Recent content by newrd

Thanks guys, Ibix your answer that its on a small scale explained it perfectly, cheers!

Hi Folks, I've read that by the time mankind is ready for intergalactic travel, our nearest galactic neighbour will be too far to even travel to. But I've also read that Andromeda is on a collision course with the Milky Way. Which is correct? And if the universe is expanding and everything is...

The blather was a reply to the Matrix reference! But that being said, how has it come to be thought that we are on the surface of the expanding balloon and not actually inside the balloon (or fishtank!)? I really must read the balloon analogy before I ask anymore questions..

Could we not be the fish inside a 1ft x 1ft fish tank, unaware of anything outside our little tank which we can circumnavigate with ease, until one day, surprisingly, our little fish tank has expanded so much we think it may be endless?!

Thankyou to both of you, I have bookmarked it and put it on tomorrows reading list :) All of your replies remind me of the saying- "There is no such thing as a stupid question"- we are all here to learn and we all have to start somewhere!

Ahh ok, so there is no particle horizon so to speak, there is only the expanding balloon analogy again. I think I understand. So does infinity come down to the fact of whether we live on the surface of the balloon, or inside it?

The universe- from our understanding, is expanding, thus the regions (for lack of a better word) particles have not yet reached do not exist. How far our universe can/ will expand is unknown, it may be infinite, but we can conclude at this time, as it is still expanding, that it is finite. True...

Ohh yeah- and I never said human ;)

Ahh ok, I got the quote from a Stephen Hawking book, I thought it may just be the generally agreed upon stance?

So when we say "A particle has neither a definite position nor a definite velocity unless and until those quantities are measured by an observer" it doesn't mean for reality in general- just specific particles?

If reality requires an observer, and life on Earth is only 3.8 billion years old- yet the universe is 13.8 billion years old, who was the observer for the first 10 billion years?