2240: Timeline of the Universe

Timeline of the Universe

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Title text: Not actual size, except technically at one spot near the left.

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Explanation

This is one of 53 incomplete explanations: Created by the BIG BANG. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

This comic is about the size of the universe, presented as a timeline. Some events on it are real, but others are jokes.

Transcript

This is one of 28 incomplete transcripts: Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

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Discussion

"Cool Bug Epoch" reminds me of the last panel in 1493 and 2191, but it's probably coincidental.--GoldNinja (talk) 19:44, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Reminds me of Cool Bug Fact's DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;-- (talk) 20:02, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah they are related the two comics, but not to this comic. --Kynde (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

"The title text is a mathematical joke, based on the Intermediate Value Theorem (IVT)... Hence, technically, Randall is correct." that is assuming that the universe didn't start from anything bigger than this comic. ̶P̶h̶y̶s̶i̶c̶i̶a̶n̶s̶ Physicists, discuss! (okay, fine. philosophers can join too) OtterlyAmazin (talk) 20:41, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Even with antialiasing, the intrinsically granular nature of the graymap representing a sub-pixel measure, at any given perpendicular point of the scale at any given device's DPI. I wouldn't put it past the Universe to have skipped-through the gap between values. ...on the other hand, if we get into Big Rip territory, perhaps the effective DPI of any extant representation will pass back through a coincident value. 162.158.34.202 22:09, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The models predict the universe to be smaller than a grain of sand even after the inflation so of course the observable universe was at some point smaller than the line width of this drawing and so he is correct. There is no mathematical joke. Randall often jokes about not actual size, but notices that there one point on his graph will actually have been at the actual size. Which is impossible to say, but yes it was probably between inflation and Quark epoch. I have changed the explanation to cover this. --Kynde (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I notice that the events along the top are mostly sensible, while the events at the bottom are mostly not. 108.162.249.220 23:08, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Naah that is not so evident. Below there are three correct and 6 wrong and above it is 2 wrong vs 7 correct. So yes most of the incorrect is on the bottom side, but that seems more like a coincidence, since there are wrong and right on either side. --Kynde (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

It would be good if this clarified whether the diagram of the growth itself is correct and just badly mislabeled, or if it doesn't even correctly show the size of the universe over time. Gaelan (talk) 00:24, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

No, this is not the actual diagram, which is a much smoother regular bell shape without the sharp pointy left end. We also don't really know anything about the starting point beyond wild conjecture, as there's lots of uncertainty in the cosmological model, no matter what anyone says. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 03:08, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

While the explanation mentions the dashed lines for the future fate of the universe, it only lists 3 possibilities, even though there are 4 sets of dashed lines in the diagram. It's possible that the outermost dashed lines represent another mistaken inflation button press. Ianrbibtitlht (talk) 03:16, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Have added notice of all four lines to the explanation. Feel free to improve my version of the explanation on them. Agree that one of them could be the idea that the inflation switch was pushed again. --Kynde (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hey, methinks the title text maybe referring to the lesbegue measure(which for a point is zero) since we are talking about sizes.--Jassi101 (talk) 08:21, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

No need to invoke complicated math to state that when something expands from zero size to universe size then at some time it must take on any value in between, and thus also fit on this comics drawing. --Kynde (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2019 (UTC) <--- not true if you allow a couple expansions via the higher-order dimensions, then the universe pops back into 3-D with a zero-time-lag & thus a genuine discontinuity without even any Gibbs Overshoot. Cellocgw (talk) 20:12, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The explanation of the title text is now long and complicated and, for me, hard to follow. Couldn't we just say something simple like this? "Randall's universe diagram is always at least one pixel thick. But the universe started much smaller than one pixel and expanded to the size it is today, so at some time instant it must have passed through the size of Randall's diagram -- making the diagram 'actual size' at that instant." Wouldn't something simple like this be better? I'd do this myself but I'm leery of deleting a lot of other people's writing. DKMell (talk) 20:29, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

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