Astronomers spot the first “bounce” in our Universe

Comments

• Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Reading through the description of this makes me wonder if the technique could ever be used to pinpoint the ‘origin’ of the big bang? If we knew where the boundaries of the universe were at we could roughly pinpoint the center, but that still assumes the universe is expanding at equal speeds in all directions. Still, knowing the origin point would probably help pinpoint our own location within the universe and provide better measurements for the age of the things we see in every direction.

  source

  • Kata1yst@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There was no origin point. The universe was infinite with no edges when the big bang occurred, just like now. It just inflated in every direction to be a bigger infinity.

    source

    • btaf45@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The universe was infinite with no edges when the big bang occurred, just like now.

      We don’t know that. Here is a depiction of infinite inflation, the most popular version of the standard model, spawning pocket universes with boundaries.

      bigthink.com/…/https___specials-images.forbesimg.…

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • Yearly1845@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    [deleted]

    source

    • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Well that was cool! Thanks for that, it actually cleared up some things for me.

      source
  • recursive_recursion@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I feel like this question is another possible route for how Nomai got sucked into the search for the Eye of the Universe

    btw if anyone hasn’t played The Outer Wilds please don’t look up anything and play it for yourself whenever you can afford it. It’s a game you’ll probably wish you could wipe your mind in order to experience it for the first time again

    source
  • btaf45@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    if the technique could ever be used to pinpoint the ‘origin’ of the big bang?

    There probably was no “origin point” because there was no singularity at the beginning of the big bang. The full universe may have been huge or even been infinite in size and even the observable universe had a significant size. There perhaps was a geographic center though, then and now.

    Still, knowing the origin point would probably help pinpoint our own location within the universe and provide better measurements for the age of the things we see in every direction.

    That would be the least of it. Knowing where a geographic center or boundary was would allow us to track absolute and not just relative motion. Then we could see what if any special properties apply to an absolute frame of reference.

    source

    • Kata1yst@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      But the existence of a "geometric center" breaks several of the base assumptions of astrophysics. If there were a geometric center as you say, then there would have to be "edges" of the universe, or the inflation would need a center.

      Both of which we think are not the case, due to lots of battle tested theories that tell us space is generally of flat curvature and homogenous, meaning one random chunk of space (the actual stuff of space, not like looking at stars and other structures of the universe) should be indistinguishable from another.

      These days those assumptions are considered pretty fundamental to any understanding of space itself and the universe at large that we have.

      source

      • -> View More Comments