> Craigo schrieb:
> --------------------------------------------------
> hawking explains it that way: imagine you´re a
> person living on a ball but you could only see,
> feel in 2D. there´s left/right and
> forward/backward but no height. one day you want
> to do a journey to the end of your world. you
> start walking in a straight line and once you
> arrive where you started (cause it´s a ball).
> because you only know 2 dimensions you can´t
> understand that.
>
> it´s the same for us: some theories propose at
> least 17 dimensions. we only experience 4 (if you
> add the time). so it´s likely that you wont ever
> reach an end if your travelling across the
> universe but for sure there is an end. interesting
> question is: whats outside? (perhaps someone has
> to jump into a black hole to find out, like homer
> simpson getting into the real world in an episode
>
)
Flatland [
www.geom.uiuc.edu], written in 1884, describes a meeting of beings from different dimensions.
I've read that observations over the last 5-10 years suggest that the rate of expansion in the Universe is increasing. Eventually, if life on Earth lasts long enough to witness it, there won't be stars in the night sky, because the light streaming from them at 300M Kmh/s will be too dim for the naked eye to see. Our instruments will have to suffice. Imagine a clear night sky empty but for the Moon providing illumination reflected from the Sun.
Thinking about the scale of the Universe might reveal how ridiculously miniscule we are, but it says nothing against our significance. Sir Martin Rees, the Royal Astronomer, amongst others probably, once suggested that the Universe, despite it's enormity, is relatively straightforward in appearance compared to the complex mystery of life.
It's a truly horrifying thought that Earth could be the only source of life in the Universe, so I doubt it. There's got to be something else out there racing more than electrons around an atomic track! I prefer to think that life is universal and the universe is alive!