Is the Universe's Shape Just a Matter of Perception?

[Adrian Baker]

What shape is the universe presently believed to be?

and

Is it possible to visualise the shape?

Any thoughts or good links would be very welcome.

 

[Phobos]

It's probably best to stick with the idea that the universe is boundless and has no external reality, therefore, it has no shape.

But there has been some recent buzz in the news about it being soccer-ball shaped. European astronomers, y'know.

 

[jcsd]

Originally posted by Ambitwistor
We have no idea. We don't even know if it's finite or infinite.

From what I hear,a current study checking the validty (against other cosmological evidence) of non-trivial topologies which give the observed degree of curvature (i.e. almost flat) is almost finished and has managed to eliminate all the non-trivial topologies tested so far, which suggests (though this obviously can't be a conclusion) that the universe is flat and infinite.

Phobos, the 'soccer ball' shape has as far as I know been elimanted.

 

[Adrian Baker]

I understand the ideas of 'flat', 'unbounded', 'open' etc, but is there any meaningful way in which we can imagine what this means in a non-mathematical way?
In other words, back to my original question - is it possible to visualise the shape, or possible shapes, of the universe? I personally think not, but wondered if anyone had ever tried to explain the possible shape in a manner which we can visualise?

On another, but related point - can you point me towards links (or explain) the latest thoughts on how the expansion rate of the Universe is somehow increasing.

Thanks as always.

 

[wolram]

would it not be best to say, to date we know nothing about
the shape size of the universe ,if it is bounded
unbounded, or even what it is composed of, theories abound
but facts are nonexistant, it all comes down to probability,
even that is a human concept

 

[Eh]

Originally posted by Adrian Baker
I understand the ideas of 'flat', 'unbounded', 'open' etc, but is there any meaningful way in which we can imagine what this means in a non-mathematical way?

Yes, jump down into a lower dimensional world for your analogy. 2D imaginary curved spaces are all we've got.

 

[Innexplicable]

Actually, for the past 30 years we've been hearing radio waves from the big bang origin. Its a neer silent hush, but we've also succeeded in "mnapping" these waves by their frequencies, this should indicate the "end of the universe" and we have found that the end of the universe is blotchy...wierd, but perhaps this is just the end of our physical universe, and the start of another.

What I see so far is that the universe is even wierder than science fiction. I think that the fact that our most basic laws of physics are being wuestion is a hell of a lot more weird than super laser beams..

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by jcsd
From what I hear,a current study checking the validty (against other cosmological evidence) of non-trivial topologies which give the observed degree of curvature (i.e. almost flat) is almost finished and has managed to eliminate all the non-trivial topologies tested so far, which suggests (though this obviously can't be a conclusion) that the universe is flat and infinite.

Phobos, the 'soccer ball' shape has as far as I know been elimanted.

Where did this "soccer ball" shape come from anyway? I read about it in the news, but I couldn't find any supporting facts (of course, I didn't look that hard either).

The first thing I thought of was Plato, because of his dodecahedral Platonic solid being representative of the universe as a whole. It would seem historically significant if the universe were found to have such a "shape", because there are 12 pentagons (Pythagoreans, golden ratio, etc.) each surrounded by hexagons in a soccer ball.

It just all seemed esoterically gratuitous to me.

 

[jcsd]

I don't know what inspired them to look at this shape, but basically some showed mathemtically that this shape could produce a curvature within the error margin ofd the observed curvature of the universe.

 

[chemical]

the universe would be soccer shaped. think about it. at the time of the big bang, energy blasted from every direction, in 2D a circle and in 3D a sphere, just like a soccer ball that keeps expanding

 

[Adrian Baker]

Originally posted by Ambitwistor
And no, your description isn't right even for a spherical universe: the Big Bang was not an explosion that blasted a spherical wavefront outwards from some central point.

I know your are right, but this model is the one all my students think of when I'm teaching them about Big Bang theory. I'd like to lead them to think about it in another way, but sadly I just can't think of anyway of visualising the shape. This was why I asked my original question.

I didn't think that there would be a simple way of visualising the shape of the Universe, but how about another challenge then..
(its my challenge actually but I've obviously failed )

You have a class of very bright 17/18 year old Physics students who want to try to understand Big Bang theory and the shape of the Universe.

- How do you get them to visualise it (or to STOP trying to..)

- If it is expanding, is there an edge? If not why not?



I can cope with all the other questions, but these two just seem to get me every time...

 

[Adrian Baker]

Thanks Ambitwistor, I'll work on it!

 

[Nommos Prime (Dogon)]

The Universe Is An Unknown Shape

The “soccer ball” shape is really a Dodecahedron. ANY finite unbounded 2-dimensional surface, such as a Sphere, Torus or Klein Bottle, can be described topologically in terms of a Polygon with the edges identified.

Klein Bottles;
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/klein_bottle.html
Hypercubes;
http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~fiedorow/math655/hypercube.html
3-Torus (or doughnut) Shapes;
http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/olinto/courses/A18200/nbower.htm
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0264-9381/14/4/010
http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9305019
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?2002gr.qc...3026M
Hyper-spherical Surfaces;
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/specularium/hypersphere6d.shtml
Double Toroids;
http://hometown.aol.com/MetPhys3/131toroiduni.html
String Theory Torus Universe;
http://www.worldscinet.com/ijmpa/13/1311/S0217751X98000731.html

As somebody once said, “The Universe Is A Green Dragon”.

 

[sivanesan]

Maybe the shape is our state of mind. Whatever shape we think it is, then it will be in that shape.