Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Reaganwuzthebest
Do you think it's posssible the universe bends at some point, like a road meaning that stars and galaxies go on forever, but we can't detect them?

The universe does bend, but unlike a road, the light bends along with it.

If the universe stops where the last stars we see about 13+ billion light years away, then we must be contained in something would you agree, similar to the gravastar theory?

The universe does not have a boundary. If you think in two dimensions, for a moment, it could be akin to the surface of the Earth: there could be a finite amount of space, but you could travel infinitely in any direction, if you wanted to.

I don't think that's the case, I think space is eternity.

Space may or may not be infinite, but in the first place, the amount of "stuff" we can in principle travel to (which is what I mean when I talk about the "universe") is demonstrably finite, and the "stuff" we can see is of finite age. Look out into the universe, and you see that it was a very different place 10 billion years ago.

But anything's possible,

That's just it. Some things are possible, but not just anything. At its core, the universe behaves according to one set of universal laws. Even in the complete absence of theory, our measurements have constrained pretty severely what those laws might be. We don't know nothing.

139 posted on 04/25/2002 6:07:23 AM PDT by Physicist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 137 | View Replies ]


To: Physicist
So space itself is most likely infinite, only the particles that lie within it, like stars and planets are finite, approximately 13 to 15 billion light years away?? So if a galaxy lies 100 or more billion light years away, despite the distance with our technology of today we would still be able to detect it?
141 posted on 04/25/2002 6:48:50 AM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 139 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson