It's important for you to know that you should probably wait a few thousand posts to be a complete dick to people.
,... I own a PC and Mac at home.I know you are. You like to sleep with 60 year old women and then punch yourself in the liver repeatedly. You call it "The Steve Jobs Experience". It helps you feel closer to your deteriorating messiah.
no...time does in fact slow down for both objects traveling at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light and objects in an intense gravitational field, even if your intuition is telling you something else. that's the thing about Relativity Theory - NOTHING is intuitive.
probably the easiest way to visualize the concept of the center of the universe not lying within the universe is to picture a "closed" 2-dimensional universe, for instance the 2-dimensional surface of a 3-dimensional sphere. a 2-dimensional creature living in this closed 2-dimensional universe (that ultimately comprises a sphere in 3 dimensions) would have width and depth, but no height. he/she would live in a universe with no "height," and would not be able to travel down below the surface of the sphere (toward its center), nor be able to travel above the surface of the sphere (away from its center). that is, every point on the surface of the sphere (every point contained within the 2-dimensional universe that is in fact the surface of the sphere) is of equal distance to the center of the 3-dimensional sphere. now any 2-dimensional beings living in this universe might be able to theorize about the center of their universe and calculate its position. but they will never be able to see, smell, hear, touch, taste, or experience it in any way, shape, or form b/c it does not exist within their 2-dimensional universe...that is, it exists only outside their universe
A fun fact about black holes to think about is that "time" actually slows as you approach one. If a person was able to fly to the horizon of a black hole and then had the thrust to get away from it thousands or even millions of years would have passed even though the person was only at the black hole for a day or two.
Another Fun Fact: The faster you go the slower time is for you, and that thought makes me all tingly.
He's saying that we can't tell right now where the center of the universe is. He's not saying that there is no center, because that would be downright laughable.
Why is that laguhable? From what we know we are the center of the universe yet that is highly unlikely, even laughable but so is every other center you can imagine.
Only reason we see it as us being the center of the universe is because we are the center of our known universe (if you can only see one mile in each direction, you'll see yourself as in the center of that area).
the reason the argument can go either way (i.e. it can be argued that there either IS or ISN'T a center to our universe) is that, even if we could eventually calculate the position of the center of the universe, we could never travel there or see it w/ observatories/telescopes b/c it would not lie within our universe, as contradictory as that may sound. by definition, the center of our universe must be a point equidistant from all other points in the universe. since there is no single point in our universe that is equidistant from all other points in our universe, we can either argue that 1) there is no true absolute notion of "the center of the universe," or 2) the center of the universe does not lie "within" the universe.
probably the easiest way to visualize the concept of the center of the universe not lying within the universe is to picture a "closed" 2-dimensional universe, for instance the 2-dimensional surface of a 3-dimensional sphere. a 2-dimensional creature living in this closed 2-dimensional universe (that ultimately comprises a sphere in 3 dimensions) would have width and depth, but no height. he/she would live in a universe with no "height," and would not be able to travel down below the surface of the sphere (toward its center), nor be able to travel above the surface of the sphere (away from its center). that is, every point on the surface of the sphere (every point contained within the 2-dimensional universe that is in fact the surface of the sphere) is of equal distance to the center of the 3-dimensional sphere. now any 2-dimensional beings living in this universe might be able to theorize about the center of their universe and calculate its position. but they will never be able to see, smell, hear, touch, taste, or experience it in any way, shape, or form b/c it does not exist within their 2-dimensional universe...that is, it exists only outside their universe.
this example can be extended to higher dimensions, regardless of whether our universe is an open or closed curve. that is, by extension of this concept into the universe of 3 spatial dimensions that we live in every day, its center is not accessible to us b/c it lies in a space of 4 or more spatial dimensions.
Watch The Universe series. It's explained.
Well obviously you're not as well versed as you think you are.
I'm providing you with a solution to your problem.
What you do with it (or don't do with it or can't do with it) are your problem.
to be honest with you, i don't recall exactly where i read this b/c i've read literally hundreds of books on astronomy, astrophysics, relativity theory, quantum theory, particle physics, etc. if i had to guess at which books i've read that have a decent layman's description of the expansion of the universe, i'd say Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is a great one, as is Sagan's "Cosmos." another brilliant mind AND entertaining author would be Kip Thorne - his book "Black Holes & Time Warps" is wonderful and not dry believe it or not.Was just going to say this, but I'm not really smart enough to be explaining this to anyone.
Where did you hear that from? I used to be really into all this kind of stuff. Hawking? sagan? Kaku?
I remember reading about it, and thinking that I understood it, but then it would be nearly impossible to explain.
Just the fact that the universe can be finite but unbounded blows my mind.
well i'm sure its based on alot of theory that ties in with holographic theory. but in all honesty i've never studied holographic theory, unless i did so under the guise of another topic. for instance, many people will talk about time dilation and length contraction, and still not know that they are essentially discussing some of the consequences of Einstein's relativity theory.This ultimately is rooted in the holographic data theory, yes?
in the event that you're interested in seeing a more detailed (but still simple) description of why time truly does slow down in some instances, see THIS THREAD about time dilation in the highly technical forum. my first post in that thread is a bit vague, but someone called me on it, and so i was forced to revise my explanation. but i think my 2nd post in that thread does a decent job of explaining it in layman's terms.Theory and discussion all around.
There are forces out there that we can not comprehend, let alone witness to further confirm.
Not really, you watched a TV series among many TV series on the subject and you are trying to sell a viewpoint YOU believe in, that's not a solution to anything what so ever.
If i were you i'd read up on it and stop getting my information from TV series on things which are ALWAYS presenting one theory and discarding all others.
To the best of our knowledge, the only center of the universe is the observer.
Actually, that TV series along with Through the Wormhole and several others include lectures by the modern absolute authorities on the matter. The scrolling credits at the end of each episode is a venerable who's who in the theoretical physics world --but that doesn't matter, because everything on TV is agenda-driven half truths, right?
Right?
I like how you discount my point of view and everything I say that I've seen to develop my point of view just because you haven't seen it. Classy.
Says you. It's pretty widely accepted that there IS a center, but we don't know how to find it yet.
Irrelevant, at this point, save only to argue your point which doesn't have anything to do with the conversation.
The point of the conversation is that there IS a center to our expanding universe and it IS possible to find, but not with today's technology. Plain and simple.
Wow. You can't even comprehend simple concepts.
See, now I have to decide whether or not it's worth arguing with you over.
Tell you what. I'll continue this discussion with you after you've seen The Universe series and Through The Wormhole. After you watch those, then I'd be more than happy to discuss theoretical physics with you and would be more than willing to concede any invalid point I have.
Until then, you're just'ing.
If you can dismiss the very people who are at the forefront of modern theoretical physics while somehow counting yourself as knowing more than they do being nothing more than some ground pounder, there's no point in talking to you.
No, it's most certainly relevant since you are trying to portray something you saw on TV as a valid scientific theory.
If you can't even name the theory or provide any evidence for it, it's not a valid argument in this thread.
Don't try to sneak away from it, just admit you don't have a clue but you saw something on TV or do what i requested.
The predominent theory today is that there is no center, all observers regardless of where they are will find themselves spot in the center, it doesn't matter where they are.
I'll dismiss you with your long winded bullshit rant that provides NOTHING right here.
Cheerio you dumb fuck.
After 2 years of extensive research, I have concluded that a typical UC Berkeley undergrad is, indeed, the center of the universe.
yes, but its no more useless than saying that "we are at the center of the universe." sure, you can argue that you're at the center of the universe b/c everything around you is moving away from you. but that argument loses some steam when you consider that one can say the same thing about any other point in the universe. the center by definition must be a point, and not a collection of points (not a line, not a plane, not a collection of randomly strewn about points in space, not a collection of points period). therefore there can only be one center. suppose i am here and you are 2 light years away from me. surely the Big Bang could not have expanded from both places...or could it?...but saying basically "we aren't the center" is a useless statement
haven't met him, but i've seen him in one of those shows you mentioned ...i may even have a book of his on my shelf. no doubt he knows a thing or two more than all of us here lol.Please tell me you've met Alex Filippenko :awe:
yes, but its no more useless than saying that "we are at the center of the universe." sure, you can argue that you're at the center of the universe b/c everything around you is moving away from you. but that argument loses some steam when you consider that one can say the same thing about any other point in the universe. the center by definition must be a point, and not a collection of points (not a line, not a plane, not a collection of randomly strewn about points in space, not a collection of points period). therefore there can only be one center. suppose i am here and you are 2 light years away from me. surely the Big Bang could not have expanded from both places...or could it?
i'm simply making a point. you labeled someone else's conjecture that "we aren't at the center of the universe" as useless, when in fact its no more useful to suggest that we ARE at the center. granted, i know the idea isn't originally his, and that many scientists subscribed to this concept long before we ever decided to contemplate it. don't over-analyze it - its just food for thought.I'm not really sure what you are saying, or rather why.