Probably been posted, but pretty cool nonetheless. Or at least, pretty cool for laymen like moi.

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

 

This is probably going to sound stupid to anyone who knows anything about the universe, but, is it round or something? They have an estimated size of the universe, I'm assuming you don't fall into nothingness when you reach the end.

 

Keep in mind that the estimated size of the universe is from our perspective.

We imagine that the Earth is in the center of it. And if you branch out from the center in all directions, you'd usually end up with something round. As for whether you fall into nothingness, well, I highly doubt it. There must be something.

 

With the risk of sounding stupid:

There are 2 thoughts about the universe:

The first is that it is infinitely expanding, so you can never reach its end. The second is that is shrinking and one day will collapse on itself(maybe that is what happened before the big boom) so if you begin your journey to reach the end, you already did.

On a side note: I hear there are terrific restaurants at the end of the galaxy.

 

Not as good as the one at the End of the Universe though.

 

At the risk of sounding stupid, I dislike both of those thoughts. I prefer to believe that the universe if infinite. I don't like reading things that claim to know how old or big the universe is. Whenever I hear stuff like that, I just can't shake the impression that whoever came up with that theory couldn't accept that something always has been and always will be and needed to put "started here:" and "will end here:" signs on it. I don't really have a hard time believing that this part of the universe came about 14 billion years ago in a big bang, but I'll probably never believe that that is true for everything of everything.

Though I'll admit that is probably due to ignorance. The people who study this probably have very good scientific reasons to believe the things they do. And even if they sat down and explained those reasons to me, I probably wouldn't understand them.

 

Ignoring the total lack of anything resembling scientific knowledge or understanding in this thread, good find, GL. It's neat to be able to look at the actual scale of existence.

 

Of course, you don't fall into nothingness when you reach the end. If you were there then it would no longer be nothingness as it would in fact contain something namely you.

 

I think I read in one of those "physics for dummies laymen" books (by either Kaku or Hawking) that if you reach the "end" you simply go right back to the beginning. I don't know if it's true but if it was I wouldn't be surprised, the universe loves fucking with us.

 

I've always gone with the always expanding option myself. The science and mathematics seem right enough.

 

Presuming, of course, that it's even possible to ever reach such and "end" of the universe. The current theory, afaik, is that not only is the universe expanding, but the rate of expansion is accelerating, making everything in the universe further and further away. Including the hypothetical "end", that is, quite literally running away from you.

 

As far as I know, the idea of an infinitely expanding universe (that is accelerating) is the prevailing theory, with the "end" being the heat death of the universe. With heat being a bit of a misnomer, since the universe would end as a uniform soup with no motion and life, and little above zero Kelvin.

Luckily, modern science has a different approach to these basic questions of the universe than "can't accept this" - that's religion's prerogative.

It's a pretty cool flash, and it taught me about the Preon (which probably doesn't exist, making my knowledge of elemental physics less obsolete than I feared).

 

I checked this out when GL first posted it. Just an incredible visual, and really drove home the insignificance of not only humans, but even the entire galaxy in which we exist.

Existential crisis in 3... 2... 1...

 

I'll never look the same way at a glass of water.

Fucking Mickey Mouse's.