Centre of the Universe

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Why do galaxies line up like buttons on a string????
alex

Who am I to say, but here's my bits worth ...
Assuming the Big Bang started it all, matter and energy were more than likely not evenly distributed through space. Like a paint bomb will never work to evenly paint a room. There must have been "strings" of hot spots of matter and energy over very large distances. Along these "strings" there were also variations in matter and energy. In time, not only did matter coalesce into stars and then galaxies in one section of the "string" but also into filaments of galaxies along the "string". An effect something like a random fractal. Even though, the cosmic microwave background radiation is fairly even across the sky there must be slight variations to account for this effect.
I'm also going for a bounded, finite mass universe.
Regards, Rob.

[xelasnave]

Great stuff Rob...
There seems to be more to the "string" part as it seems some matter is passed between galaxies... I think we pass stuff to M31... or the other way...
Yes a finite Universe is managable..look at the math..hard to argue with that...
Thank you sincerely for your well considered reply.
alex

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

There seems to be more to the "string" part as it seems some matter is passed between galaxies... I think we pass stuff to M31... or the other way...
alex

Alex, you're probably right here. As matter an energy are interchangeable, maybe energy gradients between nodes (where stars and galaxies form) cause energy/matter movements which seed the nodes or galaxies on the "string". Just hypothesising.
Regards, Rob.

[Chippy (Nick)]

And there definitely are strings between the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. I remember reading about it last year. I think they're known as the "Magellanic strings" but I could be wrong. I suspect there are probably strings to M31 as well, although I haven't actually read of that.

[Barrykgerdes]

I am afraid I don't understand "string theory". The term string is very confusing. I get distracted when I think of string because the first connotation of string is something you tie round your finger to jog your memory. However I think it is something to do with the transfer of energy/matter. Something more like transverse progressive waves describing electromagnetic energy though a vacuum against longtitudinal progressive waves describing transmission though some other media by compression and expansion like the sound from a vibrating violin string through air.

Maybe if a different terminalogy was used I would be able to grasp it.

Further to a finite universe as most seem to believe in, the question always arises but never answered "If the universe is finite what lies beyond ?"

Barry

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Robh

Alex, you're probably right here. As matter an energy are interchangeable, maybe energy gradients between nodes (where stars and galaxies form) cause energy/matter movements which seed the nodes or galaxies on the "string". Just hypothesising.
Regards, Rob.

Yes and it is a matter that demands more thought simply because we will seek to explain our observations...and that is what it is all about.

Barry I should not have used the term string I guess in so far as folk will think it has something to do with "String theory" and it does not..in a general sence.

Buttons on a thread certaily may seperate it for you.

But my point is simply there is something going on that we fail to look at but if such is going on attempts to explain it may open new doors in our knowledge... where does the thread end??? is stuff passing back and or forth...
It is new ground so there is an opportunity for someone to come up with something new and maybe bag a special prize.
alex

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Chippy

And there definitely are strings between the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds. I remember reading about it last year. I think they're known as the "Magellanic strings" but I could be wrong. I suspect there are probably strings to M31 as well, although I haven't actually read of that.

Tracked down your info.
It's called the Magellanic Bridge and is a stream of neutral HI hydrogen with some stars linking the SMC and LMC. There is also a Magellanic Stream of HI gas linked to the SMC and LMC. Some twisting of the filaments may indicate that the Magellanic Clouds are tumbling about one another on their way into the halo of the Milky Way.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980826.html
Again illustrates the complex relationship between gravitational forces and the formation (and destruction) of stars and galaxies.

Regards, Rob.

[Shnoz (Sophie)]

I had heard somewhere that the bridge of stars meant that the Magallenic Clouds and the Milky Way were going to collide (or had already), and that's what was causing the link. Perhaps one day the Milky Way will have one of those odd ripple effects seen in collided galaxies, which would be cool.

Why do galaxies line up like buttons on a string????

I think the temperature of the early universe had a lot to do with the structure of it today, but I also heard that dark matter and dark energy helped keep the shape of the strings. However I may just be thinking of galaxies and dark matter haloes. Interesting theories though.
Although because things tend to get more jumbled up as time goes on, maybe the strings will one day fall apart?

[Chippy (Nick)]

Originally Posted by Robh

Tracked down your info.
It's called the Magellanic Bridge and is a stream of neutral HI hydrogen with some stars linking the SMC and LMC. There is also a Magellanic Stream of HI gas linked to the SMC and LMC. Some twisting of the filaments may indicate that the Magellanic Clouds are tumbling about one another on their way into the halo of the Milky Way.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980826.html
Again illustrates the complex relationship between gravitational forces and the formation (and destruction) of stars and galaxies.

Regards, Rob.

Thanks Rob, I remember now - it was the Magellanic "Stream" that I was referring to (and read about). As I recall, the Magellanic Stream actually connects the MC's with the Milky Way, and is essentially the result of gravitational interactions between the 3 galaxies. Basically the Milky Way has stripped some matter from the MC's and the Magellanic Stream is the wispy remains of those interactions I think.

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by Shnoz

I think the temperature of the early universe had a lot to do with the structure of it today, ...

Sophie, I agree with you on this point and this provides me with a cue to hypothesise/speculate again ...

At the Big Bang, energy/particles disperse randomly into an inflated space. The universe overall consists of an extremely high temperature plasma and other elementary particles. Although fairly uniform overall, the chaotic nature of the temperature results in hot-spots and a convective plasma with an uneven density of particles. As regions of temperature drop below one billion Kelvin, protons form Hydrogen and some protons and neutrons combine to form He. Gases and particles begin to congregate through gravitational forces but form weaving interconnected streams throughout space. Analogous to smoke streams due to convection currents around a fire.

As cooling continues, localized regions of much higher density accrete more gases and particles due to gravitational forces. Eventually, the mass in a local region is high enough for gravitational pressures to cause nuclear reactions and stars are formed. Uneven distributions of stars causes galaxies to form by gravitation in star dense regions. The original streams of gases and particles have now congealed to form an irregular fabric of filaments or threads of galaxies throughout space. The whole mesh of filaments is more or less in equilibrium but with some expansion due to gravitational forces. The end result is a bit like a random three-dimensional cobweb.

Increasingly large filaments are now becoming evident around us. Each filament is a large thread-like structure consisting of gravitationally bound galaxies and superclusters of galaxies. A filament of significant length and width is called a galaxy wall.
Examples are the Coma Supercluster which lies within the Coma Filament and forms part of the CfA2 Great Wall.
The Sloan Great Wall is the largest known structure discovered so far at 1.37 billion light-years in length.
See ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_filament

Anyone else with any ideas as to how these superstructures formed?
ideas, Rob.

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Ok I’ll bite Alex,
“The big bang requires a God to place the seed as there is no reasonable science that can give us everything from nothing...”
Er no , apart from that not being right, invoking a God only moves the goal posts, Where did God come from? That’s the last I’ll say of God. BTW as an “New Atheist” I must say I like Barry@A.S.I.G.N. Tag line “We all Fall short”. We may have different worldview but it’s always good to remind one’s self that we are not all we could be.
You forget Alex that energy is a construct, it can easily be said that it doesn’t really exist. If you take that view then something coming from nothing is easy to shown to be true.
Robh say he can’t “believe in” dark energy why is dark energy anymore fanciful then plain old energy. What is potential energy? The mass of a ball is no different when it’s rolled down the hill, yet it has lost its potential energy, where did it go?
Alex currently the distribution of matter within the universe is of intense interest to cosmologist so I don’t understand where your coming from.
I’ve got no interests in pulling people thoughts apart, beside there are people on this sight more knowledgeable then me on this subject, what I do want to talk about is how science works.
You often hear it’s only a theory.
Theory in science circles means something different then it does in the normal world. In the normal world a theory is an Idea that may or not be supported by the facts. In Science that is called a conjecture. A science will come up with a conjecture and test it against the know facts, if it fits all then know facts then that’s great, if it can make testing predictions even better. It has now become a scientific theory. So basically a theory is an Idea that is supported by all the know facts (it’s plain silly to say it’s only a theory not a fact). Now here is the kicker if it doesn’t fit all the know facts, the theory must be changed or thrown out altogether. You need to keep these Ideas in mind when you read or listen to scientist, they are human being just like us their common language more often than not will not include all these caveats, but they are there. Now if scientist waited until all the facts where in, before developing hypotheses and grinding out theories then we wouldn’t then we would still be in the caves. Newton ideas on gravity fitted all the know facts, when facts where found that it didn’t fit the search was started, Relativity fitted all the know facts. No know observation contradicts relativity, however we have doubts about it because it doesn’t fit another really well supported theory. That for me is the really interesting part. All of our ideas about reality maybe wrong it all could have been created by the flying spaghetti monster last Wednesday.
Alex as I understand current thinking is during the inflation period ripples were formed by some porcess, these areas of increase density went on to become the seeds of galaxies and that is why they appear to be in vast chains.

[Robh (Rob)]

Originally Posted by KenGee

You forget Alex that energy is a construct, it can easily be said that it doesn’t really exist. If you take that view then something coming from nothing is easy to shown to be true.
Robh say he can’t “believe in” dark energy why is dark energy anymore fanciful then plain old energy. What is potential energy? The mass of a ball is no different when it’s rolled down the hill, yet it has lost its potential energy, where did it go?

Kenny, thanks for your input.
As I've stated before, I am just hypothesizing about the nature of events that led to the current universe we see.
To me the universe consists basically of matter and energy. One being continuously converted to the other. Energy doesn't just come from nowhere. It always has a source e.g. nuclear reactions within the sun produce radiated energy (electromagnetic radiation). Matter stores energy and also produces gravitational forces. Perhaps there is a particle that transmits gravity (graviton) similar to the photon with light. When a ball rolls down a hill its gravitational potential energy from its height is converted to a kinetic energy of motion. Total energy remains the same.
If the universe is finite it may well have a fixed total energy, with energy being continuously converted from one form to another. It appears gravitational forces are storing a lot of this energy in stars, galaxies and filaments of galaxies. And perhaps dark matter.
My comment about dark energy is a question about its source. It is believed to be homogeneous and to make up 74% of all the mass-energy of the universe. It's mass is calculated at a density of roughly 10^-29 grams/cubic cm and no-one has any idea how to find its physical composition. It "interferes" with gravity causing an accelerated expansion of the universe.
There could be some other explanation for the apparent accelerated expansion. Maybe the red shifting is caused by fields of gravitons in space, which cause light to lose energy over large distances.
Regards, Rob.

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Robh, if the higgs particle is found there maybe some hope to shed some light on this, but if they don't it is going to cause some head scratching, just as the failure to detect gravity waves. It will mean our two best but different theories on how gravity works are not quite there yet. My comments about energy was only to show that different ways of looking at things can cause different questions but not ones that have answers.
The example I gave is one in which Alex’s pushing gravity can give a good account of what is happening. Queue Alex.
.

[xelasnave]

Sorry I have been busy playing pool and training for my first cage fight
Thanks for your input Kenny.

My annoyance with "inflation theory" is simply ..in my humble opinion..that it does not fit the requirements of a "theory" I am reasonably aware of the meaning of "theory" in science...and say that inflation theory is no more than a fancy idea and deserves no more than perhaps being labled a hypothisis... a layman can call it a theory but I feel a scientist if he looked at the "theory" would say yes nice idea but it is not a "theory"... yet they call it so...

Inflation theory askes us to accept everything grew to all that it is now in 30 seconds... that is a big idea but why it gets called a theory I can not fathom... even God took near a week to get the job done


I think the HB may well be found ... and one would think they must be very findable if it give mass to er stuff...well they must be everywhere and in large numbers... but I think they have gone down the wrong path with speculating upon its existence... it crept in because of the notion of massless particles and I doubt if it works that way... but if they do find it I say it is the gravity rain I have been seeking all these years and it will be smaller..just a guess as is the way I do science

Kenny said......Alex currently the distribution of matter within the universe is of intense interest to cosmologist so I don’t understand where your coming from....and I can only reply... yes of course that is so however I have not come across anything ( not saying it is not out there) on the line up thing and matter/energy transfer between galaxies.

alex

[Archy (George)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

My annoyance with "inflation theory" is simply ..in my humble opinion..that it does not fit the requirements of a "theory" I am reasonably aware of the meaning of "theory" in science...and say that inflation theory is no more than a fancy idea and deserves no more than perhaps being labled a hypothisis... a layman can call it a theory but I feel a scientist if he looked at the "theory" would say yes nice idea but it is not a "theory"... yet they call it so...

Inflation theory askes us to accept everything grew to all that it is now in 30 seconds... that is a big idea but why it gets called a theory I can not fathom... even God took near a week to get the job done

alex

I agree

[Archy (George)]

Originally Posted by KenGee

......You forget Alex that energy is a construct, it can easily be said that it doesn’t really exist. If you take that view then something coming from nothing is easy to shown to be true. .....
.....What is potential energy? The mass of a ball is no different when it’s rolled down the hill, yet it has lost its potential energy, where did it go?

If you believe energy is a construct, stand in front of a moving car.

The potential energy has changed into kinetic energy and heat.

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Originally Posted by Archy

If you believe energy is a construct, stand in front of a moving car.

The potential energy has changed into kinetic energy and heat.

LOL, no thanks but does that mean you can tell the rest of us what energy is then, I'd love to hear it.
Alex it's important to remember what you are calling inflation theory is in fact a flavour of the big bang model of creation.
Inflation was included into the big bang theory to keep it in line with the know facts, as I said before a theory has to be consistent with all the know facts. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_cosmo_infl.html
What is it that you don't like about it, the rate of expansion or the bonding of the amount of "energy" within the universe. It seems to me that the very thing you seem not to like about Inflation is one of the things it explains really well. Can you expand please on what your thoughts are.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by KenGee

LOL, no thanks but does that mean you can tell the rest of us what energy is then, I'd love to hear it.
Alex it's important to remember what you are calling inflation theory is in fact a flavour of the big bang model of creation.
Inflation was included into the big bang theory to keep it in line with the know facts, as I said before a theory has to be consistent with all the know facts. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_cosmo_infl.html
What is it that you don't like about it, the rate of expansion or the bonding of the amount of "energy" within the universe. It seems to me that the very thing you seem not to like about Inflation is one of the things it explains really well. Can you expand please on what your thoughts are.

Well I feel unqualified to stand up to the current views but to nail down my specific complaint re inflation I feel my previous post says it all... I do not call my ideas a theory and frankly the inflation theory seems to have less basis for its place in the big bang theory than my push ideas should replace anything out there to date..I know an idea and call it so..inflation is no more than an idea...

I did think inflation was part and parcel of the big bang idea..however you say it is but one flavour... my understanding is that without inflation or a suitable alternative big bang dies as there is no way to fix why everything is the same...simply put...I am not sure but we need it to expalin why we have all laws the same...now it does not worry me at all other than it seemed to me that because it saved big bang it got thru the hypothesis to theory stage with out the demands placed upon other hypothisis...

So given "they" found the "problem" and given it was a fair one to examine I would have thought the demand from the "saving" idea may well have needed something in the way of supporting observation or evidence and not simply a math construct without "real" evidence to support the placement of it in the gutz of the main theory and as I understand saw inflation as crutial for its (bb) very survival.

alex

[xelasnave]

I do have a problem to imagine all energy could be concentrated in such a small space as the "seed" flavour BB would suggest. Who /how could achieve this?
alex

[Archy (George)]

Originally Posted by KenGee

LOL, no thanks but does that mean you can tell the rest of us what energy is then, I'd love to hear it.
.......

I don't have the energy to do that at present, but you may look it up in Wikipedia.