question about the shape of the universe...

I was hoping someone could help me with the following question. I am trying
to understand something of the size of the universe, and I came accross a
quote that said "the universe is expanding in all directions, and that the
'Cosmic Microwave Background' (the remaining heat from the Big Bang, is
found at a distance of 15 billion light years from us in all directions."

Tow questions result from this:
- does this not suggest the universe is ball-shaped, and
- that the earth is pretty much at the centre of the universe, near where
the Big Bang occurred?

Any input you can give me (in laymen's terms, please) would be welcome!

Rogier

"Roger" wrote in message
. nl...
I was hoping someone could help me with the following question. I am
trying
to understand something of the size of the universe, and I came accross a
quote that said "the universe is expanding in all directions, and that the
'Cosmic Microwave Background' (the remaining heat from the Big Bang, is
found at a distance of 15 billion light years from us in all directions."

Tow questions result from this:
- does this not suggest the universe is ball-shaped, and
- that the earth is pretty much at the centre of the universe, near where
the Big Bang occurred?

Any input you can give me (in laymen's terms, please) would be welcome!

Our ability to see is approx. 13-15 billion light years out. So saying the
universe is 13 billion years old is not exactly accurate. The way I
understand it, the correct statement is "Our visible universe is 13 billion
years old."

BV.
www.iheartmypond.com

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 17:58:13 +0000, Roger wrote:

I was hoping someone could help me with the following question. I am
trying to understand something of the size of the universe, and I came
accross a quote that said "the universe is expanding in all directions,
and that the 'Cosmic Microwave Background' (the remaining heat from the
Big Bang, is found at a distance of 15 billion light years from us in
all directions."

Tow questions result from this:
- does this not suggest the universe is ball-shaped, and - that the
earth is pretty much at the centre of the universe, near where the Big
Bang occurred?

Earth is certainly at the centre of the observable Universe from the
Earth, but so is the every point in the Universe. Big Bang occured
everywhere in the Universe, so the Earth is right at the point where it
happened. But again so are the every point in the Universe.

Confusing, isn't it ? Suggest look up Ned Wright's Cosmology tutorial at
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm

--

Gautam Majumdar

Please send e-mails to

"Roger" wrote in message
. nl...
I was hoping someone could help me with the following question. I am
trying
to understand something of the size of the universe, and I came accross a
quote that said "the universe is expanding in all directions, and that the
'Cosmic Microwave Background' (the remaining heat from the Big Bang, is
found at a distance of 15 billion light years from us in all directions."

Tow questions result from this:
- does this not suggest the universe is ball-shaped, and
- that the earth is pretty much at the centre of the universe, near where
the Big Bang occurred?

Any input you can give me (in laymen's terms, please) would be welcome!

As I understand it, if you were 15 billion light years away from here (i.e.
the "edge" of what you think is the universe), you would still see it going
off in all directions and expanding, you wouldn't suddenly get to a point
where there is a "boundary".
Gautam gave a link that tries to explain it, send my mind boggly too!

The big bang is sort of faithful and very close to religion idea though
mainly extrapolated from observations.

Imagine universe is part of an explosion.


It might be easier to see it in one dimension ....

Lets say things exploded from origin at 10mph, 20mph,
40mph,50mph,60mph,90mph...

Lets say you were average that was moving 50mph...

After one hour, 40mph would be 10miles from you and you are moving away from
it 10mph
10mph would be 40miles away and you are moving from it 40mph
60mph would be 10miles away and it is moving away from you 10mph
90mph would be 40miles away and moving away 40mph from you...

Longer distance, faster it is moving away. Or other way to look at it,
things closer to you is close due to fact that it is moving close to your
speed.

You can say things like things that are 10miles from you are moving 10mph
away from you, 40miles are moving 40mph away from you....

On 3d, things are about the same though speed is vector and things that are
moving about same direction and speed as you are closer to you.

Anyway, relativity means you cant tell what your speed is so all you have is
relative speed to you.


As for shape, it is unknown though probably in all directions spherical
though intensity might be strong in one plain probably (just my guess, like
donut smoke). In my personal opinion, observable universe is more likely
to be something like a collision of 2 black hole and not some sort of one
time faithful event.

Parallel would be one god vs no god or polygods The big bang kind of
remind me of catholic.


"Roger" wrote in message
. nl...
I was hoping someone could help me with the following question. I am
trying
to understand something of the size of the universe, and I came accross a
quote that said "the universe is expanding in all directions, and that the
'Cosmic Microwave Background' (the remaining heat from the Big Bang, is
found at a distance of 15 billion light years from us in all directions."

Tow questions result from this:
- does this not suggest the universe is ball-shaped, and
- that the earth is pretty much at the centre of the universe, near where
the Big Bang occurred?

Any input you can give me (in laymen's terms, please) would be welcome!

Rogier

"Roger" ha scritto nel messaggio
. nl...
I was hoping someone could help me with the following question. I am
trying
to understand something of the size of the universe, and I came accross a
quote that said "the universe is expanding in all directions, and that the
'Cosmic Microwave Background' (the remaining heat from the Big Bang, is
found at a distance of 15 billion light years from us in all directions."

Tow questions result from this:
- does this not suggest the universe is ball-shaped, and
- that the earth is pretty much at the centre of the universe, near where
the Big Bang occurred?

I was a big bang fan but after seeing all the tricks like dark matter, dark
energy and so on to save the standard theory now I don't think big bang is
the right explication to universe birth...

These days I like the Hoyle - Narlikar - Arp approach:
An eternal universe always regenerating.
Hubble and Chandra shows anywhere a super active universe (galaxies
colliding, gamma ray bursts, superluminal jets, birht of new stars, etc.).
This seems to me like a continuos generation and evolution in an always
young universe...
Maybe also no black holes but supermassive objects like gravastars (but this
is not so important).

I know my opinions are not so common and maybe I'm completely wrong but for
me the big bang theory has too holes (maybe black!)...

Luigi Caselli

"Gautam Majumdar" wrote in message
newsan.2004.01.27.18.35.26.505590.3631@XSPAMfree uk.com...

Earth is certainly at the centre of the observable Universe from the
Earth, but so is the every point in the Universe. Big Bang occured
everywhere in the Universe, so the Earth is right at the point where it
happened. But again so are the every point in the Universe.

Confusing, isn't it ? Suggest look up Ned Wright's Cosmology tutorial at


No, because the big bang never happened.....

"onegod" wrote, "The big bang kind of remind me of catholic."

True! It only took 70 years or so, but the fact has finally begun to
dawn on scientists: the wide acceptance of the big bang theory was
the worst thing to happen to atheism in decades. The big bang is, no
matter how you slice it, a moment of creation. Ex nihilo, and all
that.

But it should also be noted that most religious folk, for their part,
still haven't thought of this, and continue to fight the big bang
theory along with evolution and relativity and science in general.
Not the brightest bulbs in the lot.

And of course none of this helps us determine whether the big bang
theory is actually true.