Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">At, now your reaching... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually, while I was having a little fun with it in my manner of speaking, but that is exactly the point I was trying to make. The universe can be finite and have a distinct border out there somewhere. That doesn't mean there is more space beyond the border as some here have said. It could mean there is simply, well nothing beyond it. But nothing outside the universe does not mean "more space" anymore then the space inside the universe is nothing. Space is not nothing, it's simply the absence of any matter. Nothing on the other hand, is nothing. It's the difference between zero and not having a number at all.

Re: OT: Contact
 

I think it's almost a probability given what we know that we will someday find evidence of past life on Mars. It may not happen until we can have a permenant presense on the planet with scientists digging around in the dirt and checking out caves and stuff.

Re: OT: Contact
 

geoschmo, Nice article, I think we just need a longer time to listen. Also, if we ever move out to space then perhaps there were will be some pure science done to answer these questions.

Phoenix-D, that is why I think it is enjoyable to discuss these things, we just don't know, time will tell even if we are not around to hear the answer.

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I explicitly stated that it was merely part of a proof, not a proof.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Space is nothing. It is empty... space. Yeah... anyways, it is merely the extension of 3 dimensions. It is volume, but that is all. It is the same sort of nothing that the volume inside a box is. I do not mean nothing as in it doesn't exist, just that it is the void in which other things are contained. It is not really something by itself.

The universe is contained inside space. Space is nothing exactly like zero is nothing. No apples and no oranges. Zero. And like zero, if you add more space to the space you have, you still just get the same space. Both are infinite in size.

Re: OT: Contact
 

No you don't end up with the same space. You end up with a greater volume of space. Although, space is considered to be continually expanding, so that volume of space is also proportionately increasing.

Re: OT: Contact
 

Well, space is expanding in the sense that the galaxies are moving away from each other and therefore matter is spreading out. We don't know whether the empty space itself is expanding or not, right?

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That was relying on the assumption that space, like 0, is an infinite set...

Re: OT: Contact
 

Fyron starts sounding, like, all spaced out... man..:

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe I'm misreading you or misinterptetting your terminology and I'll just be re-iterating what you just said, but I think i may have to disagree with you here.

As my very limited pop-science oft string theory has it, even a total, absolute vacuum is still made of something. String, probably, hence the silly name of the theory. Anyway, you could imagine that vacuum as a variable with the value of zero mass, which is still a value.

However whatever lies beyond the edges of the universe would not even be made up of string (or whatever that theory was on about) and might therefore be more properly described as a variable with 'null' value- or maybe just not a variable at all.

Now pass me whatever you been smoking F, I want me some 'o that...

[ May 20, 2004, 13:10: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I like this anaolgy. Think of the universe as a box. The galaxies and other matter are things in the box. Space is the volume around and between all the stuff. But just like the box, the universe is finite.

Your anaology and the conclusion you derive from it are contradictory. Because the universe is NOT contained inside space. Space is contained inside the universe. Outside of the box(universe) is not more space, because space is inside the box.

Re: OT: Contact
 

The matter of the universe is indeed contained inside space. Space is infinite. The universe is not. The space was there before the big bang that lead to the universe as it is now... How do you think the universe is able to expand? It must expand into something that is there. Such as empty space...

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That was relying on the assumption that space, like 0, is an infinite set... </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sometimes, to formulate a possible theory with lack of hard evidence, you have to make some assumptions.

Re: OT: Contact
 

Why is 0 an infinite set? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Add http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif me

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It is closed under addition and multiplication. More precisely, I should say that it spans an infinite set...

Re: OT: Contact
 

I don't think zero gives an infinite result when you divide something by it. In order to divide something, you have to have something to divide it by.

That is, if that's what your talking about.

Re: OT: Contact
 

0 is not an infinitive set, because 0 plus any number = that number, but not an equipotent infinitive set http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: OT: Contact
 

Nevermind...

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As I thought, your terminology is confusing everyone.

When most people hear the word "space" in this kind of context, they think of the Big Black in between the stars and planets. The point many of us are trying to make is that this "Big Black" is different to the "space" beyond the borders fo the universe.

You weretherefore causing a confusion between the "space" between the planets and the "space" beyond the universe's edge.

Unless you are actually asserting that the space between the planets is fundamentally the same as whatever is beyond the universe- ie, to fit Geo's metaphor, 'there is no box'. Otherwise, "emptiness" might be good word substitution for "space" in your Last few Posts..?

--
There is no spoon. But I think I have a spork around here somewhere...

[ May 21, 2004, 08:21: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

Re: OT: Contact
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually to get really bizarre, there is some theoretical work going on in that regard. It may turn out that this is not true at all. The universe might be expanding into itself, warping and folding, and so not actually changing it's total volume. It's all very confusing actually. I don't nearly understand it. I just like to read it sometimes and let the ideas wash over my brain. It's better then chemical stimulation I'll tell you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: OT: Contact
 

You mean the new Quantum Theories? Strings, membranes, all that? Interesting stuff. Still allows for a big bang but undoes the far future shrinkage back to a single point to do it again.

Also creates 11 dimensions, undoes the "matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed" rule or at least modifies it, and puts us at level 4 in an 11 level existance. Strange stuff but what I find interesting is that it deletes the scientific blocks on a ton of things that science had been comfortable in disproving. Opens them all up for new discussion. Just a short list includes magic, most supernatural, and god. (there are other Boards on the net for all that though) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ May 21, 2004, 15:26: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: OT: Contact
 

If your universe is Atari 2600 Combat, the edge of the universe is likely a wrap-around effect to the other side...

Hard to really know the answer without going there, and if there is no edge... or even if there is but it's as far away as it looks... good luck ever getting there, even with your descendants.

If you find an impossibly coincidental at the massively extreme end of the number pi, then someone has been playing with the computers you're using to do the calculations... or some uber nerd like Carl Sagan created the universe you call real. They say humans create god in their own image...

PvK