Universe vs "known universe"

[Gater]

I've heard so much how the universe started with the big bang. I contend that there was no beginning to the universe - it has always been here, always will be, and always changing. The Universe is not expanding, - the Known Universe may be.

The known universe is everything we can see with Hubble - a sphere of about 45 billion light years. I believe galaxies in the known universe started with the big bang. Ive yet to discover where the center of the big bang took place, ive done a little research on this and id love to hear if anyone has information on this topic.

Also I think time dilation is false - that time is a completely different thing than any of our measuring devices.

Wormholes are a silly and ridiculous concept too.

[StringJunky]

Imagine everything sat all over a partially inflated balloon, then inflate it, you can see the big bang started everywhere at once because everywhere is moving away from each adjacent point on the surface equally fast. You need to translate that model into three dimensions from two.

Edited July 8, 2015 by StringJunky

[Strange]

I've heard so much how the universe started with the big bang. I contend that there was no beginning to the universe - it has always been here, always will be, and always changing. The Universe is not expanding, - the Known Universe may be.

 

It is possible that the whole universe is not expanding; there are a number of models along these lines. However, it is almost certainly more than just the observable universe.

 

Whether the universe had a beginning or has always existed is currently unknown. You have no evidence for your contention.

 

Ive yet to discover where the center of the big bang took place, ive done a little research on this and id love to hear if anyone has information on this topic.

 

The centre of the expansion is everywhere: everything is moving away from everything else with a constant scaling factor. Perhaps the easiest way to visualise this is to imagine running things backwards: then all those widely separated galaxies would get closer and closer until they were all in the same place and that is where it started: everywhere.

 

Also I think time dilation is false - that time is a completely different thing than any of our measuring devices.

 

Well, the evidence is definitely against you there. It is an inevitable result of the laws of physics, including the speed of light, being independent of your state of motion. And, not only has it been experimentally confirmed, we make use of it in technology.

 

Wormholes are a silly and ridiculous concept too.

 

Well, the maths works. Whether they exist or not is another question. That won't be affected by you thinking they are silly.

[Endy0816]

Time dilation has also been observed in high velocity Muons, no man-made clock necessary.

 

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/muon.html

 

Basically more reach the ground than "should" given their short half-lives. They are taking longer to decay from our frame of reference. Likewise from their frame of reference the distance to the ground is less.

[Gater]

Logic tells me there was no beginning to the universe - that's all the evidence i need. Of course it has always been here, if you could travel back in time 100 billion years what would you see? just more space, stars and planets. How could there be a beginning? What is here has always been here, just in different form.

 

And time is a constant. Time dilation is a myth, any argument you hear that it isn't is a flawed argument.

 

And there was a center of the big bang - there was an example given of a balloon, well even a balloon has a center.

[StringJunky]

..

And there was a center of the big bang - there was an example given of a balloon, well even a balloon has a center.

You need to just consider the surface, which is 2D. Everywhere is the centre in this model.

[ACG52]

Logic is what is used in place of scientific education. This is just a variation of 'I can't understand it, so it can't be.

The balloon analogy only uses the SURFACE of the balloon as being analogous to the universe. There is no center to the surface. Its a 2 dimensional representation of 3 dimensional space.

We know from observation that the universe is expanding and that it looked very different in the distant past,so the idea of an unchanging, static universe is a no go. Time dilation has been experimentally verified many times in many ways. If time dilation was not accounted for GPS would not work, so thats another of your erroneous preconceptions shown to be wrong.

You could benefit from a basic science education.

Edited July 9, 2015 by ACG52

[Gater]

I agree that clocks and other time measuring devices can be affected by gravity. However time itself is independent of anything that happens in the universe.

 

And yes there was a center of the big bang.

[ACG52]

But you don't know what the BB is, so how can you make any statements about it. The BB was not an explosion of matter and energy originating a a particular point. It the expansion of space, everywhere, in every direction. Therefore there is no center, or another way to look at is is every point in space is the center. Furthermore, the existence of the BB is incompatible with your belief that the universe has always been as it is.

 

It is not the measuring devices which are affected by gravity, it's time itself, as is demonstrated by the extended life of particles moving at relativistic speeds. Again, this is confirmed by observation, experimentation, and very precise measurement.

 

You seem to have started a thread dedicated to showing us what you don't know.

[Strange]

Logic tells me there was no beginning to the universe

 

Then your logic is flawed. Perhaps you could show the logical steps that lead to this conclusion? Or are you just using "logic" to mean "it makes sense to me".

 

that's all the evidence i need.

 

Then why come to a science forum? Science deals with real evidence, not "common sense".

 

And there was a center of the big bang

 

Where is the centre, then?

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

If you are going to make these claims, you are expected to be able to back them up with something more substantial than "logic tells me" (if for no other reason than logic alone can't tell you if your premise is flawed) Some actual science is expected

[Gater]

There was no beginning to the Universe - the universe has always been here. I understand that this simple concept is beyond some of your comprehensions. But its a fact - what is here has ALWAYS been here.

The Big Bang is simply the start of our little section of the universe - or the "known" or "observable" universe.

It might help you to think of the BB as a huge bowling ball opposed to a balloon. Gravity at the center became so great it exploded.

So there of course was a center, and fragments of the cooling explosion are "expanding" - however the Universe by definition can not expand or retract.

Time and Space are not related - time dilation is false. Time travel is an impossibility. Wormholes are ridiculous.

These are the facts people.

[Strange]

These are the facts people.

 

Please present the evidence to support these "facts".

[Phi for All]

These are the facts people.

 

And you got all these "facts" from NOT studying science? I'm sorry, but there was a lot of process information you missed when you skipped those classes. The result is, you don't know what you don't know, and it's causing you to take separate bits of data and put them together incorrectly as erroneous information.

 

It's a very common misconception that the BB was an explosion. It wasn't. That's one of your "facts" you have wrong, and since you haven't looked at the evidence, it's messing up the rest of your thinking.

 

Now it's like you've just walked into CERN and told the scientists that particle physics is completely false because it's a fact that the Earth is the center of the universe. All the scientists are wondering why you didn't study more in school, because you've definitely goofed up somewhere.

Logic tells me there was no beginning to the universe - that's all the evidence i need.

 

Seriously, this is like saying "Since I can't even imagine a beginning to the universe, there's no way it has one. End of story, don't even try to convince me otherwise, get that evidence out of my face, I can't hear you with my fingers in my LA LA LALALA!!"

 

The real problem this poses is it tells us you've arrived at your conclusions emotionally, based on incredulity and frustration at a lack of reasoning process. You haven't reasoned out the specifics, based on what we know and have already tested and observed about our universe. Therefore, we can tell you all about the specific experiments showing that our ideas about time dilation are correct, but since you're emotionally attached instead of intellectually attached to the idea that it's wrong (we know this because you can't say why it's wrong, but you assert it as "fact"), no amount of reason and rational thinking will help you.

[Strange]

however the Universe by definition can not expand or retract.

Which definition is that?

 

Time and Space are not related - time dilation is false.

Have you heard of GPS?

 

Time travel is an impossibility.

Probably. Who claimed it is possible?

[Mordred]

Might be an idea to understand what the BB model truly states before passing judgement. Your post is full of pop media misconceptions.

 

Here is a good collection of articles specifically on those misconceptions.

 

http://cosmology101.wikidot.com/redshift-and-expansion

http://cosmology101.wikidot.com/universe-geometry

 

Misconceptions (Useful articles to answer various Cosmology Misconceptions)

 

http://www.phinds.com/balloonanalogy/: A thorough write up on the balloon analogy used to describe expansion

http://tangentspace.info/docs/horizon.pdf:Inflation and the Cosmological Horizon by Brian Powell

http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.4446:"What we have leaned from Observational Cosmology." -A handy write up on observational cosmology in accordance with the LambdaCDM model.

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310808:"Expanding Confusion: common misconceptions of cosmological horizons and the superluminal expansion of the Universe" Lineweaver and Davies

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverDavisSciAm.pdf:"Misconceptions about the Big bang" also Lineweaver and Davies

http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.3966"why the prejudice against a constant"

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0508052"In an expanding universe, what doesn't expand? Richard H. Price, Joseph D. Romano

[Harold Squared]

Turtles all the way down. Logic tells me that the field of cosmology is so far out of most people's everyday experience that it is bound to sound outlandish to some.

 

Science trivia: "Big BANG" is a pejorative term coined by Fred Hoyle, physicist and defender of the steady state universe position.

 

If every galaxy is receding from every other, why is ours forecast to collide with Andromeda?

[ACG52]

Turtles all the way down. Logic tells me that the field of cosmology is so far out of most people's everyday experience that it is bound to sound outlandish to some.

 

Science trivia: "Big BANG" is a pejorative term coined by Fred Hoyle, physicist and defender of the steady state universe position.

 

If every galaxy is receding from every other, why is ours forecast to collide with Andromeda?

 

If every galaxy is receding from every other, why is ours forecast to collide with Andromeda?

Galaxies closer together than about 200,000,000 light years are gravitationally bound together. Within that distance gravity is stronger than the force of expansion.

[Harold Squared]

Thank you for the clarification.

 

Even the most skeptical layman understands the concept of gravity, experiencing it all day, every day. Explaining it completely is another question.

[Strange]

Science trivia: "Big BANG" is a pejorative term coined by Fred Hoyle, physicist and defender of the steady state universe position.

 

Actually, he always said it wasn't intended to be pejorative, just catchy.

 

Another bit of trivia, Hoyle and LeMaitre (one of the main people behind the big bang model) were really good friends. So much so that one time, after LeMaitre had given a presentation in London Hoyle drove him back to Belgium (I think they took several days for the journey, stopping to eat and drink along the way).

[tar]

Gator,

 

Another way to think of it, is that if all matter and time was created at the big bang and we are made of matter, then we (or matter that later became us) were actually AT the location of the Big Bang, and although that location has gotten a lot bigger since, its still the "same" location.

 

And when you say the universe always was, you might be considering some other term, like the cosmos or god or existence or some other concept that allows a universe to become a universe in the context of this greater concept. I could not argue with you about the nature of this greater concept, as we have no access to it, other than in our imaginations and the ole imaginations can come up with just about anything they need.

 

But in reading your thread title, I recalled a logical bind I never have found a way to get myself out of. That revolves around the definition of "observable". What are we calling observable? That which we will ever get light from, or that which we will get light from, that is emitted today, in a universal now sense of the word today. The reason for my question, is the thought, that if light leaves a star on the other side of the Milky Way today, you and I will not see that light for 100,000 years. That is a thousand lifetimes, so are we considering that star observable or not. We are currently observing the CMB or material that just cooled to below 3000K over 13 billion years ago, and that material has had 13.7 billion years to become quasars and galaxies that have undergone 2 or 3 generations of star formation, and is sitting out there, 45 million light years away in a state where light from a star in that region's galaxy that emits some light today, in this direction will NEVER reach the Earth or the area of the Milky way...yet we are seeing that area of space today in the form of Cosmic Microwave Background. So I am never sure what is meant by "observable" parts of our universe. In the one sense, a human can not see further than the end of his nose, as light takes time to get here from everywhere else, and in the other sense, we can see all the way back to the beginning, and hence should be able to "observe" everything there is between there and then and here and now..

 

Regards, TAR

sorry 45 billion lyrs away, not million