Elite / Frontier Discussion - The Edge of Space

[Callum Rowley]

Lets get our thinking caps on once again and kick off a new discussion about the universe around us. The idea of this thread is to get the juices flowing and discuss the vase expanse which lies before us. Below is a space-themed question in which you're free to answer anyway you like - what you say can be game-related, fantastical musings from your mind's eye or structured around the real world and universe around us.


Question: We're all aware that the universe is pretty darn big, but what do you think would happen were you to reach the very edge? Would it even be possible? Would we hit an invisible wall? Or would we simply go round in a circle?

To add further depth to this question, what do you expect to happen when approaching the edge of space in a game environment where you're allowed to travel freely around space?

 

[Steve]

Isn't it the concept of an ant on a beachball? In other words, the ant thinks the surface of the beachball is infinite because a) ants aren't that bright and b) there's no "edge".
It's just this argument but in three dimensions, which is difficult to get your head around, I'll admit.
You need to be a bit of a Stephen Hawking to grasp it. Mind you, even he's come out with some rubbish recently. Must have a book to plug

 

[turwhitt]

There is no edge, just infinite vacuum. There may be other big bangs (and subsequent expansions and contractions) happening in other areas, but it's very unlikely they'd be anywhere near ours.

 

[Kenny 10 Bellys]

Steve is probably correct, current accepted thinking is that it's a finite size but with infinite boundaries. But in a lot of dimensions.

Best I've heard it described is if you try to condense our concept of space down to 2 dimensions on a balloon. Imagine the balloon has lots of dots on it representing galaxies, and we live on that plane of existence. As the balloon expands all the points move farther from each other, which we do see, but if we traveled as far as we could the best we could hope for is to come back around to our starting position. We cant percieve the other dimensions which have curved our space around itself, but it's there.

As for the 'edge' in a game, I'm not sure what I'd expect. The whole 'galactic barrier' type thing used in early Trek was nuts, a 2 dimensional ring around a 3D space? Later Trek went with entry into a totally different concept of space and time, where they understood pretty much none of what they saw and were well chuffed to get the hell out of it. In a game I'd go for weirder and weirder nonsense, and then WHAM! You reappear somewhere totally random in the universe.

 

[Spacegamer]

The end of the film Men in Black where the two aliens are playing with the marbles and our universe is in the marble.

 

[Steve O B Have]

My take on the 'universe' is that it is going to be similar in form to everything else we're familiar with. i.e. the solar system is broad and relatively flat - galaxies are broad and flat. It kinda stands to reason that the collection of Galaxies could well follow this pattern assuming that mass, gravity and movement is infinitely scalable then the universe could conceivably be broad and flat...

Just an idea... I've not bothered to see if it has been replicated elsewhere...

Regarding reaching the edge? Surely if you hit the edge of one 'universe' then there would be empty space for a bit and then another universe much like galaxies and solar systems...

 

[DrBaggy]

The Universe, eh?
Agreed with above, finite but unbounded seems to be the current view, which means we should be able to travel in a straight lines and get back where we started.
Everett's multiverse seems to be back in fashion thanks to Hawking. I'm not a fan (although it makes for some good SF plots!) because of it's redundancy (not to mention huge violation of consevation laws). However, the alternative explanations of quantum mechanics (eg the Copenhagen interpretation) all seem flawed too!
The theory behind the many worlds theory, Richard Feynmann's multiple histories explanation of QCD is brilliant, and the only apparent explanation of the two slit experiment: the more I read about the real universe, the more weird and counter-intuitive it seems!
Anyway, by the time E4 comes out, we will have had a Theory of Everything for a century or so, so we will know the answer!!
ps apologies to any real physicists out the for any mistakes in the above

 

[Steve O B Have]

I think the issue is the concept of size and what our brains will allow us to conceive as being a limit. Why should there be some finite loop to linear travel?

 

[DrBaggy]

Isn't it the concept of an ant on a beachball? In other words, the ant thinks the surface of the beachball is infinite because a) ants aren't that bright and b) there's no "edge".
It's just this argument but in three dimensions, which is difficult to get your head around, I'll admit.
You need to be a bit of a Stephen Hawking to grasp it. Mind you, even he's come out with some rubbish recently. Must have a book to plug

Agreed Steve. Hawking is an amazing human being, an iconic figure (and an excellent Star Trek extra) but in terms of original ideas, he's produced very little compared to much less well known physicists, certainly in recent times.

 

[DrBaggy]

I think the issue is the concept of size and what our brains will allow us to conceive as being a limit. Why should there be some finite loop to linear travel?

Certainly the size of my brain is an issue! It hurts just thinking about this stuff. It feels as though our concept of reality is the world created in our head (dare I say like a computer simulation?) which works day to day, but turns out to be a very rough and ready interpretation that falls apart when we look at the very big, very small or very fast. So the more science progresses, the more "counter-intuitive" it becomes.

Richard Feynman said, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." To which could be added "or infinity, irrational numbers, gravity, consciousness...or my wife"

 

[bananascope]

stuff like this makes my brain hurt : )

 

[SuperG]

My brains hurt to.
I think the real scientist don't know but have a dozen of theories and observasions.
So far as I know there is this theory of dark energy, the force of vacuum. A weak force compared to masses with there gravity. But in the vastness of space it is strong enough to push galacy's away from each other. Extreem Distance is darkenergy friend.

So in my opinion the edge of space even if that excist is moving away from us with insane speed.
What's beyond that no clue.

 

[Geraldine]

What lies beyond the universe? Whatever was there before the universe came into being. Time, mass and multiple dimensions do not exist there until our universe expands into it. A true nothingness. Either that or a restaurant

 

[SuperG]

I wonder is the fabric of space time stretchin or is more created out of nothing?

 

[DraQ]

Isn't it the concept of an ant on a beachball? In other words, the ant thinks the surface of the beachball is infinite because a) ants aren't that bright and b) there's no "edge".
It's just this argument but in three dimensions, which is difficult to get your head around, I'll admit.
You need to be a bit of a Stephen Hawking to grasp it. Mind you, even he's come out with some rubbish recently. Must have a book to plug

This.

If the space isn't open ("horizontally", so it's not the same as open/closed universe, only whether its section perpendicular to time is open/closed), in which case the universe would be infinite, then it just kind of loops around regardless of direction.

Edit:
Gah. I was reminded of one particular sketch with Gumbys, and NOW MY BRAIN HURTS TOO!
>.<

 

[dannyboy]

Isn't it the concept of an ant on a beachball? In other words, the ant thinks the surface of the beachball is infinite because a) ants aren't that bright and b) there's no "edge".

I'm pretty certain I saw on a recent Discovery channel documentary that the accepted wisdom now says our universe has a flat geometry, rather than curved.


Regarding the question of reaching the edge of the universe, I think the belief is this would be effectively impossible (even if we invent warp speed travel) because the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. While relativity forbids anything inside our universe from travelling faster than light, there's nothing that stops the universe itself expanding faster than light.

Didn't one of the early Star Trek films attempt to depict the edge of the universe? As I remember it, it looked like a sort of wispy cloud thing that the Enterprise couldn't go through!

 

[SuperG]

Well you say nothing can go faster then light because of relativity theory or rule. But if galacy do FTL then that is wrong if you can go that fast.

But why, because exreem large vacuum space wich is a whole lot fabric of space time is pushin it. For the very far away galacies it all add up.

So you can cheat light speed limit. If you are able to influence the fabric of space time. What does are large gravitational forces. Wich makes it practical as undoable.
A documentary has a theory that you need the energy of a jupiter around your space ship to bent space time like stretch back and compress upfront to move faster then light. But this is a far fetched theory. With a lot of holes. To praktical realize it.

So far as I recall the expanding is accelerating. Don't recall that far galacy's move away with FTL.

 

[dannyboy]

Well you say nothing can go faster then light because of relativity theory or rule. But if galacy do FTL then that is wrong if you can go that fast.

No, the galaxies themselves are not actually travelling FTL.

From this site:

This sounds like it breaks Einstein’s theories, but it doesn’t. The galaxies themselves aren’t actually moving very quickly through space, it’s the space itself which is expanding away, and the galaxy is being carried along with it. As long as the galaxy doesn’t try to move quickly through space, no physical laws are broken.

 

[Tribble]

I'm interested by the question: if we dream, is the imagined space part of the universe? It's like the internet, how do you quantify internet space and is it part of the universe?


Cheers,

Tribble

 

[rgmarett]

Buuut...if radiation is spewed out of the poles from these massive black holes, surely the radiation must be travelling faster than light as light itself can't escape black holes?

Another way of travelling faster than light is to invent anti-gravity (easy). My theory is that if gravity is strong enough to capture light, if you create anti-gravity, the opposite effect could happen and you could travel faster than light.

Because of the laws of physics - my anti-gravity theory probably wouldn't work...although I think my principals are sound.