If the universe is finite, yet unbound it would seem that

[xerosaburu]

the same thing would be true for time as well. If you think of the time-space continuum's borders as the inside of a balloon whose edges cannot be felt, and if it is likewise true that traveling in an imagined "straight line" outward would cause one to arrive again at the point where one left then it would seem that time is recycled in the same manner as is the space existence occupies.

[deathnotewithurname]

Seems sound enough for me, I don't know anything about it, but at least right off the top it doesn't seem broken.

But it does seem like it could have gone farther, considering how the concept of the universe as finite is relative to one's understanding of it or position in it. Allowing that it has knowledge that it exists within something larger than itself, would a dust mite consider the universe finite?

[Dan Rowden]

Time is finite by definition, it being a measurement, a concept, a movement.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

I'm confused about a word choice.

How can something be finite and unbound? What do you mean by finite, if not bounded?

[xerosaburu]

I'm confused about a word choice.

How can something be finite and unbound? What do you mean by finite, if not bounded?

It means that you have only so much stuff in a box whose edges you can't feel

[Jason]

It means that you have only so much stuff in a box whose edges you can't feel

I love the way you've put that. Beautiful. You've managed to avoid using big words and compressed it into a very concise sentence, and all with an intuitive and natural flow that creates a clear mental picture.

[HYPNOSIS]

Seems sound enough for me, I don't know anything about it, but at least right off the top it doesn't seem broken.

But it does seem like it could have gone farther, considering how the concept of the universe as finite is relative to one's understanding of it or position in it. Allowing that it has knowledge that it exists within something larger than itself, would a dust mite consider the universe finite?

WTF is finite; I just lost it!!!

[Kevin Solway]

It means that you have only so much stuff in a box whose edges you can't feel

So you have a finite amount of stuff, and you are guessing the stuff is in a box?

[brokenhead]

So you have a finite amount of stuff, and you are guessing the stuff is in a box?

Please, Kevin. He's hypothesizing.

[guest_of_logic]

Yeah, I think that it's meant to be a metaphor: it's not really a box, the point of the "box" is simply to confine the "stuff", and we're meant to infer that outside of the "box" there is no further "stuff", even though there are no boundaries either.

[Ramayana]

the same thing would be true for time as well. If you think of the time-space continuum's borders as the inside of a balloon whose edges cannot be felt, and if it is likewise true that traveling in an imagined "straight line" outward would cause one to arrive again at the point where one left then it would seem that time is recycled in the same manner as is the space existence occupies.

I'm pretty sure the scenario or example you are using with regards to ending up back at your starting point requires a closed universe... Spacetime completely curved back in on itself in a sphere. It's one scenario of many, and depends heavily on there being enough mass to the universe to exceed omega, the technical term for enough mass to gravitationally curve spacetime completely around the universe. I think the general conscientious in popular astronomy studies suggest spacetime curvature is flat or open. But, newer discoveries may change that position, or may not.

In the case you present, I'm not sure what you mean by 'recycled'... You wouldn't be going back in time, not unless you could go faster than lightspeed.

Regards

[Ramayana]

To add quickly, whatever the shape, closed, open, flat, all could be finite and yet unbound. The universe appears to be protected from some weird paradox's and conundrums. For instance, black hole horizons protect the universe from all kinds of weird atrocities of physical laws, "Cosmic censorship hypothesis", Penrose 1969. (Advanced: The Primordial Singularity/monobloc of Big Bang Theory may, have been a naked singularity)
Time pardox's shouldn't happen, (well, so far, science is pressing the boundaries) since nothing with rest mass, or capable of storing information can exceed lightspeed.
Even from falling outta the universe or reaching its edge. Since you could never reach the edge, even if spacetime curvature were to be closed, (and somehow compensated for) flat or open , it would always be expanding away from you faster than you could catch it...It's said to be expanding faster than lightspeed...

To expand an explanation why even in a closed universe time is not reused or 'recycled' (if I understand the Original poster correctly) If you had the fastest transportation physically possible, (being that of constantly approaching lightspeed but never reaching it) and headed in any direction in a linearly straight line, even with closed spacetime curvature, time will still pass, change relative to your velocity will still occur. For simplicity, if it took one, (in their hot rod ship) 100 billion years to make the trip, time and change would still have occurred and passed relative to their speed ,slowing to the observer making the trip, but never zero (time). Earth likely wouldn't even be here and the sun a white dwarf, or maybe even a black dwarf, nearly a dead cinder. I don't have the exact number of relative Earth years that would have passed (dependent on the speed of the hot rod craft and a definitive size/diameter of the universe. 56 billion ly's last I heard. Since science & observation is constantly evolving theories, but, you get the jest of it) But, Time and change never stopped. One just made a round trip... Basically.

Theoretically, of course..

Odd huh? Brain food >;D

[brokenhead]

Hey Ramayana - nice post. It's logically consistent and well written. Thanks.

[Ramayana]

Thank you...

[chikoka]

You could have a finite space and yet have an infinite number of galaxies.
This is because space is expanding.
This causes the galaxies to move at speeds that equal the speed of light (at the desitter horizon).

Since speed causes contraction these galaxies occupy no volume in space.

Relative to them ,however it is our galaxy that occupies no space.

[eugenius]

i say bs to the whole thing.

i say who knows if there is a billion other universes another trillion light years outside of where our best lenses can see.

until we have the scope that can see something the size of my finger on the last planet on the "edge of the universe" i think the universe is infinite.

but, as you stated, "IF the universe is finite and unbound it would seem" to me that there is a whole bunch of nothing out there

i think time is the length of the existence of ANYTHING! and to me that includes the black in the universe.
as long as there has been blackness, there has been time, wich is why i beleive time is infinite and in a lot of cases, pointless.

[Ramayana]

You could have a finite space and yet have an infinite number of galaxies.
This is because space is expanding.
This causes the galaxies to move at speeds that equal the speed of light (at the desitter horizon).

Since speed causes contraction these galaxies occupy no volume in space.

Relative to them ,however it is our galaxy that occupies no space.

Since it's an illusion, the flattening, or contraction, that is, I have some trouble following this. If the observer slowed down to non-relativistic speeds one would see the galaxy clearly occupies 3 spatial dimensions, hence volume.

For an infinite number of galaxies to exist, would also require an infinite source of matter and energy...

i say bs to the whole thing.

i say who knows if there is a billion other universes another trillion light years outside of where our best lenses can see.

until we have the scope that can see something the size of my finger on the last planet on the "edge of the universe" i think the universe is infinite.

but, as you stated, "IF the universe is finite and unbound it would seem" to me that there is a whole bunch of nothing out there

i think time is the length of the existence of ANYTHING! and to me that includes the black in the universe.
as long as there has been blackness, there has been time, wich is why i beleive time is infinite and in a lot of cases, pointless.

The OP referred to the universe we reside, but, it is quite possible there is much, much more out there than we can observe. I think the probability is quite high. Of course, the real question is not what you or I think, or choose to believe, but rather what can be scientifically supported. Not sure what you're calling bullshit on.

Time, try looking at it like this. Time is only relevant when there is something to measure... Time without change is meaningless...

[brokenhead]

You could have a finite space and yet have an infinite number of galaxies.
This is because space is expanding.
This causes the galaxies to move at speeds that equal the speed of light (at the desitter horizon).

Since speed causes contraction these galaxies occupy no volume in space.

Relative to them ,however it is our galaxy that occupies no space.

Space is expanding, or at least that is the current consensus of interpretation of what data we can gather and employing GR. But where do you get that galaxies move at the speed of light? Or anything else with mass? I hate to be a wet blanket, but the idea of finite space enclosing an infinite amount of anything is faulty. Cosmologists have come up with a tentative number of particles in the universe. It is unimaginably large, but it is finite. How could the number of galaxies be greater than the number of particles?

[eugenius]

The OP referred to the universe we reside, but, it is quite possible there is much, much more out there than we can observe. I think the probability is quite high. Of course, the real question is not what you or I think, or choose to believe, but rather what can be scientifically supported. Not sure what you're calling bullshit on...

The Universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.


i was calling bs to the "if the universe is finite" because i dont beleive it is. i beleive it is infinite.

i really like the way you explained the theory of time. i agree 100%

[chikoka]

The galaxy are not *intrinsically* moving at the speed of light ,rather but extrinsically doing so ,(if there is such a word).

Space is expanding this way.

At Time.1 there is space.1 at Time.2 there is space.2.
Which means that at every plank time one unit of space doubles.
This effect is happening locally but it is important to note that the
larger the space between objects the more space there is to double so the effect is much greater.
Since space is expanding there is there is an increase in distance over time.Which is exactly what speed is.

At the desitter horizon the distance is so huge that doubling space produce velocities at the speed of light.

In fact after the dessitter horizon *nothing* affects us from there because in order for something to reach us from over it it has to travel faster than the speed of light , which it cant.

No light, no gravity or anything can reach us from over there.


http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:fC ... cd=1&gl=zw

quote
--------------------
Eventually, dark energy becomes so strong that a horizon is formed (known as the Desitter Horizon), marking the point where dark energy has become strong enough to cause objects to recede at the speed of light.
-----------------------

[chikoka]

Since it's an illusion, the flattening, or contraction, that is, I have some trouble following this.

The contraction is not an illusion .
Its as real as it can get.
The fact that c is the fastest anyone can go brings with it weired but yet true consequences.
Since velocities do not add up according to special relativity , the front of the galaxy moves slower than the back causing the back part to infringe on it.
This infringement is very real.

There is yet another way that the universe could have infinite amount of matter and a finite space.

When moving at a certain velocity the world is *totally* different for you than moving at another one .

This is because , as i explained,moving at other velocity makes the same thing look different . (it could be more contracted or less contracted depending on if you speed up or slow down.)

In fact i will take this further and say that a galaxy becomes totally different when you change speeds.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/e ... Relrod.GIF

quote
-------------
The relativity of simultaneousness means that relatively moving observers observe different rods.
-------------

Now you could say that there is a finite number of objects in the universe meaning that there is a finite number of speeds implying a finite number of a particular type (or what we could erroneously say ;the same galaxy) of galaxies is finite.

This is true but let us consider what happens when you accelerate.
When you accelerate you have to pass through an (uncountable) infinite number of points meaning that there would have to be an infinite number of galaxies.One for each point.

[chikoka]

Carried on from above.


If space is discrete, and there really is a plank space ,it would mean that acceleration involves moving through a finite amount of space ,then i would be wrong ,but i don't think it is.

Heres why;

If space was made of discrete components then Pythagoras's theorem would not work.

If the the adjacent side were aligned then the hypotenuse would have to form a "zig zag" line like an unaliased image.

The zig zag line would have some of its parts parallel to the one side and the rest parallel to the other side.

In fact if you sum the lenght of the zig zag lines parallel to one of the sides then you will find that they are the same length since there would be a one to one correspondence between those parallel lines and the the side it was parallel to.

The same would be the same for the other side , meaning that the hypotenuse would be just as long as the sum of the two sides violating Pythagoras theorem.

[Renaissance]

I believe time is a human construct that is just as much an illusion as latitude and longitude lines on the Earth. Time is ‘carved up’ in direct relation to the rotation of the planet. One full rotation of the Earth is segmented into a 24 hour period. Considering this it is obvious that one hour would be different on every planet that rotated at a different speed or that was larger or smaller. I imagine that 24 hours on the planet Jupiter is a lot longer than 24 hours on Earth. I remember astronauts proving that time flows differently when you are out in space.

At the quantum level of reality it is said that time does not exist. Neither do laws, like gravity, that govern the macroscopic universe. As I thought about the illusion of time I thought of the illusion of measurement. In America we measure things by feet. Supposedly, the foot of some king was used as a standard of measurement. The length of the foot of some king was segmented into 12 inches and it became the standard that we apply today.

Okay, imagine this: You have a 12 inch ruler and the most powerful electron microscope in the world. You get to 11 15/16 of an inch. Then you put the ruler under the microscope until the last 16th of an inch looks as big as an inch and you divide that last 16th of an inch in half. Then you magnify it even more until what you have just divided looks as big as an inch and you divide that in half. Then you continue to repeat the process. It seems to me that you would eventually enter the quantum level of realty where such measurements have no meaning whatsoever. So, how much TIME would it take for you to finally reach 12 inches? I surmise that you would never reach twelve inches using this method no matter how much time you took.

Time is an illusion that the conscious mind uses to try and make sense of reality and it is primarily used to imprison people and enslave them. Think about it: you usually want to know what time it is because you are a slave of the clock and MUST do things you do not want to do.

[divine focus]

Time is mental memory.

[Ramayana]

i say who knows if there is a billion other universes another trillion light years outside of where our best lenses can see.

The OP referred to the universe we reside

The Universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.

So in this definition everything that is, regardless if outside our horizon, whether knowable or not is still one Universe? I was clarifying because first you referred to "other universes" but, by the interpretation you offer later there would be no "other". *shrug* I think cosmologists need to refine some definitions.

i really like the way you explained the theory of time. i agree 100%

Thanks, but, far from theory, just a simple analogy.

chikoka, I understand co-moving space, what and why there is a cosmic horizon (de Sitter horizon), one horizon may infringe on another depending on the observation location, and the jest of Lorenz transformation.
In hindsight I can see I also used poor language in my statement that it was an illusion, effect may have been more appropriate. However, I still fail to comprehend, or "put together" how you are getting infinite galaxies into a finite volume. Not to say you are wrong, perhaps, I just don't "get it" :)

Regards