How big is the universe?

[Biggins]

Stumbled across this...so if 13 builklion years is not enough to form filaments under gravity - let's increase the age of the universe. The following is quoted from a Linked-in group...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEQouX5U ... r_embedded

How Big is the Universe? Well...that depends on how you model it.

I've attached a video to a Cosmic Journeys presentation on just this question. I've also included a link to a previous post that discusses the problem with he Big Bang and the perceived age of the Universe. All of the ideas presented in the video are radically different than the general understanding of the age and much more consistent with the requirements of the structure we see.

The video is 20 minutes long and has 3 embedded commercials (Sorry), it is an excellent presentation covering everything from the history to contemporary thinking and measurements. The video also reconciles the work at Brookhaven Labs with the cosmological theories. I recommend not just this video but any from the series. It is crazy how much information and intelligence is available.

So, how big is the Universe? Let's see...

speed of lightHubble originally looked and made the measurement that are now accepted as the size/age of the Universe - 13.7 Billion Light Years. Hubble was recalibrated and again looked at the most distant galaxies it could see, when the expansion rate was factored in the Universe is roughly 46 Billion Light Year to the south and to the north, translating to a size/age of roughly 92 Billion Light Years! Keep in mind that this measurement is based on a straight forward model of the Big Bang (which is almost certainly wrong!).

For an alternative point of view, using a pure inflationary model the age is suggested to be somewhere around 10 Billion Trillion light years across! This massive inflation is/was due to the welling up of matter and anti-matter collisions in the vacuum of space, apparently it is still happening. To put this scale into perpective, the relationship of our current 13.7 year old Universe to this model is analgous to the size of an atom in relationship the current Universe! Infantesimal.

As the scientists and theorists pour over the WMAP data combined with the study of Cephied stars (Type 1a Supernovea) several new ideas have been released. The one that seems most reasonable puts the minimum size of the Universe at somewhere near 150 Billion light years, the maximum is in the trillions and trillions. Bottom line, we don't know although the cosmological establishment would have you believe otherwise.

Implications...

We can probably never know the answer, that is the biggest implication but it was there before now its a serious consdieration - we cannot know. The obvious implication is how much we still don't know or understand, made clear by how wildly different these speculations are.

There are always implications to the theorists but I'm not sure this changes any of the basic thinking around string theory or the other models in play, at least it wouldn't seen too.

How much can we know? That's the real question for me. How far back can we see before we hit the wall where the expansion is moving faster then the speed of light? I assume we can't see beyond that point as light would never escape that boundary. Similar to a black hole but from an opposite effect, expansion versus a singularity.

There are many implications in terms of rethinking our concept of scales, seems like we are constantly doing this. To that end, these are good speculations because in the end any Theory of Everything (TOE) will need to be considerate of scale.

Other Questions...

What happens to matter in this expanding space-time? Is the effect on time similar to a back hole? What happens to gravity remain constant under these conditions?

Summary

We move forward, sometimes closer to the truth and sometimes farther but eventually we get there. A paradigm shift is required to move into the next realm of understanding, relativity like Newton's laws of gravitation break down on the kinds of scales we are dealing with now - very small and very large. The best thing is the newer generations of thinkers will have scale built into their thinking, unlike the current generation. So, in about 10-20 years we should have the next theory, maybe this one will be the last.

[StevenO]

The simple fact that the numbers are all over the place shows that they really have no clue. That is'nt going to change in the next 10-20 years.

[jjohnson]

Based on all the evidence we have, there simply is not enough evidence to work with which will provide a plausible guess as to how long the universe has been in existence, nor how long it might be expected to last. As we cannot really define the age of the universe, the best answer is to just say "it is of indefinite age."

A similar question is, "how big is the universe?" Face it; we don't have the information to answer that, either. It is really, really large, but simultaneously it is of indefinite extent. Just because our little 2m telescope, Hubble, is able to peer far away into what appear to be very great distances indeed, that does not mean that we can see all the way to the "ends" of our universe. The Vikings could hardly see more than perhaps 40 km to their horizon when they set sail, but they didn't think that that precluded there being something a much greater distance than they could see.

When I fly at 41,000 feet (FL 410) my horizon on earth is hardly farther than about 350 km, and the limb of the Earth still looks flat (although the air is shifting a little toward purple). Nonetheless, I have observed that if I keep going beyond where my limit first was, there is always more, stretching out before me.

Further, astronomers have developed a series of methods using parallax geometry for measuring relatively close cosmological distances which are accurate (see the Hipparcos catalog) , but rely on a set of "standard candles" and red-shift interpretations which have suspicious assumptions, and which may not only be unable to estimate distance very accurately to far away bodies, but which is constantly changing the farther away since, in their interpretation, the universe is not holding still for them, but relentlessly expanding the space between the stars and between galaxies.

This seems to be be one of the questions that attract a lot of interest and attention in the press, and astronomers sound really confident when they glibly spout their answers, but it is much more relevant to ask not" how old is it", nor, "how big is it", but "how does it really work?" As with people, the age and looks of the universe are far less important than what's inside.

[tayga]

It's interesting to see the guesstimates based on these assumptions.

Oddly, since I read Arp's Seeing Red I've tended to think that the Universe is probably much older and much smaller than current convention suggests.

[jjohnson]

@ Tayga: I sort of agree with your viewpoint, having read Arp's book last year, but what may be smaller, due to poor distance estimation techniques and data, is merely the distances to the things and places that we can observe from our place. That does not necessarily make the universe a smaller place; only the observable universe. I still think that the universe has no definite extent, because we just cannot yet, if ever, know that extent. Think of the observable universe as a subset of the Universe of indefinite extension.

There is, over extreme distances, a lot of matter between us and those distant places. Astronomers think of this as "column density", which is basically how much matter there seems to be in the cylinder of space stretching between an observer and the observed. In very dusty, more dense areas, it is a high enough value that total extinction of the 'light' at some or even all useful wavelengths is extinguished, and one cannot peer any further than the distance where opacity sets in.

Looking "between" the more opaque areas, the best telescopes so far can see out into Hubble's deep field. Despite red shift assumptions that astronomers interpret as age indicators, those "early" galaxies bear a startling resemblance to those here in our neighborhood. Why don't we see much past the deep field? Astronomers figure that is because then we are looking closer to when they think the Big Bang started time, so we are looking into the opaque period before stars and galaxies formed. Hence, at those distances/times, there's "nothing to see".

I don't buy that, in case I'm not clear. It sounds good, on the surface, but it's not built on anything but hypothetical assumptions, aka "ideas". Nothing intrinsically wrong with that, since ideas are what we are evaluating, and the Electric Model has its own interpretations that should also be evaluated against the observations. The conventional thoughts in the Gravity Model are routinely presented as "fact", everywhere you read, to minimize inquiry and to avoid revealing contradictions and weak points in the standard model. Some of it is undoubtedly right, but a lot appears to require a lot more evaluation as the shortcomings of that model are revealed.

Over increasing distance, simple plane geometry (not a highly challenged underpinning, even though it is a minor element in the field of mathematics) shows that the apparent size of a given object will decrease - it will cover a smaller patch of sky. Also, its radiated (or reflected) light decreases inversely with distance squared. At some point, the patch of radiation becomes too small to be resolved and it appears to not be there, and/or its radiation becomes too weak for our instruments to detect it or to differentiate it from other radiation in the background. Either way, at some distance, the presence or absence of radiating things cannot be resolved and we call that distance the edge of the observable universe.

This is the competing idea: it's not that we are looking at no light because at first there wasn't any; we are looking at no light because if there are things there we just can't resolve their "signals" with our best instruments. Were there viruses there before we got the electron microscope? The analogous question in cosmology might be, "Is there dark matter there?" We CAN'T see it (by scientists' own definition) but like disease caused by viruses, something is causing, for example, galaxies to rotate differently from the Newton/Keplerian model. Until astronomers come up with instruments which can reveal what it is, however, all they can do is assume that something unseen is causing those galactic aberrations and a whole bunch more gravity seems to work, even though they can't actually see what is causing all that gravity. Hence, "dark". It's just an idea, like any other, and they have run with it, right or wrong.

Unfortunately with astronomy, there's not a chance of a snowball in hell that we are going to be able to put an instrument significantly closer to the unseen universe and relay pictures back to us that see, say, twice as far. There may be stars and galaxies there just like ours. Just because I personally think that is likely has no more bearing on the correctness of that assumption than the assumption that aliens could talk to us in English or Portugese or Swahili. All we have are ideas to mull over and consider in the scientific method. Does this or that work? Do its models mathematical and lab testing) predict things correctly and consistently? Is it a simpler explanation than the alternative idea(s)? Can it be tested using observations and measurements, or is it unable to be observed or tested, and is supported by a model which appears to work mathematically?

Careful, rigorous examination of competing ideas is extremely difficult. Mainstream astronomers appear to be unwilling to examine alternative ideas like those posed by the Electric Model because it likely would take so much time and effort, which would interfere with the development and refinement of their model, that it basically is seen as wasting their time. Yet, in no other way than idea evaluation and development can progress in science occur. Think how many idea/models have fallen so far. How many "scientific revolutions" have occurred in the development of science and technology in our species' short span of recorded history. The results speak for themselves - stronger science, reliable engineering, better understanding of our world and its universe. Our better and better observational capabilities are inevitably leading into an expansion of observations and data which will lead to a paradigm change of how we interpret our cosmos. As dawn follows the night... I apologize for the length here. It's engrossing to try to get it right, though.

Jim

[Vek]

I like the idea of the infinite; no beginning, no end, no limit.
Just is.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi jjohnson,
Good post and no apologies necessary as regards the length.

[Grey Cloud]

I like the idea of the infinite; no beginning, no end, no limit.
Just is.

Infinity is a circle whose circumference is nowhere and whose centre is everywhere.

[junglelord]

I agree, I see no limit, no beginning, no end...infinity and beyond!

[tayga]

I like the idea of the infinite; no beginning, no end, no limit.
Just is.

The thing is, is infinity a valid concept outside of Mathematics? Personally, I don't think it is but this is getting into philosophy and won't produce many answers.

[Harry Costas]

G'day

How long is a string?

At this point in time there is an estimate of over 300 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

The question is:

How does it recycle to keep on going and changing and merging and doing what it does?

[jjohnson]

One possible approach to an answer, Harry might be this. If the universe is conservative - i.e., it conserves whatever is within it because "outside the universe" has no meaning in reality so there is no other "place" to dump mass, angular and linear momentum, energy, etc. - then by definition it can't lose anything; it simply reorganizes it, recycles it, modifies its order and disorder here and there. That is really a large perspective, and it only works if you consider the entire bounded ball of wax, "beyond" which there is nothing. Or "nothing else".

We observe things only locally, even at the largest scale of the "observable universe". Our depth perception isn't that good! We see things winding down and becoming "disordered, or friction slowing things down and converting part of their energy or momentum to heat or sparks or braking radiation or whatever, and it looks like "entropy" and we're all going to die a dark and lonely death as the stars disappear from each other with nothing but empty expanding space between them. How wrong is that?

We overlook the coming together of forces, the creation of stars in pinched dusty plasmas, the ejection of quasars from galaxies which in turn become increasingly structured and organized into new galaxies (we think). I think there is evidence of reverse entropy in these types of organizing events. Not all actions result in decreased order. Not all actions are caused by humankind, for that matter. Overall, my thoughts dwell on the idea that the universe is - has to be - a zero sum game. It's all preserved. It has no place to go; nothing to radiate "into". It's the one reality, for those who missed out noticing the root "uni-" in universe. It can't cool down without heating up somewhere else. It can't melt here without thermally decreasing somewhere else.

I noticed I keep saying "I think". That's because these are no more than my ideas, conceptual at best. Not even particularly verifiable. Hunches. Underlying dissatisfaction with the lack of elegance and symmetry in the concept of entropy. It looks to me like the universe is causal. When something happens, something else is caused to happen. A nucleus spontaneously emits a particle and recoils. A comet falls into Jupiter and Jupiter's mass increases and some energy is added to its atmosphere. Causality begets time. - or else, as they say, "everything would happen at once."

As long as the universe remains causal, time exists. Human presence not required.

When we look at a picture of the deep field, we aren't necessarily seeing the younger juvenile versions of today's galaxies, we are seeing galaxies in various states of order or disorder exactly like those we observe in the Local Cluster right now. We are just seeing them as they existed a long time ago at the point when the light we are seeing left them. Somehow, that long ago and that far away, there were galaxies that had existed then just as our and our neighboring galaxies around here have existed long before we ever showed up. There may have been intelligences back than, way over there, looking in our direction and seeing our galaxy group as it existed a similarly distant time from their "present time". Something is keeping this going, and has been for an undefined but exceedingly long time. That may be because there is nothing that can stop it from going. There IS nothing else, and both the Universe and Time and The Nothing Else last indefinitely.

"It's my opinion, and it's very true" - if I may laugh at myself and at how small an exchange of ideas like this is, in the universe.

[allynh]

Here are two more videos to play with:

The Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T_pi62ozT8

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg

[Vek]

is infinity a valid concept outside of Mathematics? Personally, I don't think it is but this is getting into philosophy and won't produce many answers.

If it is finite, then producing an answer as to how nothing made everything; may prove a considerable harder quest.
An infinite universe existing, seems an obvious solution; it's the concept of there being any nothingness anywhere, that I find much less likely.
Infinity may not produce many answers because it is the only answer. What it will produce; is an unending supply of questions.
We may have problems getting our head around infinity but the universe as a whole, may have no such problem in doing so.

[redeye]

Every generation thinks they are just about to reach the pinnacle of all knowledge. As Wyndham might say, anybody that thinks they are the last word of God is in for a shock.

The observable Universe is just that, The part of the Universe that we can see, until we get better telescopes.
I think that when we finally get a decent probe outside of the heliosphere it could be a paradigm busting event.

We should just throw out all our scientific theories every ten years and start from scratch using the new data. Data is far more valuable than theory in my estimation.

Cheers!