Does Space really go on forever?

[jnb]

Originally Posted by Jez

Jnb does space go on for ever?

Space does not go on forever but that is not the same as saying you can not travel forever within it.

If space went on forever then either there would be matter everywhere in which case there would be an infinite mass in the universe and it would all have collapsed long long ago or there would be an edge to the matter in the universe. If there was an edge to the matter in the universe then ignoring the special case that we just happen to be exactly in the centre of the universe we would see an assymetry to the universe, which we don't.

[Jolanta Zofia Nowak]

Originally Posted by Interpreter

No! That was the meaning of life. I remember people wandering the streets, looking puzzled and muttering "42?"

The atom is in a state of equilibrium. If energy is absorbed or released, the electron will move to a different shell. It gets difficult when two nuclii share the same electron.

No, it was the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything...

... and the Hubble Constant has very little to do with it. It's just 'what you get when you multiply 6 and 7'...

[Jez]

cheers Jnb your a good'un!

[Stewy]

I'm freaked out!

[cresshead101]

well then,if space doesn't go on forever ,then what comes after space,eh?(props old wise woman glasses further up snitch)

[jnb]

Originally Posted by Jolanta Zofia Nowak

No, it was the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything...

... and the Hubble Constant has very little to do with it. It's just 'what you get when you multiply 6 and 7'...

Although when they finally determined what the question was it was discovered to be "what do you get if you multiple 6 by 9"

For extra nerd points you can also note that 6 x 9 does equal 42 if you use base 13.

[jnb]

Originally Posted by cresshead101

well then,if space doesn't go on forever ,then what comes after space,eh?(props old wise woman glasses further up snitch)

Except that there is no 'after' space. It curves back on itself much as the surface of the Earth doesn't go on for ever but has no edge where one can lean over and peer into the eye of the great A'Tuin.

[petermcgain]

Originally Posted by Jolanta Zofia Nowak

The answer to this one, actually, is quite simple and was worked out some fair time ago:

42

Difficult to disagree with Douglas Adams, but the real answer to the original question is no, because there's a very large brick wall at the edge of the universe and nobody knows what's behind it.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Jolanta Zofia Nowak

No, it was the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything...

... and the Hubble Constant has very little to do with it. It's just 'what you get when you multiply 6 and 7'...

I know thats what it says in the book but douglas adams picked 42 as the basis for his joke because it was the hubble constant at the time of writing.

if you recall deep though came up with the answer - earth was designed to come up with the question but the reason the question was 6x7 (or indeed 9) was because the original inhabitants of earth were wiped out and surplanted by the human race who were decended from a space ship full of telephone ear piece cleaners, which screwed up the programming.


The rest of the inhabitants of the planet from which the telephone ear piece cleaners had come werre subsequently wiped out by a plague caught from telephone ear pieces

from all which we can conclude that douglas adams was a bit odd .... he'd have fitted in well on wab tho

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by jnb

Except that there is no 'after' space. It curves back on itself much as the surface of the Earth doesn't go on for ever but has no edge where one can lean over and peer into the eye of the great A'Tuin.

but for space to have any dimensions - and thus be able to curve, there must be something surrounding it to define the dimension