A different way of thinking about the stars

(idea) by Kill Your Idol (2.6 y) (print) ? 2 C!s I like it! Mon Dec 11 2000 at 23:43:41

I recall learning a while ago, that our universe may repeat itself. Let me clarify, you all remember playing Pac-Man. What happened when Pac-Man left the screen? He reappeared on the other side. Thats what some scientists theorize our universe is like, every pattern of stars MAY repeat itself, and If I remember correctly, the Planck Surveyor (named for Max Planck) is set to be launched in, in orbit, in 2005 to monitor the stars, and analyze them on a grid.

What would happen if we launched a craft toward a distant star, and eons from now, it returned. Would we remember its purpose? Would we remember its cause? Would we remember?

(idea) by The PeaceMaker (1.7 y) (print) ? I like it! Mon May 05 2003 at 22:03:49

Although this idea sounds very alluring, some reservations should be made. First of all it's only a theory based on Stephen Hawking's imaginary time theory that states that the time arrow might some day reverse course and everything will become compressed matter once again triggering another big bang. The most crucial part of this theory is the assumption that the uninverse will stop expanding and start collapsing. This theory however has been disproved by recent observations that show that in fact the universe is expanding in a growing rate. The second point is that Hawking clearly stated that the "size" of the universe - that is the distance between two "Pac-Man effect" points - is equal or greater than the distance the fastest particle can cross in the lifespan of the universe. In other words, the theory states that although the universe wraps around like a kind of warped 4D doughnut, a particle or an object will never experience it. The third point is the uniformity of the universe. Statistically speaking, in every direction you'll look you'll find similiar patterns and in every direction you'll choose there will eventually be some body of mass. And if the universe is indeed infinite as recent observations dictate it will need an infinite clear path. So any object launched from any point in the universe has a zero chance to have an infinite clear path, so it's impossible for the object to return. The fourth and simplest reason why this won't happen, is that eons from now man-kind (sorry person-kind) simply won't exist. It'll be long extinct, maybe leaving a little debris for Alien archeologists to investigate. Maybe that object that we launched from Earth seeing whether it'll return...

printable version
chaos

How Pac-Man got his name	Some nights, I lie in my bed and stare up at the stars...	How might a star taste?	apostrophe
Orion	Beck's cognitive therapy	Which 3-manifold do we live in?	How Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man have sex
Everything Sucks	Pietro Angelo Secchi	The Beatles	DJ Assault
William Joyce	Pac-Man	Max Planck	The Omega Man
I would like for love not to kill me, please	forgetting a boy	stand up comedy	Somewhere, there's a universe with your name on it, spelled out in consecutive constellations
Planck's constant	The universe is finite	Hidden Sun	eternal recurrence

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