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General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: UPRC on March 09, 2008, 02:39:59 am

Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: UPRC on March 09, 2008, 02:39:59 am
Now this I had to post, because I thought it was really, really interesting. Normally space stuff does not interest me terribly, but.. A hole in the universe. Come on. I can't pass that up!


Personally, I think this sounds really interesting. I mean, if it is a genuine and real hole... Where would it lead?! Very interesting to think about, I think.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Nessiah on March 09, 2008, 02:45:31 am
That's really interesting :ninja:
I wonder where does it lead, or how come there are no stars in there !_!
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: HL on March 09, 2008, 02:46:31 am
There are lots of gigantic holes in the universe.

This is just the biggest known one.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Aten on March 09, 2008, 02:47:50 am
Wow, if it wasnt so far away, we could send a camera or something inside it.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: General Robert E. Lee on March 09, 2008, 02:49:06 am
I mean, if it is a genuine and real hole... Where would it lead?!

Huh?  From what I understand from the article, it's just an area of space with less matter than usual, not a PORTAL or whatever you're thinking.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: xanque on March 09, 2008, 03:57:55 am
Yeah, this isn't a black hole.  Black holes have mass, but this hole has no mass. 

I love when things like this are found, because they force astronomers to reassess their ideas of how the universe works.  It's going to be a long, long time before we have everything figured out.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Chubby Skelly on March 09, 2008, 04:04:57 am
It's not the kind of hole you guys seem to think it is. It's like a clearing in a forest. An area with less stuff in it.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on March 09, 2008, 04:11:16 am
It's not the kind of hole you guys seem to think it is. It's like a clearing in a forest. An area with less stuff in it.
Yeah, at first I was thinking. A hole, hole?  :fogetshrug: So, where does it lead to, blah blah....Then I saw that it was just emptier space. Nice and interesting, but not quite like I initially thought.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Cheesy Doritos on March 09, 2008, 04:11:58 am
Wasn't this found several months ago?

Anyway, I don't see how it's amazingly interesting. Maybe I'm missing something... It's just an area with less-than-normal amounts of x, y, and z matter, right?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: mar77a on March 09, 2008, 04:31:17 am
My views on life are now different after reading this article.

PS: hole/empty space/clearing != door/portal/whatever/RPG-community
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Blitzen on March 09, 2008, 04:42:15 am
BREAKING NEWS HEADLINES SCIENTISTS LOOK INTO EMPTY SPACE AND FIND...

well not a whole lot of anything by the looks of it. :hmm:
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Ragnar on March 09, 2008, 06:23:50 am
BREAKING NEWS HEADLINES SCIENTISTS LOOK INTO EMPTY SPACE AND FIND...

well not a whole lot of anything by the looks of it. :hmm:

I think you mean not a HOLE lot lololololol
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Evangel on March 09, 2008, 10:33:08 am
HOW CAN THERE BE A HOLE IN NOTHING??

actually, i see what they're talking about.  i'm really not surprised by anything they find out there.  the piece of universe that we can view from our tiny earth island is minuscule.  i'm certain that there are even vaster fields of nothing out there.  likewise, i'm sure there are even larger stars and planets and things we will never comprehend out there.  i also wonder if it ever ends.  surely the world of matter cannot exist forever in all directions.  or maybe it can.  or maybe it's just expanding that way.  or maybe it's doing the opposite.  or maybe it exists for as far as we can see, as long as there is someone there to see it.  that's a weird concept. 
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Ruthless X on March 09, 2008, 10:38:37 am
It's them, do not be fooled. This is the only warning we will get.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: DS on March 09, 2008, 10:40:11 am
I find this really interesting as well, though space has always interested me. And man, that looks huge.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Aten on March 09, 2008, 10:40:40 am
Man, since everything has a beginning and an ending, does that mean the universe also has an ending? If so, then what is there AFTER where it ends? Nothingness? Void? This kind of shit always makes me wonder sometimes. And whats even more frustrating is that we may never know :<
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Evangel on March 09, 2008, 11:23:54 am
My belief is that the universe is infinite space.  This nothingness is really pointless unless there is some matter there with which to measure distances and speeds.

A lot of scientists believe the universe expands from a single point, as if the world of matter and existence grows constantly like a number increasing towards infinity, but never reaching that unattainable digit.  Outside of it, I suppose that nothingness is potentially infinite.  There are no boundaries, yet it exists (or doesn't) only to hold any matter that might later wander into it.  Space is a weird concept. It's nothing at all.  I'm so used to an atmosphere and atoms surrounding me everywhere I go.  I'm sure it's a very lonely place.  I sometimes wonder what the outermost speck of matter is, the most remote atoms in the universe, and probably the oldest. 

It would be pretty weird if those vast distances curved in on themselves (I guess wormholes do some weird space-time shit like that), so instead of meeting some boundary, a traveler would reach the same point they started at if they continued for a mind-blowing distance.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Jester on March 09, 2008, 11:45:42 am
It would be cool if that was the site of the big bang. That place would have to be pretty empty by now, no?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: dom on March 09, 2008, 12:04:01 pm
Wasn't this found several months ago?
yes and we all came to the conclusion that it can't exist because we can't see it
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Frankie on March 09, 2008, 03:28:10 pm
I assume that completely empty space is pretty frequent in the immense gap between galaxies, but that what makes this particular find incredible is that its inside a galaxy.

Well I mean its a potential huge find.
Maybe it really is just a zone where no objects are to be found right now, like that many heavy stars at the fringe of the zone pulled objects away from it, or I don't know, a rogue black hole passed through that zone at one point and dragged everything out of it.

But it also allows for very wild speculation. What if they found out that this... DEAD ZONE was almost a perfect sphere, as if, in it center, there was some sort of mysterious object that repulsed everything away from its radius? That would be an incredible find. Or maybe an object that somehow scrambles the VLA over this area so it returns no readings? Like say some sort of special radiation emitted over a large zone or whatever, by a star in the middle of that zone (so maybe that area actually has a normal amount of matter, but somehow escapes detection)
I wish the article told us more about what they found, like the shape this "nothing" has. Or maybe they themselves couldn't really approximate it or whatever. Im sure a NASA scientist would find my SPECULATIONS pretty silly though!
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Death Gulp on March 09, 2008, 03:43:53 pm
I don't think it is a portal to another part of the universe, or whatever. That's really cool though. A HUGE area in space with nothing, well even more nothing than the 'nothingness' of space.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Cheesy Doritos on March 09, 2008, 04:05:42 pm
Also would this be a result of the universe's expansion, or what?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Mince Wobley on March 09, 2008, 04:23:06 pm
Wasn't this found several months ago?

Anyway, I don't see how it's amazingly interesting. Maybe I'm missing something... It's just an area with less-than-normal amounts of x, y, and z matter, right?

Yes and I made a topic abou it.

I won't even say that I think  there is a problem with scientists's telescopes because apparently you're not supposed to have your own opinions here on GW.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Alexander Morou on March 09, 2008, 05:14:49 pm
So this void is 6 x 1021 miles long?

That's pretty large.  Thankfully it isn't a black hole, because, if I remember correctly, black holes are dense enough that they contain the same amount of matter of earth in a cubic centimeter.  I'm sure you can guess what that means if there were a black hole that large (yes it goes without saying it would really suck, but that's a bad pun, correct terminology would be it would really 'pull'.)
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Evangel on March 09, 2008, 05:58:57 pm
I assume that completely empty space is pretty frequent in the immense gap between galaxies, but that what makes this particular find incredible is that its inside a galaxy.

Well I mean its a potential huge find.
Maybe it really is just a zone where no objects are to be found right now, like that many heavy stars at the fringe of the zone pulled objects away from it, or I don't know, a rogue black hole passed through that zone at one point and dragged everything out of it.

But it also allows for very wild speculation. What if they found out that this... DEAD ZONE was almost a perfect sphere, as if, in it center, there was some sort of mysterious object that repulsed everything away from its radius? That would be an incredible find. Or maybe an object that somehow scrambles the VLA over this area so it returns no readings? Like say some sort of special radiation emitted over a large zone or whatever, by a star in the middle of that zone (so maybe that area actually has a normal amount of matter, but somehow escapes detection)
I wish the article told us more about what they found, like the shape this "nothing" has. Or maybe they themselves couldn't really approximate it or whatever. Im sure a NASA scientist would find my SPECULATIONS pretty silly though!

NASA already knows what's up.

(https://legacy.gamingw.net/etc/www.daviddarling.info/images/artifacts.gif)
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Carrion Crow on March 09, 2008, 06:53:08 pm
Anyone else have a farscape moment when reading this? :)
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Orange00 on March 09, 2008, 07:13:54 pm
Also would this be a result of the universe's expansion, or what?
Actually universe is shrinking. I read some study about dark matter and blah blah, it looks like everything is pulled together or something like that. They used to think everything is expanding but then there was something in dark matter that made some einstein relativity theories and such go  :blarg:

These news don't really interest me in anyway. So there is even more emptiness in emptiness, great.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Aten on March 09, 2008, 08:08:31 pm
Or maybe an object that somehow scrambles the VLA over this area so it returns no readings?

Or maybe its a CLOAKING DEVICE set up by aliens to disguise their planet.....

What? It could happen  :shrug:
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Wil on March 09, 2008, 08:26:59 pm
The universe is expanding, not shrinking. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_expansion.html
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Cheesy Doritos on March 09, 2008, 11:13:44 pm
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's expanding, Orange. Entropy and the heat death of the universe and all that.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Carrion Crow on March 09, 2008, 11:18:01 pm
Yeah, I'm pretty well informed that it's expanding, Orange. Entropy and the heat death of the universe and all that.

I find it hard to be "sure" about space. I don't know why. Maybe if I go there one day...
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Cheshire Cat on March 09, 2008, 11:27:45 pm
I love the 'werid shit in space' topics we get ocasionally. There's some absolutely mad stuff in space.

Can somebody compile a list of bonkers things in space?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Cheesy Doritos on March 09, 2008, 11:48:02 pm
Why is it hard to be sure? We know plenty of stuff about things we can't reach. You know the sun is hot, but it's not like you're right there, either.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Von Woofen on March 09, 2008, 11:49:16 pm
Sometimes I get really excited about physics and astronomy and stuff, but then I always just realize I don't have nearly enough drive to learn all the science so I can answer all my questions I have when I read about things like this, so I generally just ignore them.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Kaworu on March 09, 2008, 11:50:05 pm
shit, I think I dropped my change down the hole.

How can I get it back? :(
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Roman on March 10, 2008, 12:40:07 am
Man, since everything has a beginning and an ending, does that mean the universe also has an ending? If so, then what is there AFTER where it ends? Nothingness? Void? This kind of shit always makes me wonder sometimes. And whats even more frustrating is that we may never know :<

this is where gamesmasterjasper comes in and compares the universe to a map in rm2k with wrapping set to both vertical and horizontal
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Wil on March 10, 2008, 12:43:15 am
I find it hard to be "sure" about space. I don't know why. Maybe if I go there one day...
Science can never be 100% sure about anything, it's just that science has enough evidence to lead to the probability of something being true. In this case, there's tons of evidence to suggest that the universe is expanding.

Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: AdderallApocalypse on March 10, 2008, 02:45:04 am
I often contemplate the reason behind it all. Why is there something as opposed to nothing? Why is the universe here, and why do the things in the universe work the way that they do?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: xanque on March 10, 2008, 02:39:27 pm
So this void is 6 x 1021 miles long?

That's pretty large.  Thankfully it isn't a black hole, because, if I remember correctly, black holes are dense enough that they contain the same amount of matter of earth in a cubic centimeter.  I'm sure you can guess what that means if there were a black hole that large (yes it goes without saying it would really suck, but that's a bad pun, correct terminology would be it would really 'pull'.)
No, black holes are no more threatening than stars or groups of stars.  Yes, they have more density concentrated in volume, but it's always the same mass.  If our sun were to become a black hole (it pretty much can't, but let's talk theoretically), Earth wouldn't be sucked into it.  We'd all die of lack of sunlight, but Earth would continue to revolve around the black hole just as it did the sun. 

So a black hole of that size would have the same mass as a group of stars that would fill that space. 

And also, THIS AREA HAS NO MASS.  It can't be a black hole. 
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Evangel on March 10, 2008, 03:53:08 pm
Why is it hard to be sure? We know plenty of stuff about things we can't reach. You know the sun is hot, but it's not like you're right there, either.

 Because it's impossible to see the big picture.  How do we know that our scope of the universe isn't just the goings-on of a tiny fraction of it (which it pretty much is)?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Orange00 on March 10, 2008, 04:26:23 pm
Well I don't know how the case really is, I understand next to nothing about these things. I was just passing time like a year ago reading this science magazine where they said universe is actually shrinking(not the right word, more like pulled together) instead of expanding as they used to think. There was also some talk that Einstein's theories might be bullshit in the end or don't follow the same laws with dark matter.

In any case, I get the picture that no person really knows a shit. It's just talk.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Mince Wobley on March 10, 2008, 04:53:32 pm
Evangel and OrangeO's you know you're not supposed to question scientific dogmata, right? If you do you're either a moron or a troll (that's not my opinion it's GW's).

These are the truths you must NEVER question:

- The universe is expanding
- Scientists never make mistakes
- The equipment scientists use is perfect and free from interference or defects
- Dark matter

To doubt and question any of these is the worst crime against humanity you can commit right now
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: UPRC on March 10, 2008, 04:57:46 pm
Uh Inri Cheetos... Are you being serious? Because some of your "truths" are nonsense while others are pretty true.

The universe is expanding: Yes (At least to our knowledge)
Scientists never make mistakes: No
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Mince Wobley on March 10, 2008, 05:03:08 pm
Well if scientists make mistakes couldn't the "expansion of the universe" and this void be one of them?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: xanque on March 10, 2008, 05:33:04 pm
Well if scientists make mistakes couldn't the "expansion of the universe" and this void be one of them?
Of course there are a lot of mistakes in astronomy (Hubble himself miscalculated the age of the universe, and it was accepted for years before anyone questioned it), but more than one astronomer works on these things.  Most theories, especially the really big ones, are tested and retested by many different people.  It would take some truly serious flaws in ALL of this kind of research for these things to be wrong.

HOWEVER, what most of these astronomers make clear is that the 'known' concepts of the universe are merely what we can determine with what we currently have.  There is a lot of evidence for the Big Bang, and that the universe (ours at least) is not infinite. 

Personally, I believe the universe as we know it did start with the Big Bang, but has been in a cycle forever.  I believe this because I've read many books and articles, and taken classes on the subject (as well as on opposing beliefs) and this just makes the most sense. 

If there's ever a theory that makes more sense, and is as thoroughly researched as the Big Bang, I will be more than happy to jump on that bandwagon.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: InvaderZim on March 11, 2008, 01:30:04 am
Inri, the void couldn't be a mistake because even in the presented article it states that other such 'holes' have been discovered. I mean come on, can so many people make the same mistake on so many occasions?...well yea...but very highly improbable, near impossible.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Mince Wobley on March 11, 2008, 05:26:37 am
Yes because some other people had the same conclusion it's absolutely impossible that anything else is also a possibility.

Quote
There is a lot of evidence ... that the universe (ours at least) is not infinite.

No there isn't.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Brown on March 11, 2008, 12:49:47 pm
It's them, do not be fooled. This is the only warning we will get.

my thoughts exactly

//
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Vellfire on March 11, 2008, 01:09:48 pm
No there isn't.

fffff nice reply

you do realize that this is your exact argument here (http://www.theonion.com/content/point/this_war_will_destabilize_the), don't you?
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: The Dude on March 11, 2008, 01:17:19 pm
You're all silly. All stars are holes, letting in the light from outside. The atmosphere reaches around our galaxy in unbreathable porportions, and the big black ball that surrounds us is poked by giant aliens who keep us in a well-lit room.
That's my fool-proof theory!
(actually that's a complete fabrication. Not a scientist; just a liar)
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: bort on March 11, 2008, 02:13:24 pm
it's hell ,satan lives there
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Mince Wobley on March 11, 2008, 03:33:58 pm
fffff nice reply

you do realize that this is your exact argument here (http://www.theonion.com/content/point/this_war_will_destabilize_the), don't you?

No, I only said it because there really isn't anything that suggests the universe is finite. The scientists still have no idea if it is or is not finite. They've never encountered the "edge of the universe" and since light travels at a finite speed there may be things that are so far away the light they emitted will never hit us or the scientists's telescopes.

Quote
ESA: Is the Universe finite or infinite?
 
Joseph Silk: We don't know.

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMR53T1VED_people_0_iv.html

There is no evidence that the universe is finite. I don't know where you people would get that idea from. But nice try velfarre.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Vellfire on March 12, 2008, 12:38:57 pm
I wasn't trying anything other than to point out that your argument before this post was "NO IT ISN'T"

Not that it really matters because you're just a big troll anyway but it's great that you're trying to disprove scientific evidence with what is essentially "NUH-UH!!!"
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Frankie on March 13, 2008, 12:21:29 am
Inri is right not to reject the idea that scientists might all be wrong, because their equipment isn't infallible.

But in the current context, until we actually get arguments to have a reasonable doubt of consensuses like this, simply saying "they could be wrong" is worthless. If we ever find conflicting results that make us doubt past observations, then it warrants wondering if our equipment works right. Even if it did turn out that all of our equipment and calculations were wrong somehow, the claim they are wrong remains worthless today, since its right now not based on any logic other than it being a possibility.

Baseless rejections like this is a dangerous arguing path, that can only lead to some sort of absolute rejection of everything. Like, technically maybe you aren't even awake right now, and maybe that your whole life until this point was a dream! You cant prove you aren't dreaming right now any more than scientists can prove their telescopes and equipment work right. You have to simply assume its not the case until you have at least a reason to think otherwise.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: thejackyl on March 13, 2008, 09:03:27 pm
***sex joke

I can't think of anything to add that people haven't already said.  This is kind of interesting though.  It also gets me thinking about things that no one knows for sure.  I mean it's not like scientists have a marker at the edge of the universe that they can look at and see "Okay the universe is bigger" or "Oh shit, where'd the marker go?! The universe is shrinking!"
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Fatboys #4 on March 16, 2008, 09:20:43 pm
Yeah, this isn't a black hole.  Black holes have mass, but this hole has no mass. 

I love when things like this are found, because they force astronomers to reassess their ideas of how the universe works.  It's going to be a long, long time before we have everything figured out.

Eh, I seriously doubt we'll ever figure everything out. If we do, it would only be figured out as it appears to us. So what? Big deal. There's just a very large region of space with nothing in it. How is that at all interesting? Black holes at least distort space and time and all that jazz, this is just a big fucking empty lot. Cool!
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Keith Stones on March 17, 2008, 04:32:51 pm
Evangel and OrangeO's you know you're not supposed to question scientific dogmata, right? If you do you're either a moron or a troll (that's not my opinion it's GW's).

These are the truths you must NEVER question:

- The universe is expanding
- Scientists never make mistakes
- The equipment scientists use is perfect and free from interference or defects
- Dark matter

To doubt and question any of these is the worst crime against humanity you can commit right now

And so...you have a better conclusion, I suppose?

This isn't something abstract like religion or morality we're dealing with here, it's fucking science. We accept whatever the Lords of Science  say until they go "Uh whoops, we fucked up, let's change that." And then accept the change.

If a scientist says something, forgive me if I'm inclined to believe it because he's made it his life's work to study this shit. I guess I should just question EVERYTHING so I can seem mysterious and hardcore.

I mean if you have a beef with something a scientist says, study it yourself and try to understand it more, but if you're not really willing to do that and just question things for the sake of being ANTI, you don't really have a case.
Title: There is a gigantic hole in the universe.
Post by: Mince Wobley on March 17, 2008, 05:25:03 pm
No pastryface I don't conclude anything I just wait until they're 100% sure about the things they discovered instead of automatically accepting anything they say as TRUTH