How Big Is The Universe!

[Jwrules6]

In this Thread I would like to only discuss the diameter of the Universe! First off I would just like to state it is just a wild hypothesis that I came up with while I was bored.

 

Now I might be way off and I'm not taking into account alot of other factors but my logic seems very logical. Now lets get to it. I was watching a video called "Closer to the Truth" and scientist were talking about how big the universe is and no one seemed to know with absolute certainty.

 

After watching that video it just occurred to me that if the Big Bang Theory is true, then whatever caused it sent out light in all directions. So taking that into account we can known the origin of light. Now as everybody knowns during the Big Bang light went in all directions. That's when I formed my hypothesis!

 

I thought if the universe is 14 billion years old....and we measured the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second! Wouldn't all we need to find out is how far light traveled in that time frame? So I looked up and found how many seconds are in a year and it came out to be 31,556,926 seconds in 1 year. I took that number and multiplied it by 14 billion to get the age of the universe in seconds and it came out to be 441,796,964,000,000,000 seconds in the universe. Now my first thought was no way...its got to be more??

But anyway I continued my math. I took that number which represents the age of the universe in second and multiplied it by the speed of light and I got this super big number 82,174,235,304,000,000,000,000 and that would be the distance light traveled sense the Big Bang in 1 direction. Then I figured all you would have to do to get the universes total Diameter only would be to multiply that number by 2. And you get the whole diameter of the universe which comes out to be 1.6438471*10 to the 23rd power. Or this very long number. 164,348,470,608,000,000,000,000 miles in the universe.

 

Now another hypothesis I thought up was if we think of the universe in a sphere like shape. And if my hypothesis is correct wouldn't we only need to cube that number to figure out the total vastness of the universe?

 

I would very much like to see others opinions. Please take into account I am no genius or scientist...just a average joe....so please be gentle.

 

Thank you.

[Spyman]

The Big Bang was NOT an regular explosion of matter inside space, it was more like an explosion of space between matter.

 

While it is correct that we only can observe a certain limited size of the Universe, due to time since the Big Bang and the speed of light, the total Universe is likely much much bigger than we can currently see.

 

 

The Big Bang

The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points. Because the FLRW metric assumes a uniform distribution of mass and energy, it applies to our Universe only on large scales—local concentrations of matter such as our galaxy are gravitationally bound and as such do not experience the large-scale expansion of space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

MISCONCEPTIONS about the BIG BANG

The key to avoiding the misunderstandings is not to take the term “big bang” too literally. The big bang was not a bomb that went off in the center of the universe and hurled matter outward into a preexisting void. Rather it was an explosion of space itself that happened everywhere, similar to the way the expansion of the surface of a balloon happens everywhere on the surface.

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverDavisSciAm.pdf

 

 

Universe

Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the Universe is 13.75 ±0.17 billion years, and that the diameter of the observable universe is at least 93 billion light years, or 8.80 × 10²⁶ metres.

 

Since we cannot observe space beyond the limitations of light (or any electromagnetic radiation), it is uncertain whether the size of the Universe is finite or infinite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

 

Observable universe

Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "Universe" to mean "observable universe". This can be justified on the grounds that we can never know anything by direct experimentation about any part of the Universe that is causally disconnected from us, although many credible theories require a total Universe much larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the universe (if such a boundary exists); this is exceedingly unlikely in that it would imply that Earth is exactly at the center of the Universe, in violation of the Copernican principle. It is likely that the galaxies within our visible universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the Universe. According to the theory of cosmic inflation and its founder, Alan Guth, the lower bound for the diameter of the entire Universe could be at least in the range of 10²³ to 10²⁶ times as large as the observable universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

[Jwrules6]

The Big Bang was NOT an regular explosion of matter inside space, it was more like an explosion of space between matter.

 

While it is correct that we only can observe a certain limited size of the Universe, due to time since the Big Bang and the speed of light, the total Universe is likely much much bigger than we can currently see.

 

 

The Big Bang

The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points. Because the FLRW metric assumes a uniform distribution of mass and energy, it applies to our Universe only on large scales—local concentrations of matter such as our galaxy are gravitationally bound and as such do not experience the large-scale expansion of space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

MISCONCEPTIONS about the BIG BANG

The key to avoiding the misunderstandings is not to take the term “big bang” too literally. The big bang was not a bomb that went off in the center of the universe and hurled matter outward into a preexisting void. Rather it was an explosion of space itself that happened everywhere, similar to the way the expansion of the surface of a balloon happens everywhere on the surface.

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverDavisSciAm.pdf

 

 

Universe

Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the Universe is 13.75 ±0.17 billion years, and that the diameter of the observable universe is at least 93 billion light years, or 8.80 × 10²⁶ metres.

 

Since we cannot observe space beyond the limitations of light (or any electromagnetic radiation), it is uncertain whether the size of the Universe is finite or infinite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

 

Observable universe

Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "Universe" to mean "observable universe". This can be justified on the grounds that we can never know anything by direct experimentation about any part of the Universe that is causally disconnected from us, although many credible theories require a total Universe much larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the universe (if such a boundary exists); this is exceedingly unlikely in that it would imply that Earth is exactly at the center of the Universe, in violation of the Copernican principle. It is likely that the galaxies within our visible universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the Universe. According to the theory of cosmic inflation and its founder, Alan Guth, the lower bound for the diameter of the entire Universe could be at least in the range of 10²³ to 10²⁶ times as large as the observable universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

 

 

 

 

Interesting...thanks. But I have 2 questions.

 

1. Do we know certainly that there was no light during the Big Bang?

 

2. How long after the initial Big Bang did the first star or light rendering star appear?

[Spyman]

1. Do we know certainly that there was no light during the Big Bang?

 

2. How long after the initial Big Bang did the first star or light rendering star appear?

1) Before the Recombination, thought to have occurred about 377,000 years after the Big Bang, the Universe was to "foggy" to let light through but after it became transparent. The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation that we can observe today is the remnant of this first free light traversing the Universe.

 

2) We have observed six star forming galaxies created about 500 million years after the Big Bang.

 

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_big_bang

[rigney]

The Big Bang was NOT an regular explosion of matter inside space, it was more like an explosion of space between matter.

 

While it is correct that we only can observe a certain limited size of the Universe, due to time since the Big Bang and the speed of light, the total Universe is likely much much bigger than we can currently see.

 

 

The Big Bang

The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points. Because the FLRW metric assumes a uniform distribution of mass and energy, it applies to our Universe only on large scales—local concentrations of matter such as our galaxy are gravitationally bound and as such do not experience the large-scale expansion of space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

 

MISCONCEPTIONS about the BIG BANG

The key to avoiding the misunderstandings is not to take the term “big bang” too literally. The big bang was not a bomb that went off in the center of the universe and hurled matter outward into a preexisting void. Rather it was an explosion of space itself that happened everywhere, similar to the way the expansion of the surface of a balloon happens everywhere on the surface.

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverDavisSciAm.pdf

 

 

Universe

Current interpretations of astronomical observations indicate that the age of the Universe is 13.75 ±0.17 billion years, and that the diameter of the observable universe is at least 93 billion light years, or 8.80 × 10²⁶ metres.

 

Since we cannot observe space beyond the limitations of light (or any electromagnetic radiation), it is uncertain whether the size of the Universe is finite or infinite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

 

Observable universe

Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "Universe" to mean "observable universe". This can be justified on the grounds that we can never know anything by direct experimentation about any part of the Universe that is causally disconnected from us, although many credible theories require a total Universe much larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the universe (if such a boundary exists); this is exceedingly unlikely in that it would imply that Earth is exactly at the center of the Universe, in violation of the Copernican principle. It is likely that the galaxies within our visible universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the Universe. According to the theory of cosmic inflation and its founder, Alan Guth, the lower bound for the diameter of the entire Universe could be at least in the range of 10²³ to 10²⁶ times as large as the observable universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe

 

 

Have to admit Spyman, there are many folks out there with brain power making mine seem less than a drop of water. But, while this hypothetical is what you take seemingly without a philosophical whisper of indifference, is it totally beyond doubt, what you espouce? A lot of people will disagree with you, and may even make their points just as conclusively. But not me, so if you don't jump too hard, I'll listen.

[Spyman]

Have to admit Spyman, there are many folks out there with brain power making mine seem less than a drop of water. But, while this hypothetical is what you take seemingly without a philosophical whisper of indifference, is it totally beyond doubt, what you espouce? A lot of people will disagree with you, and may even make their points just as conclusively. But not me, so if you don't jump too hard, I'll listen.

I don't think anything will ever be totally beyond doubt and my personal view of the world is not written in stone, I constantly revise and modify it when I learn something new so that it continues to reflect my current knowledge.

 

A lot of people might disagree but what I have posted here is not my own personal pet theories, it is the mainstream view established by the scientific community and as such it is backed up with a lot of evidence, made from prime observations by state of the art technological equipment according to our best knowledge.

 

Even people that disagree need to listen, learn and understand because any alternative models must be able to explain the observations we make.

[truedeity]

Just taking a look at the numbers you came up with anyway those are within the 10^23 to 10^26 range actually and look hypothetically accurate.

 

I mean when we think about the observable universe in terms of common sense considering that light is one of the most elementary particles, that it must have been present within the first 5-600 million years after the big bang if not earlier during stellar synthesis.

 

So even if you consider how far light would have traveled within 13 billion years it would have been substantially farther than how far the universe could have expanded in terms of how far vast hydrogen and helium could have spread during stellar synthesis. Considering that it couldn't get spread faster than the speed of light, light would have caught up with it very soon after light began to exist.

[Spyman]

So even if you consider how far light would have traveled within 13 billion years it would have been substantially farther than how far the universe could have expanded in terms of how far vast hydrogen and helium could have spread during stellar synthesis. Considering that it couldn't get spread faster than the speed of light, light would have caught up with it very soon after light began to exist.

While special relativity constrains objects in the universe from moving faster than the speed of light with respect to each other, there is no such theoretical constraint when space itself is expanding. It is thus possible for two very distant objects to be moving away from each other at a speed greater than the speed of light (meaning that one cannot be observed from the other). The size of the observable universe could thus be smaller than the entire universe.

 

It is also possible for a distance to exceed the speed of light times the age of the universe, which means that light from one part of space generated near the beginning of the Universe might still be arriving at distant locations (hence the cosmic microwave background radiation). These details are a frequent source of confusion among amateurs and even professional physicists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space

[matterdoc]

Universe is infinite, in the sense that however far you may go, you will encounter matter bodies. For an observer, size of universe is limited by his ability to gather information from. This size will be equal in all directions.

[marton]

I believe based on logics that the universe is infinity due this basic reflection:

The universe cannot have a limit because it would imply to be in surrounded by nothing, cero, if space or universe has an end this would imply as consequence that the universe would be contained by in a non existing entity which in turn it would negate the universe self existence. (Basic theory of groups)

When the astronomers say that the universe is this big they should say: "The detectable or known universe is" because the known universe will depend only on the sensitivity of the instruments developed and used, therefore we can expect that the size of universe will be always on revision as happening now.

I also think that the big band is not the creation of the universe; it was just the last compression explosion cycle of one part of it.

 

MS

www.engitek.com

[Doc. Josh]

I believe the universe is a part of a multiplex, which is part of a megaverse. And it's all never ending, as the empty space constantly fills the voids in space/time it just ever expands. If some how you could catch up to the wave of the unfolding space/time possibly that would be by deffinition the "END" of space for that micro second. Now it is also quite possible i would think that much like earth is round you can just walk and eventually end up back where you began. and out side of that could be the multiplex a multiverse of billions of universes. And thats where time/space becomes seemless.... Just my thoughts no research or study of any kind has gone into my claim just what i came up on my own.

 

 

[steevey]

There is infinite room for the universe to expand into.

[rigney]

There is infinite room for the universe to expand into.

 

I'm with you Steevy. I like to call that spacious place, the "Continuum".

[Spyman]

"The universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists."

Edited January 12, 2011 by Spyman

[steevey]

"The universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists."

 

But particles are waves, they have a wave function, and a wave function extends indefinitely through space, so the size of the totality of everything that exists is infinite. This reason things seem finite is because matter has specific areas where it likes to exist the most, and those areas don't vary much.

Edited January 17, 2011 by steevey

[between3and26characterslon]

In this Thread I would like to only discuss the diameter of the Universe! First off I would just like to state it is just a wild hypothesis that I came up with while I was bored.

 

Now I might be way off and I'm not taking into account alot of other factors but my logic seems very logical. Now lets get to it. I was watching a video called "Closer to the Truth" and scientist were talking about how big the universe is and no one seemed to know with absolute certainty.

 

After watching that video it just occurred to me that if the Big Bang Theory is true, then whatever caused it sent out light in all directions. So taking that into account we can known the origin of light. Now as everybody knowns during the Big Bang light went in all directions. That's when I formed my hypothesis!

 

I thought if the universe is 14 billion years old....and we measured the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second! Wouldn't all we need to find out is how far light traveled in that time frame? So I looked up and found how many seconds are in a year and it came out to be 31,556,926 seconds in 1 year. I took that number and multiplied it by 14 billion to get the age of the universe in seconds and it came out to be 441,796,964,000,000,000 seconds in the universe. Now my first thought was no way...its got to be more??

But anyway I continued my math. I took that number which represents the age of the universe in second and multiplied it by the speed of light and I got this super big number 82,174,235,304,000,000,000,000 and that would be the distance light traveled sense the Big Bang in 1 direction. Then I figured all you would have to do to get the universes total Diameter only would be to multiply that number by 2. And you get the whole diameter of the universe which comes out to be 1.6438471*10 to the 23rd power. Or this very long number. 164,348,470,608,000,000,000,000 miles in the universe.

 

Now another hypothesis I thought up was if we think of the universe in a sphere like shape. And if my hypothesis is correct wouldn't we only need to cube that number to figure out the total vastness of the universe?

 

I would very much like to see others opinions. Please take into account I am no genius or scientist...just a average joe....so please be gentle.

 

Thank you.

 

 

The CMBR is believed to be the light from the big bang, if TBB had a central point then our instruments would measure greater intensity in some directions than in others. As it is the CMBR appears to be uniform in all directions it is measured. This would suggest that there was no central point to TBB. It is not that light goes out in all diresction from a single point but that the light is going in all directions from all concievable points.

 

If the diameter of the universe was zero then any explosion would have occured throughout its entirety. If the explosion was not in space but of space then any "thing" that existed in a zero volume universe would be evenly distributed throughout a universe of volume. One of the problems in physics is that this would mean that everything was distributed evenly throughtout the universe however this is not the case otherwise we wouldn't have planets, stars or galaxies etc... The question of why the universe isn't absolutely uniform hasn't been answered yet.

My thoughts are that if two points in space sufficiently far apart are moving away from each other at the SOL and light is radiating from each of these points in all directions then at the extreme the wave fronts of this radiated light are moving away from each other at twice the speed of light. That is if you take "a-b-F-d-e" where "F" is arbitrarily chosen as a central point,"b & d" are points in space moving away from "F" at SOL and "a & e" are light waves radiating away from the points in space then a universe of 13bn years age would have a diameter of 52bn lightyears. This is not far off the estimated 47bn lightyear diameter of the universe.

[steevey]

The CMBR is believed to be the light from the big bang, if TBB had a central point then our instruments would measure greater intensity in some directions than in others. As it is the CMBR appears to be uniform in all directions it is measured. This would suggest that there was no central point to TBB. It is not that light goes out in all diresction from a single point but that the light is going in all directions from all concievable points.

 

If the diameter of the universe was zero then any explosion would have occured throughout its entirety. If the explosion was not in space but of space then any "thing" that existed in a zero volume universe would be evenly distributed throughout a universe of volume. One of the problems in physics is that this would mean that everything was distributed evenly throughtout the universe however this is not the case otherwise we wouldn't have planets, stars or galaxies etc... The question of why the universe isn't absolutely uniform hasn't been answered yet.

My thoughts are that if two points in space sufficiently far apart are moving away from each other at the SOL and light is radiating from each of these points in all directions then at the extreme the wave fronts of this radiated light are moving away from each other at twice the speed of light. That is if you take "a-b-F-d-e" where "F" is arbitrarily chosen as a central point,"b & d" are points in space moving away from "F" at SOL and "a & e" are light waves radiating away from the points in space then a universe of 13bn years age would have a diameter of 52bn lightyears. This is not far off the estimated 47bn lightyear diameter of the universe.

 

New quantum mechanical theories suggest that if the singularity universe had a wave function, then everything we see now is just one part of its superposition (or collapsed superposition), which allows it's space to exist at any point which is why a lot of matter appears to be expanding from every direction.

Edited January 18, 2011 by steevey

[MR. Science]

There is no correct or truthful answer to this question other than this, truth is we will never know how big the universe is until we can travel at exceedlingly great distances in short amount of times and then define what would be the end of the universe and the beginning of another area of the cosmos, similar to what they did when they define the dividing point between one state and another.

[steevey]

There is no correct or truthful answer to this question other than this, truth is we will never know how big the universe is until we can travel at exceedlingly great distances in short amount of times and then define what would be the end of the universe and the beginning of another area of the cosmos, similar to what they did when they define the dividing point between one state and another.

 

If the universe is infinite though, we would never see the end and be able to define where it starts and ends.

[MR. Science]

Well as steevey said this is assuming the universe in not infinite which i doubt it is, but if it is there is if at any time no way in the recent future we would be able to calculate the size of the universe as it is constantly expanding at high speeds, although i believe the universe has an ending like anything else superficial.

[steevey]

Well as steevey said this is assuming the universe in not infinite which i doubt it is, but if it is there is if at any time no way in the recent future we would be able to calculate the size of the universe as it is constantly expanding at high speeds, although i believe the universe has an ending like anything else superficial.

 

But if matter is neither created nor destroyed, then its infinite too isn't it? So nothing can be superficially finite, at least not anything within the universe.

[Spyman]

But particles are waves, they have a wave function, and a wave function extends indefinitely through space, so the size of the totality of everything that exists is infinite. This reason things seem finite is because matter has specific areas where it likes to exist the most, and those areas don't vary much.

Ignored by your own previous request since you don't want to waste time learning...

 

 

My thoughts are that if two points in space sufficiently far apart are moving away from each other at the SOL and light is radiating from each of these points in all directions then at the extreme the wave fronts of this radiated light are moving away from each other at twice the speed of light. That is if you take "a-b-F-d-e" where "F" is arbitrarily chosen as a central point,"b & d" are points in space moving away from "F" at SOL and "a & e" are light waves radiating away from the points in space then a universe of 13bn years age would have a diameter of 52bn lightyears. This is not far off the estimated 47bn lightyear diameter of the universe.

The diameter of the observable universe is estimated to be about 28 billion parsecs or 93 billion light-years, the entire Universe is likely much bigger.

(There is no limit on the rate of expansion so the distance between two remote galaxies can increase at more than lightspeed.)

 

 

There is no correct or truthful answer to this question other than this, truth is we will never know how big the universe is until we can travel at exceedlingly great distances in short amount of times and then define what would be the end of the universe and the beginning of another area of the cosmos, similar to what they did when they define the dividing point between one state and another.

The definition has already been made, se my post #14.

Edited January 18, 2011 by Spyman

[steevey]

In this Thread I would like to only discuss the diameter of the Universe! First off I would just like to state it is just a wild hypothesis that I came up with while I was bored.

 

Now I might be way off and I'm not taking into account alot of other factors but my logic seems very logical. Now lets get to it. I was watching a video called "Closer to the Truth" and scientist were talking about how big the universe is and no one seemed to know with absolute certainty.

 

After watching that video it just occurred to me that if the Big Bang Theory is true, then whatever caused it sent out light in all directions. So taking that into account we can known the origin of light. Now as everybody knowns during the Big Bang light went in all directions. That's when I formed my hypothesis!

 

I thought if the universe is 14 billion years old....and we measured the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second! Wouldn't all we need to find out is how far light traveled in that time frame? So I looked up and found how many seconds are in a year and it came out to be 31,556,926 seconds in 1 year. I took that number and multiplied it by 14 billion to get the age of the universe in seconds and it came out to be 441,796,964,000,000,000 seconds in the universe. Now my first thought was no way...its got to be more??

But anyway I continued my math. I took that number which represents the age of the universe in second and multiplied it by the speed of light and I got this super big number 82,174,235,304,000,000,000,000 and that would be the distance light traveled sense the Big Bang in 1 direction. Then I figured all you would have to do to get the universes total Diameter only would be to multiply that number by 2. And you get the whole diameter of the universe which comes out to be 1.6438471*10 to the 23rd power. Or this very long number. 164,348,470,608,000,000,000,000 miles in the universe.

 

Now another hypothesis I thought up was if we think of the universe in a sphere like shape. And if my hypothesis is correct wouldn't we only need to cube that number to figure out the total vastness of the universe?

 

I would very much like to see others opinions. Please take into account I am no genius or scientist...just a average joe....so please be gentle.

 

Thank you.

 

Now that I think about it, there might have to be a difference between the size of the assumed or determined universe, and the size of the quantum mechanical universe, since although matter can exist anywhere within an infinite number of positions, it seems to only be determined around some 13-14 billion light year radius as far as we cal tell. But, why is that true even with the fact that all matter was existing in standing waves before anything was here to measure it? Unless, there is a singular point around which all matter was most likely to show up, and now it's spread out. The only way that as standing waves that matter wouldn't already occupy infinite determined positions is if there was a single determined point at least area where all matter was most likely to show up. Because then, you have this expansion, which means matter already doesn't occupy all determined positions.

 

Ignored by your own previous request since you don't want to waste time learning...

 

I didn't ask everyone to ignore it did I?

 

Edited January 18, 2011 by steevey

[Spyman]

 

I didn't ask everyone to ignore it did I?

 

But you replied to my post.

[steevey]

But you replied to my post.

 

But you replied to that after you said you were ignoring me, which isn't what I stated I would do to you at any point, but rather that you stop commenting to me on that particular subject since all your comments were insidious.

Edited January 19, 2011 by steevey