I'm watching "The Universe" on The History Channel and there exists a claim that "The trinagulation of the edges of the known universe show the universe to be flat."  This is not an exact quote.  I don't understand how this is possible and I don't know what it means if it is.  Can anyone give a more detailed explanation or a link to a detailed explanation?

Thanks

Anthony

TheAOD, I guess it wouldn't help the understanding if I told you the universe has 12-14 dimensions, would it? And that it's possible to travel back in time? =)

Einstein described on this channel once how you can cross over a road without moving at all, I forgot how it goes. But it's not really possible to go back in time.

I'm not hung up on the dimensions or the idea of universe bubbles or time travel or worm holes.  I just don't understand how something that is clearly three dimensional can be thought of as two dimensional in any sense.  If you imagine that the universe is finite it is still substantial in all three dimensions.  How can it be considered flat?  Or better yet how do you visualize it's flatness?

As truth is relative, and it theorized that we create our own reality, the universe is what you think it to be. If you believe it's flat, it is, in your mind the universe is three dimensional, so it is.

The mind is the universe, 6+billion people on the planet=6+billion universes= the multiverse, for whose truth do you believe?

Basically, In a saddle-shaped universe dose not close on itself. Depicted is a triangle laid on the surface of the universe. The curvature of the actual universe causes the interior angles of the triangle to have a sum of less than 180 degreese.

I did study the basic shape of the universe 45 years ago and there has been so much advance in the field since then that all I can do is refer you to some links I found on the internet.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=62

http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html

Actually this was an exam question U2, and my theory to this day still stands in my mind, though I am not a physicist.

My theory is that there are 2 or multiples of 2 universes in existense such as 4, 6, 8 etc.

Why you say?

Because compounds that form the matter in the universe are either neutral or have a positive or negative charge.

What is the balance between all these elements in our universe? No one knows for sure.

So my theory is there is at least one parallel universe with an opposite polarity than ours to keep the balance or the forces equal. Otherwise we are going to shrink to zilch and in this case the pressure will be so high on the matter condensed that a new big bang will occur.

On the opposite side if expansion occurs it will increase at a tremendous rate as more matter is formed more energy is available and the end result for the earth is that it will be located in a different continuum.

Is my theory right? Perhaps as I, like any other physicist use logic to deduct.

Are the physicist right or am I wrong?

I cannot answer as neither their 3 theories on the shape of the universe, see links above, nor mine can be proven or disproved not even using the absurd theory.

No inference or deduction possible as too few elements are available.

We simply need another Einstein!

In a philosophical sense I agree with you but I'm more interested in the cosmological visualisation of a curved vs. a flat three dimensional universe.

Paul & rich I appreciate your comments.  It's obviously very complex. Clearly a new Einstein is necesary to resolve physics most fundamental problems.  It's hard for an uneducated person like myself to accept that relativity and quantum physics are incompatable.  Only a true genius could pull these two concepts together and explain how it works or more importantly why it works.

I'm thinking now that a curved universe, in theory, could wrap on itself.  I guess I'm saying that if you travel far enough in one direction you could find yourself where you started.  In a flat universe this is simply not possible.  I suppose that just because we perceive the universe as three-dimensional doesn't mean it actually is.  I suppose it could have as many dimensions as it needs.  When I imagine the universe in "the bulk" or "hyperspace" with other universes I think of it being egg shaped, maybe this is way off.  Maybe if you could perceive it it would appear flat in relation to the other universes.  Maybe it wouldn't be something you can even visualize. 

Yeah it's hard to understand it's a tricky subject, but I do believe the universe dose actually come to an end. On my last post that was basically it put in one little paragraph.

Flatland, the book referenced above, is a fantastic read.  Perhaps I can give a Flatland-inspired anecdote to explain in what way the universe could be "curved" or "flat," and how the two could be indistinguishable to a single human's experience.

Imagine you are NOT a three-dimensional being, but a two-dimensional one.  You live in a universe that would seem to us 3D beings to be the surface of an immense balloon, but you are incapable of sensing the dimensions outside the surface of your balloon.  All you know are the four directions: front, back, left, and right.  Your balloon is so unbelievably large relative to your size and to the amount of distance you could cover in your lifetime that you do not know if your world is "finite" or "infinite."  Your people have seen objects many time farther away than you can travel, so many people assume that the universe is infinite.  Some of your friends claim that in fact the universe is finite, and that in some sense it wraps around itself and connects, so that if you go in one direction for many lifetimes, you will eventually come back to where you started.

"Impossible," you say.  "How can the two-dimensional world I perceive wrap around on itself within two dimensions?"

"It can't," they reply.  "You need a third dimension to see the connection.  Too bad we don't have any good ways to perceive it."

To us, beings capable of perceiving three spatial dimensions at once, it is easy to see their universe for what it is.  But they are incapable of perceiving depth; the only dimensions they've ever known are the two in which they move.

All that being said, if the balloon were popped and stretched to an infinite size, there wouldn't be an easily perceivable difference to the inhabitants of the now "flat" surface.  One way they could tell is to construct some sort of immense triangle, so large that if it were on the balloon, the sum of the angles would be so significantly over 180 degrees as to be measurable.  That same triangle on the flat universe would be of the familiar 180 degree type, no matter how large.

Draw three points on a globe: one at the pole, and two at the equator, 90° of longitude apart. Draw lines between them and you've got a triangle. Remember what your geometry teacher said, that triangles can only have one right angle? Well this one has three, for a grand total of 270° among all the angles.

Now for another experiment, draw a line from one pole to the other, then shift a few degrees and draw another, again from the one pole to the other. What do you call this shape that has two sides?

And yet this isn't done in three dimensions. You only need two numbers - lattitude and longitude - to mark where you are on the globe. Only by flying, or diving, can we take advantage of the third dimension. Otherwise we are bound to moving north-south or east-west in a two dimensional plane that wraps around on itself.

That's an excellent explanation...  I wish I understood how you can look at the universe, draw a triangle, then determine that the sum of the angles is not 180 considering you're the one who drew the triangle.  I'm sure it makes sense but we can't perceive the dimension in which the curve occurs. So how can we measure the angle of something we can't perceive? 

I suppose that your experiment with the poles would work even if we didn't know that the earth is round therefor it will work in the universe.  So for that real world example, Thank you.

It all hangs on your perception of the universe as existing at all.

You look around you and see the universe, but all you really see is light. That Light is in your eyeball, not where the thing that you think you're looking at is. The Light WAs where the thing you think you're lookign at was, but it was there a moment ago (or an eon , depending on how far away it was when the light was on it (or the microwaves if were speaking cosmologically and seeing with radio telescopes)). So when you look around you want to say 'flat' or 'curved' because that's how our mind grasps such things. A curved universe is similar in logic to event horizons, it relies on the vagaries of light and time.

You can do the maths to back yourself up (well a few people can) but in the end it's still just a way to describe the universe by using a model that it doesn't really fit. Throughout history the maths has 'almost' been accurate when describing cosmology. We've refined the model from a flat to geocentric to solarcentric, we've invented theoretical dimensions, gone back to flat again and even tried an expanding-sheet-like multiverse. But as awesome an acheivement as it is, the math still only 'almost' works out.

You can't really see the universe, you can't completely describe it in an equation. The best thing you can do if you want to know what the universe is -  close your eyes, sit very still, and feel it :)

If you draw a triangle with three curved sides then it's not a triangle. But I'm guessing that the dimesion you think you can't percieve, that creates the curve, is time.

Have you seen the movie, "What the Bleep" and "Down the Rabit Hole"?

It might shed some light into the subject. I for one found it somewhat enlightening.

Check it out. Oh...BTW what about the M theory and the dough-nut shaped Universe?

The M theory insists that our universe is flat as far as I understand it.  If you're comfortable accepting the universe as flat then the M theory makes a lot of sense to me.  The Dough-nut shape or the saddle shape make a lot more sense to me but I'm mostly ignorant so......

I have been thinkingabout this all day, call me crazy but I actually think that there is a floor to the universe. But yeah it's definitely a saddle shape.

 Is that you Yoda speaking ? will then "May the force be with you"

Which is more compex to fathom, the Universe, or God?

Better yet, which came first, the chiken or the egg.

The mind is forever seeking answers, that's it's nature, however.

The mind also poses the question it wants answers to, so I ask...How philosophical or objective must an anwer be to satisfy it's thirst.

Moral of the story...it's all in the mind?

"May the force be with all of us!"