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Old 10-June-2008, 02:52 PM
GOURDHEAD GOURDHEAD is offline
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Default Anisotropic Limits

http://space.newscientist.com/commen...age=3&referer= is a discussion of some anisotropic features of the universe in which it is alleged that the entire physical universe is 10^100 times as large as the one that it is possible to observe.

From the story:
Quote:
The structures stretch beyond the edge of the observable universe, which is essentially confined to a region with a radius of 14 billion light years, since only light from within that distance has had time to reach us since the big bang. The entire "global" universe is about 10^100 times as large as the universe we can see. In the inflation scenario, the expansion is driven by an energy field of still-mysterious origin. Erickcek and her colleagues argue that the asymmetry could be the remnant of fluctuations in an additional energy field, which started out very tiny, but were blown up by inflation until they were larger than the observable universe.
If this is a reasonable guess at size and a Uclidean sphere is assumed for shape, does it make any sense to guess at where our chunk of the observable universe may be within the 14*10^100 billion lightyear domain? Or, is my understanding of what is being said in the story too far off?
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Old 10-June-2008, 04:43 PM
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Originally Posted by GOURDHEAD View Post
http://space.newscientist.com/commen...age=3&referer= is a discussion of some anisotropic features of the universe in which it is alleged that the entire physical universe is 10^100 times as large as the one that it is possible to observe.
You linked to page 3 of a (water-pooled-on-the-slope-of-a-Mars-crater) New Scientist discussion. Where's what you quoted, the original article?

Never mind. I found it:

Hints of structure beyond the visible universe

Quote:
Colossal structures larger than the visible universe – forged during the period of cosmic inflation nearly 14 billion years ago – may be responsible for a strange pattern seen in the big bang's afterglow, says a team of cosmologists [led by Adrienne Erickcek of Caltech]. If confirmed, the structures could provide precious information about the universe's earliest moments.
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Originally Posted by GOURDHEAD View Post
If this is a reasonable guess at size and a Uclidean sphere is assumed for shape, does it make any sense to guess at where our chunk of the observable universe may be within the 14*10^100 billion lightyear domain?
Guess, to what end? So far I'm not seeing such a guess make much sense; it doesn't seem to have much value given the steep hypothetical assumptions. But, I suppose it makes a kind of sense to guess if you find it entertaining. Do you expect more from it?

More yummy: BBC Nature: Hints of 'time before Big Bang' (Chriss Lintott)
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Old 11-June-2008, 03:05 PM
GOURDHEAD GOURDHEAD is offline
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Quoted from the bbc link:
Quote:
This rule is so fundamental to physics that pioneering astronomer Arthur Eddington insisted that "if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation". The second law cannot be escaped, but Professor Carroll pointed out that it depends on a major assumption - that the Universe began its life in an ordered state. This makes understanding the roots of this most fundamental of laws a job for cosmologists.
The second law, at its formulation, was constrained to isolated, closed, finite, systems and focussed on the thermodynamic properties of such a system while not allowing for the effects of "ordering" forces such as gravity, electricity, and magnetism which aid and abet the generation of sentient beings which further muddy the waters of order/chaos. I have been shocked and astonished that the WMAP data supports such a high degree of isotropy as it does and am led to wonder how much effect the second law has had in generating this isotropic state over the last 13.3 billion years.

In my abysmal ignorance and bigoted view of how the universe is structured, I cling to Uclidean 3-space inhabited by an unclear version of something that approximates a Higgs field with sufficient complexity to generate all that we have observed and are likely to observe. There are no additional spatial dimensions in my wonder world, backward time travel is prohibited, and the big bang, if there was one, did not emanate from a volume the size of a sphere of planck radius or less. Contemplation of the universe within such constraints is about all I can handle until the tooth fairy informs me otherwise.
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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?
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Old 11-June-2008, 10:39 PM
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So who or what is "Uclid"?
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Old 29-June-2008, 12:59 PM
GOURDHEAD GOURDHEAD is offline
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Quote:
So who or what is "Uclid"?
A misspelling of Euclid.
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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?
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