The universe is much bigger than previously thought

[Beati Dogu]

According to a recent British-led study, there's at least two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. This is 20 times larger than previously thought.


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-an...

[motco]

HHGTTG said:

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

[Eric Mc]

Beati Dogu said:

According to a recent British-led study, there's at least two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. This is 20 times larger than previously thought.


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-an...

Does that mean "bigger" or just "more crowded"?

[Danattheopticians]

It's endless. So how can it mean bigger?
Can only mean somone who's had the time to count to a number ending in illion had too much time on their hands.

[jmorgan]

Who has an endless tape measure? I hope there is a sign at the end saying "the end". Well, lots of signs.....

[Danattheopticians]

jmorgan said:

Who has an endless tape measure? I hope there is a sign at the end saying "the end". Well, lots of signs.....

Probably a London based estate agent trying to sell those 1 bed "spacious" studio flats for £1,000,000!

[deckster]

Eric Mc said:

Beati Dogu said:

According to a recent British-led study, there's at least two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. This is 20 times larger than previously thought.


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-an...

Does that mean "bigger" or just "more crowded"?

And what does it do to our estimates of total mass vs rates of expansion, dark matter and all that?

[hidetheelephants]

Is this due to Brexit, migrants or CAGW and will it give me cancer?

[Einion Yrth]

deckster said:

Eric Mc said:

Beati Dogu said:

According to a recent British-led study, there's at least two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. This is 20 times larger than previously thought.


http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-an...

Does that mean "bigger" or just "more crowded"?

And what does it do to our estimates of total mass vs rates of expansion, dark matter and all that?

I offer this only as information, but Mike McCulloch offers some alternative thoughts wrt the "missing mass" problem. Worth a look, and I certainly don't dismiss it out of hand, because the maths seem to work.

[andy_s]

Einion Yrth said:

I offer this only as information, but Mike McCulloch offers some alternative thoughts wrt the "missing mass" problem. Worth a look, and I certainly don't dismiss it out of hand, because the maths seem to work.

Really interesting link, had a good few hours reading up and not understanding much of it! It does seem to tick a few of the boxes in terms of inertia, quantum gravity, dark matter and intuitively makes a bit more sense of things I think. Cheers.

[768]

Danattheopticians said:

It's endless. So how can it mean bigger?
Can only mean somone who's had the time to count to a number ending in illion had too much time on their hands.

Is it?

[Halmyre]

Danattheopticians said:

It's endless. So how can it mean bigger?
Can only mean somone who's had the time to count to a number ending in illion had too much time on their hands.

Consider the surface of a ball. Is it endless? Now compare the surface area of a small ball to a large ball. Still endless, but bigger.

Now extrapolate the two-dimensional ball surface to three dimensions...

[superlightr]

Halmyre said:

Consider the surface of a ball. Is it endless? Now compare the surface area of a small ball to a large ball. Still endless, but bigger.

Now extrapolate the two-dimensional ball surface to three dimensions...

is the ball bouncing and spinning?

[skeeterm5]

I think this is poor reporting. The story is that the observable universe has more stuff in it than previously observed. I don't see how they then make the connection to this meaning "bigger".

S

[paulmakin]

i listened to someone explaining the ball thing recently and, for the first time, "infinite" made sense.

space is infinite but boundaried. like an ant walking around the earth - 1 minor deviation from course will mean an entirely new pathway and it'll never get back to it's staring point.

paul

[Danattheopticians]

But if an ant could trace it's path behind him as wide as him and walk far enough and for long enough it could after an amount of time (Not actually infinite but for argument sake infinate) that line he left would eventually cover the entire surface. Like a marker pen on a football only scale football up and pen down. So the5 surface of a ball is finite. No proof however that space is. Neither is there proof that space is spherical, but I'd agree it likely that the matter which make up all of the stars, galaxies etc is finite however the space into which the universe's known matter is expanding into is endless otherwise what is beyond that?

[Halmyre]

Danattheopticians said:

But if an ant could trace it's path behind him as wide as him and walk far enough and for long enough it could after an amount of time (Not actually infinite but for argument sake infinate) that line he left would eventually cover the entire surface. Like a marker pen on a football only scale football up and pen down. So the5 surface of a ball is finite. No proof however that space is. Neither is there proof that space is spherical, but I'd agree it likely that the matter which make up all of the stars, galaxies etc is finite however the space into which the universe's known matter is expanding into is endless otherwise what is beyond that?

An ant walking on the surface of the earth might also think "there's no proof that this seemingly infinite plane that I'm walking on is in fact finite".

The thing about "what is space expanding into" has to be cast aside. Again, what is the surface of the ball expanding into? It's not expanding into anything, in terms of its expansion - it's just expanding.

[paulmakin]

i did think "enough time and he will cover it all" but my mind was boggled so just accepted it !!!

but, if the ball is expanding then i suppose he'd always have new ball to walk on ?

paul

Edited by paulmakin on Monday 17th October 08:26

[ben963]

We will never completely know the mystery of the universe. Our lifetime is not enough to scale the universe. It looks like the universe is not so cold afterall.