Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Colonol Dekker on February 04, 2010, 03:39:46 pm

Title: The scale of the universe
Post by: Colonol Dekker on February 04, 2010, 03:39:46 pm
THIS (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347) is a completely novel AMAZING tool on newgrounds that some inspired genius has made.......

music is ok too :D
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: StarSlayer on February 04, 2010, 03:49:53 pm
This isn't the thing where they compare the planets, then the planets to the sun, then the sun to other suns, and so on and so for until it makes a crack about someone's overweight ex girlfriend is it?  If so its been around a long time.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: BloodEagle on February 04, 2010, 03:50:29 pm
Pretty damned nifty.  :yes:
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Snail on February 04, 2010, 03:50:59 pm
Wow, that thing is awesome...
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Demitri on February 04, 2010, 04:09:57 pm
That is quite impressive
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: watsisname on February 04, 2010, 04:47:16 pm
Wow, nice.  I like how well it demonstrates the vast difference in size between subatomic particles and the Planck length.  But I do have to nitpick about the rendition of the size of the observable universe, since a lot of people get this wrong. :(

The universe is currently estimated to be ~13.7 billion years old.  But this does NOT mean that the edge of the observable universe is 13.7 billion light years away.  The only way this would be true is if spacetime on cosmological scales was flat, and it is clearly not due to expansion.  The true edge of the observable universe is about 46.5 billion light years from us.

As for the true size of the *entire* universe, it's unknown, but probably many magnitudes greater than what we can see.

Edit:  Durr, that's supposed to be Planck, not plank. :O
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Nutcase on February 04, 2010, 05:23:33 pm
On the universe size: It's numbers the average Human can just barely comprehend (with a small 'if' on the side).
Does it even matter?
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: watsisname on February 04, 2010, 05:39:57 pm
No, not really. =P  But it's science for the sake of science, and I'd much rather we try to understand as much as we can about as much as we can, rather than leave things as mystical unknowns.  Besides, imagine if we still held to the belief that the sun, moon, and planets were perfect, unexplainable heavenly spheres and nobody ever tried to learn otherwise.  :)
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Locutus of Borg on February 04, 2010, 05:45:38 pm
If nothing can go faster than the speed of light, then why is the observable universe totally encompassed by the actual universe.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: BloodEagle on February 04, 2010, 06:17:43 pm
Because space-time is curved? [/complete guess]
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Aardwolf on February 04, 2010, 06:39:49 pm
Ooo, this was mildly entertaining!
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: General Battuta on February 04, 2010, 07:03:44 pm
If nothing can go faster than the speed of light, then why is the observable universe totally encompassed by the actual universe.

Space-time can expand faster than light.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: watsisname on February 04, 2010, 07:05:29 pm
If nothing can go faster than the speed of light, then why is the observable universe totally encompassed by the actual universe.

*Simple answer* -->  Because of the expansion of space itself.  

Take for example the case of a universe in which the expansion rate increases over time.  If this occurs, then objects far away from us will become increasingly redshifted, and eventually light will no longer be able to reach us from those objects because they recede from us too quickly.  The boundary of the observable universe would thus shrink in towards us, and more and more of the universe would lay beyond the boundary.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Mongoose on February 04, 2010, 07:28:18 pm
Ooh, I always like these sorts of things.  (Lulz at "Pronounced YER uh niss" :p)  Even as a physics major, though, I've never even heard of the concept of "preons" being building blocks of quarks; apparently I missed something somewhere.  It really is amazing just how much smaller the Planck length is than anything else.  Eta Carinae sure is something, isn't it?
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: ssmit132 on February 04, 2010, 07:51:52 pm
Nice little thing, I prefer this to those videos since you can look at it at your own pace and play around with it.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Galemp on February 04, 2010, 11:44:42 pm
Beautiful.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Colonol Dekker on February 05, 2010, 01:52:17 am
Our sun's pretty tiny compared to neighbouring stars isn't it. . . . .
 
 
Also there's no blue whale which is a must in any one of these gadgets but I forgive it for showing me that the USA is bigger than mercury which I didn't know :)
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2010, 09:24:45 pm
Yeah, that surprised me too.  I guess a few thousand miles does get fairly hefty if you stretch it out flat.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Pred the Penguin on February 05, 2010, 09:55:20 pm
Our sun is tiny...
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Mongoose on February 05, 2010, 10:53:54 pm
Not if you're a quark.  Or a human, for that matter. :p
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Snail on February 06, 2010, 08:34:22 am
Not if you're a quark.  Or a human, for that matter. :p
Or even a planet.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: McCall on February 06, 2010, 09:41:42 am
7 metre earthworm? I didn't know that could happen.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: lostllama on February 06, 2010, 09:46:18 am
Yeah, reminds me of Tremors.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: Snail on February 06, 2010, 10:09:13 am
7 metre earthworm? I didn't know that could happen.
That confoosed me too.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: IronBeer on February 06, 2010, 10:57:11 am
Dekker, thanks for bringing this to the forum, for starters.

Just... wow. I've seen these sorts of things before, but they've never really pulled it off as well as this one did.
Mind-boggling.
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: crossfire92 on February 10, 2010, 02:10:13 pm
yeah it was really good
its hard to find something that puts your world into a perspective like that
Title: Re: The scale of the universe
Post by: BengalTiger on February 12, 2010, 01:04:58 pm
(Lulz at "Pronounced YER uh niss" :p)

Shouldn't that be U're Anus?