Gamers Rule! Universe Shaped Like a d12

[Gerald]

Well the scientists say a soccer ball, but we all know what a dodecahedron is...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/977607.asp

 

[Pbartender]

Well the scientists say a soccer ball, but we all know what a dodecahedron is...

http://www.msnbc.com/news/977607.asp

Amusing... Since a dodecahedron isn't really that much like a soccer ball.

Dodecahedrons are made all pentagons. Soccer balls are pentagons surrounded by hexagons... with many more hexagons than pentagons.

 

[Mordane76]

I personally find the model they propose far more disconcerting than the original idea of an infinite universe. The way it all just wraps around on itself just sorta bothers me...

It really makes me feel like we really might be in the marble like in Men In Black...

 

[Len]

Well the scientists say a soccer ball, but we all know what a dodecahedron is...

I think it is a soccer ball, not a dodecahedron. Because, unlike a d12, a soccer ball has different-shaped faces, and thus would not make a fair die.

And we all know that the universe isn't fair.

 

[Silver Moon]

And we always wondered what a D12 was good for.

 

[Fast Learner]

Thus with a telescope that can see halfway across the universe one can view the entire universe.

 

[Zander]

Einstein was wrong after all. God does play dice with the universe!

Our universe is His d12. Maybe there are other universes that are his d4, d6, d8, d10 and d20. I always suspected He was the big DM in the sky.

 

[Alzrius]

Just out of curiosity, is the theory laid out in that article really so new? I know I've heard this elsewhere, because I've been saying to my gamer-geek buddies for a while now that travelling through the universe was like moving around on the inside of a sphere - eventually you'd return to your point of origin, and never reach a defined "boundary" that marked the limit of the universe.

 

[Pbartender]

Just out of curiosity, is the theory laid out in that article really so new? I know I've heard this elsewhere, because I've been saying to my gamer-geek buddies for a while now that travelling through the universe was like moving around on the inside of a sphere - eventually you'd return to your point of origin, and never reach a defined "boundary" that marked the limit of the universe.

Not really... The debate has been going on for some time.

Most scientists theorize that the universe is one of three general "shapes"...

1. "Open" Meaning that the universe bends away from itself into a sort of saddle-shape. The universe is curved, but does not converge upon itself.

2. "Flat" Meaning that the universe is flat and infinite. It is not curved, and does not converge or diverge.

3. "Closed" Meaning that the universe bends in toward itself into a more or less spherical shape. The universe converges on itself, and if you travel long enough in any one direction, you'll evenutally come back around to where you begin.

There's also variations on the three basic shapes. For example, you could have a cylindrical universe, which is "closed" in one direction, but "flat" in the other. Or you could have a toroidal (donut-shaped) universe, which is closed, but has a greater curvature in one direction than the other.

Bear in mind, that since we live in a 3-dimensional (4, if you count time) universe, all these shapes and bendings take place in higher dimensions that we can't really see or even comprehend. It all just modeled using mathematics. There's examples I could give using a piece of paper as an example, but I'm not going to worry about explaining it yet, unless someone asks...

 

[RangerWickett]

Could you explain please?