Crack your brains on this one! : Othor Games

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:14 pm

Where Time is but a loop, a loose stitch in the Universal cloth, A streamer might seize upon a chance, a fatal slip- and plunge the fates of planets into chaos.

As I see it, the universe is already in chaos, but we do not have the tools or methods to observe all forms of said chaos.

The past is not infinite. There is no such thing as "before" the universe in our concepts at least (don't want to get into the idea of multiple universes in some sort of giant floating universe-creating membrane thingy) as the idea of "before" has to do with the passage of time, and there was no time before that.

The future is also not infinite. Eventually the universe will die.

The present is an interesting one, though. What we all consider to be the "present" is in fact the past due to the laws of relativity and our senses. The idea of a "present" though is an instantaneous moment, like a point. We live in the past, and around us http://xkcd.com/209/

I think you underestimate the idea that something with an infinite future also has an infinite past... especially since the farther into the future you go the more past there is.

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:37 pm

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff.

Dealing with time itself, I imagine it to be a sort of infinity/figure 8 type of deal. Time flows constantly towards an event horizon at which point it drops back into itself where future meets past. Biggest theory I have pertains to black holes where 1/2 fill into a singular point with another 1/2 doing the same, all acting like gigantic space vacuum cleaners. As time approaches the end/start point these two things fire the objects at each other within a perfect vacuum achieving speeds possibly at or beyond the speed of light. Cannot fathom the amount of energy created from something like 900 Jupiters compressed into something the size of a pea fired at an object of the exact same mass and velocity.

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 7:14 pm

the farther into the future you go the more past there is.

I guess that just means that the past is just as finite as the future.

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 5:54 pm

I think you underestimate the idea that something with an infinite future also has an infinite past... especially since the farther into the future you go the more past there is.

First, I said that there isn't an infinite future for the universe.

Second, your idea is the common flaw of considering "infinity" to be a "number" of sorts. If you were to go sufficiently far into the future in a universe with infinite future, you'd have just made the past sufficiently, but still absolutely and measurably, far away, not infinitely far away.

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 5:26 am

First, I said that there isn't an infinite future for the universe.

Second, your idea is the common flaw of considering "infinity" to be a "number" of sorts. If you were to go sufficiently far into the future in a universe with infinite future, you'd have just made the past sufficiently, but still absolutely and measurably, far away, not infinitely far away.

heh, I misread. The current organizational structure of the universe is finite, but that does not mean the universe can not exist when the structure changes to something unfamiliar.

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:48 pm

...let's assume the world was created some 40 billion years ago, what came before that? And before that? And before that? ...

Nothing came before that. Because there was no "before" before that. That is a finding of physics.

And "time" is what keeps everything from happening all at once - (I think physicist John Wheeler may have first said that)

» Thu Sep 06, 2012 1:44 pm

Let me ask this, since this appears to be a relevant topic/thread: Was the universe begun in the Big Bang? Or did the Big Bang mark the beginning of the universe as we know it? Could the universe have existed before the Big Bang in some exotic/alien state that we simply cannot fathom?