A strange world full of odd facts

[Max Headroom]

2 hours ago, Beardie said:

Oh I have to add that the start of the Universe wasn't big as the primeval atom was incredibly small and, as there was no atmosphere for sound to travel in, in fact there wasn't even space, there was no 'bang'. It should be the "The Silent creation event from an infinitely small point" not quite as catchy a name though.

There wouldn’t be a bang because (i) there’s a vacuum (in space no one can hear you scream) and (ii) there is only sound if there is also someone there to hear it - it’s that falling trees in the woods thing.

 

Trevor

[Beardie]

Ah but, as I said Trevor, space didn't even exist at the moment of creation so there wasn't even the vacuum to worry about. 

 

One puzzle I haven't been able to yet find an answer for is the following -

 

If, according to the aforementioned 'Small non sound generating creation event' theory everything is flying away in a fairly regular and even manner from the point of creation and the distances will get larger and larger between all the galaxies as they travel out from this central point(I have heard it described that we should imagine all the galaxies as points on the surface of a balloon that is being inflated) then why is it that  various galaxies have collided over the life of the universe so far and even our own Milky Way is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. That would suggest that not everything is moving in a uniform direction (away from the point of creation) or at a uniform speed.

 

I may be being incredibly dense here but it strikes me that, if everywhere in the Universe was originally unified at the point of creation, then it shouldn't actually be possible for those points to then collide with each other on their travels away from that point.

[Gorby]

30 minutes ago, Beardie said:

I may be being incredibly dense here but it strikes me that, if everywhere in the Universe was originally unified at the point of creation, then it shouldn't actually be possible for those points to then collide with each other on their travels away from that point.

Perhaps the universe is just a firework display with each galaxy an individual firework and somewhere there are fantastic beings going “OOOOHHH! Pretty colours!”

 

 

 

No doubt the fantastic beings dog would hiding behind the sofa.

[Max Headroom]

36 minutes ago, Beardie said:

Ah but, as I said Trevor, space didn't even exist at the moment of creation so there wasn't even the vacuum to worry about. 

No vacuum (as it hadn’t been invented) so no bang (ditto).

 

I’m going for a lie down now. If you want me, I’m the one over there rocking backwards and forwards on the padded chair .

 

pre Trevor 

[Mick4350]

2 hours ago, Gorby said:

Perhaps the universe is just a firework display with each galaxy an individual firework and somewhere there are fantastic beings going “OOOOHHH! Pretty colours!”

 

 

No doubt the fantastic beings dog would hiding behind the sofa.

Or where the USS Discovery arrives via a wormhole in space where her journey " too boldly go where no ... ! " continues ..

[Bullbasket]

18 hours ago, PhoenixII said:

Eh bien, vous avez décidé de vivre dans la belle France

No, I was thinking more about the poliapods who hang out in SW1A and keep appearing on my TV. Where's the meteorite when you need it?

[Pete in Lincs]

5 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Where's the meteorite when you need it?

Probably stopped off at the Ace cafe for a cuppa. 🍵

[noelh]

22 hours ago, Beardie said:

 

I may be being incredibly dense here but it strikes me that, if everywhere in the Universe was originally unified at the point of creation, then it shouldn't actually be possible for those points to then collide with each other on their travels away from that point.

No expert but perhaps the universe is analogous to an expanding cloud with all the drops of moisture chaotically colliding with each other as it grows in size. Or maybe it's like a a shrapnel shell. There's a single point of explosion but the fragments scatter, again chaotically at different velocities depending on size and shape. You could easily imagine some would collide with each other. They wouldn't be moving away uniformly in discrete directions. 

 

Also you can't discount the role of gravity. That would override the expansion locally. The moon is held prisoner by the Earth's gravity. A large mass will always draw in smaller objects and if both masses are the same size they might orbit each other, getting closer in a kind of dance of death until they collide. 

 

Pure speculation on my part and I bet there's a proper scientific explanation out there. 

Edited October 18, 2019 by noelh

[Tony C]

24 minutes ago, noelh said:

The moon is held prisoner by the Earth's gravity..

Not strictly true, as the Moon is moving away from the Earth at the rate of around 3-4cm per year!

[Beardie]

The problem is that, if we allow that galaxies may travel at different speed in varying directions it makes it difficult to prove that we can indeed 'wind the clock back' to the origins of the original creation event with certainty as we can't say that the entire universe hasn't changed direction now and then in the past and has always moved in a largely uniform manner. If you think of the 'everywhere is the centre of the universe at the time of the origin event' concept then everything should be travelling away from that origin point and so, no matter where you are in the universe, the rest of the universe should be going away from you. It's a geometric nightmare but has a sort of logic to it. In a way it could be said that, in that model, it's not the galaxies that are moving but rather that it's the space in-between them that's increasing.

[dogsbody]

So is the universe expanding like shrapnel moving away from the core explosion, or spreading out like cup of oil on the surface of a pond?

 

 

 

Chris

[Beardie]

I think it's probably more like a three dimensional cup of oil rather than an explosion but even that I think is not really close to the real way the universe is expanding. The problem is that we don't have language or concepts to describe these things. 

Think of the traditional explanation of gravity where space/time is described as being like a rubber sheet that is bent and warped by the mass of the objects (planets, stars etc.) sitting on it. Great concept and, if you get a rubber sheet, stretch it and put a large mass like a bowling ball in the middle of it and fire marbles and other spheres of different sizes around it will behave like a solar system but, in real life, this is too simple an explanation as it is only on one plane whereas gravity works in all directions and so interactions between a variety of objects becomes a nightmare of different warps and bends in space time. The universe is one big tangled ball of insanity!

[noelh]

2 hours ago, Tony C said:

Not strictly true, as the Moon is moving away from the Earth at the rate of around 3-4cm per year!

Trying to escape is it? It has to serve it's sentence. 👮‍♂️

 

 

Edit: Found this on the Scientific American website. Gravity is the culprit apparently. 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-can-galaxies-collide/

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by noelh

[Pete in Lincs]

2 hours ago, Tony C said:

the Moon is moving away from the Earth

I blame Gerry Anderson.

[Bonhoff]

2 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

I blame Gerry Anderson.

 

Do you realise that we're now 20 years after Space 1999 and we still don't have Eagle Transporters....

[Kiwidave4]

Seems that this thread, which started as  'A strange world full of odd facts' has suffered an astronomical highjacking and has become otherworldly.

[Black Knight]

A little known fact ; there is nothing wrong with the rear left indicator on my SAAB 9-3, but try telling that to the car's on-board diagnostic unit!

[noelh]

30 minutes ago, Black Knight said:

A little known fact ; there is nothing wrong with the rear left indicator on my SAAB 9-3, but try telling that to the car's on-board diagnostic unit!

You should contact the manufacturer...... Oh wait! 

[noelh]

59 minutes ago, Kiwidave4 said:

Seems that this thread, which started as  'A strange world full of odd facts' has suffered an astronomical highjacking and has become otherworldly.

Yes, but aren't the pictures lovely? 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by noelh

[Beardie]

Oh the pictures of our universe are absolutely and utterly incredible. The galaxy knocks Banksy into a cocked hat with the greatest of ease and it just comes to it naturally.

[Tzulscha]

5 hours ago, Bonhoff said:

 

Do you realise that we're now 20 years after Space 1999 and we still don't have Eagle Transporters....

This is certainly true but on the other hand we DO still have a moon.

You know they never talked about what happened to the Earth after we managed to blow the moon out of orbit...

[Rob G]

What's really interesting (and will do your head in if you think about it for long enough), is that in an infinite variety of universes, ALL POSSIBLE PERMUTATIONS of every possible thing have or will come to pass. Somewhere, I did marry Keira Knightley, except that those weren't our names, and we had 3 heads, tentacles and no eyes. And we didn't actually get married, because that's not the way we do things here.

 

 

Think about it. Somewhere, some analogue of you is deliriously happy, while elsewhere, you were a short-lived microbe. Kind of puts our current lives into a sort of perspective, doesn't it.

[Mick4350]

8 hours ago, Rob G said:

 

 

Think about it. Somewhere, some analogue of you is deliriously happy, while elsewhere, you were a short-lived microbe. Kind of puts our current lives into a sort of perspective, doesn't it.

Love my iPod, this speck of dust...

[Tzulscha]

On a more prosaic note;

Did you know that 4 times as many people are killed by vending machines that are killed by sharks every year?

Vending machine Week is coming up on the Discovery Channel!

 

The average person has between two and nine pounds of bacteria in their body. 

 

Of all the people in history that have lived to the age of 65, half of them are alive right now.  

[Graham T]

Less time has elapsed since the time of Cleopatra than elapsed between Cleopatra & the construction of the Great Pyramid.

 

My dad is 99 in Feb, born in 1921.  Napoleon died in 1821.  It is JUST feasible that just before he died, he held a new born baby that lived to be 100 & could have held my dad when he was born...............I've lost track of where I was going with this.......