Impossible to tell what is center of solar system?

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This cannot be so, rossum. If anything in space has a direction of travel then it also has a point of origin in time. Stuff cannot travel through space and time in 2 dimensions only. Unless space disappears behind the stuff as it travels along, but then space would not be infinite, I suspect.
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I was using the two dimensional surface of the Earth as an analogy. The two dimensional surface of the Earth has no centre lying on that surface. The three dimensional volume of the universe has no centre lying within that volume.

rossum
 
rossum said:
I was using the two dimensional surface of the Earth as an analogy. The two dimensional surface of the Earth has no centre lying on that surface. The three dimensional volume of the universe has no centre lying within that volume.

rossum
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Again, that is due to the underlying assumption the earth is on the “surface” of the universe.

So a soccer ball has no center?
 
buffalo said:
Again, that is due to the underlying assumption the earth is on the “surface” of the universe.
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I did not talk about the surface of the universe. Please read again what I posted:“The three dimensional volume of the universe has no centre lying within that volume.” (Emphases added)
Are you denying that the Earth is contained within the volume of the universe?

rossum
 
So the universe is like the volume of the atmosphere of the earth but without anything above it [outer-space] or below it [the earth]?
 
You said:
So the universe is like the volume of the atmosphere of the earth but without anything above it [outer-space] or below it [the earth]?
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How is your Tensor Analysis? General Relativity works with a four dimensional space-time. String theory works with an 11 dimensional manifold (that is the Mathematical meaning of ‘manifold’) Some versions of M-theory are up to 23 dimensional manifolds IIRC.

At that level of dimensionality most analogies will break down.

rossum
 
rossum said:
How is your Tensor Analysis? General Relativity works with a four dimensional space-time. String theory works with an 11 dimensional manifold (that is the Mathematical meaning of ‘manifold’) Some versions of M-theory are up to 23 dimensional manifolds IIRC.

At that level of dimensionality most analogies will break down.

rossum
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Draw me a picture instead
 
Draw me a beer and I’ll watch. So far: Buddhist 1; “you” 0. But then the Buddhist will always be 1! LOL! 😉
 
Ranklyfrank said:
Draw me a beer and I’ll watch. So far: Buddhist 1; “you” 0. But then the Buddhist will always be 1! LOL! 😉
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Hey. Zen Buddhists always score 0. If you object they’ll send some Ninja monks to enter you bedroom at night and do absolutely nothing. That’ll teach you! 😃
A new monk came up to the master Joshu. “I have just entered the brotherhood and I am anxious to learn the first principle of Zen,” he said. “Will you please teach it to me?”

Joshu asked, “Have you eaten your supper?”

The novice answered, “I have eaten.”

Joshu said, “Now wash your bowl.”

rossum
 
I should have known. They were here last night. Without seeing them I asked: “is anyone here?” I am still black and blue from being pummeled with kyosakus. And your signature says “1=0” anyway.
 
rossum said:
Sure. I’ll just need a piece of eleven dimensional paper.

The surface of the Earth is your next nearest picture.

rossum
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All speculation. We cannot know for sure if there is an actual center.

By the way - how thick is the surface of the universe?
 
buffalo said:
By the way - how thick is the surface of the universe?
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I have a scientific training so I tend to take almost all questions literally. Ask me a rhetorical question and you are likely to get a literal answer. The visible universe is about 2.8e10 parsecs in diameter.

rossum
 
rossum said:
I have a scientific training so I tend to take almost all questions literally. Ask me a rhetorical question and you are likely to get a literal answer. The visible universe is about 2.8e10 parsecs in diameter.

rossum
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Scientists describe the universe like a balloon. How thick is what we would call the latex fabric?

Since we can only see part of the universe it can be true that it has a center. Since we cannot see, we cannot rule it out.

If the universe is like a balloon, then there is one point where all points have the same radius value, aka center.
 
rossum said:
I have a scientific training so I tend to take almost all questions literally. Ask me a rhetorical question and you are likely to get a literal answer. The visible universe is about 2.8e10 parsecs in diameter.

rossum
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That’s to the speed-of-light limit, isn’t it? I understand that if we were positioned at the “horizon” we might well see another “radius” out? That would exponentially increase the size and posit another horizon as well, eh?
 
buffalo said:
Scientists describe the universe like a balloon. How thick is what we would call the latex fabric?
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You’re asking what is 100m north of the North Pole. Humans do not have tangible analogs for the space-time manifold you are trying to understand, which any physicist tries to understand. As a beginning point, and ONLY a beginning point, the simple example of a balloon being inflated is offered as pedagogy, as a way to teach or introduce useful principles. It’s as good an analogy as I know (something similar to thinking about the sun being a “bowling ball in the middle of a stretched sheet of rubber” to introduce the idea of the distorting effects of mass on spacetime, if you are familiar with that analogy), but it breaks down quickly; as soon as you ask how “thick” the surface is, you’re completely off the working parts of the analogy. There is no such “thickness”.

It’s not a 2D surface, or even a 3D surface. The spacetime manifold is not amenable to our basic visualization capabilities, so you aren’t going to find a balloon or other simple 3D object that does more than humbly point you in the right direction.

If you are willing to do real math, however, then you have a basis for making sense out of this. Mathematically, it falls right out of the model, or rather, that is the model, and n-dimensional manifolds are tractable and elegant in terms of the math. Maybe have a read on Calabi-Yau manifolds, which are a good example of the kind of the higher dimensional geometries at work in physics, or, depending on your view of M-Theory, the Church of String Theory.
Since we can only see part of the universe it can be true that it has a center. Since we cannot see, we cannot rule it out.
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If the universe is like a balloon, then there is one point where all points have the same radius value, aka center.
Click to expand...
That isn’t the case, even for a balloon (think about it, the balloon would have to be sphere, and even an ellipsoid defined in terms of quadratics wouldn’t get you to a balloon shape (which is not “the same radius value”). But even if you could locate the point in the balloon which represented the computed average distance to every point of the surface of the balloon (which is practical), it wouldn’t help, because space-time isn’t like that geometrically, per contemporary physics.

It’s not a matter of sight, but rather, undefined terms. We don’t have a meaningful basis for establishing what “center” means in this context.

In the balloon example, you would need to confine your analysis to only the surface of the balloon. A point on the inside of the balloon breaks the analogy; we use 3D space to analyze a 2D expanding surface just so we have some hope of grasping this in an introductory way. If you can constrain your analysis to the surface of the balloon being all there is that qualifies as a location, at all, what would you call the “center of the balloon”, then you have your answer for our universe, you understand the problematic nature of the question itself.

-TS
 
The only problem I see is that maths are useless [and non-existant] unless they are describing something. If a math equation describes something in numerical values then the most natural thing in the world is to draw the shape, or curves that the numbers are describing.
If there are no curves or shapes there are no numbers, and all this multi-dimensional-speak must be just snake-oil.
So somebody start drawing. Now.
 
Touchstone said:
You’re asking what is 100m north of the North Pole. Humans do not have tangible analogs for the space-time manifold you are trying to understand, which any physicist tries to understand. As a beginning point, and ONLY a beginning point, the simple example of a balloon being inflated is offered as pedagogy, as a way to teach or introduce useful principles. It’s as good an analogy as I know (something similar to thinking about the sun being a “bowling ball in the middle of a stretched sheet of rubber” to introduce the idea of the distorting effects of mass on spacetime, if you are familiar with that analogy), but it breaks down quickly; as soon as you ask how “thick” the surface is, you’re completely off the working parts of the analogy. There is no such “thickness”.

It’s not a 2D surface, or even a 3D surface. The spacetime manifold is not amenable to our basic visualization capabilities, so you aren’t going to find a balloon or other simple 3D object that does more than humbly point you in the right direction.

If you are willing to do real math, however, then you have a basis for making sense out of this. Mathematically, it falls right out of the model, or rather, that is the model, and n-dimensional manifolds are tractable and elegant in terms of the math. Maybe have a read on Calabi-Yau manifolds, which are a good example of the kind of the higher dimensional geometries at work in physics, or, depending on your view of M-Theory, the Church of String Theory.

That isn’t the case, even for a balloon (think about it, the balloon would have to be sphere, and even an ellipsoid defined in terms of quadratics wouldn’t get you to a balloon shape (which is not “the same radius value”). But even if you could locate the point in the balloon which represented the computed average distance to every point of the surface of the balloon (which is practical), it wouldn’t help, because space-time isn’t like that geometrically, per contemporary physics.

It’s not a matter of sight, but rather, undefined terms. We don’t have a meaningful basis for establishing what “center” means in this context.

In the balloon example, you would need to confine your analysis to only the surface of the balloon. A point on the inside of the balloon breaks the analogy; we use 3D space to analyze a 2D expanding surface just so we have some hope of grasping this in an introductory way. If you can constrain your analysis to the surface of the balloon being all there is that qualifies as a location, at all, what would you call the “center of the balloon”, then you have your answer for our universe, you understand the problematic nature of the question itself.

-TS
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Right - it is a mathematical construct.

Bottom line - those that ridicule anyone who believes the earth is the center should read your post a few times.
 
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