THE FLAT UNIVERSE SOCIETY

During the days of Christopher Columbus, there was still a lingering sense that our planet was flat.  What Columbus actually showed was that our globe was much bigger than scientifically thought.  Nothing much has changed, for you can today still join the Flat Earth Society.

Which leads to the conformation of our Universe.  Frankly, after an evening with astronomers and astrophysicists (not really sure about the difference, but I would guess that the latter is more mathematical), I'm more perplexed than ever about the shape of our universe.  Stay with me here, but, if there was a Big Bang, then, surely, everything must be contained within the expanding skin of a sphere.  The hollow part should only be a vacuum.  But, no, apparently not.  I went to the Sheraton (they are the money sponsors) Nobel Laureate lecture last night at the Kennedy Theater on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii where I experienced:

The "accelerating" part has to do with the rate at which our universe continues to expand.  What we can see is, maybe, 5% of what exists?  Huh?  Dark Energy is 70% of everything and Dark Matter is 25%.  Brian Schmidt, an American living in Australia, indicated that they call them dark because astronomers (and astrophysicists) don't know what they are.  No one has seen or measured these dark things.  But the only explanation of a continuously expanding universe must be the presence of these dark unknowns.  Okay, that was the easy part.

The above depicts the geometry of our Universe over time.  Does this make any sense to you?  In my mind, if there is a perfect explosion, the particles should equally spread out in all directions.  Nobel Laureate Schmidt said astronomers believe the shape of the universe is either like a saddle or exist in two dimensions  What, another example of flat thinking, like, maybe, now, a Flat Universe Society?  And another being the Saddle Universe Society?  There are more scientists in the former rather than the latter.  I, not unlike Columbus, think the correct form is the surface of a sphere, like the one on the left:

Who is right?  Are you going to believe a Nobel Laureate or me?  This is just a simple blog site, so let me stop here and promise to explain in greater detail the matter of Dark objects, black holes and the geometry of our Universe someday when I have any confidence about the subject.

Here is Brian Schmidt (on the left) who I met at a wine and cheese reception, hosted by the Friends of the Institute for Astronomy, with my neighbor, Dan Bent, in charge of the wines:

To Schmidt's left are Institute for Astronomy Director Gunther Hasinger, Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw and a young admirer.  Interesting that half the questions were posed by relative youngsters probably not yet teenagers.  They also asked the best ones.  Brian Schmidt responded like a professional politician.  I'm not sure what he said, but he said it well.

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