- #1
revelshade
- 1
- 0
just read "decoding the universe" : question
I am a "fan" of science. I probably read a dozen or so popular science books a year, and I think I have a decent layman's grasp of the current state of the art (so to speak); but apparently I have fallen behind in my understanding of modern cosmology, or maybe I misunderstood it to begin with.
In the final chapter of "decoding the universe" Seife basically says that most physicists consider the universe to be infinite. Not just immeasurably huge but literally infinite. He paints a picture of an infinite cosmos containing an infinite number of "hubble bubbles" isolated from the rest of infinity by the limited distance light could have traveled since the big bang. Since there are a very large but finite number of ways the contents of each "pocket universe" can be arranged, it follows that there are an infinite number of every possible one.
Is this idea really as mainstream as Seife makes it sound? Or is he talking about a smaller subset of information-centric theorists? How do you get to an infinite universe in the finite amount of time since the big bang? What am I missing here?
I am a "fan" of science. I probably read a dozen or so popular science books a year, and I think I have a decent layman's grasp of the current state of the art (so to speak); but apparently I have fallen behind in my understanding of modern cosmology, or maybe I misunderstood it to begin with.
In the final chapter of "decoding the universe" Seife basically says that most physicists consider the universe to be infinite. Not just immeasurably huge but literally infinite. He paints a picture of an infinite cosmos containing an infinite number of "hubble bubbles" isolated from the rest of infinity by the limited distance light could have traveled since the big bang. Since there are a very large but finite number of ways the contents of each "pocket universe" can be arranged, it follows that there are an infinite number of every possible one.
Is this idea really as mainstream as Seife makes it sound? Or is he talking about a smaller subset of information-centric theorists? How do you get to an infinite universe in the finite amount of time since the big bang? What am I missing here?