The Scale of the universe - what do you think?

maguffin

Found this posted by a friend on FB.

Drag slider to Left to see start of journey...use Right Arrow key to navigate ....

http://htwins.net/scale/index.html


Enjoy! and wishing everyone a Happy new Year!!

Morrisseeee

Great find. The scale of it is.................unbelievable, and the word unbelievable doesn't even come close to describing it or doing it justice.
Of course my silly little brain is prompting me to say: can the scale go even smaller, even tho is states "any length shorter makes no physical sense" ?, and can it go even larger at the other end, eg. perhaps 10^26 * 9.3m is only an atom of the next 'entity' :o
As humans, what we (or scientists/astronomers) have discovered (so far) is pretty impressive, and all in a relatively short space of time, well compared to the age of the universe :cool:

rccaulfield

They got the observable picture wrong, its more like a butterfly cos we can't see through the spiral arms either side of us. Just pointing it out! Makes me realise that the smaller we go the simpler th structure and surely matters structure comes to a stop at some point, i'e. things getting simpler and simpler cannot go on forever?

scrubber72

I have a hangover and this doesnt help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

AugustusMinimus

rccaulfield wrote: »

They got the observable picture wrong, its more like a butterfly cos we can't see through the spiral arms either side of us. Just pointing it out! Makes me realise that the smaller we go the simpler th structure and surely matters structure comes to a stop at some point, i'e. things getting simpler and simpler cannot go on forever?

If you believe string theory, then everything stops at the planck level with the strings being plancks length long.

Everything is made of these strings. Matter, energy, everything.

Other scientists also believe that space maybe be quantized at planck length level.


One other point. That graph seems to have put a size on the total, unobservable universe. That is just pure guesswork. We have no idea what size the total universe is. For what we know, the inflation period of the universe may still be happening, but just not on the scale of the observable universe.

Maximus Alexander

rccaulfield wrote: »

They got the observable picture wrong, its more like a butterfly cos we can't see through the spiral arms either side of us. Just pointing it out! Makes me realise that the smaller we go the simpler th structure and surely matters structure comes to a stop at some point, i'e. things getting simpler and simpler cannot go on forever?

That's not quite correct. The term "observable universe" doesn't refer to whether our technology or location actually permits us to view or detect an object or region, just that it is, in principle, possible for light from that location to have reached us within the lifetime of the universe.

As such, the observable universe is a sphere, regardless of what we can actually see, or what shape the universe actually is.

What you are referring to would be the "visible universe".

Bluesteel7

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