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I once asked this a physicist, but he didn't seem to have an answer. Maybe you Playstation experts know more (I imagine vizzini does, as he seems to understand even the greatest mystery in history, the Cell). I'm always looking for possible different explanations for things observed, no matter how dumb, in this case for the expansion of the universe. Just for fun. There's no way to tell which position/speed/velocity is "zero", or "centre", because that probably doesn't even exist. Because the universe and everything is relative and stuff. There is no absolute centre/resting point, or we would never know because it wouldn't make a difference. I can't tell if "I'm resting" and the other one moves, or if the other ones is resting and I'm moving. We just move in relation to others, we all know that. But if we leave behind linear motion, what about angular motion? Is the universe spinning? That was just one of my dumb thoughts when I thought about why the universe might expand. Let's imagine we're in empty space. No stars, nothing. Just our spaceship. We cannot possibly tell if we're moving or not, because there's nothing we could move in relation to. But we can tell if we're spinning, because either we feel a centrifugal force or we don't. But wouldn't that mean there's an absolute "non-spinning" resting point? We couldn't even tell if it's centrifugal force or some other sort of force pulling us apart. Now, same about the universe. How can we tell if the universe is spinning or not? We don't know anything beyond, so how can we tell if we're spinning or not related to something bigger? How can we tell if there's a centrifugal force at work or some other force pulling everything apart? Not trying to explain the actual expansion only by this, but this keeps confusing me. Couldn't find a solution so far, maybe you indie gamers know more? |
Outer space and related interests
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BeardedGamerUK 2,184 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 8 years agoPoor Ison, the asteroid that tried 
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grey_matters 5,507 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 15 years agoDrStrangelove wrote:
Angular velocity means that the linear velocity is constantly changing. As far as special relativity is concerned, you cannot distinguish between two reference frames moving at constant velocity so I think that it doesn't apply in the same way. However, if you are experiencing a centrifugal force (from spinning) it should be indistinguishable from experiencing a constant force in a particular direction (like from gravity, say) so you still don't have a zero-point.
I once asked this a physicist, but he didn't seem to have an answer. Maybe you Playstation experts know more (I imagine vizzini does, as he seems to understand even the greatest mystery in history, the Cell).
I'm always looking for possible different explanations for things observed, no matter how dumb, in this case for the expansion of the universe. Just for fun.
There's no way to tell which position/speed/velocity is "zero", or "centre", because that probably doesn't even exist. Because the universe and everything is relative and stuff. There is no absolute centre/resting point, or we would never know because it wouldn't make a difference. I can't tell if "I'm resting" and the other one moves, or if the other ones is resting and I'm moving. We just move in relation to others, we all know that.
But if we leave behind linear motion, what about angular motion? Is the universe spinning? That was just one of my dumb thoughts when I thought about why the universe might expand.
Let's imagine we're in empty space. No stars, nothing. Just our spaceship. We cannot possibly tell if we're moving or not, because there's nothing we could move in relation to.
But we can tell if we're spinning, because either we feel a centrifugal force or we don't. But wouldn't that mean there's an absolute "non-spinning" resting point?
We couldn't even tell if it's centrifugal force or some other sort of force pulling us apart.
Now, same about the universe. How can we tell if the universe is spinning or not? We don't know anything beyond, so how can we tell if we're spinning or not related to something bigger? How can we tell if there's a centrifugal force at work or some other force pulling everything apart?
Not trying to explain the actual expansion only by this, but this keeps confusing me. Couldn't find a solution so far, maybe you indie gamers know more?
Edited by grey_matters at 08:39:43 29-11-2013 -
ALIVE!
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localnotail 23,079 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 13 years ago\o/
Or rather
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o
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slingshot FTW! -
Dirtbox 92,595 posts
Seen 14 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago -
DaM 17,729 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 20 years agoBugger, looks like I'm going to have to get up at daft o'clock next week, in the freezing cold. -
@grey_matters
Yes, but I mean, consider totally empty space. Is there a "background" in relation to which an astronaut could be spinning? As far as I understand it, no. But the astronaut can feel either "normal" or feel his limbs being "pulled" away from him. So there should be a difference between spinning and not spinning even without a frame of reference.
If I understand it right, it would be indistinguishable from some sort of force that pushes his mass apart (the farther away, the stronger), and that was my question about the universe. Whatever general force we try to think of to explain the increasing expansion of the universe, could we tell a difference to it just spinning?
Maybe this all goes just a bit over my head, yet it doesn't get out of it either. -
FogHeart 1,270 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 14 years ago@DrStrangelove You may be interested to know that the possibility of a rotating universe was explored by the uber-mathematician Kurt Godel. He found that using Einstein's laws in such a universe implied that time travel was not just possible but inevitable, all the time, and as a result causality breaks down. Since causality holds in our universe, it is agred to be expanding and not rotating. -
FartPipe 5,307 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 9 years ago -
phAge 25,487 posts
Seen 3 weeks ago
Registered 18 years ago@OptimusPube
Heh. I get an ad from "Recall Document Handling" on that page. -
FartPipe 5,307 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 9 years agoStrange, handles fine for me. -
phAge 25,487 posts
Seen 3 weeks ago
Registered 18 years ago@OptimusPube
Oh - the page works fine, and the story is cool, it's just Mars, Recall... Y'know..gif)
/may be assuming too much -
FartPipe 5,307 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 9 years agoOh fuck straight over my head, I've seen both films as well, the Arnie one and the new shit one. 
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Fake_Blood 11,093 posts
Seen 18 hours ago
Registered 12 years agoThirty nine *days?* Hey man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're not gonna last thirty nine *hours!* -
senso-ji 10,271 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 13 years ago -
senso-ji wrote:
I just can't take that one in. I'm gonna have to read it again another day.
The Universe is just a Hologram -
oceanmotion 17,358 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
FartPipe 5,307 posts
Seen 5 years ago
Registered 9 years ago -
@OptimusPube Ooh, new and interesting -
Read Greg Bear's 'Heads'? You might enjoy this
The Coldest Spot in the Known Universe -
RyanDS 14,073 posts
Seen 19 hours ago
Registered 13 years agoMy wife surprised me with a celestron 8 inch s-c goto scope today. Been outside all night in poor skies but even through the haze I have had the best views of the orion nebula and jupiter I have ever seen. Two top quality eyepieces and a barlow as well.
All for a grand. The step up from a cheapo 130 eq is astounding. -
Ohhh I was tempted out by a clear sky, but it's just too damn windy. -
Jade rabbit hasconked out. Chinese build quality, eh. -
altitude2k 5,238 posts
Seen 2 years ago
Registered 12 years agoAn amazing article about NASA's hypothetical Columbia rescue mission.
Link
Is long, but well worth a read. -
The past few clear nights have got me thinking about getting the telescope out again. While I was browsing for interesting stuff to potentially look at, I came across this story:
Hubble's First Frontier Field Finds Thousands of Unseen, Faraway Galaxies (bit old, but hey ho)
which basically describes who space boffins are using the gravitational lensing of an entire galaxy to obtain images of much distant galaxies. Amazing. 'pooters+Einstein=mind-blowing. -
The Hubble data is generally mind-blowing.
You take a small patch of sky that just looks completely dark, and Hubble finds countless galaxies there. *Galaxies*. None of which we could otherwise detect, all which are made up of god knows how many stars.
Yet to us, on Earth, even with the best scopes, it's just black empty sky.
.gif)
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