, or occurrences.
              The simulation theory is an interesting one. I don't buy it (the reasoning that "if it's possible, it's likely we're in one" seems fallacious to me) but it would explain a lot -- things like "where are all the aliens?", the fact that the universe has various limits, lots of supposedly paranormal effects, etc.


              Quoth Ironclad Alibi View Post
              The singularity is a speculation. It might be the best one we have, but in reality, we don't know.
              I'm working from memory of a thing I read many, many years ago, but in A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking explained that, if you think of the universe as a sphere, with, say, the north pole representing the beginning of the universe, and time flowing to the south, a literal Big Bang isn't necessary. I don't remember whether or not he addressed a singularity.
              Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you speak with the Fraud department. -- CrazedClerkthe2nd
              OW! Rolled my eyes too hard, saw my brain. -- Seanette
              she seems to top me in crazy, and I'm enough crazy for my family. -- Cooper
              Yes, I am evil. What's your point? -- Jester

              Comment


              • #8
                The singularities in that view are the poles.

                BTW, the string theory view requires multiple dimensions of time, not just one.

                In a lot of ways, it is meaningless to talk about the "universe", because there are parts of it that we literally will never be able to know about. (Things that are so far away from us that their motion relative to us is effectively faster than light. Yes, I know that superluminal motion is not possible in theory, but it's more complicated than the easy summation I wrote and it actually is possible.) As far as we can tell, the "observable universe" is a sphere centered on us. But that's more a function of what we can observe than any limit on what is actually there.

                Any time you hit a "singularity", the models break down. They are basically all mathematical models, and a singularity is more or less where the math winds up dividing by zero. Any "answers" at that point are undefined, and any speculation about what is on the "other side" of any such singularity is nonsensical, unless you find other ways to attack the problem. Which we really haven't got, to my knowledge.

                One of the big problems is that human perceptions, intuitions, and ways of thought are not very useful at very small and very large scales. Questions of the very small like "is this a particle or a wave", "Where is this particle and where is it going", and so on are not answerable in ways that work with our intuition. Likewise, on the large scale, "what shape is the universe", "is time linear or multi-dimensional", "how does gravity work", and so on also don't have reasonable human-scale answers.

                We have developed mathematical models for a lot of these things, and some of them have allowed us to make predictions about things that we can directly observe that have proven to be true. But the math is a description, not the actual universe. And much of the math doesn't jibe with our regular day-to-day experiences and perceptions.

                I recommend the YouTube channel "PBS Spacetime" for stuff like this. It digs into QM and cosmology in an only-moderately-brain-breaking way.
                “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.
                One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.
                The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

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                • #9
                  Gotta love Space Time. Matt's pretty awesome, but the old episodes with Gabe hosting were more fun, I think. (Here's the handoff video.) I was interested when he joined PBS Infinite Series, a math channel, but that only lasted about a year before the channel was discontinued.
                  Last edited by Deserted; 07-21-2021, 04:47 AM. Reason: link
                  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you speak with the Fraud department. -- CrazedClerkthe2nd
                  OW! Rolled my eyes too hard, saw my brain. -- Seanette
                  she seems to top me in crazy, and I'm enough crazy for my family. -- Cooper
                  Yes, I am evil. What's your point? -- Jester

                  Comment

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