universe

[rav1993]

do you know how big the universe?

[theprof]

Which units from Angstroms to Parsecs would you like it measured in?

[thebigchill]

No, but i did get really dizzy trying to imagine it once.

[mibn2cweus]

Big enough for at least one potentially rational species to arise and ask, "do you know how big the universe?"

[rav1993]

both

[aka estie]

It's bigger now than when you asked the question.

[aka estie]

As the brilliant Monty Python guys sang:

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's ****** all down here on Earth.

[LazyGun]

great lyrics them esties....

as to the original question from rav.... its THIS big (stretches arms as wide as they can go)

[Clanad]

Since no one has bothered to attempt an answer, let me offer that it is approximately 160 billion light years in diameter, and it's geometry or shape, is thought to be essentially flat...

[aka estie]

Clanad, I didn't bother since typing "age of universe" into google immediately gave me (and anyone else who would have bothered to do the same) the answer.

[rav1993]

Thx all 4 ur questions!! aka estie u seem 2 no alot!!!!!!!!!!! thx u've all helped me out!

[rav1993]

I mean thx 4 ur answers!

[Clanad]

Except, estie, the question wasn't 'how old is the universe, rather, it was, 'how big...?"

[aka estie]

Sorry Clanad, Imistyped of course! The age question could be a bit more contentious, huh? ;-)

[Clanad]

Not really, estie... 14.5 billion years... give or take...Generally agreed upon, I think...

[aka estie]

I'm with you, Clanad, but I know a few young-age creationists who whould disagree.

[tubeway]

I think that it is infinately big and infinately old - how can it have a beginning or an end - and therermust always be something beyond where you are. If space is curved then there must be limits but they are impossible to measure.

[Clanad]

Current scientific understanding, supported by exhaustive data, indicates, tubeway, that the universe did have a beginning and is not infinite. It's approximately 14.5 billions of years old, and is, as stated approximately 160 billion light years in diameter. It is continuing to expand and appears that it will continue to do so. Current thought supports a continued expansion that is, ironically, accelerating...

[tubeway]

If energy cannot be created or destroyed - then it must have always existed - I find it difficult to believe that every thing just suddenly came to exist where there was nothing before. I can not see how there can be an end to the universe - as if you could get to the end then there must be something beyond it. There is no way of knowing what there was before the point in time 14.5 billion years ago - but how can there have been nothing.

I am not an unintellegent person, and do try to be well read - but just can not see how there was a time where one second before, time or matter did not exist.

[Clanad]

Be that as it may, tubeway, the state of scientific theory presently supports exactly that which you find imponderable. You may have some solace in that we can only "look back" towards the Big Bang creation model singularity to within Planck Time... approximately 5.391 � 10−44 seconds... only assumptions exist concerning the state of the universe prior to this infintesimal slice of time. by the way, time, itself, did not exist prior to the creation event...

[mibn2cweus]

tubeway, Time is measured in units corresponding to the temporal relationship between two events in the reference frame of the observer. What is measured as a second in one reference frame could be measured as minutes, hours, days, years, millennia, eons, etc., in another. What makes this possible is motion.

In order for one to observe a significant variance in time measurement one has to observe the passage of time between two clocks, one of which is moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light relative to the other. A clock that has experienced accelerated motion over a period of time will, when compared to one that remained at rest relative to it, at the end of its journey show that the rate at which time passes is diminished by motion.

If it were possible to measure time within the �Big Bang� itself, time would be measured just as it is for you and me here and now. To understand this you must first understand that by theoretically accelerating to near light speed velocity you could actually travel the distance of many light years in a matter of seconds or less as referenced by your own clock. Those observing you from your pre-accelerated reference frame would however never observe your motion as greater than the speed of light. At the same time, your measurement of the speed of light would remain the same for you.

This is all that I have time for right now, as tax time is now an urgent reality for me in my frame of reference.