So how big is the universe anyway?

[Elephant]

Why do you know this and does Queen D know you do? Does The Universe?

What happens at GenCon, STAYS at GenCon!

IYKWIMAITYD

 

[Rel]

*sigh* This is what I get for trying to say something nice about somebody. I've got to learn to play to my strengths.

 

[fuindordm]

Disclaimer: This thread has nothing to do with TheUniverse. I can't speak for his size, IYKWIMAITYD.

So how big is the visible universe? About this big. You have to zoom all the way in to find the Sun. Yowsers.

A light year (ly), for those who haven't had a science class lately, is the distance that light can travel in one year (roughly 186,000 miles per second).

Pretty nice site you found there. And the cosmology stuff is accurate, although almost no one thinks the universe is finite and closed anymore.

Here's another view from the Virgo Consortium, one of the research groups that work on simulating the evolution of the universe. The light cone data simulates our observation of the very distant universe. Regions of space farther from us appear less evolved because we're getting the light that was emitted billions of years ago.

http://www.physics.lsa.umich.edu/hubble-volume/lightcones.htm

Ben

 

[Algolei]

...almost no one thinks the universe is finite and closed anymore.

What?! Why was I not informed of this!!

Three years of university astronomy, straight down the friggin' drain.

 

[Turanil]

TheUniverse. I can't speak for his size.

okay...

...and expanding.

So TheUniverse keeps expanding? In this case I think we should modify the aknowledged theory as follows:

in case of TheUniverse, the big bang certainly intervenes after the expansion, not before. But maybe Queen D. could tell us more about it?

 

[fuindordm]

okay...

in case of TheUniverse, the big bang certainly intervenes after the expansion, not before. But maybe Queen D. could tell us more about it?

I think my wife can confirm that her expansion happened after the big bang.

One of the Discworld books had a wonderful bit about the myth that the world turtle, Great A'Tuin, was heading towards a cosmic breeding ground. In the Discworld this was also known as the Big Bang theory.

Ben

 

[fuindordm]

What?! Why was I not informed of this!!

Three years of university astronomy, straight down the friggin' drain.

The observations pushing this are fairly recent, and only became non-controversial in 2003. But between 1995
and 2003 the closed universe theory had been slowly going down the drain because no one could find enough matter in the universe to close it. Even when you counted the dark matter you only got to about a third of the required density.

Post 2003, almost every cosmologist was saying the universe is open and flat, with accelerating expansion. One would hope that newer textbooks reflect this...

Ben

 

[Shemeska]

Post 2003, almost every cosmologist was saying the universe is open and flat, with accelerating expansion. One would hope that newer textbooks reflect this...

Ben

So does the new, post 2003 opinion still leave open the idea of an finite but unbound universe that is still expanding? I've always found the idea interesting, plus getting around the idea of an infinite and expanding universe with a finite amount of matter in it. Or perhaps I just don't like to work with infinities. Or that I'm a biologist and cosmology stuff is just a cool thing to read about, but hardly an area of focus for me.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

So how big is the universe anyway?

I think he is about 5'8".

 

[Simplicity]

Was yours from memory? If so, pretty darned good! I had to look mine up.

No, I looked mine up too...

Though I didn't notice the translation from British to Real Men's English until just now...