A simple definition of the universe
Adnan balboa19@idt.net
Fri, 26 Sep 1997 16:34:12 -0700 (00875338452, 3.0.1.32.19970926163412.006b30bc@idt.net)
STEVE STOKES
>I define the universe as the "set of all things". Even if the set of all
>things where empty, i.e., there are no things in the universe, the universe
>would still conceptually exist.
>When would there have been a time when the set of all things did not exist?
ADNAN
Did you not read what I wrote earlier? According to modern physics, time
and space are one thing, and none exist without observer (i.e. matter).
There is space between the sun and the earth, but this space is only
because the Sun and the Earth exist. If there was no Sun and Earth there
would be no Space either. Theory of RELATIVITY replaces the earlier
concepts of space and time as separate absolute entities. In space-time,
events in the universe are described in terms of a four-dimensional
continuum in which each observer locates an event by three spacelike
coordinates and a timelike coordinate. The choice of the last is not
unique; hence, time is not absolute but is relative to the observer.
We invented the measuring concept such as years, months, days, sec or meters,
kilometers, etc. These coordinates are relative coordinates to us. Other
observes who are moving with different velocities might have different
coordinates for the same event.
Without matter and energy there is neither space nor time. Now, the
question is weather matter is created or eternal. I, by the way, doubt that
all physicists agree that there was time before the Big Bang. For example
in a long article at:
http://www.dc.enews.com/magazines/discover/magtxt/020196-4.html
February 1996, Discover magazine
"The Mediocre Universe BY DAVID H. FREEDMAN"
says:
............begin quote.......
...... Using the accepted mathematics of quantum mechanics, he produced a
reasonably rigorous description of the instant of the birth of the
universe. The preuniversal nothingness he described was the purest form of
nothingness imaginable. Since matter and energy create time and space,
Vilenkin's nothingness had neither. There was no countdown to the Big Bang,
because time did not yet exist. In a stroke, he reduced creation from a
metaphysical event to a physical one. What had seemed unknowable was
suddenly reduced to a set of equations.
................end quote ..........
There is detail faq on the web about theory of relativity for anyone
interested at:
ftp://ftp.cc.umanitoba.ca/startrek/relativity/