The infinite space of the Universe

The whole point is the bar doesn't bend. It remains perfectly straight all the way around. You don't know what straight means. And exercising obstinacy won't lead to understanding.

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KindlyA mind changed against its will is of the same opinion still.

I presented no models. Models are designed to be essentially full and accurate representations of reality. Mine were merely single aspect illustrations.The 3-D curvature of the Earth is an analogy for the higher order curvature of space-time. In the building of an Earth bound, brick wall I would have to contend with oceans and mountains that add no illustrative component to the explanation, and so can be swept away in our imaginations. The same can be done with large, iron or deposits that would deflect our compasses; and salt domes that send the little needles in our gravity meters scampering off to the left. Every aspect that detracts from the point to be illustrated can be treated thus to leave standing the soul aspect under our consideration: the geometry of a sphere.But if we’re going to erase everything that makes the Earth the Earth, why use the Earth at all and not a generic sphere? Because not everything about the Earth is a distraction. Folks are familiar with it. (Not that our familiarity with it is a property of its own, but it’s a thing that we can employ.) Folks ” well, most folks, anyway ” can modify it in their imaginations to suit the situation at hand. They can erase the gravitational anomalies ” if they knew of them at all, at all ” while retaining the well behaved gravity that keeps them bound to the surface, and keeps their brick in order. Ah! The beauty of the imagination.The potato illustrated the fact that one not even remove the irregularities of the geometry to get the perimeter to return to its own starting point. The probability that this will happen is one. I’m thinking the latter part of your claim: is akin to my not dating Brittany Spears because I think she’s a tramp. I believe you are sincere when you claim you don’t have the computing power to get “one”.If I were to send a projectile off into space it would, in fairly short order Universe-wise, end up orbiting something else. Where exactly it would end up is indeed impossible to predict due to, as you point out, chaos. I didn’t miss that. I merely recognized it as an unnecessary distraction. Well . don’t. Addressed enough for you? I develop very strong emotional attachments to my little illustration and become very protective of them. And when they are abused by twerps such as yourself, I lock them safely away in a tin cookie box in my underwear draw here in the basement of my mother’s house where I live. Don’t screw with my analogies. I will be able to find you.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

Well, if it is your model being argued thats different. Forget everything I said earlier. My more informed response is: Sure, Buz, what ever you say. It's your model and you can give it any properties you want it to have. Except one: pertinence.Edited by lyx2no, : Redundancy.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

Again, what is the physical, real world method you would use to establish a baseline for "straightness".

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

This is true, but the standard that the bar was to meet on Earth was not "straight", but "level". Is your bar level?Rerun the Earth experiment of making the bar level, but this time you're the size of a virus. Virus Buzsaw might not understand that the foot long bar he had imagined as perfectly "level" was following the surface of this Earthiverse and if continued along its perfectly level course it would eventually circle the Earthiverse and rejoin itself. If Virus Buzsaw restricts the methods of establishing a baseline to spirit levels or differential leveling he'd not even be able to detect the curvature in theory, yet alone measure it.Admittedly, Virus Buzsaw's bar would not be "straight" ” a hypernym of level in his world. It would curve into a loop. His bar has a familiar, other dimension to curve in.You, Buzsaw, don't have a familiar, other dimension for a "straight" bar to curve in, so fail to recognize that a Universe spanning, "straight" bar has a curvature of space to follow. And because all possible methods of establishing a baseline of "straightness" are subject to the shape of the Universe ” something you might begin to understand if you were to think through the difficulties of the task ” will you ever be able, even in theory, to detect that curvature. Your bar will measure perfectly straight all the way around. And, an excellent point straggler made too subtly, both the inside and outside of the bar will have the exact same lengths (else it would be way to measure the curvature).That your global definition of "straight" is inadequate on a universal scale will be forced upon upon you in the same way Virus Buzsaw's Lilliputian definition of "level" is inadequate on the global scale will be forced upon it: when you each find you're path is blocked by one end of a perfectly "straight/level" steel bar.Let me reiterate: If we are talking about your model of a universe ” a trivial discussion to be sure ” and not a model of The Universe then nothing here applies.Edited by lyx2no, : Spelling.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

Thank you. Per a question I asked somewhere or other.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

There is no edge of space. Go back to the analogy of the surface of a sphere (put a sock in it IaJ). Remember, there is no up or down. You've two degrees of freedom, and not even a psychological understanding of a possible third.Release your photon. Where does it go?If your photon has a free straight path ” remember, you have no understanding of that third dimension so you can't even imagine it to be curving in that direction ” where does your psyche-free photon go?If your surface is expanding faster than a photon is capable of encircling it: where does your photon go?If your photon meets an electron, where does your photon go?

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

The surface is the edge of a sphere. We, however, are only talking about the surface in our analogy and ask for its edge. Because we do understand the 3^rd dimension it is difficult for us to divorce ourselves from that knowledge. Inversely, because we don't intuit the 4^th dimension we are equally unable in marry it to the apparent world. And we don't know their genders.AbE:Our diagrams of the Universe from the outside are themselves mere analogies. Their is no 3^rd dimensional outside for us to view it from. A 4^th dimensional being would understand our universe as we understand a surface. Read Flat Land.Edited by lyx2no, : Signed out too soon

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

Not in the model we have been most often been discussing, no. A boundary is an edge.Not to short your model, but it isn't well enough filled out for anyone to be able to predict what properties are forced upon it based on the few parameters you have assigned it. It does, in fact, seem to contradict most of the properties we know our universe to have.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

What is ambiguous about "no"? Would "yes" also have been ambiguous? Would "maybe" be redundant?

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

I assume that your question in English is: "Do you think that space came into existence at T=0 or pre-existed the Universe which expanded into it?"; but, as you have threatened to "enlighten" me after I answer, I'm going to dodge the bullet.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

Buzsaw: is space bounded?lyx2no: . no.Buzsaw: That’s ambiguous.lyx2no: What is ambiguous about “no”?Buzsaw: Is space bound or unbound?lyx2no: Yes.

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So as not to waste a post: It was not the question that scared me, IaJ.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

No, Ted, I didn't get any of that at all.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

The June 7-13, 2008 NewScientist has an article on inflation becoming Ptolemaic ” wheels within wheels. I've not had time to read it yet, but it should prove interesting.

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.

Actually this one.http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg19826591.500

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KindlyThere is a spider by the water pipe.