Is the universe finite or infinite?

there are wide spread theories that the universe has 11 dimensions.
now just look at a 4 dimensional universe the 4th been time. You set off a certain point in the universe and travel along a stright line, eventually you will arrive back in the same point you left, but it will also be the same time. as that point you left had 4 dimensions time been one of them.

ohh god youve got me going now
 
salami1212 said:
No, we can only see stars born from 13 billion light years away. Everything over that is obviously unknown territory but it is still in the universe as the universe is everything.

In fact scientists think there is roughly one star born every year and one star dieing every year so really the sky should look something like static on a tv in that case..

May I ask are you atheist? Agnostic? Or religious?
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Athiest.

But what I'm saying is that if the universe was infinite, the stars from 14 billion light years away, the light would have got to us by now since the universe would have been there an infinite amount of time. And the light from the stars infinite-billion light years away would have got to us by now because there would have been a long enough time for it to get here. Therefore, the way I see it, the universe isn't infinite.
 
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yhack said:
Athiest.

But what I'm saying is that if the universe was infinite, the stars from 14 billion light years away, the light would have got to us by now since the universe would have been there an infinite amount of time. And the light from the stars from infinite-billion light years away would have got to us by now because there would have been a long enough time for it to get here. Therefore, the way I see it, the universe isn't infinite.
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I find it weird how someone who is atheist could believe something could appear from nothing? Im not religious by the way.

The same goes for my point anyway, if the universe is infinite but there is roughly one star born and one star dieing at any one time then why would it be constantly bright? Surely it should be constantly dark aswell?
 
danman2k said:
there are wide spread theories that the universe has 11 dimensions.
now just look at a 4 dimensional universe the 4th been time. You set off a certain point in the universe and travel along a stright line, eventually you will arrive back in the same point you left, but it will also be the same time. as that point you left had 4 dimensions time been one of them.

ohh god youve got me going now
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I rather thought it was - could be 11 dimensions, could be many more? Depending on which theory you look at.

If Arthur C. Clarke will forgive me for the paraphrase my view is "Two possibilities exist: Either the Universe is infinite or it is not. Both are equally mindblowing.". If the universe isn't infinite then it's so indecribably huge as to be beyond imagining and for any measures to lose their meaning, if it is infinite then it's way beyond my ability to even conceive of how it could be.
 
salami1212 said:
I find it weird how someone who is atheist could believe something could appear from nothing? Im not religious by the way.

The same goes for my point anyway, if the universe is infinite but there is roughly one star born and one star dieing at any one time then why would it be constantly bright? Surely it should be constantly dark aswell?
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I don't think something came from nothing, but for the universe to be infinite, it would have had to have always been there right?

I don't know how the universe began, the theory I believe in most is the Big Bang theory, but that doesn't explain where all that 'stuff' came from. I have no explanation for how all matter came to exist. Unless it was always there. Damn.

But if there was infinite stars, one dying at a time wouldn't really affect it because there is infinite stars.
 
salami1212 said:
I find it weird how someone who is atheist could believe something could appear from nothing? Im not religious by the way.

The same goes for my point anyway, if the universe is infinite but there is roughly one star born and one star dieing at any one time then why would it be constantly bright? Surely it should be constantly dark aswell?
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Well if you are in a room with loads of people holding flash lights, with one going off and another one coming on it would not be constantly dark.

Also about the appearing from nothing, we don't have an answer but I can imagine that no matter what religion you believe in you are just passing the puk to another level. God solves no mysteries, if you believe a creator has been for ever, why not just take it back one level to the universe?
 
salami1212 said:
True but at the same time there cant be 'everything' either because that would imply infinity.
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Why not an infinity of nothing, ie space with no matter and no light. One theory suggest this with multiple big bangs. So just like in are universe you have multiple galaxies. In the infinite of space you have multiple universes.
 
yhack said:
I don't think something came from nothing, but for the universe to be infinite, it would have had to have always been there right?

I don't know how the universe began, the theory I believe in most is the Big Bang theory, but that doesn't explain where all that 'stuff' came from. I have no explanation for how all matter came to exist. Unless it was always there. Damn.

But if there was infinite stars, one dying at a time wouldn't really affect it because there is infinite stars.
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Yes I dont see how it could be infinite as that would imply a creator. These conversations cant be good for the brain :p.

But then there are an infinite amount of dieing stars to!

chaosdestro0 said:
Well if you are in a room with loads of people holding flash lights, with one going off and another one coming on it would not be constantly dark.

Also about the appearing from nothing, we don't have an answer but I can imagine that no matter what religion you believe in you are just passing the puk to another level. God solves no mysteries, if you believe a creator has been for ever, why not just take it back one level to the universe?
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Sorry I didnt really understand the last question?

AcidHell2 said:
Why not an infinity of nothing, ie space with no matter and no light. One theory suggest this with multiple big bangs. So just like in are universe you have multiple galaxies. In the infinite of space you have multiple universes.
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Nothing might be nothing to us, but might not be nothing to something else..

Anyway, no one knows, and to be honest I dont think anyone will. My personal theory is the multiple big bangs. All energy will be in one place at one point in time and then explode to create another universe until all energy has been used to expand it and it contracts again. But the universes are all relative to one another so for example there could be one universe inside an infinitely small space of nothing.?

**** knows.
 
If there was an infinate amount of stars, then wouldnt there be stars filling up all the empty space? /me checks behind sofa.

Imo, the universe is finite because the big bang started a finite amount of time ago. Is what started the big bang infinite (super string theory / God)? We will never know.
 
yhack said:
If it was infinite then there would be an infinite amount of stars so the sky would be white all the time, so it's finite.
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Not true. Shine a torch from close up, you'll see it, shine the same torch from further away, you won't. Light follows the inverse square law, basically stating that the further away you get, the dimmer the light gets, to the point where it is too dim for us (as in people) to see. Hence why cameras/telescopes/etc can see more stars than we can.
 
Most Cosmologists say that the Universe is infinite in spacial extent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker_metric

Here is an interview with Professor Joseph Silk, Head of Astrophysics at Oxford.

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMR53T1VED_index_0_iv.html

ESA: Is the Universe finite or infinite?

Joseph Silk: We don't know. The expanding Universe theory says that the Universe could expand forever [that corresponds to a 'flat' Universe]. And that is probably the model of the Universe that we feel closest to now. But it could also be finite, because it could be that the Universe has a very large volume now, but finite, and that that volume will increase, so only in the infinite future will it actually be infinite.


ESA: It sounds like a game of words, is it?

Joseph Silk: No. We do not know whether the Universe is finite or not. To give you an example, imagine the geometry of the Universe in two dimensions as a plane. It is flat, and a plane is normally infinite. But you can take a sheet of paper [an 'infinite' sheet of paper] and you can roll it up and make a cylinder, and you can roll the cylinder again and make a torus [like the shape of a doughnut]. The surface of the torus is also spatially flat, but it is finite. So you have two possibilities for a flat Universe: one infinite, like a plane, and one finite, like a torus, which is also flat.
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So however long we debate it, (infinitely), we simply do not know.
 
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