Model fo the Universe  

“Two things are infinite: the Universe and human stupidity ....
and I'm not sure about the the Universe.

Albert Einstein
 
 
There are 19 pages on this website covering various aspects of Astronomy, to view them all you can go to the Site Map below
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Welcome to the Numerical Universe Page

Sir Martin Rees
Sir Martin Rees
is an English Cosmologist, Astrophysicist, Astronomer Royal, Master of Trinity Collage, Cambridge, President of the Royal Society, the author of about 500 research papers, and several books (does the man ever rest! ) and he has come up with the theory that the Universe's evolution depends on just 6 numbers (see center column).

Pencil logoTit-bit-info
How big is a million?
For Christians celebrating Christmas in the year 2010 it will be only 734,132.4 days since Christ was born. His millionth day birthday will not be celebrated until the year 2,737

How fast should a rocket ship go to leave our planet?

A conventional rocket has to be going about 17,000 mph for it to achieve orbit; otherwise known as LEO -- Low Earth Orbit. This is the minimum speed for a space going rocket. The farther from the Earth, the faster the rocket needs to go.

My local Astronomy group


Maths is the language of the Universe...at least to Physicist's,and all other branches of Cosmology... and numbers are the bare bones of maths.
Scientists are so far beyond the ordinary mortal in dealing with numbers (a compliment by the way) that they have even developed a way of calling numbers by alphabetical letters. Consider the famous:
E=mc2
Only one number there.
Go to the page einstein's-universe for my attempted breakdown of the equation

It has often been stated that whatever created the Universe is first and foremost a mathematician.
Scientists make such statements because of the manner in which space-time obeys numbers, or at least seems to reflect the logic of numbers. Reality appears to obey the numbers, because the numbers obey reality.

I like the much simpler numbers like:
The Earth travels 1,608,000 miles in one day.
The Sun travels during that same time frame 11,520,000 miles. And, at a much greater velocity, covers 16,070,400,000 miles in a single day.
These are just some of the numbers of the Universe; fixed rates of speed of the Solar System and one of its planetary bodies (Earth), along with the velocity of light itself.

How many Stars are in our Galaxy?


The exact number of Stars in our Milky Way Galaxy is not known, but probably lies in the range 200 to 400 billion. Our eyes can only resolve about 5000 of the brightest Stars, mostly those close to our Sun, and typically within 1000 light years.
Remember
1 light year is the distance light, traveling with a velocity of 300,000 km (186,000miles) per second, covers in 1 year.
If you've nothing better to do and want to find out the exact number of miles or kilometers covered by light in 1 year then multiply the velocity of light per second x 365 x 24 x 60 x 60 to get the exact mileage.

How many Galaxies in the Universe?


The Universe is made up of many Galaxies.
New Galaxies are discovered every day containing huge numbers of Stars. The Hubble Space Telescope enables us to see farther out into Space and locate more and more of the Universe's Galaxies. Thus the numbers of Galaxies grows every day. The large Galaxies are easy to number but there is an abundance of extremely small Galaxies (still containing thousands if not millions of Stars) that are harder to detect with present day technology.

The Universe reduced to just 6 Numbers

Ω = 1, the amount of matter in the Universe, such that if Ω were greater than one, it would have collapsed long ago, and if Ω were less than one, no Galaxies would have formed.

e = .007, how firmly atomic nuclei bind together, such that if epsilon were .006 or .008, matter could not exist as it does.

D = 3, the number of dimensions in which we live, such that if D were 2 or 4, life could not exist.

N = 1036, the ratio of the strength of gravity to that of electromagnetism, such that if it had just a few less zeros, the universe would be too young and too small for life to evolve.

Q,= 1/100,000, the fabric of the universe, such that if Q were smaller, the universe would be featureless, and if Q were larger, the universe would be dominated by giant black holes.

λ= 0.7, the cosmological constant, or "antigravity" force that is causing the Universe to expand at an accelerating rate, such that if λ were larger, it would have prevented Stars and Galaxies from forming.

Change these relationships, and Stars, Planets, indeed life itself could not exist. Thus, this is not just the best of all possible worlds, it is the only possible world.
In other words, if the numbers that define our Universe were just slightly different, then it would be a sterile space, which prompts us to ask whether there is some deeper significance to these numbers. Are we simply lucky or is there a Creator who selected the numbers in order to create a Universe capable of sustaining life?

According to Sir Martin, there is a third possibility.
He suggests that there is a myriad of Universes, collectively known as the multiverse,each with its own values for the 6 numbers. The vast majority of Universes are sterile, but a few of them can contain life. As we are alive, then we must, by definition, find ourselves in a Universe with the right 6 numbers
.

Pythagoras

Pythagoras is often referred to as the first pure mathematician. He believed:
All things are numbers, that mathematics is the basis for everything, and geometry is the highest form of mathematical studies.

He also believed:
The physical world can be understood through mathematics, and that numbers have personalities, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.

It is difficult to be certain whether all the theorems attributed to Pythagoras were originally his, or whether they came from the communal society of the Pythagoreans.

But the Pythagoreans always gave credit to Pythagoras as the Master for the following:

  1. The sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles.

  2. The theorem of Pythagoras- for a right-angled triangle the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. (The Babylonians understood this 1000 years earlier, but Pythagoras proved it).

  3. Constructing figures of a given area and geometrical algebra. For example they solved various equations by geometrical means.

  4. The discovery of irrational numbers is attributed to the Pythagoreans, but seems unlikely to have been the idea of Pythagoras because it does not align with his philosophy that all things are numbers, since numbers to him meant the ratio of two whole numbers.

  5. The five regular solids (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, dodecahedron). It is believed that Pythagoras knew how to construct the first three but not last two.

  6. Pythagoras taught that Earth was a sphere in the center of the Kosmos (Universe), that the Planets, Stars, and the Universe were spherical because the sphere was the most perfect solid figure.
    He also taught that the paths of the Planets were circular.

    Pythagoras also recognized that Venus was both the Morning Star and the Evening Star.

Speed
 

Speed of light and vast empty space

Despite the seemingly infinite magnitude of the speed of light when used in the context of earth-bound scenarios, its limit is made more noticeable when used in Astronomy where massive entities like Planets and Galaxies are separated by the vastness of empty space.

For example, it would take billions of years for light to travel from outlying Galaxies to Earth. Since it is light that carries information from these Galaxies, what we are therefore seeing even our most powerful telescopes are events that have happened billions of years ago.

Compared to the speed of light


The SSC Ultimate Aero,is the fastest production car in the world with a recorded speed of 413 kph or just 0.000038% of the speed of light.


The JR-Maglev is the fastest train in the world with a recorded speed of 184 kph or just 0.000054% of the speed of light.


The X-15 of the 1960's, still holds the fastest record for a manned aircraft at 7,272.625 kph or just 0.000674% of the speed of light.


Tit-bit-of-info
Our Galaxy is approx. 100,000 light years in diameter, and so we can only see a tiny fraction of our home Galaxy.
Astronomers estimate that there are 100 billion Galaxies in our Universe.

     

 

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