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What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

quantamagazine.org

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Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#11
post #7
post #4

Time for Einstein Gravity Probe C. Einstein suggested we could directly measure the curvature of the universe by comparing distances between probes located at angles to each other. They would need to be pretty far apart from each other for this to work, but they can be very small: just an RTG and an antenna. So hopeful light enough to build up an enormous velocity.

You are right but this has already been done using the CMB data and the universe seems flat with a 0.4% uncertainty. I don't think there is any need for artificial probes for it. Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.01589

That's exactly the point of the article - the CMB data is far less clear than advertised.

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#12
post #8

Seems like it would have to be open since the boundaries are permanently expanding. The set can’t contain its accumulation points if new points will always be created. Granted, infinite sets like aleph-0 and -1 are typically considered both open and closed, iirc. Been a while since I took topology.

I'm pretty sure when the article says 'closed' the really mean 'compact' in the topological sense. If you have a topological space, the entire space is always both open and closed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_space#Definition_v...

"Closed manifold" means compact with boundary. I think physics might also just mean something with positive "Ricci curvature". Certainly closed 3-manifolds are all equivalent to 3-spheres [0]. I think 4-manifolds are more complicated?

In relativity, the idea is all time-like (basically path of ordinary matter) curves will all converge, while the other case, time-like curves always diverge (so open).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poincaré_conjecture

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#13
post #2

Atheists are going to have a hard time if it turns out the Universe is shaped like a giant Pikachu :-) Some models suggest our universe is just one "foam-bubble" in a big ocean of universes. Hell, the mole on your face may contain its own universes. It really could be "turtles all the way down", or Pikachus all the way down. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5yngp/the-universe-is-ma... Because of our Earthly experi…

What's up with the Pikachu references? I don't get the joke.

The universe is the dream of an enormous sleeping Pokémon called Slumblord. If it should ever wake, all of our reality will disappear in an instant and be forgotten.

“Worship not God but Regigigas, on whom the world rests.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#14
post #11
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right but this has already been done using the CMB data and the universe seems flat with a 0.4% uncertainty. I don't think there is any need for artificial probes for it. Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.01589

That's exactly the point of the article - the CMB data is far less clear than advertised.

Fair enough, but better CMB data will resolve the issue at some point. It's not that we need a totally new way of measuring the space curvature.

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure when the article says 'closed' the really mean 'compact' in the topological sense. If you have a topological space, the entire space is always both open and closed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_space#Definition_v...

"Closed manifold" means compact with boundary. I think physics might also just mean something with positive "Ricci curvature". Certainly closed 3-manifolds are all equivalent to 3-spheres [0]. I think 4-manifolds are more complicated? In relativity, the idea is all time-like (basically path of ordinary matter) curves will all converge, while the other case, time-like curves always diverge (so open). [0] https://en.wi…

Typo: a "closed manifold" is compact without boundary.

The Poincaré conjecture states that closed simply connected 3-manifolds are all diffeomorphic to the 3-sphere. Even stronger, every closed 3-manifold whose fundamental group is finite is a quotient of the 3-sphere by a discrete subgroup of its group of isometries, SO(4) (called the elliptization theorem, which is what Perelman proved). I've been told some astronomers once looked into whether the cosmic background radiation suggested that we lived in Poincaré dodecahedral space.

Thurston's geometrization conjecture (all proved as of 2012) is that all closed 3-manifolds can be built out of certain 3-manifolds with standard Riemannian geometries by gluing them together along their torus boundaries and by introducing wormholes, essentially. Some interesting cases are the spherical geometries (constant positive curvature, classified above) and hyperbolic geometries (constant negative curvature, also classified by Perelman). The only actually flat closed 3-manifolds are the 10 finite-order mapping tori of the torus -- one example is S^1 x S^1 x S^1, where the 3-dimensional version of the game Asteroids would be played.

There are infinitely many closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds. I don't understand why space can't be negatively curved.

Jeff Weeks has a cool program for flying through different spaces: http://geometrygames.org/CurvedSpaces/index.html

4-manifolds are definitely more complicated. Lots of techniques that work for 3-manifolds and (5+)-manifolds don't work.

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#16
post #14
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the point of the article - the CMB data is far less clear than advertised.

Fair enough, but better CMB data will resolve the issue at some point. It's not that we need a totally new way of measuring the space curvature.

CMB data is based on modeling and simulation. Historically that type of science has never been accurate because there are always assumptions baked into the model - but what if the assumptions are wrong?

The CMB results assume dark matter and dark energy are real, it assumes a specific type of big bang theory. But none of those things have direct evidence.

We absolutely do need direct measurement of this.

And this is an especially bad type of modeling because we only have a single example. (In contrast to say, weather, where we can keep refining the model and comparing to the real world.)

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#17
post #8

Seems like it would have to be open since the boundaries are permanently expanding. The set can’t contain its accumulation points if new points will always be created. Granted, infinite sets like aleph-0 and -1 are typically considered both open and closed, iirc. Been a while since I took topology.

> Granted, infinite sets like aleph-0 and -1 are typically considered both open and closed

This statement is meaningless. It makes no sense to speak of whether a set is open or closed outside the context of a topology.

Also, like... in any topological space of the sort we usually deal with (specifically: T_1 spaces), any open set must be infinite, as any finite set is closed? So I'm really not sure what you're thinking of here. (And in something like Euclidean space -- or a manifold -- any open set must be uncountably infinite...)

(Also, as others have already mentioned, "closed" here doesn't mean "closed" in the sense of point-set topology; "closed manifold" means a compact manifold [without boundary, if manifolds with boundary are being considered]. Yes, this is a bit confusing at first.)

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#18
post #16
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, but better CMB data will resolve the issue at some point. It's not that we need a totally new way of measuring the space curvature.

CMB data is based on modeling and simulation. Historically that type of science has never been accurate because there are always assumptions baked into the model - but what if the assumptions are wrong? The CMB results assume dark matter and dark energy are real, it assumes a specific type of big bang theory. But none of those things have direct evidence. We absolutely do need direct measurement of this. And this is…

> what if the assumptions are wrong?

Dark matter and dark energy are not assumptions. The assumptions are the general relativity and the FLRW metric which is the solution of Friedmann equations. The assumptions of Friedmann equations are that the universe is homogeneous, isotropic, and a perfect fluid. A perfect fluid means the universe has only a local density and pressure. There are no other assumptions in deriving the FLRW metric.

Even if were to verify these result by direct measurements, we wouldn't be able to send a probe across the universe. Please note that local curvature in the Milky Way or even the Virgo cluster wouldn't say anything about the curvature of the universe at very large scales. We are talking about curvature at scales larger than 100Mpc (more than 300 million light years).

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#19
post #4

Time for Einstein Gravity Probe C. Einstein suggested we could directly measure the curvature of the universe by comparing distances between probes located at angles to each other. They would need to be pretty far apart from each other for this to work, but they can be very small: just an RTG and an antenna. So hopeful light enough to build up an enormous velocity.

Not remotely feasible. The overall curvature of the universe is swamped by local inhomogeneities until you get to scales that are much larger than galaxies. So you'd only be measuring the curvature due to nearby matter unless you had proves traveling at relativistic speeds and were willing to wait millions of years.

Re: What Shape Is the Universe, Closed or Flat?

#20
post #4

Time for Einstein Gravity Probe C. Einstein suggested we could directly measure the curvature of the universe by comparing distances between probes located at angles to each other. They would need to be pretty far apart from each other for this to work, but they can be very small: just an RTG and an antenna. So hopeful light enough to build up an enormous velocity.

Not remotely feasible. The overall curvature of the universe is swamped by local inhomogeneities until you get to scales that are much larger than galaxies. So you'd only be measuring the curvature due to nearby matter unless you had proves traveling at relativistic speeds and were willing to wait millions of years.

If you know mass distribution between and around probes, could you account for it? or is it a case where we can only know the mass distribution by observing the curvature?
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