A Poor Man's CMB Primer Part 0: Orientation - Comments

[bapowell]

bapowell submitted a new PF Insights post

A Poor Man's CMB Primer. Part 1: Orientation

Continue reading the Original PF Insights Post.

 

[AgentSmith]

But is space is curved, wouldn't this model be incorrect? Surely on this scale any curvature would be significant

 

[Hornbein]

But is space is curved, wouldn't this model be incorrect? Surely on this scale any curvature would be significant

The curvature has been calculated from observations. It was not measurably different from zero.

 

[PeterDonis]

space is curved

Spacetime is curved, but space, as far as we can tell, is flat, as Hornbein says (the curvature he refers to is space curvature, or more precisely the curvature of spacelike slices which are surfaces of constant time in standard cosmological coordinates).

 

[bapowell]

But is space is curved, wouldn't this model be incorrect? Surely on this scale any curvature would be significant

As others have commented, space has been measured to be rather flat; however, I don't see how geometry factors into anything discussed in this post. Where do you think it fits in?