A little off topic but pretty cool...

[admin]

[sven hauck]

I feel small...

[lataste]

That is pretty amazing, this makes you think how small we are. We are so focused on traffic, the next meeting or something minute that we forget. I wonder what kind of music aliens are producing late into the night.
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HERBALAIRE VAPORIZER REVIEW

[admin]

Remember it goes down the other way as well... I agree though this is one of those things that's nice to think about every now and then to remind you to keep things in perspective. I wonder though, with the distance some of those stars are they might not be looking the same at this very moment.

[Rambunkcious]

those stars look tasty, great slide show, such a shame that most believe we are alone.

Hopefully we will all be around to see betelgeuse go supernova, should be brighter than our sun even during the daytime and should last for a couple of months. Will def. be a great lightshow, popcorn anyone????

Or maybe it already has............

Jes has a point what we are looking at though, is the past, when we look into the night sky we are actually glaring at our universe's past. That alone blows my mind away.

[klooptheloop]

Jes has a point what we are looking at though, is the past, when we look into the night sky we are actually glaring at our universe's past. That alone blows my mind away.

Dood! That's deep

[stevenlibby]

"Space" has always been a favorite topic of mine... To fact that space is infinite is hard to even imagine...beyond our brains capacity... I've heard the talk that space is constantly growing... I disagree... My logic says it always has been infinite...otherwise....what was there some sort of boundary? If so that boundary would have to be infinitely thick...and if not, there would have to be something on the other side, period, full stop.

[Rambunkcious]

How bout constantly growing and infinite?

the reason for an ever growing universe is because of the laws of physics that Einstein shed light on (gravity, space, and time), he was a believer in the Solid State theory or an infinite universe, however his work proved otherwise. (kinda sucks for him @ the time)

If there is a boundary, maybe there is something on the other side, problem is that would be like looking into the future, past the confines and edges of our universe, and I dont believe we are capable of that yet.

Maybe another time another place, outside the confines of our own space.

If you were to reverse the procedure of looking into the future, to see what is beyond that boundary, and look as far back into the past as we can we should be able to see the big bang, right?

They've actually taken a picture of the big bang (should be able to find it online). Based on Einstein's work, and the data scientists have collected since the the inception of his theories they've been able to deduce a singularity from which all began whose force continues to expand the universe further out.

Rambunkcious

[Maru]

I've always wondered how our "universe" fits into a bigger picture...
Not so much the role of earth, or our solar system, or even our galaxy, but the sum of all galaxies, the universe, etc. It almost feels like all of it is but a tiny part of something a whole lot bigger. I have no idea what that is, but I just hope that our universe doesn't turn out to be something some alien stirred up in his petri dish over the weekend :eek:
It would be so cool if we could someday travel to another part of our universe to see what's out there... but I guess if you look at it another way, getting there could merely translate to a shifted petri dish position

[sven hauck]

The boundaries are dimensional. The theory of unification that Einstein was after hid behind a multidimensional universe. To comprehend the laws of nature and the complexities of space and time, we have to make some assumptions.

When you think of a two dimensional universe, your comprehension is limited. Imagine two equally matched armies battling on a flat plain. Their knowledge or comprehension of the battle is equal. Now if you were to place a General from one of the armies on a hilltop, then everything changes. The advantage or comprehension earned from the third dimension creates new possibilities and understanding. Multidimensional space theory works the same way.

We know of three dimensions right now, but there is a fourth, namely time. This one is forgotten or overlooked easily, yet without it we can't live our lives. To say, "I'll meet you at Space in Ibiza" means nothing unless you specify the time. So that gives us four, yet they are still not enough.

You may have heard of the duality of light. It behaves both as a particle and as a wave. In 3, or even 4 dimensional space, that is impossible. Therefore one explanation is that light vibrates within the fifth dimension.

This type of theory can eventually lead to explaining what happens to matter that is consumed by a black hole, or how to fold space to enable travel over huge distances.

In any case, you don't have to believe in the 5th or Nth dimension (they say there are actually more than 10), but hopefully you would admit that successive added dimensions increase our capability to understand the universe that we live in.