Interesting question

Have you ever wondered how big the universe was? Assume we are traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles/sec) from the sun to the end of our solar system. At the SOL and 5 hrs 31m later we have traveled 3.5 billion miles to the end of our solar system. Now we travel in the direction perpendicular to our galaxy. Behind us the planets and sun quickly vanished. The emptyness of space has broken only by the light of stars so distant they don't yet appear to move. Finally on April 5th of the 5th year traveling at the speed of light we reach Alpha Centauri A, the neareast star to our solar system. We have now traveled over 25 trillion miles. 100 lt years from the sun gas and nabulas material from the arms of the milky way fill our view. At 1000 lt years the galaxys arms and disks become more defined. But it is not until we have traveled at the speed of light for 100,000 light years do we recongnize the entire Milky Way Galaxy. From this point forward every point of light you see is not a star but an entire galaxy. If you add 22 zeros behind 10 and whatever figure it is, that is how many stars are in each galaxy. 5 million years after traveling at the speed of light the Milkyway seems part of the 30 galaxies cluster known as a local group. 50 million light years out we enocunter the Large Burger cluster containing more than 2000 galaxies. And so it goes as our journey takes us deeper into the cosmos. Finally after 10 billion years we stop to look at a theoritcal view of the universe. Now think that we are just this one star out of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 10x22 in one galaxy out of billions.

Are we alone?

It is statistically impossible for us to be alone.

I agree. The question was How Big is the Universe btw. Just in case you thought Are we alone was.

Yes. That very question has a permanant spot somewhere near the forefront of my fractality. i.e. I am expending at least a percentage of brainpower on contemplating and understanding the implications of the size of our universe 100% of my waking hours. Which outnumber my sleeping hours around 6:1 on most nights.

the way I think of it is there is no possible way, no matter how far and fast traveled to get a panoramic view of the universe...

if one did what you describe, each view would be unique without a doubt, but you'd be surrounded by just as many stars and other galaxies no matter how far and where you traveled to.

the way I think of it is there is no possible way, no matter how far and fast traveled to get a panoramic view of the universe...

if one did what you describe, each view would be unique without a doubt, but you'd be surrounded by just as many stars and other galaxies no matter how far and where you traveled to.

what about other universes ...who's to say or possibly know exactly how spaced out each is if there are others and how much void lies between them.

Who knows. Maybe with every universe theres a seperate creator. You could keep asking yourself questions all day.

Actually using certain observation techniques scientists have recently been able to come pretty close to calculating to a pretty good degree of accuracy just how big the universe is an how old... I have a couple of really great episode of a series about this question and more from an excellent series that was on the Discovery Channel called The Universe. You can find them on iTunes, it's about $3 per episode but these two are very worth it.

The two episodes in particular im thinking of are "Unexplained Mysteries" (that they actually do go into some logical explination of some of them.. a couple of them being how big and how old the universe is) and "Cosmic Apocalypse" (this also andresses slightly how big the universe is and how it well end.. truly great episodes I have watched each of them a few times). There is also an episode called "The Biggest Things in Space" which I have not watched but I imagine puts things into perspective quite well and may attempt to answer the big question, and is probably just as interesting as the previous two.

I just now remembered the "Dark Matter" episode also adresses this by explaing measurements made in teh actual size and expansion rates by measuring dark matter and the space between astral bodies. Really cool stuff.

I highly reccomend these shows well worth the money if you have a few bucks to spare. They have some quite renowned and respected professors and reseachers adding to the discussions.

I recently watched a program on UK tv on BBC1. It was called 'Do You Know What Time It Is?'

It was based on the theories that you described but mainly focusing on the fact that time is just something that man has made to refer things to. The earth actually rotates on it's axis slower on some days that it does others but has just been averaged out at 24 hours.

Nobody knows how old the earth really is nor what the actual 'time' or age is.

Sorry, this has little to do with what you were discussing, I just find space and time theories facinating. I read 'A Brief History Of Time' when I was just 11 years old.

We all want answers to these facinating questions but unfortunately - they won't be answered in any of our lifetimes.

:stoned:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mattisnotonfire

I recently watched a program on UK tv on BBC1. It was called 'Do You Know What Time It Is?'

It was based on the theories that you described but mainly focusing on the fact that time is just something that man has made to refer things to. The earth actually rotates on it's axis slower on some days that it does others but has just been averaged out at 24 hours.

Nobody knows how old the earth really is nor what the actual 'time' or age is.

Sorry, this has little to do with what you were discussing, I just find space and time theories facinating. I read 'A Brief History Of Time' when I was just 11 years old.

We all want answers to these facinating questions but unfortunately - they won't be answered in any of our lifetimes.

:stoned:

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Well I'll be damned.. I fuckin knew it!!! Somedays are definately longer!:D