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Boudicca
Joined: 21 Feb 2009
Posts: 224
Location: Surrey
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 Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 12:00 pm Post subject: More Grains of Sand, or Stars, in the Universe? |
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Go on, you tell me!
Is this a question of maths, science or philosophy?
I'm told that stars outnumber the grains of sand - by a wide margin... Eh? Who's counted? 
Someone seems to be suggesting that the vastness of the universe is unknowable. Is it?
Bou - a bit hooked on Prof Brian Cox!  |
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lizsmith
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Joined: 24 Apr 2005
Posts: 46599
Location: Sunny Southport
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| Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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I think it only takes a starlit night to make you realise just how hoooge the universe is.
The Milky Way is only one galaxy and look how many stars are in that alone??
The whole thing has fascinated me since I was a small child
(which is one of the reasons I have a telescope lol)
Liz x who wants to know whats at the edge of the universe
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ex-bognor
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Joined: 28 May 2005
Posts: 57133
Location: CEBU ex UK
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| Posted: Wed Apr 07, 2010 6:06 pm Post subject: |
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The stars in the universe are going to win hands down. Galaxies of a hundred-thousand million stars being the norm.
Creation is awesome, and by sheer logic just couldn't be, for somewhere something had to come from nothing. Yet we are here, so it must have happened, but we know that's impossible. 
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Give the devil an inch; and he'll become your ruler. |
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Numpty
DD Valentine
Joined: 03 Nov 2007
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| Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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Some famous scientist once pondered this question I think.
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Boudicca
Joined: 21 Feb 2009
Posts: 224
Location: Surrey
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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More than one famous scientist I suspect, Numpty! What conclusions did they come to?
Think of a bucketful of sand in a kid's plastic bucket - surely, the number of grains are totally uncountable. How, then, can we count the grains of sand on the entire planet?
Ooh Liz, does the universe have an 'edge', or does it disappear into 'nothingness...'? (What's 'nothingness?')
Bou, as confused as everyone else... |
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lizsmith
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Joined: 24 Apr 2005
Posts: 46599
Location: Sunny Southport
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 3:42 pm Post subject: |
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My Mum used to tell me that the best way to think of the universe was as a circle with no beginning and no end...I like that idea, any other possibility makes my head hurt lol
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ex-bognor
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Joined: 28 May 2005
Posts: 57133
Location: CEBU ex UK
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| Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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Define nothing, for it isn't like a room, or the great outdoors because it exists. That we know. As the universe expands it is creating space. Which as we know is "impossible." By sheer logic, creation was impossible, therefore nothing exists, but exist it does.
Before creation there was no time, so nothing happened before then, there was no history. Just a beginning.
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dynomot
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Joined: 25 Oct 2005
Posts: 5251
Location: Sheffield
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| Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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We have counted thousands upon thousands of galaxies in our universe already with more and more being discoverd all the time. In some of those galaxies as EB has said there are literally hundreds of billions of stars. Here you go :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3085885.stm
As for not being able to visualise or know what is at the edge of the universe, we can't although there are some mnd bending theories that try. We humans observe everything in four dimensions height, width depth and time. We can stay motionless or move in three of them and time we move forward in at a constan rate . Einstein postulated that time would indeed pass more slowly for us if we are moving in one of the three other dimensions. At the speed of light time is still and therefore none existant, but only a paricle or object with 0 mass can do this because the energy needed to travel at the speed of light for any object with absolutely any mass would be infinite.  Mind boggling, but here's something that will really cook your noodle: Energy cannot be destroyed or used up only altered into a different form. All the energy all the mass of absolutely everything was contained in a paricle millions of times smaller than this full stop. What made it go boom and start time off we don't know. What we do know is that the universe is hotter in some places than others,is expanding more quickly than it should be in others and is actually shrinking in others. We donot yet know if the universe is actually getting bigger or staying the same. Our physics and maths still say it's expanding but our recent observations may put this in doubt. One cosmologist has predicted that the universe is like a giant football and we and everything else are on the inner skin. It is being bashed and booted by other universes as they try and expand ours does the same to them. That is why to us it is continually doing what it is doing. |
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