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The Origin of the Romulans
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by HerbShrump: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by Joshua Bell: [qb] Tell me you didn't just ask that... *sigh* The Big Bang wasn't an explosion in space, it was an explosion *of* space. 1D analogy: today we live on an expanding rubber ruler; the Milky Way is at the 1cm mark, Andromeda is at the 3cm mark, etc. The ruler is gradually stretching out as time passes; in another billion years they will be 2.5cm apart. Looking back in time, they get closer together. At the Big Bang, the ruler had shrunk to zero length so there was no space between those points. (You have to imagine the ruler has no ends, though. You can pretend the ruler is bent into a loop if that helps.) There is no "middle" of the expansion - it all expands uniformally. The 2D analogy is usually a balloon, with galaxies being on the surface. It is a 2D world so there is just the surface - east/west and north/south, but no in/out. As the balloon inflates the galaxies on the surface get farther apart since space itself is expanding, but there is no point in the flat universe of the surface that is the center of the expansion. [/qb][/QUOTE]Derailing the conversation away from Romulus... A few points and/or questions come to mind after reading this and doing research. 1. I can see how easy it is for people to be confused. You state that the universe is not expanding away from a central point and gave a nice expanding balloon illustration. I also read an illustration using an expanding loaf of raisin bread and how each raisin is expanding away from the other yet, from the POV of an individual raisin everything is expanding away from it. Neither illustration helps clarify this, IMO. Each illustration shows an expansion. When the larger balloon/raisin bread is contrasted with it's smaller counterpart the expansion is detected. Yet a balloon or raisin bread expand from a common central point. If you look at the two you can measure the growth and backtrack to the central point of expansion. I see what you're saying about the balloon surface. Just use the 2d balloon surface and ignore the expansion from the center of the balloon. Still, can you see how confusing this can be when everything we ever see expanding expands from a central point? Is there nothing in real life that is currently doing the same thing (besides the Universe). Nothing you can point to and say "see, just like that!" It would help. 2. Reverend mentions colliding galaxies. If everything is expanding away from everything else, then how is it they are colliding? Are they not moving/expanding at the same rate? If an observer were stationed on one of these galaxies that is actually getting closer/colliding with another galaxy, what would it look like? Would his theories about the Big Bang and Expanding Universe differ from ours because, from his frame of reference, things are contracting toward his point of view instead of away from it? [/QB][/QUOTE]
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