The Universe

[Matt@eon8]

The other day my Astronomy teacher made a very valid point in his lecture. He pointed out how big the world is compared to Humans, and vast of a wide range it is. And less than .05 percent of the population get to see the whole world. He then talked about how small the earth is compared to our galaxy, after all we can only reach the moon. Then he told us to imagine how big the galaxy really was, we have barely made it off earth. And again to the human race earth is a huge thing. But then he said that there are hundreds, Thousands, Most likely Millions of other Galaxy's Making up the universe. The size of the universe could very possibly have no end, This is hard for us to understand because the world we know has an end, but the Universe probably doesn't. It is Mind boggling how Huge the Universe really is, and as a human race were are so Big ahead because of all of our accomplishments, and technology. But if you think about it, What we have done isn't even a pimple on a elephants Ass.

 

This also is very hard to understand but the universe is set up in the same identical structure as the cells that make up the human body. So it is extremely possible that earth and the universe are simply micro cells of a Larger "Being" we could just be a extremely small part of something truly huge. And on the same note we in our cellular structures we could have life forms similar to us. And the lifeforms on us could have even smaller lifeforms on them.

 

I understand this is extremely hard to wrap your mind around and truly understand, every time i do so i get goosebumps. It is just so amazing that earth to me is a Tremendously Huge thing. But on the scale of everything else it's really nothing.

[Realitycheck]

Well, the thing that really sticks out is sentience. There is no way you can prove sentience on a cellular scale. Single-celled organisms are just programmed to do what they have to do to survive. On the other scale, you just have reactions that are rather easily explainable, along with the byproducts and assorted explanations for their existence. Wanting to believe that something is driving it all can be somewhat gravitating, especially when you consider the status quo and what people expect you to believe, but it is impossible to observe.

 

Different religions have means of how they claim to be able to observe it, from omens in the macroscale to more commonly in the microscale - Kaballah, fate, "miracles", etc. In my opinion, it all really just adds up to astrology. Does it apply or not? But it can be difficult to completely rule it out once you get plugged into it. Of course, this is a science website.

[swansont]

This also is very hard to understand but the universe is set up in the same identical structure as the cells that make up the human body. So it is extremely possible that earth and the universe are simply micro cells of a Larger "Being" we could just be a extremely small part of something truly huge.

 

You run into a problem with the finite speed of light in making that hypothesis work in any meaningful way.

[lucaspa]

This also is very hard to understand but the universe is set up in the same identical structure as the cells that make up the human body.

 

No, it's not. The structure of the universe is not at all like the structure of cells. Since your premise is wrong, your conclusion:

 

So it is extremely possible that earth and the universe are simply micro cells of a Larger "Being" we could just be a extremely small part of something truly huge.

is not tenable. Yes, we are part of something extremely huge, but there is no indication that the universe as a whole is a "being".

 

And on the same note we in our cellular structures we could have life forms similar to us.

 

No, we can't. We know what the molecules are within cells, and they do not permit complete creatures like us. We occasionally do get intercellular parasites -- such as tuberculosis -- but the effect of those is to disrupt the cellular processes.

 

I can understand your amazement at the size of the universe. Keep that. But please discard the ideas relating to the universe as an organism or that there are smaller organisms within our cells. Those ideas are refuted by the data.

[jackson33]

Matt; Many years ago, when I attended school, we would see a diagram of what an atom should look like. The nucleus centered and electrons revolving around that center. We then would go to science class and see a diagram of our solar system, the Sun and all the planets revolving around that center.

 

Later many of us figured size was relevant to perception. To explain this, if all we can see and all we know of whats seen by our telescopes was reduced and placed in a speck of dust, then everything would very much seem the same. Later we learned that micro-ism's, even bugs of sort, exist at each level of smallness our microscopes achieve.

 

Adding to the thesis on Earths relativity to all things; An interesting point is our home, the Earth, is a very small place even in our Solar System. Of the total mass, which makes up this solar system 99.80 percent is the sun and the majority of the rest belongs to Jupiter.

 

On the distance thing, yes and if you could travel 186,200 mile per second, it would take you 8 minutes to reach the sun, 100,000 years to cross our Galaxy a couple million years to reach Andromeda (our closest galaxy) and 14 plus Billion years just to reach what we now see as our *known universe*. From all we suspect, if you ever could get there, what we see, would have long been gone and regenerated into something else, maybe even more than once. We are truly a small place in a very large place and who will ever know what limits there are to largest or smallest.

[Klaynos]

Matt; Many years ago, when I attended school, we would see a diagram of what an atom should look like. The nucleus centered and electrons revolving around that center.

 

But alas this model, the Bohr model, of an atom is wrong. Oh so very wrong, the electrons do not orbit, and certainly don't have orbital states that are circular (although some orbitals are spherical)

[Sisyphus]

It is true that there is structure on scales vastly larger and vastly smaller than our own. But those structures are different. An atom does not really resemble a solar system except in a very abstract or superficial sense. And so any sort of "being" analogous to life as we know it on those scales would have to be of a very, very, very different sort, and probably would have to violate all sorts of physical principles as we know them. For example, relativity makes the "really big" creatures impossible, and quantum mechanics makes the "really small" creatures impossible. Granted that these are acknowledged as incomplete models, but it's probably best to get that sorted out before this kind of speculation should be taken seriously.

 

But one thing. If it really is the case that we're just one notch on an endless-in-both-directions scale, then we're NOT tiny, are we? We're miniscule compared to all the bigger beings, but unimaginably vast gods to all the smaller ones. It rather balances out, no?

[jackson33]

But alas this model, the Bohr model, of an atom is wrong. Oh so very wrong, the electrons do not orbit, and certainly don't have orbital states that are circular (although some orbitals are spherical)

 

Don't recall saying it was correct...but it was accepted in the 40-50's....

[Sisyphus]

Don't recall saying it was correct...but it was accepted in the 40-50's....

 

Not since the 20s, actually. But it continues to be commonly misrepresented as such to this day!

[jackson33]

S; What if we are part, say of a dust particle in some super giant Universe, why would that dust particle we see or the one in that Giant universe (to us) be the end. Just imagine the time difference in such a scenario. If in burning a log, there were billions of civilizations in that log, then they would have lived billions of generations (their time) while just lighting that fire.

 

Interesting thought; If there is a God (Not necessarily from our understanding)

then why would this entity be different to the smaller/larger units with in the total...All things being inclusive.

 

Maybe mis-taught as well, but those folks are long gone and I may not be remembering the actual lessons. Only the images and the derived comparisons, which I had...

 

I am yet convinced, however in time the actual make of a an atom will be much more complex than know understood, which is already somewhat complex. I remember telling my Mom about bed bugs. Now were talking micro-ism's in the billions on every inch of the humans skin, many not common to others. What is really small, has a long way to go...IMO.

[Reaper]

S; What if we are part, say of a dust particle in some super giant Universe, why would that dust particle we see or the one in that Giant universe (to us) be the end. Just imagine the time difference in such a scenario. If in burning a log, there were billions of civilizations in that log, then they would have lived billions of generations (their time) while just lighting that fire.

 

Interesting thought; If there is a God (Not necessarily from our understanding)

then why would this entity be different to the smaller/larger units with in the total...All things being inclusive.

 

Maybe mis-taught as well, but those folks are long gone and I may not be remembering the actual lessons. Only the images and the derived comparisons, which I had...

 

I am yet convinced, however in time the actual make of a an atom will be much more complex than know understood, which is already somewhat complex. I remember telling my Mom about bed bugs. Now were talking micro-ism's in the billions on every inch of the humans skin, many not common to others. What is really small, has a long way to go...IMO.

 

 

I don't think an atom could be a universe in itself. We already know what is inside the atom through particle accelerators and other experiments.

 

 

As far as I am aware of, there are a few speculations for what could be outside of the universe, ranging from the idea that there is nothing outside to the idea that there are an infinite series of parallel universes, or even the idea that the universe is part of a multidimensional brane world. But none of these have any empirical or mathematical backing.

[jackson33]

I really don't argue an atom, could be a Universe. I do suggest small as defined in current logic is far from reality. The dust speck differs in total atoms and these specks are general off something else.

 

Not sure what mathematic formula has to do with hypothetical speculations of additional universe, but I am sure some one could compute the odds. On dimensional universe or for that matter anything in another dimension, my understanding is in co-existence to each other. That is we live in a dimension with ours and if something exist in another, we or they would never know. As for exotic theory, I sometimes will read for ideas, but have no desire to explore...

[gxlundgren]

The only reason science says the universe is infinite is because if they said it was finite the next question would be, "What comes after that?"

[J.C.MacSwell]

Don't recall saying it was correct...but it was accepted in the 40-50's....

 

Not even the thirties. It still is taught though to introduce quantum mechanics.

[Reaper]

Electrons exist in "probability clouds" around the nucleus if I remember correctly. Where exactly they are depends on their energy level. This is where we get the electron configurations for elements. This model has been around since the 1920's.