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Bertha Venation

(21,484 posts)
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 02:18 PM Jun 2013

What is there most of in this universe?


2 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Unlimited
stars
0 (0%)
bits of data
0 (0%)
cells
0 (0%)
moquitoes
0 (0%)
dust motes
0 (0%)
feral kittens
0 (0%)
photons
2 (100%)
bottle caps
0 (0%)
seashells
0 (0%)
fish
0 (0%)
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Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll
33 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
What is there most of in this universe? (Original Post) Bertha Venation Jun 2013 OP
Liberal Arts degrees! ohiosmith Jun 2013 #1
Lawls. So useful for thinking ABOUT the world. So useless IN the world ;) Locut0s Jun 2013 #19
The correct answer is not there HarveyDarkey Jun 2013 #2
nothing, my thought also. RILib Jun 2013 #11
but what is nothing? Do you mean dark matter? BainsBane Jun 2013 #17
See my post farther down. But yet nothing would be right... Locut0s Jun 2013 #20
I mean nothing, zilch, nada HarveyDarkey Jun 2013 #26
See Locot0s's post below BainsBane Jun 2013 #32
Hydrogen and stupidity, according to Harlan Ellison..... lastlib Jun 2013 #3
Pet hair LiberalEsto Jun 2013 #4
Photons, it's all photons. hunter Jun 2013 #5
But you didn't vote "photons!" Bertha Venation Jun 2013 #7
Photons! hunter Jun 2013 #8
Launch the photon torpedoes! nt. Locut0s Jun 2013 #21
Mateless socks n/t pipi_k Jun 2013 #6
In the universe called DU, it's puns. kentauros Jun 2013 #9
Stupidity. Scuba Jun 2013 #10
Einstein said it best. Angleae Jun 2013 #14
That's the motto of our time BainsBane Jun 2013 #16
Every living thing is composed of cells ConcernedCanuk Jun 2013 #12
Dammit! I should've included Bertha Venation Jun 2013 #13
Only living things are composed of cells BainsBane Jun 2013 #15
If viruses are considered "alive" they are not composed of cells... Locut0s Jun 2013 #22
My kind of topic :D A serious answer. My science rant :D... Locut0s Jun 2013 #18
Thank you for writing this. MrYikes Jun 2013 #25
Thanks, L BainsBane Jun 2013 #31
Empty space baldguy Jun 2013 #23
This! AsahinaKimi Jun 2013 #28
Other universes pushing us around! RedCloud Jun 2013 #33
Shelled bottle cap space fish Dash87 Jun 2013 #24
Other: Stupid people. Myrina Jun 2013 #27
assholes datasuspect Jun 2013 #29
Space-- In a molecule, say the proton is the size of a dime-- panader0 Jun 2013 #30

Locut0s

(6,154 posts)
20. See my post farther down. But yet nothing would be right...
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 04:12 AM
Jun 2013

By volume nothing would outweigh everything else. And there is no "what is nothing" it's simply the absence of anything

 

HarveyDarkey

(9,077 posts)
26. I mean nothing, zilch, nada
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 12:29 PM
Jun 2013

Atoms are mostly nothing too when you look at them.. Empty space as it were.

Angleae

(4,491 posts)
14. Einstein said it best.
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 03:32 AM
Jun 2013

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”

BainsBane

(53,038 posts)
16. That's the motto of our time
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 03:47 AM
Jun 2013

There is more stupid now than ever in human history. I'm convinced of that.

 

ConcernedCanuk

(13,509 posts)
12. Every living thing is composed of cells
Tue Jun 18, 2013, 07:11 PM
Jun 2013

.
.
.

so cells got my vote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(biology)

however, if it is NOT a living thing, I would have to say grains of sand.

Even Mars is covered in sand as we saw from them robots sent up a decade ago.

CC

Locut0s

(6,154 posts)
22. If viruses are considered "alive" they are not composed of cells...
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 04:16 AM
Jun 2013

Though it's debatable if they are living things. There's actually a certain amount of debate about this in the biology community.

Locut0s

(6,154 posts)
18. My kind of topic :D A serious answer. My science rant :D...
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 04:09 AM
Jun 2013

One of the greatest questions in physics right now is the matterial/energy composition of the universe so it's interesting you should ask this, perhaps that's why you did? Basically this whole question boils down to the "shape" of the universe. So what do I mean by this? Well scientists picture the universe as sort of like a balloon that is being blown up. The surface of the balloon is 2D and our universe is 3D (minus time) so it's not a perfect analogy but it works for now. The surface of the balloon actually represent empty space itself. On this surface is all the matter in the universe, stars, galaxies, dust, etc etc... We've known for some time now that this balloon is continually expanding. If you draw little dots on a balloon and blow it up those dots will all move away from each other. This is the expansion of the universe and those dots represent galaxies moving away from each other, something we see with our telescopes.

So here's a fact that most people probably know, matter/and energy "create" gravity. I put that in quotes because it's kind of simplified but it will do. So matter is attracted to other matter. Galaxies are attracted to other galaxies. So if there are all these galaxies out there that are made of matter they must be attracted to each other, and they are! Well if all of them are attracted to each other doesn't that mean that they will pull each other together, stop the expansion? Scientists actually asked this question for many many years. IS there enough matter in the universe to STOP the expansion of the universe (stop the balloon from expanding) and start to pull it all back together again ( start shrinking the balloon). Well scientists have been looking at this question for over a decade now and they came to a STARTLING conclusion some years back. Not only are the galaxies NOT slowing down. The galaxies are seeping up! The model balloon is being balloon up at a faster and faster rate! WTF is doing the blowing so to speak!? Well some form of energy must be responsible because it takes energy to do this. So they posited a previously unknown form of energy DARK ENERGY which is responsible for this.

It turns out that there is another question. Question #2. Einstein's general theory of relativity describes gravity to a startling level of accuracy and has been verified time and time and time again. So scientists were startled to discover, some time in the 90s I believe, that galaxies weren't spinning the way they should be. In fact they didn't interact with each other in clusters they way they should be either. Basically when they added up ALL the matter they could find in galaxies they couldn't account for the way they were moving. Einstein's equations said they should be moving much differently for the amount of matter that we were seeing. All the galaxies we see are moving as if there is MUCH MUCH more matter there than we can account for. Since they can't find anything wrong with relativity, I'll leave string theory out of this, they said well there must be matter there that we can't see. They call this DARK matter, NOT to be confused with the DARK ENERGY above. Dark mater is much more like regular mater, it interacts via gravity, we just can't see it.

Now the 3rd piece of the puzzle E=MC^2. This means that matter and energy are one and the same and are interchangeable. So when you ask the question what is IN the universe. Answering X amount of matter or Y amount of energy is basically the same thing since the 2 are convertible. So scientists usually talk about the ENERGY or matter/ENERGY content of the universe by which they mean photons, and protons, ants, and people, whales, and hydrogen, DARK matter, and DARK ENERGY are essentially all just forms of energy.

So...

to rephrase the OPs question. What is the matter/energy content, or breakdown, of the universe? From what we know so far is breaks down like this:

4.9% ordinary matter
26.8% dark matter
68.3% dark energy. (these numbers from wiki)

So only 4.9% of the universe out there is stuff you and I can relate to in any way shape for form.

Feel lonely?

panader0

(25,816 posts)
30. Space-- In a molecule, say the proton is the size of a dime--
Wed Jun 19, 2013, 02:42 PM
Jun 2013

the nearest electron would be a hundred yards away, circling madly. Other electron orbits would be even further away.
Yeah, sure. that oak table feels solid to us humans, but it's really 99.9 percent empty space, an illusion brought about by our physical being. I used to hang a poster of the periodic table on my wall back in the day, sure that it was the answer to my philosophical quest.

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