williams@kirk.DEC (John Williams 223-3402) (05/02/85)
> 3- the universe has finite age, but no first moment. > It may be distasteful to some, but need not contradict the assumption > that each moment has a predecessor. It's extremely difficult for > the vast majority of humans (me included) to hypothesize the > difficulties of such problems. Anyone who's ever checked out > texts on general relativity is aware of how bizarre and unintuitive > regions near black (or white, I suppose, in this case) holes can be. > Following a timelike path backwards towards the initial discontinuity > would be analogous to asymptotically approaching an unreachable point, > assuming you could go backwards thru time in the first place. > Can anyone out there who understands general relativity comment? > Is there such a thing as a person who understands general relativity? > -michael Yes. This is possible. It requires that the universe be continuous with laws that apply irrespective of scale. Einstein was not too far off the track, according to many current theories, is stating that the universe was finite and unbounded, and spherical in shape. The current theories indicate that the universe is curved, ( the known universe, that is ) but is not curved enough to completely curve in on itself. The comparison between the known universe and black holes are compelling. It is possible that black holes are actually smaller universes that are exploding, but virtually unobservable because of the time dilation effect. This introduces the idea of a force opposing gravity that, because of time dilation, causes the universe to be an unstable oscillator in certain regions, regardless of scale. In other words, the curvature of space in the known universe is simply a localized region in the grander scheme of things. John.