The universe does not need to have a center for you to section it up as far as the latest telescope can see.  You simply make Sol sector 001, as in Trek.  It's no less arbitrary than the standard ruler.

 

Is fire a 'HE', is water a 'He' is love a 'HE'? It is a quirk of language that when you refer to any kind of communicative being it requires a 'he' or 'she'. 'It' is somewhat derogatory. Or... I watching the ten commandments movie (Charlton Heston) this past Easter. When Moses asks God what shall he call him, God says "I am" I like that!

 

Arbitrary, arbitrary,,, a curious word in this particular topic! Or perhaps you like "I think therefore i am" or "it is there because it's there" hehehe Nah, not nearly good enough.

Perhaps it would be easier to follow the logic in steps.

Step one) here we have an infinite universe

Step two) Within this infinite universe, where is Earth located?

Step three) Panic!

Biblically-speaking, the dinosaurs were created first not because God was "messing around with them", but because Man was intended to be the pinnacle of Creation. Generally-speaking, why would you make your masterpiece first, especially if there is nothing to compare it to?

If the universe is infinite, then select an arbitrary point in space to use as the "origin" for the purpose of plotting positions. Simple really.

EDIT: I hate noting that I need to reply to multiple posts, and then hitting the post button and not replying to half the posts I intended to.

Very few widely-known religions have feminine creator-beings. IMO, it's because the role a creator-being has generally corresponds to the strict-but-loving father-stereotype. Which is pretty obviously male.

That is just as ridiculous as Dr who coming back into existence simply because Amy Pond remembered him!

And I thought this thread was bad enough when it was about politics... Now it's nonsense physics "theories!"

Not really. The only reason you really need to know where something is is because you want to go there. Using an "arbitrary" point that is selected for any reason (ranging from convenience to shits'n'giggles) can be used to define another objects position.

Ideally, you actually use a coordinate system centered on your arbitrarily selected object. Generally speaking, you select your "origin" based on some property; for example, maps of the Solar System are invariably made with the Sun at the middle, because everything else orbits it. In the same way, an ideal map of, say, the Milky Way would actually use the galactic core as the "origin" of the coordinate grid.

So you're counterpoint is pretty fallacious; just because you think that using an arbitrarily defined point as the "origin" for the purposes of creating a coordinate grid is "ridiculous" doesn't mean it is. In the words of Murphy: "If it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid."

EDIT:

TBH, I think it's better that we progress into nonsensical pseudoscience, because that's way more fun, and way less flammable than politics. I suppose YMMV, though.

Back on Topic

Coincidences

National Reconnaissance Office drill

Aside from military exercises, a National Reconnaissance Office drill was being conducted on September 11, 2001. In a simulated event, a small aircraft would crash into one of the towers of the agency's headquarters after experiencing a mechanical failure. The NRO is the branch of the Department of Defense in charge of spy satellites. According to its spokesman Art Haubold: "No actual plane was to be involved -- to simulate the damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits were to be closed off, forcing employees to find other ways to evacuate the building." He further explained: "It was just an incredible coincidence that this happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our facility, as soon as the real world events began, we canceled the exercise." Most of the agency's personnel were sent home after the attacks.

5 frames of footage from only 2 cameras? and CNN

 

London Bombings

 

So my conclusion is if you find out there is some kind of training exercise going on you better get the hell out of dodge as it seems the US and UK governments are psychics.

 

 

Well, I find it difficult to comprehend any species discovering 100% about their world and their universe, let alone other universes (if any).  I wouldn't know why a universe could be created out of nothing much for no particular reason, and then dying a long, slow, death by running out of energy and relative increasing entropy, and then not having any more activity for the rest of time (although time would arguably cease to exist if there is nothing left done by anyone or anything).  But the species would not know for certain about the existence of things and the universe, unless they already knew about everything (which would mean no room for *any* scientists ;-)).

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled dose of politics (which can be even more nonsensical than nonsensical pseudoscience ;-)).

Best regards,
Steven.

 

Well i can understand your point for what it is, in that sense it is certainly not ridiculous, but when you consider what your actually asking it to do in the context of this thread..... explain my before mentioned paradox,, well that is where the Dr who analogy comes into it!

 

 

I smell bagged hobbit.  Is it sunrise yet?

Ditto!

I should like to add my 2 cents worth to these comments and particularly the highlighted part. I hope they don't smell like bagged hobbit!

We know the universe is vast, but has science proven the cosmos is infinite?

Rather than the apple of God's eye, the Carl Sagans of the world would have us believe the still unsupported assumption that the earth is an insignificant speck in the universe, just one of "billions and billions" of planets that could support life.

Has anyone read the book or seen the video, The Privileged Planet, by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards? They present some interesting arguments. 

What we do know from science is that the earth is truly unique in that it is the only one that supports life...plant, animal and human life.  Earth is the only one that has conditions necessary to life and they persuavively argue the possibility that that has occurred in precise combination on other planets is infinitesimally small.

The second argument is that the same set of conditions that makes the Earth hospitable to life it's special location at the center of the cosmos also makes it possible to give us the best view of the universe as if Creator God wanted us to discover and better understand His work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If people want to smell bagged hobbit, by all means, let them! I'm certainly not going to loose any sleep over it.

 

Is the cosmos infinite? well it doesn't really have any choice, it has to be! If there was a barrier of some kind, then what is beyond the barrier? nothing? oh wait, there is already plenty of that on this side!!

There is one possible kind of barrier that could work.... a 'time' barrier.  Travel out into deep space far enough and time gradually grinds to a halt. From the perspective of the space ship, they would never know! Which is a very creepy concept!! Because If a spaceship was heading into deep space beyond the galaxies and it hit a time barrier and time slowed to zero, the spaceship would not perceive it and people on Earth monitoring its progress. It would appear to be traveling on forever but at the same time being frozen on the spot!!

If you can wrap your head around that idea then consider the possibility that we are all right at this moment, all frozen in time, but we just don't know it? In which case the reality would be that everything that has been and will be has already all happened in an instant, time does not exist except from our perspective.

I wonder if absolute speed is the same as nil time? and absolute zero speed is also the same as nil time?

If there is a time distortion between galaxies, lets say time slows right down at the mid point then speeds up again, you would never be able to detect it, we would simply perceive it as great distance and that is effectively exactly what it is!

So long as there is an object on the other side of the time barrier that we can detect, it would simply be the exact distance away that we perceive it, and any spaceship traveling through the time barrier to that location would appear to be traveling that great distance, and it would be of course.

If time dictates distance, i suppose it also dictates the size of objects? Which makes me consider what a black hole is doing to matter that it sucks in? Is it sucking all the time out of matter?? weird shit!!

 

I am afraid it doesn't. Everyone I know of is in agreement that the universe is expanding and until it decides to stop, it is infinite. Besides the point is moot, humans will cease to exist as a species way before that happens. Also I might add, our contemporary and empirical capabilities limit our ability to inaccurately view the universe  beyond 46 billion light years (diameter) so all we are presently dealing with is what we can see and it is called the known universe.

I am not sure of the exact distance so I will use 100,000 light-years to the closest galaxy to earth. Now if the USS Enterprise left earth orbit at ‘full impulse (270 million Kilometers per Hour)’, it would take them about 40,000 years to get there. At ‘Warp 1 (1 Billion Kilometers per Hour)’ they get there in only 100,000 years.  ‘Warp 2 (11 Billion Kilometers Per Hour)’ or 10 times the speed of light, they will get there in about 9,921 years. To make a long story short … Warp 10 is in theory infinity and impossible so … at warp 9.9999 ‘214 trillion Kilometers per Hour (199,516 times the speed of light) … it would take a mere 6 months. The moral of the story is we have to find another way or … these damn numbers are completely meaningless for casual conversation …

They are able to detect it as evidenced by the many documented gravitational anomalies we enjoy trying to explain … and the why is because they appeared to violate some universal constant or other … but they didn’t in the end.

The Privileged Planet, The Copernican Principle, The Principles of Mediocrity … yep I liked the movie and am thinking of reviewing it humm …

 

The answer would be no … proving infinity and proving gods existence fall into the same category, the paranormal where they belong.
You cannot prove god has an eye to have an apple in … Sagan can prove his points unperturbed by mysticism.
I have, I liked it, I have all 12 segments on YouTube and have no problem using one of your propaganda  films to disprove the validity of the claims therein. Let me know Lula!We do not know this stuff not in your context anyway. How can anyone find it strange that man excels within his sphere of knowledge and capabilities? What would you have us do? You demand absolute proof yourself … and then you tell me all I have to do to get it … is have faith in something YOU believe, I think not.You cannot just watch a movie by ‘the experts’ and become knowledgeable on subjects you are poorly prepared to peruse. After you quote the movie … you are lost to reason???

It is amazing the extent some will go trying to use the sciences to disprove themselves … and justify god, absolutely amazing.

 

Nice try Fist0.... 

I know … I just thought the space stuff a more interesting subject … what do our founding fathers and the constitution have to do with 911 … but I digress. It seemed pretty clear that everyone posting here knows all they want about the events of 911, having all their proof and all … but they don’t. If they did, they would be honored all over the world as the only person to make perfect sense of the official version of events, something even the USG cannot do. It is no different than talking with the religious handicapped … Here’s my proof - god told me so or in this case - the USG told me so  ……….. End of Story? If you don’t believe everything they say … well that in itself should tell you something important.

quoting Mistikmind

When I asked this question I had "no" as the answer simply because the universe is made up of real matter and all real matter is finite.

Check out this website:   http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20infinity.htm

Here are a few of the first paragraphs...

We often here the terms 'infinite' and 'infinity', sometimes used in connection with the size of the universe, such as an infinite universe for example. The terms more properly belong in the world of mathematics, where for example we may have an infinitely long string of numbers as the result of a calculation, such as pi. The terms are very real to mathematics, but can anything real, not theoretical, be infinite?

Naturally in mathematics we can have infinity, numbers go on for ever, but numbers are not real, they are abstract. I cannot imagine anything 'real' that we could apply an infinite number to.

 

Strictly speaking, according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, a singularity does not contain anything that is actually infinite, only things that MOVE MATHEMATICALLY TOWARDS infinity. A black hole is formed when large stars collapse and their mass has been compressed down to a very small size and the powerful gravitational field so formed prevents anything, even light, from escaping from it. A black hole therefore forms a singularity at its centre from the concentrated mass of the collapsed star itself and from the accumulated mass that is sucked into it. A singularity's mass is therefore finite, the 'infinity' refers only to the maths.

Can we have an infinite universe for example? The answer is no, the universe is finite. Stephen Hawking in 'A Brief History of Time' (1989 page 44) describes the universe as being "finite but unbounded". The simplest answer is that as the universe is known to be expanding, it cannot possibly be infinite. To be precise, the dictionary definition of the word universe is "all that is. The whole system of things." In this sense the universe is not expanding into anything other than itself, for whatever it is expanding into is part of the universe, there being nothing else but the universe. However, for the sake of simplicity, I am referring only to our Big Bang expanding universe as 'the universe'. (Even if you happen to disagree with the Big Bang theory, the term 'universe' will still have the same meaning here, as it refers to 'our' universe only, and does not include whatever may or may not exist outside of it.) I will try and explain a finite universe as some people understandably have problems with it.

A good place to start is to understand the very real difference between infinity and a large number.

Because infinity is not a number, large numbers are no 'nearer' to infinity than small numbers. Number 1 billion for example is no nearer to infinity than number 1, because the two, numbers and infinity, are in no way related. It is then impossible to approach infinity, a thing is either infinite and immeasurable, or finite and measurable, it cannot be part way towards infinity. Imagine running up a 'down' escalator, never moving forward. If you run for a week you are no nearer reaching the end of the escalator than if you run for a minute, you cannot get any closer to something that has no end.

An infinite universe for example would exist in every direction forever, there could be nothing else, ONLY the universe. It is then very easy to understand why our universe cannot be infinite, it is because it is expanding. It cannot be both infinite and expanding. It could be infinite OR expanding, but CANNOT possibly be both, that is a contradiction in terms, and we do know it is expanding.

 

 

 

We both agree the answer is no, Science has NOT proven the universe is infinite.

But in response to the last part of what you said...

I think science and the universe prove the existence of Almighty God. I arrived at my conclusion relative to science which cannot contradict  the Holy Bible, specifically Genesis, which states that out of nothing, Almighty God created the physical Universe and all that's in it  including space, time and matter as well as all the laws of nature that came into operation.

Ya, I know it concerns faith in the trustworthiness of God as a reliable eye-witness to Creation. Faith enables me to begin a particular hypothesis about ancient Origin events. Genesis informs us of the who and the why, but not the when and how of Creation.

I won't belabor this as BT has been patient about us getting off topic a bit.

 

 

 

I said ... "The answer would be no … proving infinity and proving gods existence fall into the same category, the paranormal where they belong. No Idea how you drew your conclusion? To infinity and beyond ... Lula, you are the one who brought the infinate universe into the discussion. The following reply seems to cover this also???Our current knowledge precludes us from understanding the scope of the universe. But you play word games here. My ‘book’ defines the universe as the totality of all matter and energy that exists in the vastness of space, whether known to human beings or not. If you want to play with infinity here, be my guest. Seemingly math is not high on your study list or the concept of infinity would be well known to you.

 

 

 

That is just a saying and one that I think carries a lot of weight. After all, the earth IS  the only planet where life is found.

Well, Sagan can't prove anything since he died long ago. 

But the point is even though Sagan confidently predicted there must be billions and billions of planets out there teeming with life, he never proved any such thing. Just hasn't been done by him or anyone else in the scientific community and that's why I said "the still unsupported assumption". 

....................

Come on? I said we know from science...that's your context.

 

Ok Lula, now you have jumped completely back to theology, no, no, no. Back to 911 with you!

No, in fact it was Mystikmind in #178 where he/she mentioned the "infinite universe" twice.

I was merely responding to that.

.......................

I know. I responded to your point when I cited that website and posted a few paragraphs from it. I thought that it answered alot of the points brought up in the discussion. Notice, if you will, at the very end...it mentions that the universe is expanding but that it is not infinite. Here it is:

Your definition of universe is fine.

As far as "infinity" and understanding it in terms of mathematics, again, I refer to the website. It did a good job and even though I'm not a scientific type or strong in math, it makes sense to me.

 

 

 

Lula posts:

Okay. Deal.

Lula, this picking out little tidbits is pointless … just say what you mean to. Please try to apply some common sense and stop looking at everything as an attack. Everyone knows the saying … just my way of telling you that you cannot prove gods existence. You seem to think you are knowledgeable on Sagan … I don’t think so. This is not accurate at all, “Sagan confidently predicted there must be billions and billions of planets out there teeming with life” because he said no such thing. You might have found something more useful considering he published more than 600 scientific papers and such and was author or editor of more than 20 books among many other accomplishments. Amazing that ‘my stuff’ is always unsupported assumptions … and your stuff is well, gospel. I think you can use the word science in a sentence Lula, but know little about the processes employed in search of actual for real knowledge … or what that even is for that matter, go figure. Everything in the universe is unique and due to the limits of our technical prowess, we have only found life on earth probably because we cannot go anywhere else, yet, to check it out up close and personal … just like we have to do here, go figure. You do not understand the numbers. At the speed of light, it will take 100,000 years just to cross our galaxy and the closest galaxy would take 2,000,000 years to get there … so don’t expect much empirical data for a while. We have to discover a different way or technology or we are on a slow learning curve for sure. We aren’t even close to light speed … yet.

Oops ... didn't see your post in time,sorry.