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by syszlak on April 10th, 2006

syszlak

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What shape is the universe?

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  • by n_o_u_s on April 12th, 2006

    n_o_u_s

    "Closed universes are also closed in time: they eventually stop expanding, then contract in a "Big Crunch.""

    I don't believe this is true. The universe could be spatially bounded (bounded in the ambient space) and temporally unbounded. The cosmological constants could be such that the quantity (rate of expansion)-(rate of contraction) tends to zero, or the radius of the balloon could grow indefinitely. An unbounded (in the ambient space) plane universe could experience a big crunch, but this crunch would occur locally and last forever.

    Furthermore, your model of a balloon is simply a model. If the 4D universe actually sits in a 5D ambient space, then is that ambient space not part of the universe? If the universe is everything that is, then there can be no ambient space. These models are used to represent the topological properties of space; flat space behaves differently than curved space, but this doesn't imply anything about the behavior of time.

    It should be noted that in a local sense, the surface of a sphere appears exactly as a torus does and both appear similar to a plane. So space-time could have a very exotic shape, but appear to be closed, unbounded (as its own space), but exist only for a finite period of time.

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    • 'useful' I locally sense,I think.'U' is selfcontrdictry. BTW, my torso has exotic shape, hvnt seen my torus rcntly

      notmrjohn

      by notmrjohn on April 14th, 2006

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