The Universe is Finite??? wtf

by phil on Thursday Oct 9, 2003 3:31 AM
universe

Scientists have announced hints that the Universe is actually relatively small -- something like 70 billion light years across -- with a hall-of-mirrors illusion tricking us into thinking that space stretches on forever.

The thinking is based on observations by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which measures temperature ripples in the cosmic microwave background.

Our Universe seems like an endlessly repeating set of dodecahedrons (12 identical pentagons) and space wraps back on itself, says mathematician Jeffrey Weeks. If you exit through one pentagon, you re-enter the same region through the opposite face and you keep meeting the same galaxies over and over again. (link by way of Kurzweil)

WTF... I guess I have long since conceded that the math of our perception, is truly inadequate for understanding all the nuances of our space.

Comments

john shapiro said on October 13, 2003 2:55 PM:

the universe may be finite, but my dick sure isn't.

john shapiro said on October 13, 2003 6:15 PM:

in fact, nasa should study my size.
perhaps it too is a smoke-and-mirrors effect by way of a dodecahedron.