What shape is space?

rightyabe

OK this is my first post in Science forums. Last night I couldn't sleep and my mind was thinking all sorts, and I started to wonder what shape is outer space.

I've seen the odd documentary etc. and I kind of comprehend how space is always growing, black matter, black holes etc.

But what I want to know is would space grow in a symetrical way? like would it grow out evenly from a central point, and if it does would that make the central point the begining of space?
Or does it grow irregularaly and in any direction?
Could it be like frog spawn and be connected like that in all different spheres/shapes?

Sorry if my question is silly, or if it has been talked about before, but I had to ask:D

Cheers

Rubecula

Hatful of stuff there rightyabe. I will try and work through it as best as I can. I am not an expert though so perhaps I may get contradicted.

Space may grow in a symmetrical way but we simply have no way of seeing everything to know. All we can see is about 13.7 billion light years as the universe is only about that old. Anything further away will not have had time for the light from there to reach us. I know nothing can travel through space faster than light but we don't know how fast Space itself can expand. Basically all that we know is really only theory in that respect.

There is no central point of space as we think of it. The 'Big Bang' may have started as a minute spot but it contained everything so as we are part of that everything we are still part of that original spot. If that makes sense, it is hard to get your head around it really. I know I can't.

By frog spawn do you mean th universe or the 'multiverse'? We can only say what we can see so perhaps space is a strange shape (there are a number of theories on the shape of the universe, none of which we can say for certain are correct. If you mean bubbles each of which is another universe... That is a perfectly feasible idea, and one many scientist have mooted. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing as we have no way of contacting, or even detecting other universes.

Hope that helps, but I am sure others will have other info that may help.

rightyabe

thanks for the reply, its very hard to think of space as a sizeable object, or if there is anything outside of space, that when space grow it covers it over or swallows it up etc...This will bug me for a while I think, ha.

Rubecula

Nobody can say for certain how big the universe is, or even if it actually has a size. And it isn't as far as we know actualy expanding into anything. If it was expanding into something that something would have "space" for it to expand into, and all the "space" is in here with us.

Like I said it is not easy to get your head around.

riffmongous

The curvature of the universe should get a mention here no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curvature_of_the_universe#Local_geometry_.28spatial_curvature.29

edit: it can be hard to understand but while you are interested I thought it might make a good read for you

rightyabe

riffmongous wrote: »

The curvature of the universe should get a mention here no?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curvature_of_the_universe#Local_geometry_.28spatial_curvature.29

edit: it can be hard to understand but while you are interested I thought it might make a good read for you

Really good info there, hard to understand the scientific mumbo jumbo but I get the jist, espically the 2 proposed modles the Poincaré dodecahedral space, and the Picard horn. I think the picard horn shape is something that interested me more as it was shaped like those annoying vuvuzelas from the world cup!!!

rccaulfield

rightyabe wrote: »

OK this is my first post in Science forums. Last night I couldn't sleep and my mind was thinking all sorts, and I started to wonder what shape is outer space.

I've seen the odd documentary etc. and I kind of comprehend how space is always growing, black matter, black holes etc.

But what I want to know is would space grow in a symetrical way? like would it grow out evenly from a central point, and if it does would that make the central point the begining of space?
Or does it grow irregularaly and in any direction?
Could it be like frog spawn and be connected like that in all different spheres/shapes?

Sorry if my question is silly, or if it has been talked about before, but I had to ask:D

Cheers

We now know that the universe expands in a strictly uniform way, hubbles constant tells us that the universe expands at the same rate everywhere we look- between 70-80 kilometres per second per megaparsec. A megaparsec is 3.2 million light years with one light year being 9.5 trillion kilometres:eek: So rewind the clock of the uniform expansion and as you say we have a single point called a singularity which i'm still getting my head around after years of thinking about it!

rightyabe

rccaulfield wrote: »

We now know that the universe expands in a strictly uniform way, hubbles constant tells us that the universe expands at the same rate everywhere we look- between 70-80 kilometres per second per megaparsec. A megaparsec is 3.2 million light years with one light year being 9.5 trillion kilometres:eek: So rewind the clock of the uniform expansion and as you say we have a single point called a singularity which i'm still getting my head around after years of thinking about it!

So is that 3,200,000 times 9.5trillion? Wow impossible to comprenhend in a earthly scale i'd imagine...

rccaulfield

rightyabe wrote: »

So is that 3,200,000 times 9.5trillion? Wow impossible to comprenhend in a earthly scale i'd imagine...

It is indeed! Sure even flying 1 light day is unimaginable to us right now!:eek:

Tefral

I thought It was flat. The idea of the universe I have it that its like your duvet cover on your bed, say you got a bag of apples and threw them on the bed, the way they sit into the duvet would be the way the planets et all sit in the universe.

Doesnt Einsteins theory of relativity then say that the orbits of planets and moons are in a straight line but just are in the curves created by the planets and stars?

rccaulfield

cronin_j wrote: »

I thought It was flat. The idea of the universe I have it that its like your duvet cover on your bed, say you got a bag of apples and threw them on the bed, the way they sit into the duvet would be the way the planets et all sit in the universe.

Doesnt Einsteins theory of relativity then say that the orbits of planets and moons are in a straight line but just are in the curves created by the planets and stars?

His theory of General Relativity does say that the fabric of spacetime can be thought to be curved by matter. The analagy your using would perhaps describe a solar systems gravitational relationship but wouldn't have anything to do with the shape of the universe, which we can see in all directions over 40 billion light years! For me that question can't be answered st the moment, we see that distance in all directions, thats a sphere but thats only the observable universe, whats beyond that? No one knows!