Scientists Claim 'Cold Spot' In Space Could Offer Evidence of a Parallel Universe (inhabitat.com) 125
New submitter LCooke writes: A international research team led by the University of Durham thinks a mysterious cold spot in the universe could offer evidence of a parallel universe. The cold spot could have resulted after our universe collided with another. Physicist Tom Shanks said, [...] "the cold spot might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse -- and billions of other universes may exist like our own." From the report via Inhabitat: "NASA first discovered the baffling cold spot in 2004. The cold spot is 1.8 billion light years across and, as you may have guessed, colder than what surrounds it in the universe. Scientists thought perhaps it was colder because it had 10,000 less galaxies than other regions of similar size. They even thought perhaps the cold spot was just a trick of the light. But now an international team of researchers think perhaps the cold spot could actually offer evidence for the concept of a multiverse. The Guardian explains an infinite number of universes make up a multiverse; each having its own reality different from ours. These scientists say they've ruled out the last-ditch optical illusion idea. Instead, they think our universe may have collided with another in what News.com.au described as something like a car crash; the impact could have pushed energy away from an area of space to result in the cold spot." The study has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Re:or (Score:5, Interesting)
it could have been caused by monkeys flying out of my ass.................... just sayin
I would say, when a bunch of cosmologists come up with a potential explanation - even an extraordinary one - there is at least a chance they are able to argue for a causal connection and a theory, whereas your lame put-down clearly isn't even meant to meet the same standards.
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With all due respect, the monkey-filled rectum scenario is at least as plausible as the submitted story.
Re: or (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: or (Score:5, Informative)
While that is a perfectly reasonable explanation, and there are even certain ways it may be correct, but the issue is that the cold spot isn't actually at the edge of the visible universe.
The cold spot begins roughly 6 billion light years away from us, and extends to roughly 10 billion light years away.
That leaves roughly 3.5 billion light years of space "behind" it before reaching the edge of our visible universe.
It also doesn't appear to be a sphere of temp difference either, as from our vantage point it only extends about 1 billion light years across at its widest points.
Also of note, while our view from Earth outwards is fairly spherical for the most part, using the term "depth" or "distance away" can become confusing if simplified to the point of ignoring the measurements and math behind what we are actually observing.
The distance is measured as an amount of red shift, not what would be considered travel time.
The temperature of the cold spot is only being compared with the mean temperature of the other areas of space at the same measured red shift.
If you exclude the cold spot for a moment, the mean temperature of any other point of space we can observe at the same red shift amount is just under 20 micro-kelvin.
Including the cold spot again, it differs from the mean temperature by 70 to 140 micro-kelvin.
No where else in space at this red shift has a difference in temperature even close to 4-8 times colder.
Thus it is perfectly reasonable to consider this spot an anomaly.
Back to the postulation you made, like I mentioned you could still actually be correct.
From our point of view the edge of the visible universe is 13.5 billion light years away, which contains the cold spot and roughly 3.5 billion light years more space "behind" it.
But from the point of view of the cold spot itself, being roughly 4 billion light years in size along one particular axis, the cold spots visible universe extends 9.5 billion light years away from it, which is very roughly 20 billion light years away from us, far past our visible universe.
So it is quite possible for something Else to be going on in space basically on the other side of the cold spot, past where it is possible for us to observe, but close enough to the cold spot to cause an effect on it.
Sadly once we leave "theoretical science" and come back to "science", both of the explanations (actually most any explanation) is not within the realm of testable/verifiable observation.
Given a multiverse explanation, we likely can never know if that is the case.
Given your explanation, we certainly can't know now if that's the case, and we would need to still be around in 20+ billion years to do so.
(Which technically means it's safe to say "humanity" will never know. Whatever our decedents call themselves at that time, assuming they exist, may know, but it won't be humanity)
The odds of such a spot forming randomly by chance are embarrassingly tiny.
(On the other hand, it seems the odds of intelligent life emerging at random chance are similarly tiny too, and we know that happened at least once!)
So it would be very nice to at least rule that possibility out first, before worrying about an explanation on what caused it.
But both the resolution of our observations, and the detail level of our simulations, are so poor still that we can't rule out chance yet. Some even argue it wouldn't be possibly, so there is no "yet".
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the cold spots visible universe extends 9.5 billion light years away from it, which is very roughly 20 billion light years away from us, far past our visible universe.
If this universe emerged from a singularity and expanded at no more than the speed of light, than the observable universe by extents of light reach is the entire universe. How would a far away area get light from further away unless the universe expanded faster than light?
Re: or (Score:4, Informative)
Your "if" evaluates to false. The (very) early universe expanded far faster than the speed of light. This is possible because it was spacetime itself expanding FTL, not something trying to travel through it.
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(On the other hand, it seems the odds of intelligent life emerging at random chance are similarly tiny too, and we know that happened at least once!)
[citation needed]
I haven't seen any evidence for it. Maybe I'm just hanging out on the wrong sites.
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There seems to be an understanding and knowledge barrier. Your facts are incorrect from your second sentence. After that was not worth reading
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With all due respect, the monkey-filled rectum scenario is at least as plausible as the submitted story.
And in a parallel universe, it may even be the most logical one. Just like, in most parallel universes, Donald Trump is not president. Unfortunately, in the "infinite worlds" scenario, it's guaranteed that anything that could happen, would happen in at least one universe. We just happen to be in "that" universe - the one with the planet that intelligent life avoids at all cost.
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With all due respect, the monkey-filled rectum scenario is at least as plausible as the submitted story.
Let's examine that claim. On one hand, we have a hypothesis, proposed by a person or a team, who have an established reputation as being scientists, and whose hypothesis ties into existing theories, although the hypothesis itself is largely speculative.They are trying to do what all, good scientists do, namely make falsifiable predictions, and their colleagues can therefore scrutinise their reasoning and try find relevant data. That difference may not impress you, but to a scientist it is important.
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I would say, when a bunch of cosmologists come up with a potential explanation - even an extraordinary one - there is at least a chance they are able to argue for a causal connection and a theory, whereas your lame put-down clearly isn't even meant to meet the same standards.
I fail to see what renders "another bubble universe" substantially less constrainable of a concept for explaining the unexplained vs. "god" or "aliens".
Personally I'm quite happy with my odds of going through life blindly labeling anyone who goes to the multiverse well to explain something they don't understand a fool. You could call me a short sighted buffoon and I could of course one day end up being wrong...
Only problem I can't seem to bring myself to give a flying ***** anymore than I care to entertain
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I disagree. The monkey theory is based in reality because it's occurring within our universe. When you talk about things outside our universe you're in the realm of religion.
Bullshit. Nobody is asking you to take it on faith or belief based on a "textus receptus." We may some day be able, at least in theory, to put it to the test, same as we tested other theories, like the existence of bacteria, the failure of the accepted view of spontaneous transformation of meat into maggots, moons around other planets, or even, one day, intelligent life on Earth.
Your backhanded appeal to religion shows a lack of both imagination and curiosity, two essential ingredients for the advancement
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why were you modded down for this? wtf do people have no common sense? "we dont know how it works, but it doesnt work like that"
So (Score:1)
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Woot! Double pwnage! [slashdot.org]
Score:-5, Pwned (Score:1)
Witness BitZtream getting pwned! [slashdot.org]
Re: or (Score:1)
In the multiverse, there is actually a universe where monkeys are flying out of your butt.
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Only in the same way that your car only gets crumbled up in a car crash with another car that is already crumbled up.
Or maybe ... (Score:1)
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Right thermometer, wrong hole.
Re: Or maybe ... (Score:2, Funny)
There is no wrong hole, just happy accidents.
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or maybe the inhabitants over there just did not pay their electricity bill ....
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Because most empty space is really cold, and while this may be large percentages colder it's still more or less the same compared to planets and stars.
Blind Spot (Score:1)
This makes me think of the eye's 'blind spot', which is actually where the nerves pass through the retina. Perhaps the cold spot is where energy passes through our universe into another, although that would suggest more energy is flowing from this one to that one.
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This makes me think of the eye's 'blind spot',
Strange . . . this makes me think of the universe's G-spot.
Which, if it really is cold, would explain a lot of things that are wrong with the universe.
. . . and makes it even more incredible that a bunch of geeky scientists were able to find it at all!
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The fact that they found it, means that its obviously not the universe's g-spot.
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cold spot = center of the universe. If everything expanded from there, would anything be left there?
Re:What exactly is "cold" but a void? (Score:4, Funny)
The size of the cold spot is hypothesized to be precisely as large as a noodly appendage. Coincidence?
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The real explaination is much, much simpler.
The North Pole is melting due to global warming, and consequently Santa moved his house to a different galaxy, cooling it down in the process.
You can totally tell that Santa is an alien btw, because all his offspring are little green men with big eyes and pointy ears...
And by cold spot... (Score:2)
You mean the water on mario's feet he uses to accumulates enough speed to perform the parallel universe traveling?
Meh. (Score:2)
It's just the Roseanne Barr black hole decloaking for her new show.
Re: (Score:2)
You ask "how speculation on astrophysics can somehow be related to Trump vs Clinton." Since you asked, here's one possibility - there may be a sane universe where neither of them were even candidates. Let's face it - 2 years ago, if anyone had said "President Trump", you'd say they were either deluded or living in an alternate universe. You're not deluded - we are living in that alternate universe, where the improbable happens more often than can be reasonably expected. Hence the attempts to explain it away
No, where you have variation (Score:1)
you will inevitably get below average.
The voids in space for galaxies are just places where there's less mass to form galaxies. Which then means there's more gravitational attraction where the galaxies are, which means stuff that is in that lower density region is pulled out making it more of a void.
Likewise with telescopes, you can get a better optic by buying a bigger telescope then putting an off-axis stop which you can move about to find the bit where the larger lens or mirror is more perfectly the righ
Perhaps (Score:2)
Could it be that we're quibbling over semantics? Let's examine a word.
What is "the universe"? What if it simply means "everything, everywhere, all the time". What magicians call "all that is, seen and unseen"?
"Everything" is an all-inclusive infinitive. Logically nothing can not be included in everything.
That leaves us with the scientific quest to explore everything, and thereby exclude nothing.
Just a rambling muse before coffee...
Maybe that parallel universe is where (Score:3)
"alternative facts" come from...?
Bad terminology (Score:2)
"Parallel universe" makes people think of the trope. [tvtropes.org]
I think "perpendicular universe" would be better, and it's probably more accurate since parallel things don't intersect.
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orthogonal, maybe...i've always just called them "other people" ;-);-);-)
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Can a collision even happen? (Score:2)
Given so-called parallel universes are in other planes of reality that we cannot ever travel to because we have no commonality of any spatial dimensions, how can a hypothesis that talks about a physical collision between the two universes, and even located at a particular geographical spot in ours, even make any sense?
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we have no commonality of any spatial dimensions
1. ... no commonality that we know of.
... any spatial dimensions that we know of.
... who says the rules of space-time are uniform even in our own universe?
... who says the collisions were collisions of matter? cf Matter-energy equivalence, etc.
2
3.
4.
One thing we know for certain that that we don't know everything. also:
even make any sense?
Lots of things we now accept as nonsense used to be accepted facts. It "made sense" that heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects. It "made sense" that the earth was the ce
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"... that we know of"
Once you start playing that word game, literally anything no matter how stupid becomes possible, so its pointless to even go down that road.
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Not evidence (Score:1)
This is a highly speculative interpretation of existing data. Other speculative interpretations are possible. The scientific method would dictate proceeding by designing clever experiments whose outcomes could rule out various alternative interpretations. I'm not convinced this is possible here, and not persuaded that this is true science. Certainly it's not "evidence".
existence of the WMAP cold spot is doubtful (Score:3)
The so called WMAP cold spot looks to just be some sort of data error [oup.com] and probably does not in fact exist [seeker.com]
Too bad because the idea was seriously cool and would have been useful for science fiction.
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Too bad because the idea was seriously cool
I see what you did there.
Gump Physicist (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
In the good universe, both lost because the US have several viable parties there.
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You did good, but sadly there's too much money and corruption keeping it down.
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I voted Green.
Its your fault then. Thats why the Democrats hate you now.
...if only people would face facts and just vote for evil like they were told...
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95% of the electorate voted for evil. Not perfect but I really don't think evil is feeling too bad about that.
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when the choices are super super evil, and only kind of slightly super super evil.. the pick is evident.
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I voted Cthulhu. Why choose the lesser evil?
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Yes, of course, making sure people have health insurance, having environmental regulations, that's all evil, wouldn't want to vote for that, would you?
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Hi there, I'm Jill Stein's other voter. In the universe where the USA is a parliamentary democracy with proportional representation, she's one of the two Green MPs being ignored by the major parties.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Except where the major party is one short of a filibuster proof mandate.
You know, like Joe Lieberman. There was only one of him but he managed to fuck everyone over by voting for his donors rather than his constituents or the citizens of the USA. Imagine if he'd been replaced by a Green candidate who wasn't bought by the medical insurance industry? You would have had a public option to choose from as well as any other free market choice that the private industry could bring to bear against the "incompetent
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that just makes you extra dumb.
Re: I'm With Her (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't the term "parallel universe" misleading? I think anything that can affect our reality is still part of the universe, isn't it? What would the definition of "universe" be otherwise?
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"We measure things by what we are. To the maggots in the cheese, the cheese is the universe. To the worms in the corpse, the corpse is the cosmos..."
To the people on the internet, the internet is... the field of dreams?
Natural language is not math (Score:2)
Re: I'm With Her (Score:1)
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Parallel lines on a sphere collide. If you're not in a rectilinear euclidian geometry space, parallel doesn't mean what you claim it does.
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These days "the universe" mostly means something like "all places that exist within our four-dimensional spacetime", i.e. if you could conceivably hit it if you could somehow shoot a nearly infinitely fast bullet at it
(in reality, the light speed limitation, plus the accelerating expansion of the universe, places even most of even the tiny bubble that is our visible universe beyond our ability to ever contact. We can only see the light they emitted long ago, before the exponentially expanding space betwee
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or ford prefect...
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Energy doesn't get "pushed". Those words were used by "staff writers at News Corp Australia Network" and not scientists. It's similar to those who claim that black holes suck up light and energy like a vacuum.