I believe it is in how people need to solidify a fact, theory, etc. not just tipping the scale into absolutes with scientific fact.
Some need evidence until the point where there is enough that they can touch it. Since you wont be able to touch/visit a black hole, well, I guess those persons will probably not get to the point that it exists for them with absolute fact and certainty.
There are a great many people who need evidence mathematically to say there is the probability. They have their answers already and are able to say that they probably exist.
In between well, we'll call them the gray...with some theory and fact, and knowing they wont touch it, more evidence arises and basically well, they think itd be harder to prove that black holes dont exists so, those persons say black holes are a fact of existance/reality, etc.
The facts contributed in to this point, the evidence supporting those facts, and the visual evidence as well...for me, thats enough to say, okay black holes exist I certainly dont doubt them.
The Light at the Edge of the Universe
The Light at the Edge of the Universe
prior to the "discovery" that the earth was round, cartographers in laying out their maps of the known flat world when coming to the end of their knowledgable limits would write on the maps "here be dragons". Seems as though black holes are the new "dragons". the math was there to prove the round earth but until it was an experience it was "unproved". any volunteers to "experience" a black hole?
(Oh wait got it dyslexia.)
Reading this entire question, and everyone's posts, boggles the mind. My mind actually hurts, trying to take in everything, some of them mutually exclusive, some not. I would hazard an unsophisticated guess that the limits of our minds play a huge role in our understanding, or not, of this topic. For instance, I find a resistance within me to the idea that there are no boundaries, but also feel that this resistance is irrational, and comes from within. But I can't parse it further.
Okay Bib... how do you answer your own question?
How can the universe have a limit when it is constantly expanding?
While mainstream science says no boundry and no center, I enjoy speculating what the boundry is like. I picture a big sphere perhaps 40 billion light years in diameter with Earth about 10 billion light years from the center and the closest spot on the boundry about 15 light years away and moving away at almost light speed, with respect to Earth. The boundry is moving outward quite slowly (on the average) with respect to the stuff just inside the boundy. Exceptions are mostly tiny fast moving stuff that happened to be heading toward the boundry and electo magnetic photons that crossed the boundry long ago (to recently) traveling at nearly the speed of light with respect to the boundry. So there are comparatively few photons up to 15 billion light years beyond the offical location of the boundry. That's assuming the big bang occured 15 billion years ago and threre are no artifacts aroung that existed before the big bang. So if we were close to the boundry, a bit more than half the night time sky woud look much like here, with a huge circle of blackness in the direction of the boundry. Neil
oooooh ahhhhh, like the image of the nighttime sky at the edge, Neil
Is the universe equally saturated with matter? If we were on the edge, would the starry bit of sky look so much the same as we see here? And, would the empty patch pass across the sky as we rotated beneath it?
Our universe is an "atom" or "subatomic particle" of another world; ie, we a minute piece of a rock of another larger world.
Yes, indeed I do know you from the age of aBuzz. More than once you started one of these all encompassing monster questions, and then would neve come back to it... Used to tick me off.
Thanks for the answer. I'm gonna be the weasle here and say that I don't think there is an answer. It is unknowable for this observer. I can concieve of a place beyond ejecta from the big bang... ejecta in the form of light/energy at the fore-front. But we'll never get there. And that energy is heading tickety-boo off to somewhere... is the universe the container or the thing contained?
All in all I stopped worrying about the o'er-encompassing cosmic questions about the same time I stopped doing drugs. The universe is what it is, and it's big enough to contain me, and everything I know of... and that suits me just fine.
Well, there ya go.
I'm still curious. But, I don't think it's likely we'll ever know what's beyond the edge.
When I get there I'll report back and let you all know what I find. :wink:
I believe the boundary of the Universe to be made from WATER!
i was thinking more in terms of Jello
Any particular colour of Jello?
i like to think
and the sooner the better
of cosmic jello
swirling chunks of pineapple
seedless grapes
bits of mandrin oranges
radiating prismatic colors
cherry pits of ebon holes
nothingness of pectin.
