Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.
Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.
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This is my first post. I´m just a curious layman. That being said, here we go.
If I´m walking down the street, it could be said that I am traveling in a ´direction´. Lets say I´m going east. I´m standing on the surface of a planet which is rotating at a given speed, and traveling in a given orbit around the sun, so now I´m kind of corkscrewing through space within a solar system. But this solar system has it´s own spin and orbit as part of a galaxy...and each galaxy has it´s own spin, and path....nebulas....maybe even the universe itself follow this fractal pattern....do you see where I´m ´going´ with this? (no pun intended) How can one plot his path through space?
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How did you plot your path from where you were, through space, to your computer on which you typed this question?
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I can plot the course from where I ´was´ to the computer because they are both KNOWN fixed points. Plotting MY course through space via the earth/sloar system/galaxy/nebulae seems a bit more complicated because as far as I know there are no fixed points to use as reference in a constantly expanding/contracting universe.
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directions like north south east and west are man made constructs designed to make navigation easier on our planet. Just like values for time (minutes and hours etc) are arbitrary and based on our orbit around the sun.
These numbers are meaningless and the constructs are only there to make life easier for us.
So in basic terms, you cannot define exact direction on a macro scale such as that of the universe, because nothing is stationary to get a relative bearing from.
Basically we know everything is moving away and spreading out, gradually being slowed by gravitational attraction.
We are spreading out from the epicentre of the big bang which was probably a singularity.... some believe a creator designed the universe and all the laws within this singularity, whereas others believe it was the singularity left behind when the last universe was overcome by gravitation attraction, and started to contract.
Basically direction is a man-made construct, which gives vector quantities meaning, and calculation possible. In space however, you would use coordinates on a three dimensional chart, as opposed to two dimensional longitude and latitude on 2D earth maps.
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jovial01 wrote:
directions like north south east and west are man made constructs designed to make navigation easier on our planet. Just like values for time (minutes and hours etc) are arbitrary and based on our orbit around the sun.
These numbers are meaningless and the constructs are only there to make life easier for us.
I agree
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jovial01 wrote:
Basically we know everything is moving away and spreading out, gradually being slowed by gravitational attraction.
We are spreading out from the epicentre of the big bang which was probably a singularity.... some believe a creator designed the universe and all the laws within this singularity, whereas others believe it was the singularity left behind when the last universe was overcome by gravitation attraction, and started to contract.
So this Big Bang idea, do you really think that it was from a singularity?
Does this seem like a logical hypothesis?
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Josh wrote:
I can plot the course from where I ´was´ to the computer because they are both KNOWN fixed points. Plotting MY course through space via the earth/sloar system/galaxy/nebulae seems a bit more complicated because as far as I know there are no fixed points to use as reference in a constantly expanding/contracting universe.
Lets have some fun here. You say you can plot your course to your computer because they are both known fixed points. Fixed in reference to what? You and your computer are moving through space which you say is constantly expanding and contracting.
If everything is moving under the same cosmic influence then everything could be considered fixed in reference to everything else
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