The Universe

[eyecare74]

I have a question which I have been pondering on for quite some time now, and would like to see what you guys have to say on the topic.

I have recently been following the stories on dark matter and dark energy relating to the universe, and how it seems to be causing the universe to expand at an increasing rate. While I find that theory interesting, my main curiosity came in the form of the normal Hubble photos.

In every science show or article they say the pictures we see from the Hubble of the universe are looking back into the past at the early universe.

Now my question(s) is this:

1. IF this is true, what do these solar systems and galaxies look like today in real time?

2. IF this is true and I was somehow living in one of these places looking through my own Hubble, what would the earth look like to me? Does it mean that the earth or our solar system has not been created yet?

3. What is to say that what is seen through the Hubble and all the other super telescopes is just not exactly what is there? I understand light time and how long it takes to travel from place to place and all of that. I do not dispute that. What I question is, what proof is there that those places are no longer there and do not look exactly like the photograph?

who says they have to change? Do we have a secret spaceship that went there and and sent back a signal that said..."oops, there's nothing here anymore"

or is it more likely they just really don't know?

 

[TimeLord]

It's based on the simple scientific idea of bouncing waves off an object and detecting the reflected waves. Since the waves travel at a finite speed, they take time to reach you. And in the meantime, the objects can move from where they were when the light bounced off of them. It's really nothing magical or astounding. Based on the vast distance between us and celestial bodies, along with our knowledge of the speed of light, we can be assured that those objects have moved quite some distance since the waves currently reaching us were reflected (or emitted) by those objects.

/ttiforum/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Darby]

EYecare,

1. IF this is true, what do these solar systems and galaxies look like today in real time?

You're seeing them in as much "real time" as possible. The only difference between looking at yourself in a mirror and looking at a galaxy a billion LY away is that you only see yourself a billionth of a second in the past (assuming your standing 1/2 meter from the mirror). As TimeLord said, it takes light a finite amount of time to travel from Pt. A to Pt. B. In either ase it isn't a matter of "IF this is true" - it is true.

2. IF this is true and I was somehow living in one of these places looking through my own Hubble, what would the earth look like to me? Does it mean that the earth or our solar system has not been created yet?

Assuming the same galaxy as above, you'd be seeing the photons that left Earth 1 billion years earlier. If you were 4 billion LY away you'd see some porto galaxy forming.

3. What is to say that what is seen through the Hubble and all the other super telescopes is just not exactly what is there? I understand light time and how long it takes to travel from place to place and all of that. I do not dispute that. What I question is, what proof is there that those places are no longer there and do not look exactly like the photograph?

No one says that those places are no longer there. Of course they are still there. But nothing in the universe stands still and gravity is always there. The "configuration space" that is the galaxy under observation is dynamic and it changes. That's pretty basic high school physics.

who says they have to change? Do we have a secret spaceship that went there and and sent back a signal that said..."oops, there's nothing here anymore"

I 'spose that I could be cute and say that Issac Newton said that they have to change. Cute or not it's still true. We don't have to send a ship off to another galaxy to determine that it is a dynamic system. We can look at a bottle of water, a box full of gas or our own galaxy to make that determination.

or is it more likely they just really don't know?

Don't know what? If you mean that we don't know precisely what configuration some far away galaxy has taken on over the period of time that it took its light to arrive here, you're correct. We don't. Nor do we know, if we look into the bottle of water, what configuration the water molecules will be in one second later. The evolution of dynamic systems with huge numbers of individual elements can only be described statistically.

None of this "stuff" is paradoxical. It's a precise statement of how the laws of classical physics work.

A great part of your problem in understanding this is your insistence in wanting to know what's happening in another galaxy "now". You can't know that, not even in theory. If the galaxy is 1 billion LY away then you can only receive information about that galaxy that was transmitted at least 1 billion years ago.

 

[eyecare74]

It's really nothing magical or astounding. Based on the vast distance between us and celestial bodies, along with our knowledge of the speed of light, we can be assured that those objects have moved quite some distance since the waves currently reaching us were reflected (or emitted) by those objects

No one says that those places are no longer there. Of course they are still there. But nothing in the universe stands still and gravity is always there. The "configuration space" that is the galaxy under observation is dynamic and it changes.

That's just it. The debate is out there now between which force is actually moving things, and how exactly it is doing it. Gravity can only account for so much, and they have stated this over the past few years in many peer reviewed scientific papers. That is why they are looking into dark energy, however still just in the theory mode at the moment.

They are now trying to figure out why solar systems are pulled together, but the universe itself is expanding. It goes against the current models of how things operate in space time and why. Hence they invent a new name for something and try to put the square peg in the round hole.

Is there a massive black hole at the center of every universe and the entire solar system eventually is pulled into it like some scientists think? That's one explanation for it, but it begs the question what is on the other side of the black hole?...a white hole, the big bang for an entirely new universe, or what?

No one says that those places are no longer there. Of course they are still there. But nothing in the universe stands still and gravity is always there. The "configuration space" that is the galaxy under observation is dynamic and it changes.

How would this individual be able to see anything at all where earth will eventually be, when we supposedly only see remnants of the past and what it "used" to look like from our stand point?

A great part of your problem in understanding this is your insistence in wanting to know what's happening in another galaxy "now". You can't know that, not even in theory.

I disagree. Scientists at Cern and other LHC's have stated that space time can be altered, "bent" if you will, they just don't obviously know how, or I should say do not have the capability to do it at this point.

I guess I have been thinking about this lately because it sparked a few questions on the whole time travel thing, and whether or not my line of thinking could put a new "spin" on it or not. I'm sure I am not the only person to have thought along these lines.

It seems no matter the size of the telescope, or how strong it may be, when we look through it we always see more, now IF we really are looking into the past at some point we have to run out of things to see. Either that or we see the so called big bang itself, and then nothing beyond that.

If the galaxy is 1 billion LY away then you can only receive information about that galaxy that was transmitted at least 1 billion years ago.

That is assuming you can only travel the speed of light, and we know there are stronger forces in the universe than light. There must be if black holes are a real scientific fact, other wise light could escape from them.

I am just looking for a little different view on things, like thinking outside the box. Nothing to do with aliens or religion or new age views. Just a take on the new information leaking out, and how many fantastic hypothesis's it could inspire.

 

[eyecare74]

Just a quick follow up.

I am in no way attempting to challenge any one on their "traditional" scientific knowledge. I am attempting to challenge your line of thought on the matter.

We all know I am no expert in this area, my line of knowledge is trying to possibly understand why we think the way we do, and why any one would want to possibly want to jump off a bridge, or strangle a kitten.

I do believe though, that science is advanced by challenges in critical thinking, and by thinking about "what if".

 

[TimeLord]

It sounds like you need some other viewing method apart from electromagnetic waves. You see, each known type of wave travels at a well defined speed through a given medium. We know of sound and light, and perhaps a few others. But that's not to say that other forms of waves don't exist which can travel faster. Using those, we could get a more up to date view of the universe. This probably isn't what you wanted to hear though.

 

[Darby]

The debate is out there now between which force is actually moving things, and how exactly it is doing it. Gravity can only account for so much, and they have stated this over the past few years in many peer reviewed scientific papers. That is why they are looking into dark energy, however still just in the theory mode at the moment.

You're on the right track but missing the real issue. Gravitation as a "force" is not in doubt. In general relativity gravity is not a real force. It is a pseudo-force like the centrifigual force. Gravity, in general relativity, is a description of the degree to which a given quantity and density of mass warps spacetime without explaining what mechanism actually causes the curvature. And that is, at its core, what is being debated. Dark matter and dark energy are, logically, tossed into the mix as additional mass-energy in sufficient amounts to account for the additional observed spacetime curvature that cannot be explained by the visible matter of galaxies. But adding dark mass and energy don't answer the question about the mechanism behind gravitation.

This is a central question that the LHD was designed to answer. The LDH isn't about making time machines, micro black holes or Titor's Chevy pick-up. The central question is to see if the Higgs Boson can be observed. The Higgs Boson is a particle field that, in the Standard Model, is the mechanism behind mass. Find the Higgs, verify that is is the mechanism behind mass and you then know how mass warps spacetime.

 

[Darby]

I do believe though, that science is advanced by challenges in critical thinking, and by thinking about "what if".

Here you are on the right track.

A scientific theory, one that is shown to be correct through experimental verification, has two purposes: to explain what we have already observed and to be the basis for looking for circumstances that have not been observed but which are implied by the theory.

Take Dirac as an example. As Dirac looked at the math behind the Standard Model of particle physics he was struck by the fact that every solution for a particle had another solution if he simply changed the signs from positive to negative. It was perfectly acceptable math as implied by the theory but the question facing him was whether or not every "normal" particle actually had an anti-particle partner. He was correct. High energy particle experiments in colliders proved that every particle has an anti-matter partner.

Note, however, that the above example (which is just one of thousands of valid examples from scientific inquiry) is vastly different from what we generally see on pseudo-science/alt-sci sites. Tossing out an idea dreamed up by someone based on "what-if" alone and calling it a "theory" is not scientific inquiry. We generally call that fantasy. In science a theory is not "my opinion, and I have a right to my opinion and my opinion has the same weight as anyone else's opinion." To be sure, everyone has a right to their opinion and can dream up any scenario that they can imagine. That they have that right does not necessarily raise their opinion to the level of a scientific theory.

 

[Gpa]

Eyecare;
It may not be so much what is moving “things” in the Universe but that the Universe “itself” is what is moving. I have had thoughts along the same line as you are and without a solid background in physics myself I rely on information and opinion from others that do. While I don’t always agree with everything physicists assert I respect their reasoning. As my background is centered in Biology and Chemistry (Biology was my first love and Chemistry ended up being my job) I have a different way of looking at things. I always saw physicists (especially theoretical) as champions of the phrase. “Eat your cake and have it too.” But that’s for another time and place.
What I would like to offer you are these links that I found quite helpful and the additional links found within them. These authors will certainly explain things far better than I can. I hope you find them useful.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=575
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00990.htm

 

[ruthless]

i believe this might help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat

 

[paladius]

eyedoc,
TL & D make some valid points about the known physics of neuton and einstein, however I think what you are looking for goes beyond that.

The speed of light seems like a constant for our little section of the universe, but light travels at different speeds through different mediums, as evidenced by refraction and bose-einstien condensates. That being said, light will likely travel at different speeds overthe great distances abd time a photon may travle from one star system to another. Tp compound the matter further,.. the universe is expanding with acceleration, meaning that the more time that goes by, the closer we are traveling to the speed of light relative to other superclusters. As that happens, time from our perspective slows. So, is it possible that what we "see" as being 15 million years in the past is really some other completely differnt amount of time? You bet. Now, to compound things even further (why stop here), the acceleration of the universe is caused by "dark matter", which really just the power of thought. And this thought (knowledge) is now increasing at an exponential rate, while at the same time productivity has nearly plateaued on a logarithmic rate. On the graph linked below, 0,0 represents about 26000 yrs ago, 15,000,000 yrs ago, etc as this graph can be scaled in a fractal patern over time-space repesented by time-space along the x=y vector. The location where the log and exp function come the closest together could be represented by the Renaissance, while our current state is near the point where the exp and log functions become nearly infinite, thus requiring an inverse and flip to "reset" the system to the next cycle. This reset will include the a culmination of events on multiple layers of reality (which I'd guess you may be already aware of on some level from watching the news) which will end with the earths pole flipping and the extremes of the universe traveling the maximum speed of light relative to each other. This universal event has happened a few times before and will happen many more times before we move to the next bigger cycle. The result will be humanities enlightenment to our awareness of the 5th dimension. I know this may seem like a lot to take in all at once, but read what I have read until you get it and sooner or later it will sink in. There may be some people around here that want to break this information down, however I only have limited time to explain and no time (patients) to defend. Take it or leave it. I only offer the knowledge. http://www.efunda.com/math/exp_log/display.cfm