Science

immoderate

(20,885 posts)

6. Yes. But the boundaries moved as our awareness grew.

Tue Jun 28, 2016, 02:51 PM

Jun 2016

The "universe" was once bound by the "firmament" which prevented the "waters above" from engulfing us. It was basically our visible solar system. The boundaries expanded. It was our galaxy, say after Ptolemy. Then, after Hubble there were many galaxies. Now, that we have established limits to the existence of the (our) universe (big bang) we can speculate about what might exist beyond that.

Even now, dark matter and dark energy are 95% of the known universe, and they were unknown when I was born.

--imm

Edit history

Please sign in to view edit histories.

Recommendations

0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

10 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Astronomers release spectacular survey of the distant Universe [View all] n2doc Jun 2016 OP

Amazing stuff. A couple of years ago there was talk about there being multiple universes, . . . brush Jun 2016 #1

Multiple universes are a plausible solution. We have access to just this one. immoderate Jun 2016 #4

I never did get the multiple universe theory. Wasn't "the universe" meant to encompass everything? brush Jun 2016 #5

Yes. But the boundaries moved as our awareness grew. immoderate Jun 2016 #6

Ok, but as our knowledge expanded, why wouldn't the scope of the term "the universe"? brush Jun 2016 #7

It refers to all we can currently detect. immoderate Jun 2016 #8

I think the answer you are looking for is... Javaman Jun 2016 #10

beautiful, and thank you. niyad Jun 2016 #2

Billions of billions of stars and planets. Socal31 Jun 2016 #3

Mind-boggling n/t CanonRay Jun 2016 #9