Scale of Universe | Hacker News Reader

Scale of Universe

scaleofuniverse.com

82 pointssun12326 comments

"We're probably not in the center of the universe"

The way I understood things, there is no center of the universe. Or equivalently, all points in the universe have a view such that it appears that you are in the center of the universe. The universe is spacetime itself, and the idea of a center requires an idea of space outside of spacetime, no?

Nobody knows what the topology of the universe is, nor, contrary to this animation, does anyone have a reliable estimate for the size of the universe (as opposed to just the observable universe). It might be infinite, or it might be just slightly larger than the observable universe.

But yes, all current models of the universe are homogeneous; no point is more central than any other point. It doesn't have to be this way, but it's the simplest assumption.

"Yes and no". The universe is not homogeneous on a large scale, there are filaments of galaxies and everything but yes the idea of the center of the universe does not correspond to anything. The Big Bang from current models happened everywhere and the expansions comes from the fact that the very "fabric" of the universe expands.

But there are some awesome implications of an infinite universe, take a look here if you are interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Level_I:_Beyond_our_...

In the sense of matter distribution, the universe isn't homogeneous on small scales either. But that's not what is meant in the context of a cosmological model. The global spacetime is modeled with a FLRW metric, whose key property is homogeneity and isotropy.

On very large scales, the Universe does seem to be isotropic and homogenous, just like the assumption in the models is.

If the laws of physics as we understand them hold true, then by definition we (or any other observer anywhere) are at the centre of the universe they see, insomuch as the further away we look, the further back in time we look, in all directions, back to the beginning... or something along those lines. Unless we find we can circumvent the rules we know now, or that they don't hold true, anything outside our light-cone, outside our observable universe by definition cannot be shown to exist.

Scale of Universe Enhanced is the sequel and even better: http://images.4channel.org/f/src/589217_scale_of_universe_en...

Yes, I was surprised to see the old one posted here when this new fancy version has recently been made. It has at least twice as many things, and lots of educational text when you click them (although I think he got bored writing them after a point.) The science is more on point than the old one too.

That was amazing. Thanks!

This is brilliant.

Posted here many many times already:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1835460

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1953919

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261816

It happens with many stories. I wish those who submit articles would take the time to check their article/page hasn't been submitted yet.

What is the best way to do this ?

try https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/njdndkhkelkeepcnmo...

Resubmission after months or years have passed allows new readers a chance to enjoy an article. It is indeed helpful, however, if there is a comment linking to the previous discussions.

I'd love to see a case study or profile of the creation of this. Over the last 10 years and in multiple communities, I've seen the underlying Flash animation to this appear and do well every single time. It must be one of the most seen Flash animations ever, yet it continues to do well every time despite being very simply produced.

On topic of scales. http://blog.visual.ly/12-visualizations-that-will-change-the...

It's 4:15am here, and I am manically laughing in my bedroom while watching these. Thanks!

Sadly their MySQL server went down, and no one took the time to configure PHP correctly :(

> Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 111 in /home/primax/public_html/dbcon.php on line 14 Could not connect database

Scale of universe meets scalability of MySQL.

Main link is broken right now. Alt link that I think is the same thing (based on comments) http://www.scaleoftheuniverse.com/

This really needs forward and reverse play buttons to allow you just sit and try and comprehend what is zooming before your eyes.

Wow, I saw this over 2 years ago. Whoever made this site took the original SWF and put it on this domain behind ads to make money.

Anyway, its still very cool at any rate. I wish someone created a CGI version of this thats more realistic

Great piece - just wish I could control the audio volume.

Curious if HTML5 can do this yet...

First thing I thought, "I wonder how I could port this to canvas"

Well, HTML5 can't reliably do audio yet. :) But nothing in this animation looks hard at all to recreate in JavaScript / HTML5. The most annoying bit would be to convert the art pieces (which I assume are swf vector art) to a format that you can render with HTML5. In Canvas, png sucks for magnification and I'm not aware of any functional swf exporter + vector canvas renderer library. If you go the DOM route with transforms, SVG may do the trick and there should be vector tools that can import swf and export SVG.

In summary, HTML5 can definitely do it, but for now it's much easier in Flash.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com