Once every 10,000 years or so... TODAY ONLY...

Which as far as dates go, is the penultimate palindrome. Next year's 12/12/12 will be the last one of the millennium.

(Unless we change to a year of 13 months of 28 days each - following lunar rhythms more closely - but that's highly unlikely.)


edit: Oops. I was mistaking repetitive dates for palindromes. 11/11/11 is both, but 12/12/12 isn't. Is there a fancy name for those?

 

actually that would depend if the expansion is linear (old thought) or circular (new thought) where it only seems like its expanding but in reality our point of view in the vastness does not allow us to recognize that we are in a monstrous vortex and what appears to us to be expanding is simply an inner ring spinning faster than we are and we are actually spinning slowly down to die to quote someone famous in their own way

 

My source is the lecture series on dark energy from The Teaching Company. This is the present thinking of astronomers and physicists. Speculation from sci-fi/fantasy writers aside, the universe appears to be expanding at an ever-increasing rate, leading to a cold, dark universe with a nearly infinitesimal matter to volume ratio.

 

Dave is correct. The linear expansion theory is the "old" commonly accepted theory and still very prevalent. However there are always new theories, and the circular theory is gaining momentum.

I am sure you wouldn't accept "proof" of a god from a bible lecture series.

On of my fav's is the toroid. Where everything as we see it expanding outwards but the toroid is so large that it only appears linear on the observational scale. And if you stared at the correct spot you could find light that originated billions of years ago from the point you are observing. Only small problem is that the current rate of expansion is considered faster than the speed of light, so it may be coming back towards you but it is constantly being pulled away.

However, infinite expansion is also under scrutiny. Many theories suggest that our expanding universe is part of other universes, or the collision between other universes or something similar. It would make sense that there exists a size at which the universe (potentially filled with unseen mass) has a gravitational pull inwards greater than the force expanding it. Eventually causing a collapse, or at least an end to infinite expansion.

 

Don't overlook the obvious.....that theories of the universe have been changing very rapidly over the past couple of decades at a faster and faster rate. Couple that with the fact that our very latest theories of quantum mechanics (the "standard model") has yet to integrate gravity into the theory in any meaningful way. The best theory is wrong, unfinished, or a dead end.

Bottom line is that we are a long way from understanding the physics of the universe. We have volumes of really complex math......where the complexity is a result of the confusion of how it all goes together.

 

Quantum mechanics is the most massively successful construct in the history of the human race. Our entire modern computing and communications infrastructure (which is to say just about our entire civilization as it exists today) would not be possible were it not for predictions made by QM. A Grand Unified Field Theory is the holy grail of modern physics, but the fact that we do not yet have it does not mean that QM is wrong, nor does it mean that Relativity is wrong. Relativity deals with the very big, the very heavy, and the very fast. QM deals with the very small. If they are both incomplete, it does not mean that they are wrong. The predictions made by both are confirmed over and over again. Relativity once again stood up against the neutrino snafu.

In the normal workings of science, new ideas are constantly put forth, tested, and found wanting. It is the business of scientists to dream up every sort of implausible concept, and then test them. Unfortunately, the popular press loves to grab onto these speculations and present them as established facts, only to reject them a week later, giving the public the impression that scientific knowledge is constantly changing and that what we "know" today will be thrown out tomorrow.

In fact, long-established systems like Relativity and QM do not get thrown out. Sometimes (like Newtonian physics) they get very slightly revised, with the new construct a tiny bit closer to the truth. Perhaps there will be tiny revisions to Relativity and/or QM that will allow the incorporation of gravity. Or perhaps it will turn out that gravity was not a result of symmetry-breaking, but something else entirely and there is not a GUFT.

But to suggest that Relativity and QM are unreliable, on the basis of the supposed "constant" change in theories, misunderstands and misrepresents the nature of how we understand the world.

Do not confuse the latest speculation with the long-established constructs that have been verified repeatedly for a century.

 

You missed my point. There is the scientific method, which I was not debating or commenting upon. There is also the science culture of overselling theories because they are the "best we have". For example, QM is fantastic for calculating the fine structure constant. It is worthless for calculating the mass of the electron.....or the mass of ANY particle.

The same theory shortcomings are true for cosmological theories. There is NO coherent theory of dark matter and dark energy that has any broad support....just a lot of conjectures. Starting with Einstein's insertion of the cosmological constant into his field equations, that particular constant is still NOT nailed down.....and that was the very first equation of the universe.

Our empirical measurements of the cosmos does not have a theory that explains what is observed. As a result, new conjectures are being issued all the time. Unfortunately, these are often reported by the media as if a "discovery" of how the physics of the universe has occurred.

So back to my original point....we are going to have many more "theories of the universe" in the coming years.

 

Are you saying that QM is worthless, or somehow "wrong" because it does not predict the mass of particles? Or that Relativity is not reliable because in his first proposal, Einstein inserted the cosmological constant? BTW, when Hubble demonstrated that the universe is expanding, Einstein took the cosmological constant out. IOW: New information, very slight tweaking of the equations (not throwing out a discredited theory!) which brought them into conformity with observation. The cosmological constant was a mistake and has been discarded.

As for "theories of the universe," the problem with this language is that it mixes the formal and informal uses of the word "theory." In popular use, theory means speculation, an idea without any confirmation. In formal use in science, a theory is a construct that has accumulated a very great deal of confirmation. In popular use, a theory is easily discarded, and most theories are nonsense. In scientific use, a theory is well established, and theories are only discarded very seldom, and then only when the preponderance of evidence has moved against them or there is clear disconfirming evidence.

Your last sentence should have said that there will be many speculations about the universe, not that there will be many theories. Those speculations are a good thing and necessary to the business of understanding the universe, as they are the raw ideas to be tested in the search for a theory. But they cannot be given the same weight as the established theories, and until they have accumulated evidence, they have no weight against the existing evidence of an ever-expanding universe.

 

A theory can be right and still be incomplete. It's also possible that a theory can be comprehensive and not be right. Quantum Mechanics falls into the first category and String Theory falls into the second.

In some cases, a theory has not even been established. This is the case with dark matter and dark energy. They are terms with no established theory linked to experimental verification. In both cases (galactic mass imbalance for dark matter and accelerating universe expansion for dark energy) the observations conflicted with the established QM and General Relativity Predictions. As a result these two terms are used to "explain" the contradiction between theory and observation. Now all that is needed is to figure out what the explanation is. Right now nothing proposed has been validated with any usable experiment or data.



Theories get overhauled/reformulated all the time. Let me give an ongoing example.

Quantum Mechanics initially assumed three massless neutrino types. Once measurements showed mismatches in the flux of neutrinos from the sun, all three neutrinos were assigned mass. By adjusting the masses, curves could be fit to match the discrepancies in the fluxes from the sun, reactors, experiments, etc. However, neutrinos with mass required them to travel slower than the speed of light. That was incompatible with the original QM math. To fix this a fourth neutrino was postulated (called the sterile neutrino). Now the mass of this is being determined so as to fit other astronomical calculations. However, some math calculations require two sterile neutrinos. The curve fitting continues.

It really is easy for me to call a theory "established" when nothing better exists. It's really hard for me to call it "confirmed" when parameters can be adjusted as needed to fit the next unexpected observation that gets discovered.

 

oh my "theory" is based on my addiction to the History Channel. i have seen "The Universe" series amongst a dozen others relating to it and since i believe in... oh wait...some business to attend to

***WARNING***

no need to elaborate. the color is good enough. but we can say we live in an infinite existence that is getting bigger which means another thread to define "growing infinity" or we are not.

i have no illusions that we are important, because we are not. we dont even rate as the fly on horse's tail. so we are not really deserving, but if i am to see an alien before i die, i need to believe that the universe is small enough for him to get here within the next 20-30 years.

so the alien must travel much faster than the rate of expansion or simply wait for the universe to circle again or warp to place nearer the vortex which like a drain, moves faster until he hits the my time/space then warp back.

now, the later two scenarios make more sense, (after all in the "expanding infinity" if he came he most likely would not be to get back...after all, halfway back from infinity is like a bus ticket to levenworth Ks) so that is what i choose to believe. since i don t have the technical merits to make fun of the current Nobel entry on the subject, i will have to assume that person is correct when he says that parts of the universe are moving faster than we are and that they are moving farther away and eventually (hopefully in a real long time) we will see them again coming up to us from a direction 180º opposite their exit.

all of this leads us to "the flush" as we all know (as told to us in a dream) "spinning slowly down to die" is only partially true since the flush starts slowly but accelerates at the end which is basically what we are doing.

this unfortunately is not a good thing, but will allow "someone" to start anew.

*****END OF WARNING****

 

This is making my brain hurt.