What Really Exists Outside The Universe

This same post has been posted twice on the Bad Astronomy website, identical wording. Like I objected there,

The geometry of the Universe has been anything but proven, this does however sound like a poor variation of the MM.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rousejohnny</i>
<br />The geometry of the Universe has been anything but proven<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I agree. I really wish people would take the time to learn a little something about the site they are posting on first. Very few people in these parts credit the idea of a Big Bang, or that the universe is expanding (supposedly "proved" according skywalcore), or that "other universes" is a meaningful concept outside of science fiction.

For example, in astronomy, "universe" means "everything that exists", so there can't be other universes by definition. And what would that concept mean in physics anyway? Other galaxies or superclusters? (Why call those "other universes"?) Other dimensions? (That is the science fiction part. They are theorized to exist by sci-fi writers, but not in space and time. Because they are trapped in their dimensions and we in ours, we can never know of them, nor can they interact with us. So what's the point? We might as well call a vivid dream "another universe".)

Our universe is spherical? Since when? The only thing spherical about it is the range of our telescopes, which is roughly equal in all directions. But we see walls and voids as far as we can look in all directions. There is not even a hint of sphericity to the universe at large. Nor should there be in either BB or MM cosmologies.

In short, this idea attempts (in strange, undefined ways) to solve a problem that does not exist in the Meta Model (MM). So it creates new problems while solving none. Physical reality is defined by the principles of physics, experiments, and observations. In this last category, observing "Star Trek" on TV does not count. [] -|Tom|-

Here is one of many links that says scientists are leaning on the notion of a spherical universe.

www.spacedaily.com/news/cosmology-01f.html

There is much literature that describes it as a fairly common belief that a spherical universe exists. But yes, it has not officially been proven. If you believe in the Big Bang theory, then doesn't that describe an enourmous ball of matter and particles exploding. If such a ball explodes, then wouldn't it explode into a sphere? With an equal amount of power exerting all matter into all directions, a sphere would be the product.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by skywalcore</i>
<br />Here is one of many links that says scientists are leaning on the notion of a spherical universe.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Okay, I didn't doubt that you could find a handful of astronomers who believe (the operative word) in a spherical universe. However, your link is from 2001, and the hopes raised by the investigators in the article have since been dashed. See Phys.NewsUpdate 685: May 12 (2004); www.aip.org/pnu/2004/685.html ; to be published by Spergel, Starkman, Komatsu in Phys.Rev.Lett.:

Our Universe Has a Topology Scale of at least 24 Gpc or about 75 billion light years, according to a new analysis of data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). Because of conceivable hall-of-mirrors effects of spacetime, the universe might be finite in size but give us mortals the illusion that it is infinite. For example, the cosmos might be tiled with some repeating shape, around which light rays might wrap themselves over and over ("wrap" in the sense that, as in video games, something might disappear off the left side of the screen and reappear on the right side). The new study sought signs of such "wrapped" light in the form of pairs of circles, in opposite directions in the sky, with similar patterns in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background. If the universe were finite and actually smaller than the distance to the "surface of last scattering" (a distance that essentially constitutes the edge of the "visible universe," and the place in deep space whence comes the cosmic microwaves), then multiple imaging should show up in the microwave background. But no such correspondences appeared in the analysis. The researchers are able to turn the lack of recurring patterns into the form of a lower limit on the scale of cosmic topology, equal to 24 billion parsecs, a factor of 10 larger than previous observational bounds. [tvf: This might be why the universe gives the illusion that it is infinite. Or, absent the perversity of nature, it might indicate that the universe really is infinite.]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If you believe in the Big Bang theory, then doesn't that describe an enourmous ball of matter and particles exploding?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Actually, it doesn't. One fact about the Big Bang not adequately communicated to laymen is that is is not an explosion of matter <i>into</i> space, but is rather an explosion <i>of</i> space. Galaxies have very little movement through space, but are getting farther away because more space is being continually created between them and us. -|Tom|-

Well, that article you posted does contain some facts, it doesn't contain any facts that rules out a spherical universe. I found an article release by CNN, about 10 days after that, which talks about the probability of a spherical universe still existing:

www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/05/24/universe.wide/

I believe that completely proving the universe is not spherical would be impossible, because that would be like someone trying to completely prove the earth was not spherical 2000 years ago. To me it is nothing more than history repeating itself on a larger cosmic scale, but I am always open to new breakthroughs that prove otherwise. It is still very clear to me that no proof exists that says the universe isn't spherical or that there is even a less than 50% chance that it is.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />Actually, it doesn't. One fact about the Big Bang not adequately communicated to laymen is that is is not an explosion of matter <i>into</i> space, but is rather an explosion <i>of</i> space. Galaxies have very little movement through space, but are getting farther away because more space is being continually created between them and us. -|Tom|-
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

That sounds more philsophical to me. I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say.