Mapping the universe in "real time"?

[Klaynos]

 

Seriously, though. We do have a potential vehicle to carry us faster than c already. We practically talk about it every day here.

 

If we can find a way to ride the space expansion, bingo -- we travel faster than light speed without violating any physical laws. And conveniently, it'd be a two-way mode of travel.

 

The thing about that is it could never take us closer to anything else, just further away from the earth...

[Baby Astronaut]

The thing about that is it could never take us closer to anything else, just further away from the earth...

I neglected to say the ship itself would be traveling at its own speed as well.

 

Let's say it were traveling at near light speed, and we had found a way to gain a push from space expansion at every nanosecond interval, we could be able to ride the expansion both ways. Remember, space is sort of "pushing" or dragging everything along with it.

 

If we can zone in on the quantum level where the expansion is actually occurring, we might be able to use it like a raft does water in navigating a river. Except with space, the current is going in all directions, so you can travel anywhere without slowing down if you ignore all currents except the direction you seek.

[NowThatWeKnow]

... Weather imo is actually quite a good example of how bad we are at this kind of system, some of the worlds most powerful supercomputers are devoted to solving it, and we can't predict weather accurately to a town and time. How often are the forecasters wrong?

 

Maybe we should look at predicting galaxy movement more like an artillery shell then weather. Artillery can be very accurate when considering wind and distance. In space we consider gravitational lensing and transverse movement from local gravitational forces. But like you said "I don't quite see what you'd hope to see from this".

 

I think an accurate current map of the observable universe every so often is all we need right now. With that we can calculate the likely current or future location of any galaxy.

[Klaynos]

I neglected to say the ship itself would be traveling at its own speed as well.

 

Let's say it were traveling at near light speed, and we had found a way to gain a push from space expansion at every nanosecond interval, we could be able to ride the expansion both ways. Remember, space is sort of "pushing" or dragging everything along with it.

 

If we can zone in on the quantum level where the expansion is actually occurring, we might be able to use it like a raft does water in navigating a river. Except with space, the current is going in all directions, so you can travel anywhere without slowing down if you ignore all currents except the direction you seek.

 

You still hit the problem of needing to travel at a significant % of the speed of light to actually get anywhere.

 

But this is getting off topic.

 

I'm not sure artillery shell type modelling would work, as the shells don't affect each other, in any way.

[NowThatWeKnow]

I'm not sure artillery shell type modelling would work, as the shells don't affect each other, in any way.

I was saying that you consider the forces that apply to the situation.

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Real, previously-unknown-to-the-world knowledge does not multiply that easily. At least not apparently.

 

Let me guess that you are young because exponential growth of knowledge is apparent to me. However, I am old enough that I served in the Vietnam war. No reply to my last post indicates no interest for one reason or another but I ran into something you may enjoy. It is not absolute proof of what I say but is factually reliable. Watch this short presentation. I am certain you will think it worthwhile.

 

http://www.mikesrc.us/technology.wvx

 

Remember the checker board where you double something as you go through the squares. Start with 1 penny on square one and the last square is worth $92,233,720,368,547,800.00

 

Wouldn't it be neat to talk to Orville Wright after the first flight in 1903.

Hi Orville, that flight was amazing. Let me show you a picture of a plane with a wingspan longer then your first flight. Then you really need to see this really neat thing called the space shuttle take off. See that young child over there. She will likely be alive to see man walk on the moon and watch robots collect information from the surface of mars. Hang on, my cell is ringing. Hey, it's my brother. He is standing on the great wall of china and there is a picture he just took. Wires??? Why would you have wires on a phone.

 

If you don't see where I am coming from that is OK. The short presentation is still worth it.

[Baby Astronaut]

Let me guess that you are young because exponential growth of knowledge is apparent to me. However, I am old enough that I served in the Vietnam war. No reply to my last post indicates no interest for one reason or another but I ran into something you may enjoy.

I am interested, just hopping around the net and busy with life. Thank you for the link, will be checking it out.

 

Btw, some young vehicles put on high mileage too.

 

Remember the checker board where you double something as you go through the squares. Start with 1 penny on square one and the last square is worth $92,233,720,368,547,800.00

Look at the educational state of the world, and then look at your figures again. The penny had the luxury of complete, error-free and available data leading to the $92,233,720,368,547,800.

 

Yet for us, a lot of the existing knowledge is still hardly in its most optimal form. Everything is interconnected, so no matter how brilliant you are in one field, you can gain quite a bit of insight from connecting dots with another field, but if knowledge is so technical that one can only hope to master one or two fields of knowledge in a lifetime, then we're missing lots of gains and still waiting for a knowledge revolution of sorts.

 

Besides that, look at the state of education, and politicians whose fault it is trying to sneak in profitable ways to "fix" the problem. If only a few have lots of knowledge, it doesn't count as incredible knowledge expansion in my eyes.

 

Don't we have a long ways to go before we can truly gasp at our advances in worldwide knowledge?

 

Wouldn't it be neat to talk to Orville Wright after the first flight in 1903.

Hi Orville, that flight was amazing. Let me show you a picture of a plane with a wingspan longer then your first flight. Then you really need to see this really neat thing called the space shuttle take off. See that young child over there. She will likely be alive to see man walk on the moon and watch robots collect information from the surface of mars. Hang on, my cell is ringing. Hey, it's my brother. He is standing on the great wall of china and there is a picture he just took. Wires??? Why would you have wires on a phone.

I do see where you're coming from. It's very exciting to witness discoveries and marvel at unexpected triumphs. But look at it from my angle too. Much of what you've illustrated in those examples is simply people's lack of belief in great technological possibilities. Advances might be more obvious if we really possessed knowledge.

 

And then we have lots of people who can barely navigate email and function on a computer, much less with gadgets and so-called high-tech devices, and can't figure out legalese so must spend a fortune on lawyers just to find out they shouldn't have, and etc. Where is the knowledge? Also, remember the last eight years of elections and continuing propaganda.

 

But let's stick to knowledge of the kind you referred to, and see where I'm going with all this.

 

Your list of important events are more achievements than knowledge, made possible by discoveries. I'll agree wholeheartedly that our discoveries are multiplying, perhaps exponentially, but knowledge itself is still near to the same old pace.

 

If you're like me, then you know how many times you've researched something or another just to come up dry. Even on the internet.

 

I can ask you or anyone questions on patenting, industry habits, city design, etc, and most if not all will hit roadblocks telling you the wealth of knowledge must either be pocketed, or isn't really as large as it seemed. Or maybe it's barely available. If so, I'll hazard a guess that knowledge isn't doubling every two years.

Edited January 7, 2009 by Baby Astronaut

[bruceralph]

just had a quick look at the net to see if I could find an answer to the original question. In spacetime, it is currently believed that the universe could be saddleshaped (ie a hyperbola) where space curves back. It is a complicated testable hypothesis that is being worked on. In the larger scheme of the cosmos, though, I think it could be just a weird shaped bubble.

[NowThatWeKnow]

Your list of important events are more achievements than knowledge, made possible by discoveries. I'll agree wholeheartedly that our discoveries are multiplying, perhaps exponentially, but knowledge itself is still near to the same old pace.

 

... If so, I'll hazard a guess that knowledge isn't doubling every two years.

 

In a fraction of the time it took to type a reply, you could have watched that short Power Point presentation. It is possible the facts you learn may change you perspective just a little.

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just had a quick look at the net to see if I could find an answer to the original question. In spacetime, it is currently believed that the universe could be saddleshaped (ie a hyperbola) where space curves back. It is a complicated testable hypothesis that is being worked on. In the larger scheme of the cosmos, though, I think it could be just a weird shaped bubble.

 

You can only map what you can see and that happens to be a sphere. Figuring out the current location of what we see today already requires some speculation. Mapping what we can't see is pure speculation.

[Baby Astronaut]

In a fraction of the time it took to type a reply, you could have watched that short Power Point presentation. It is possible the facts you learn may change you perspective just a little.

I've watched your vid, pretty neat. It only reinforced my conclusions, however.

 

It's laughable to think after watching it that we lack the computer power to map the universe in real time, or that it'll even be a problem soon.

 

The last ten years I've known someone with a project to facilitate the spread of knowledge by working from the other end, "bioavailability". The form it's in is highly important. Memorization isn't knowledge, either. How much you truly understand something is the key. One self-test method for this is how well can you explain your "knowledge" to a six year old. If barely at all, you only have glimpses of knowledge. If you can explain it only a little better to high schoolers, you're not much better off.

 

But the criteria for making the technical simple is rigorous by design. Its translation must be the same length or briefer than originally. There must be the least confusion possible, and that means no easy solutions or nonsense comparisons. You also follow a goal of how many people you're able to succeed with. It's around 17 out of 20, but that's a lofty goal. Yet any higher than so is counterproductive if you want to maximize understanding among the entire group.

 

Thus in the end, you have to be highly creative, with a productive melding of visuals, words, timing, and placement.

 

Also included is guidance by set principles. For example, the words you use, and how they're presented, are critical to allow understanding. Also important is the design. If a "user-friendly" device is a headache to figure out for even a few people, it's hasn't attained max usability.

 

How schools teach is yet a different angle to increase "bioavailability" of knowledge. Textbooks often need a large overhaul, as does the available reservoirs of knowledge for schools to tap into.

 

But I want to get back to our point. Just so you know, solutions are within grasp for all this.

 

Now here's something to chew on.

 

Everything in your video points to something the person I mentioned has already stated, that communication is what has advanced the output of technology innovation. If you cut off all global communication today, you would see a very related drop in advancements.

 

Communication is the number one reason for the acceleration of technology. Ideas went from delivery by foot, mounted animals, to delivery vessels, to a mailing system, to trains, to airplane, to phone, to video, and finally to internet. And on each step knowledge grew exponentially. Ideas went from bumping into each other by wild chance ---> to a rising likelihood ---> to a steady occurrence. Along it, the sprinkle of revolutionary ideas now meets each other at a far higher rate than previously.

 

Or would, if not for certain variables.

 

And it's those we all need to work on. The matter will be elaborated on in the near future.

 

Now, if you review that vid again, you might notice it says technical information is doubling every two years. Not knowledge. They even highlighted it like I did. But there's no source provided for the claim, either. Not that I disbelieve it, but just saying.

 

I think it's great the information explosion that's happening as claimed in the vid. But only a few bits are new to me. Look at it again. NTT Japan's fiber optic cables will pack not only useful information, but mostly typical yapping on the phone about ex-lovers, mountains of statistics about the populations, marketing and financial analysis out the whazoo, and media/entertainment. Very cool for some of its uses, but not very impressive compared to what can be going through the cables.

[Sisyphus]

With knowledge doubling every few years and accelerating we will figure out a way to get accross the universe.

 

Not necessarily. No amount of knowledge allows you to violate physical laws. There might simply not be any way to do it, and everything we know now indicates that is the case. I hope there's a way, but there doesn't have to be. The universe isn't obliged to provide us a path.

[NowThatWeKnow]

Communication is the number one reason for the acceleration of technology. Ideas went from delivery by foot, mounted animals, to delivery vessels, to a mailing system, to trains, to airplane, to phone, to video, and finally to internet. And on each step knowledge grew exponentially...

 

I could not have said it better so why are you arguing with yourself?

 

Step back and take a breath. You can't see the forest because of the trees. My timeline is not what is important as it ended with "a few thousand years" leaving it wide open. Even if my time line is 99% wrong, on a cosmic scale of time, unimaginable advances will happen in thousands of years, not millions. I can not predict when, and I did not mean to imply that I could. I can also not predict what will happen as my link so well explained.

 

In cosmology we deal with a lot of theory and not so many hard facts. If my post have errors based on knowledge you have (include link) please point it out. What I do not want to do is argue speculation.

 

Now, if you review that vid again, you might notice it says technical information is doubling every two years. Not knowledge...

 

Information is knowledge and knowledge is information.

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Not necessarily. No amount of knowledge allows you to violate physical laws. There might simply not be any way to do it, and everything we know now indicates that is the case. I hope there's a way, but there doesn't have to be. The universe isn't obliged to provide us a path.

 

I agree with what you say except I do not see "No amount of knowledge allows you to violate physical laws" as an absolute. My screen name comes to mind. What we are doing today is with out question, totally impossible in almost everyone's minds of a few hundred yeas ago. It is also important to remember that if you believe you can not do it, you probably can't.

 

Getting accross the universe and breaking the speed of light may be two different things. I do not have the answers but few scientist are ready to give up on traveling the stars.

 

Did you watch my link? Most think it is neat.

[Baby Astronaut]

Information is knowledge and knowledge is information.

This is not entirely accurate.

 

If you must attend a lifetime of school to understand the information, how can it be knowledge until you intimately grasp it?

 

Communication plays a role here. Think of it like the barriers of communication that occur between different languages. The same exists between technical and common language, and with trade secrets and in unproductive distribution of knowledge sharing.

 

Then we have knowledge sensationalized by media, for example physics lessons in highly inaccurate magazine articles of "science".

 

Here's a better analogy: information is to knowledge as raw materials are to building and engineering. Even if you have all the physical ingredients, it still must be carried out effectively or you have a weak structure and/or a mess in the end.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Baby Astronaut

[NowThatWeKnow]

This is not entirely accurate.

If you must attend a lifetime of school to understand the information, how can it be knowledge until you intimately grasp it?

 

Think of it as a collective entity. You personally do not have to understand something for it to be knowledge. As long as someone understands it. A lot of knowledge is garbage but it goes with the territory. There are 6.7 billion people on the planet to come up with new stuff and that # goes up by 200,000 per day. Good for knowledge but bad for planet Earth in the near future. Have you seen the world clock? Check out how many chickens the world consumes in one day. http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks2.htm

[Baby Astronaut]

Maybe I can illustrate it even better. Think about you most favorite teachers in school. You and I probably have the same reasons for a teacher being favorite -- we learned a lot in an interesting way, and it had an impact on us. Now imagine if all our teachers from grade school to college had been like our most favorite teachers. How would it have affected our learning? Is it fair to say...vastly?

 

And now, imagine if all our teachers grade school to college had been like our worst teachers. You know, the ones where the lessons were drab and we learned squat compared to the awesome teacher.

 

Same amount of information, but different quality. Heck, the worst teachers usually had more information to hit us with.

 

Do you not agree that quality of information is far superior to quantity? And if the information of higher quality causes it to reach more people, then an increase in communication has also occurred. Voila

 

Think of it as a collective entity. You personally do not have to understand something for it to be knowledge. As long as someone understands it. A lot of knowledge is garbage but it goes with the territory. There are 6.7 billion people on the planet to come up with new stuff and that # goes up by 200,000 per day. Good for knowledge but bad for planet Earth in the near future. Have you seen the world clock? Check out how many chickens the world consumes in one day. http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks2.htm

Sure, but in an information super highway, much knowledge is buried under a ton of garbage few want to sift through, for more will have piled up in the meantime. Imagine it like attempting to save all the energy from the gas to your tank. How much is preserved depends on efficiency.

 

A bit similar with knowledge.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Baby Astronaut
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[NowThatWeKnow]

Do you not agree that quality of information is far superior to quantity? And if the information of higher quality causes it to reach more people, then an increase in communication has also occurred. Voila

 

You bet! That is why I added ("A lot of knowledge is garbage but it goes with the territory.") to my last post. I am personally astonished that we have gone as far as we have with all the double digit IQ neanderthals in the world.

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Sure, but in an information super highway, much knowledge is buried under a ton of garbage few want to sift through, for more will have piled up in the meantime.

 

Yet we have walked on the moon and have a robot on Mars. Isn't it amazing?

[Baby Astronaut]

Yet we have walked on the moon and have a robot on Mars. Isn't it amazing?

Definitely.

 

Yet it's barely easier today for the average person to build from scratch a machine that existed in the middle of the industrial revolution age. It should be far easier with all the modern advances since then. Kind of amazing itself.

[Klaynos]

I agree with what you say except I do not see "No amount of knowledge allows you to violate physical laws" as an absolute. My screen name comes to mind. What we are doing today is with out question, totally impossible in almost everyone's minds of a few hundred yeas ago. It is also important to remember that if you believe you can not do it, you probably can't.

 

We have to make a distinction between:

 

Technilogically impossible.

Physically impossible.

 

The first one means we just don't know how to do it, the second one means it is against a fundamental physical law.

[npts2020]

Definitely.

 

Yet it's barely easier today for the average person to build from scratch a machine that existed in the middle of the industrial revolution age. It should be far easier with all the modern advances since then. Kind of amazing itself.

 

Perhaps. You have to remember, though, people who build new things are hardly "average" for their time (or probably any time for that matter). My training is in engineering but I would argue that I could build an airplane in less time and better than the Wright brothers. Not because I know more about it than they did but because I know where to get the information and what questions to answer in order to do it. The reason I would expect to be successful at the above proposition is because I realize there is a vast body of information that has accumulated since that time about what they were doing to which they had no access (it didn't exist then). IMO it is this ability to locate information and put it into a usable form that ties human knowledge together for all of us and enables faster advancement, actual understanding is less important than ability to understand.

[NowThatWeKnow]

We have to make a distinction between:

 

Technilogically impossible.

Physically impossible.

 

The first one means we just don't know how to do it, the second one means it is against a fundamental physical law.

 

Wikipedia says:

"Laws of science may, however, be disproved if new facts or evidence contradicts them."

We have to remember that the smartest men on the planet two hundred years ago would shake there heads in total disbelief seeing the impossible things (in their mind) that we are doing today.

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IMO it is this ability to locate information and put it into a usable form that ties human knowledge together for all of us and enables faster advancement, actual understanding is less important than ability to understand.

Excellent

[Baby Astronaut]

Wikipedia says:

"Laws of science may, however, be disproved if new facts or evidence contradicts them."

We have to remember that the smartest men on the planet two hundred years ago would shake there heads in total disbelief...

Actually, probably not quite. It's why they're smartest.

 

Maybe the smartest people would be, "Eureka! Now this is a feast for the mind! I knew something was amiss with the popular consensus in our times..."

[Klaynos]

It's true we will find our theories are incomplete, we've actually not found anything that was not physically allowed by the theories 200 years ago that is now. We have found ranges they are not valid in, but these areas no one ever could have claimed they were valid in because no one had tested it... So we can say what is and what isn't allowed over certain ranges of reality... This is of course wandering off topic...

[Ender W.]

I could be wrong but i believe i read somewhere that calculations of the expansion of the universe show that most of what we can see is still on our side of the cosmic horizon. For it to all be that far away by now, it would have to be traveling at a speed that is almost unimaginable, so I'm fairly certain that most of it is still with us. However, there could be parts of it that were never visible, if the big bang created more than just the visible universe.

[NowThatWeKnow]

I could be wrong but i believe i read somewhere that calculations of the expansion of the universe show that most of what we can see is still on our side of the cosmic horizon. For it to all be that far away by now, it would have to be traveling at a speed that is almost unimaginable, so I'm fairly certain that most of it is still with us. However, there could be parts of it that were never visible, if the big bang created more than just the visible universe.

 

Let me start with a statement from a scientist on the History channel "The Universe" program. "There is no reason to believe that the universe isn't larger that what we observe" and "the only thing faster then light is the expansion of space itself."

 

The light we see from the most distant galaxies has taken about 12 billion years to reach us. The red shift indicates it is moving away at close to the speed of light. However, the light we see today from that galaxy was sent when that galaxy was only 4.8137 billion light years away and today that galaxy is 23.587 billion light years away. The space expansion factor at that distance is 4.9. There may be galaxies past this point but space may be expanding faster then light travels so we can not see them or the light has not reached us yet. I suspect these most distant galaxies light will drop off the radar screen before long.

 

So, we can see a galaxies light that is currently 23 billion light years away but the light leaving the galaxy now will never reach us. Working the calculations at different distances tells me that a moderate size (thick) ring of the most distant galaxies are putting out light today that we will never see. Does that answer your question and make sense to you?

 

if anyone sees any errors in my #'s please chime in.

[padren]

We have to make a distinction between:

 

Technilogically impossible.

Physically impossible.

 

The first one means we just don't know how to do it, the second one means it is against a fundamental physical law.

 

I do agree, and think at times optimism borders on faith, but I would like to point out no one really wants to break the laws of physics, they want to get around by the perceived limitations they impose.

 

If I recall, no one broke the laws of physics when they "stopped light" and started it moving again, they just used the laws in a creative way - a way that was not known to be possible before.

 

Portable energy production was thought to have a chemical limitation, and the laws governing chemical reactions have not changed - but we've added nuclear into the mix.

 

I doubt we'll be likely to "break" the fundamental laws, out of all of them I'd say the laws of thermodynamics are especially safe, but aside from those it's pretty hard to speculate on what new things we learn. I am not saying we will get from one point to another faster than the speed of light would allow via classic traversement, but I suspect it's fair to be optimistic.

[Klaynos]

If I recall, no one broke the laws of physics when they "stopped light" and started it moving again, they just used the laws in a creative way - a way that was not known to be possible before.

 

I agree with most of your post, but need to make a point here. The individual photos were at no time stopped. It's important...

 

And the type of material was always thought to have been possible, it's just changing the effective refractive index