Is the universe flat, or is the universe round?

[Keanumoreira]

It's question I recently asked myself. The other day, I watched a documentary on the mechanics of the universe, hoping to find some relationship between entropy and dark energy, when they mentioned something about how the universe may be flat. I told myself "that's ridiculous; that's the same nonsense of the notion that the world is flat, proved otherwise by Columbus and Magellan."

 

And then it occurred to me: planet formation. Planets are made when asteroids accumulate so much mass, that gravity crushes them, but that mass is not enough to tear them apart. There is evidence that the universe is not only expanding, but that expansion is accelerating. It might mean that the universe cannot be round because dark energy is outrunning gravity; if gravity outran dark energy, then the theory of the big rip might prove true because the universe's immense mass could tear it apart.

 

 

Honestly, there's no definite proof that the universe is flat or round. There's only speculation.

[TrickyVein]

Some would say that the universe is, and whether or not humans come up with an elegant way of describing it, nature doesn't really care.

[Thor.]

They say the universe is round. Or i would say they know for sure the universe is round, sense they mapped it out to its entirety

 

http://www.space.com/23072-cosmic-microwave-background-light-inflation.html

Edited October 19, 2013 by Thor.

[Keanumoreira]

Some would say that the universe is, and whether or not humans come up with an elegant way of describing it, nature doesn't really care.

 

Lol, since when does nature care about anything we do? :P

 

I guess we keep on looking for bigger and bigger challenges. Nothing, it seems, is too great for the human intellect.

[JimboUK]

The answer is we don't know and new discoveries tend pose more questions than they do provide answers. The big bang, dark energy and dark matter are only theories, we don't actually know very much at all.

[Thor.]

Here is a interesting article about dark energy and matter.

http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2013/06/26/does-dark-matter-really-exist/

[AurianaValoria1]

OK, here's my two bits, for what they're worth. :tongue:

 

Columbus discovered America...then he didn't. Pluto is a planet, then it isn't, then it is, then it has one extra "buddy" floating out there.

 

The universe is round, then its flat....

 

I think we can see where this is going. They're going to change their minds a dozen times, and they're never going to get it right. They can't even get our history right. :rolleyes:

 

For some reason, "they" have a really hard time saying, "I don't know." :laugh:

 

New discoveries are being made on this planet every day. We don't have the same kind of access to the rest of the universe...yet. If we ever find out for sure about the shape of it, it will be way beyond our lifetimes.

 

And at that point, we will be beyond caring. :tongue:

Edited October 19, 2013 by AurianaValoria1

[Lisnpuppy]

All of this is "scientific theory." None of it is scientific fact. Until we can drive on out to the ends and outside of the universe all scientist can do is make the best guess they have with the information, research...and in this case mathematics that they have. Almost all theoretic physics and astronomy is based on math. They get reading and things then plug them into existing models and see what works, what doesn't and if they have to come up with something new.

 

As they get more information things change and the "theory" we have can get pretty close to what we think of as "fact." But it never gets all the way there.

 

So yeah this is interesting. I read some on this just recently. However it could change..or have competing theories that all have some merit. Until more empirical data is obtained this is the best they can do.

 

There is also a theory that the reason the universe is expanding is because there are other universes outside of ours, that have mass and thus exert that upon ours. This is speculated based on some of the universe "maps" and there is not an even distribution as they would suspect and one particular section shows this more than others, which made scientist wonder about this more.

 

So who the heck knows. We might all be in a ball hanging around a cat's neck somewhere.

[Keanumoreira]

I pretty much agree with all of you guys. We don't know. There's a reason, after all, why they call it "dark" energy and "dark" matter, because they don't really know what they are. I want to believe that the universe is round, but after thinking over that one law of gravity, I'm not so sure. We should probably, as Auriana pointed out, get our facts straight first before we try and tackle the shape of existence. ;D

[SilverDNA]

It is scientific fact, that humans use often the confirmation bias (psychology) to shape their own reality, regardless of what geometrical structure they attribute to the universe.
Since galaxy's have different forms, that also can't be complete described as geometrical shaped, the above used assumption could be right, but the indicators shows, that this could be, with a high probability, be wrong.
As long as we not know the boundary's of the universe, it is only poking with a stick in the dark matter and stir.