The Universe Revealed is my attempt to discuss more thoroughly the main questions that we humans should ask about our existence, our universe and our place in it. These are mostly my thoughts on science, religion and philosophy as it applies to the...
As you probably know the Big Bang theory is the predominant theory of how our universe came into existence. This theory has been verified in several ways, but ultimately, we don't know for sure how the universe started.
Another way to look at the universe is to apply Einstein's general relativity theories to it, which is based on the cosmological principle that the universe is homogeneous and isotopic everywhere. This boils down to an equation that solves the field equations that involves a metric tensor s called the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Roberstson-Walker metric:
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
In this case the r, θ, Φ are the spherical coordinates. The R is scale factor that corresponds to the expansion of the universe. The t is time so this equation involves the expansion of the universe with time. The k is a curvature index and it specifies the geometry of the universe. If k=0 then the universe corresponds to flat Euclidean geometry. If k=1 space has a positive curvature and if k=-1 then the curvature is negative. When R goes to zero then this means that it started from a singularity. If k is 1 then the universe has a finite volume. If k is zero or negative then the universe is infinite. Basically, these terms have not been determined.
What that means is that we don't know how the universe really started and where it's going to end up. So, what are we supposed to do to find out?
That's a good question, but one thing is certain and that is that we need to get our butts off this planet and go explore beyond our solar system. There is so much we don't know about what's out there. Maybe some alien species could explain it to us. If nothing more we need to find out what's at the extent of the observable universe and determine what dark matter and energy really are.
I suppose that these things will be better explained in the future as better data is obtained. The thing that makes me wonder is the fact that we really don't understand what matter is. The quantum physicists are confused and it's hard to get good experimental data. Hopefully, the Hadron collider will give us better data.
