Universe

Is it flat, closed or open? What evidence is there to support this choice?

Hello.

I'll try to explain so you can understand.

First imagine a line, it has a central point and a beginning/end.

Second imagine the surface of a ball, it has an infinte number of central points and an infinte number of beginnings and endings.

You must find out the rest by yourself or you won't understand.

Hope this helps.

>>2
So in other words, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

It's a finite infinity, not imaginable with ape-like brains.

>>1
What the fuck are you gonna do with this piece of information? OK, i say it is infinite...well, then what? Or it is closed, there is a huge brick wall at the outer most shell...
These are not real questions you should ask. Ask a more fundamental one. What is position or volume? When you visualize objects in your imaginary canvas, you apparently do not need none of volume, mass, position or time. So they are not exactly necessary for existence to occur. Question more about your mind, the science today is like a toy, it just helps daily quests of ours but doesn't really answers or even interested in fundamental concepts like how thinking happens.

I don't get it? Choice? How can you choose what something IS? That's like saying...just because I have no evidence of something means I need to choose an option to go with and build upon that choice...ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND? That's ludicrous! But then again, hey, who am I to say that doing such a thing is wrong...some people just don't want to experience existence...imagination is far more fun then being ignorant. :\

"Honest ignorance beats false belief any day."
-Nicholas Capaldi; The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking

It's hilarious how many people are like, "whoa no! Logic? That is so ancient history, Man!"

And I'm like, "Alright. So, logic is ancient history. What should I use in place of logic?"

"...just go with the flow, man! Just go with the flow!"

And I reply, "Alright. So, instead of logic I should go with the flow. How do I go with the flow?"

"What's with all the questions man? Are you like interrogating me or something? Cause, like, I haven't done anything, man! So, just leave me alone!"

...And I finish with, "Alright." And I walk away.

Did any of you catch that btw?
1) Affirm their statement.
2) Confirm their statement.
3) As a question that pertains sequentially to what was previously said in order to find out what to do next.

That's argumentation for the purpose of discussion and possibilities for change. He failed to provide evidence and logic that supported his claim of abandoning logic and "just going with the flow." I inferred later on that "just going with the flow" meant "just see my point of view and become me without purpose, meaning, or reason."
My question to this man would have been...."What point of view? What 'flow'?"

>>1
Last I checked, the universe is very nearly flat.  If there is any deviation at all from flatness, the deviation will grow exponentially with time.  After ~ 10 billion years, that deviation should have grown to be huge, unless the initial condition was a ridiculously small deviation.

As for evidence, type Ia supernovas, and maybe cmb place weak bounds on the flatness (keep in mind that this weak bound is now, and not when the universe began; see above note).  There might exist better evidence of flatness.

Even if the universe were asymptotically AdS, I remember there exists a slicing of AdS that is spatially flat.  I think the "flatness" refers to the spatial slices.

>>7
YEAH THE EARTH IS FLAT TOO
ERRMM WAIT

>>8
It's also very nearly flat. Almost 0 curvature per mile.

>>9
proof?

>>9
If you're measuring it in per mile of course it's nearly flat.  If it were significantly curved on such a small scale we would have known the answer a long time ago.

>>11
Oh sorry I thought you were talking about space not the Earth.

Not the op. What happens if you reach the end of space (i.e., the border). What would it look like and what would happen if you crossed said border.

Is space like a sphere? And by that I mean, is it like Earth. Could you pop out one end of space and end up on the other? (And no, I'm not referring to wormhole travel.)

tl;dr are we stuck in God's fish tank?

>>14
Well, "stuck in a fish tank" implies that there's something outside the fish tank that we could conceivably escape to.  When you travel far enough around the Earth's surface, you end up in the same place, but you don't magically "pop out the other side" at any point; there are no edges on a spherical surface, and no center, so there's nothing to pop out of.  The universe is like that except in 3 dimensions instead of 2.  You go far enough one way and you could conceivably end up back in the same place, but that doesn't mean you "popped out one end" of space, because there is no end.  You just traveled around this 3 dimensional surface that curves back on itself.

>>15
Thanks for the quick response.

>>15
How does anyone know what's outside of space?

there's got to be some aliens out there that've got it all figured out and they would be laughing their alien asses off at what we think the universe is

>>17
That's my point.  Who said there's anything outside at all?  When you say "who knows what's outside of space" you're implying that space is contained in some larger entity; space is everything that exists so there can't be anything "outside" of it.

Sum of energy in universe = ZERO
Hence it is flat.

>>20
You are such an idiot.  I don't even know where to start with this one.

>>21
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

>>22
That's a little tl;dw, here's a condensed version
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html

everything is flat, but our eyes perceive it as a cube, but light bounces off it and flips it upside down inside our eyes which makes it tubular, and when our brain finishes processing the image it is recognized as spherical.

If universe is not infinite then you wont get to a "wall" or anything, you will just get back to where you started. Its like in the matrix when neo is in that train station and runs down one track and then OMG he comes out the other one. Except you would have to get further than the speed of light to do so.

>>25
I think everything on this board should be reduced to analogies to The Matrix.

when you talk on here from now on, you must address everyone formally.
"Hello, Mr. Anonymous."

>>17
michio kaku multiverses

>>14
you will fall from the oh wait!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

It can still be a multiverse.