Universe is shaped like a football (based on long wave length data)

[papau]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1058868,00.html

Universe is shaped like a football, says scientist

Alok Jha Science correspondent
Thursday October 9, 2003
The Guardian

It is a question which has been kicking about for thousands of years: is our universe infinite? Today, scientists have announced the most compelling evidence yet which suggests that, not only is it finite, but it may be the shape of a football.

Jeff Watts, a mathematician based in New York and one of the lead authors of a paper in today's Nature, said he and his team may have cracked the puzzle.

He used data from the Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (WMAP) to conclude that the universe probably does not go on forever. <snip>

But a finite universe does not mean there are edges. Mr Watts says the WMAP data shows that the shape of space may be based on a dodecahedron: a solid composed of 12 pentagons. If a someone were to travel out to the "edge" of this shape, they would end up coming back in through the opposite face.

[Ellen Forradalom]

1. Football fans could have told you this for a quarter

The universe is shaped like a football, and the meaning of life is revealed between September and January.

[RobertSeattle]

2. Are we talking Soccer Football or Football Football

[Octafish]

4. Soccer ball.

A dodecahedron. Rats. Well, at least my own personal universe is the real-football shaped.

From the article:

... But a finite universe does not mean there are edges. Mr Watts says the WMAP data shows that the shape of space may be based on a dodecahedron: a solid composed of 12 pentagons. If a someone were to travel out to the "edge" of this shape, they would end up coming back in through the opposite face.

CONTINUED...

A dozen Pentagons, eh?

[TacticalPeek]

7. Bucky Ball?

:)

[outdoor_News]

24. wow

Bucky balls don't occur naturally... interisting observation..

[Kusala]

3. no surprises here

Even though this argument has been going back and forth for decades.

expanding/contracting ad infinitum.

No beginning, no end.

causuality.

basically...Buddhism in a nutshell.

[TacticalPeek]

5. But is it political?

:)

[bamademo]

6. It's a political football

:-)

[cprise]

8. I think they mean a soccer ball

European football.

[On the Road]

9. What I Don't Understand Is

how they establish that if you were to go out one side, you would come back in the other side?

And I don't understand why a finite universe would absorb longer wavelengths, but not an infinite universe.

Like a lot of science articles, there's something missing here.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

10. Sorry, but it is poppycock.

If you can not come to an edge, then there is no edge, and thus there is no shape.

If you take the shape as a dodecahedron and you start at the center of this shap and move outward, you come to a face. Now this mathematician is saying that when you hit that face you instantly come back into the dodecahedron through the opposite face.

Now, let us assume that the universe is two light years across (it isn't but go with me on this), if the above theory is correct then when you exit one face you would be instantly transported two light years across to the other side of the universe, thus making the journey at a speed greatly in excess of the speed of light.

The only way this could happen without breaking the light-speed barrier would be for the opposite face to actually abut the face you exit, meaning that it would be pulled around in a innertube like shape. but the same would have to be said for every face, forming an incredibly complex system of tubes.

But then the problem arises: what about the sides of the tubes? What if instead of travelling through the tube, i cut acroos to the side and try to get out there? Then every side of every tube would have to abut every other side of every other tube!

In other words, if there is a SINGLE face of any kind, you would be able to leave the universe, or would have to break the lightspeed barrier by intersecting one of these faces.

Basically, what I am saying is, according to this theory, the universe either has NO shape, or the light-speed barrier is not absolute.

What does this mean? This means that claiming the universe is shaped like a football (or soccer ball) or ANY shape is totally wrong.

Another effect of what he is claiming is that a star on one side of the universe would shine directly on the other side, without the light travelling the entire distance across the universe. This would mean that that light would travel at speeds in excess of C, thus making the speed of light variable, not absolute.

Also, imagine we are sitting on one side of the universe looking at one of these faces. In front of us would be the entire universe seen fron the opposite face looking back towards ourselves. Could we actually know we were at the edge under such circumstances? For all intents and purposes we would actually be sitting on the other side of the universe looking inwards, rather than on this side looking outwards. Thus we would essentially be in two places at once. If we look forward we are on the right side, for example, but if we look backwards we are on the left.

In fact could we ever know where the edges were, and if not can we really say there are edges?

So how can we prove that this is not happening? Because we would be seeing an infinite universe! If we looked out at the universe, we would see all the stars in it multiple times, in fact an infinite number of times, because as we look further and further out, we would approach one of these magical faces and see the whole universe before us again, as we continued looking further out, we would see it all over again, and so on.

So our entire sky would be filled with multiple images of the same star transmitted over and over again through the edges of the universe like a hallway lined with mirrors. If you have ever been in such a halway, you would know what I mean, as standing there, you see your reflection repeated off into infinity as each mirror reflects what the opposite mirrors sees and that mirror reflects that image again and so on.

Basically, I think this mathematician has talked himself into a corner. If the universe is the way he says it is, then why can't we see it that way? If it is not the way he says it is, it calls into question his interpretation of the data.

[GAspnes]

11. this is why we can't discuss these theories

in English. You gotta do the math.

There aren't an infinity of super-light tubes leading from one face to another. Each face is like the threshold of a door, leading from one room to another. *Each* face connects *directly* to its opposite.

The other idea you've proposed is also known as "Olber's Paradox". Check it out.

I *would* be interested in seeing if there is evidence of microwave photons disappearing at one interface and appearing at the opposite face ... but that experiment will take (1/2 * width of universe)/(speed of light) years to confirm.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

12. But as I said...

If each face is directly connected to each other, then the shape of the universe is NOT a dodecahedron. It would have to be folded over in some way to enable each face to directly abut its opposite.

What about the other effects I described, such as the "hallway of mirrors" effect. Every star within the universe is moving in some way or another, a stream of photons sent out today that travelled across one of these face-to-face intersections would be in a different place from where a directly seen beam of light from the same star would be.

However at some point that light would reach the opposite side and once again be reflected through that face again, except this time alongside another beam of light from the same star which is now in a different location. This would continue on and on, until there is multiple beams of light, all from the same star, but appearing to be coming from many different locations simultaneously.

Given long enough, the universe would be awash with streams of photons being circulated around for ever, and you would not be able to look at any point in the sky without seeing starlight

What about the conditions on the boundary, where as you cross the boundary one part of you would be on one side of the universe, and the other trillions of light years away on the opposite side of the universe. In fact, how could you define where the boundary was? For example, you see a star in front of you, on which side of the universe is it? Is it on the far side and you area seeing the "looped" light? or is it on this side, and you are seeing the light directly. How could you tell? For all intents and purposes there would be no way to tell. If it was on this side, you would still see it directly from the other side because the looping effect is bi-directional.

Next contemplate gravity itself. Say there are two stars, one on each side of the universe, under this theory, their gravity would have to affect each other, and thus two stars on opposite sides of the universe could actually be in orbit around each other. How can you pinpoint where between them is the boundary?

Basically what I am saying is that if the theory is true that when you approach a boundary on one side you are also leaving the boundary on the other, then there is no real way to define where the boundary lies, and thus no way to determine the shape.

This is why the math can lie. Our mathematical understanding of the universe is unable to describe such conditions. Take for example a singularity. At a singularity all values become infinite, or zero and thus no mathematical formula has any meaning. A Black Hole is such a singularity where mathematics breaks down.

Thus if it exists, but maths can't explain it, and conversely if it doesn't exist and maths says it does, then we have to assume that mathematics is a faulty tool, and can't be used to describe extreme conditions such as the point of a singularity, or as I am claiming, the boundary of the universe.

Let me put it this way. When we look out at the universe we see trillions of stars, but based on this theory some, if not most, of them must be multiple images of the same star, and thus our understanding of everything about the universe is wrong. If many of the stars we see are mere shadows of other stars and don't physically exist, then our calculations on the amount of mass in the universe is way out, and thus theories such as the expansion or contraction of the universe are incorrect.

Basically, this single theory would kill all of the other theories about the universe because they are all working on faulty data.

[GAspnes]

14. Gee, I guess that proves it

Your proposition that the sky should be filled with starlight is a variation on Olber's Paradox. Read up, and enjoy the math.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/ronald.koster/olber.pdf

The problem with most of the rest of your reasoning is that this boundary, mathematical though it may be, is the expanding edge of the Universe. All current indications are that the rate of expansion is increasing, so any matter created earlier in the life of the Universe and *near* the boundary is receding from the boundary. (Imagine running up a down escalator moving at 20 mph. As fast as you can run, the top of the escalator 'moves' away from you.)

There might well be such strange occurrences as you imagine occurring at the boundary, but since the boundary is so far away, few if any photons from it have (or ever will) arrived at earth.

On a calmer note, it's important to realize that the mathematical explanation of a phenomenon is just that -- mathematical. The antics of quantum mechanics make perfect mathematical sense, but no logical sense at all. Logic is pretty useless for most discussions of cosmology and cosmonogy.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

15. Ok let's see..

First of all, Olber's Paradox is based on a totally different kind of universe, an infinite one as opposed to a finite one, and thus may have different consequences based on that modification. Also, it is a finite universe that simulates infinity by endlessly repeating which would magnify the radiation coming from any one star many times.

I am no math wiz, but it seems to me that Olber's Paradox, and the solving of it, is not applicable to a totally different universe with totally different rules. Perhaps you can explain why Olber's Paradox applies to a finite yet mirrored universe.

Next you refer to the expanding of the universe. For that to have an effect, the expansion would have to be in excess of light speed in order to outrun light. If the expansion is indeed in excess of light speed, then for all intents and purposes the universe is infinite because the light-speed barrier prevents any subluminal object obtaining light-speed in order to catch up with it, and thus there would be no edge. We would never be able to detect an edge except by maths, and therefore we would never be able to prove that the maths is anything more than numbers on a piece of paper.

It would be just as well to say that the universe is infinite and the same result would be obtained: no edge. What would be the difference between an undectable edge, and no edge at all?

This doesn't seem to me to be a mathematical explanation of what we experience so much as it is a mathematical explanation of what can NEVER be experienced, and thus is no better than myth. It may be proven mathematically, but if by its very nature it describes something that can never have any reality for those of us in the universe, then it is little more than a parlour trick.

In other words, if it is physically impossible for me to ever approach the edge of the universe, what point is there saying what that edge looks like, and how it would act if you approached it?

I am not arguing that the maths of this theory is wrong, I am arguing that the laypersons spiel that has been attached to it is wrong. The universe is not shaped like a football if you can leave one side of it and enter immediately at the opposite, under such conditions the concept of shape has no meaning. It just doesn't make sense. Sure the math might work, but the explanation of the math doesn't.

[GAspnes]

17. here, have some Tylenol

I know exactly how you feel. Here is an explanation you perhaps will find more palatable.

Suppose we're 2-dimensional, and some incredibly bright 2-dimensional thinker realizes we live on the surface of a square -- but that this square is actually one side of the inside of a cube.

Now, you can mathematically describe the edges of this cube. There is a simple co-ordinate system which describes where you are on each side (in fact, from a 2-dimensional point of view, it's a more complicated set of maths that describe a map of the universe where there are 4 squares in a line, with 2 squares on either side of the 2nd square from the end, like this:
X
XXXX
X

If we number these, just for convenience, we get:
5
1 2 3 4
6

it's easy to see that mathematically, the right edge of square 4 wraps around to the left edge of square 1. It's a little harder to see that the top of 3 wraps to the top of 5 and the top of 2 wraps to the right edge of 5, but the math makes sense and the universe has a definate shape, with definate edges.

Is that a better explanation?

[papau]

19. So our 2 dimensional friend is the shadow of a 3 dim real thing!

I do like it - and it fits the 4 dimemsional us in an 11 dimension real world approach.

Now how does the incredibly bright 4-dimensional thinker realize that the edge is a 5 sided polygon of equal lenth sides?

Back when we were young we all agree Pac-man edge treatment was wrong, but we wondered about Mobius’s 1868 idea of a one sided “2 dim” strip (generalized in 1925 by Klein to a “bottle” with one surface).

Now that we have the new rule that the laws of physics change depending on the situation - gravity has a change to its "constant" depending on where you are and what is near you - so that we can "explain" a "rate of expansion is increasing" universe (but where did we get the speed of light expansion factor?) , so any matter created earlier in the life of the Universe and *near* the boundary is receding from the boundary, we avoid (or delay?)http://home.wanadoo.nl/ronald.koster/olber.pdf
olber's problem? If true how do we get those light feq. measurements that suggest our 5 sided sides on a "football"?

Religion requires faith, but not quite as much as this stuff - but I do marvel and applaud the creativity!

:-)

[GAspnes]

20. as I said, that's the problem with using English

if these problems could be stated and solved in English, we'd be doing it that way.

*sigh*

My personal struggle is with Bell's Theorem. The math is simple and straightforward -- but as a result I have to submit to either 'there's no such thing as causality' or 'there is spooky action at a distance.'

Common sense tells me neither can be false; the math says one of them is. So, which to use to understand the world -- common sense or math?

E=mc² works every time, but that's only the simplest of simple statements, and was derived from far more complex underlying concepts and math. But, people insist on easy (read: non-math) answers and then gripe when the answer, as stated in English and framed in the macro world experience, doesn't make sense.

[papau]

21. I agree - I felt let down when the 1963(?) Bells theorem was "proved" via

actual experiment.

Of course all that was proved was the results that would occur in a given experiment - which is all that Science can ever "prove".

But the alternative to causality at a distance of multiple universe's equal in number to the number of QM states since time began had a nice tone to it - rather religious - and it implied that "my world" was all about me - and I rather liked that.

Now these folks are trying kill multiple universes... sigh ... and the proof that the extra 7 dimensions of the 11 dimension curl in on themselves is the fact that we can "prove" certain happenings can only occur in a 4 dimensional world - and can not be the "shadow" of a straight lined dimensioned 11 dimension world..

I am still trying to get my head around the "mass can not be created or destroyed" - except when it is a QM energy fluctuation - where the energy turns into mass - and where negative mass disappears, and "dark matter" of yester-year is today's any Law of Physics that has constants does not have the same constant all the time - or is this restricted to gravity?

It was so much easier to have my own little universe via Bell's Theorem, than it is to be part of the shadow of a buch of strings in an 11 dimension world! I guess the "rational" English lanuage will have to give way to a new "Zen" like lanuage - but I find myself nodding yes at such lanuage, and never reaching the level of real understanding - but I guess that is the nature of religion.

:-)

[GAspnes]

22. y'know whom I envy?

I envy the 17th and 18th century guys. When science was lying around waiting to be discovered -- germs, oxygen, Boyle's Law, electricity, chemistry, astronomy, biology -- and anyone with a healthy sense of curiousity, skepticism and a willingness to do experiments, could make important and exciting discoveries.

Now I have to have *hard* math, past tensors and number theory, particles and their currents, quantum mechanics, strings ... sheesh, the best I could do was look around and find a field that was just starting (computers, in my case) where a talented amatuer could discover new things without first re-hashing the past 250 years of human knowledge.

[papau]

23. I know the feeling - and computer modeling has revealed a lot

But I am not a good programer (as less talented folks can do the management of what they do not understand - I have managed programing folks). I had a hard transition from Cobol and Fortran and assembly to linear algebra lanuages like APL. And then C never stood still - although it at least had a thought pattern I understood.

And after years of trying get a 1000 bytes of code to do wonders, I do not fit into the "bloat code" world of visual basic objects that one drops and pastes in a program. I have no clue how one quality controls a 30 megabyte program that must interface with 10,000 other programs. Information theory - when reading ahead makes sense even if you must throw out 90% of what you read - is well beyond my ability. Damn good Thing I gor old and into finance, tax, and actuarial work!

And I am sticking with multiple universes where my universe relates to me - "cause I like it!

:-)

[hatrack]

13. So, the XTC theory was correct after all!

"And all the world is football-shaped
It's just for me to kick in space" (Senses Working Overtime)

;-)

[MaidinVermont]

16. Let's assume the universe is finite for a moment

Please describe what is beyond the universe as we know it. Nothing you say? Unpossibile I say.

[GAspnes]

18. it may seem that way

but that's the way it is. There's a finite amount of Universe and that's all there is. There is nothing to describe 'beyond' the edge because there isn't anything beyond the edge.

on edit: or, as Gertrude Stein famously said of Oakland, CA, "There's no 'there' there."