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When researchers reanalysed the gold-standard data set of the early universe, they concluded that the cosmos must be "closed," or curled up like a ball. Most others remain unconvinced.
A provocative paper published today in the journal Nature Astronomy argues that the universe may curve around and close in on itself like a sphere, rather than lying flat like a sheet of paper as the standard theory of cosmology predicts. The authors reanalysed a major cosmological data set and concluded that the data favours a closed universe with 99% certainty — even as other evidence suggests the universe is flat.
The data in question — the Planck space telescope's observations of ancient light called the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — "clearly points towards a closed model," said Alessandro Melchiorri of Sapienza University of Rome. He co-authored the new paper with Eleonora di Valentino of the University of Manchester and Joseph Silk, principally of the University of Oxford. In their view, the discordance between the CMB data, which suggests the universe is closed, and other data pointing to flatness represents a "cosmological crisis" that calls for "drastic rethinking."
In your opinion, which shape is more likely ?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:29PM (2 children)
Horizontal and planar are not synonyms.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1) by MyOpinion on Friday November 08 2019, @04:36PM (1 child)
Horizontal and planar, or horizontal and flat: Level.
I do not see why you seem so confused of this: is level not level in your mind?
How about in your everyday experience?
Truth is like a Lion: you need not defend it; let it loose, and it defends itself. https://discord.gg/3FScNwc
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday November 08 2019, @06:50PM
In my mind, level is something you achieve. And I interpreted your three-word list as three supposed synonyms, of which the first two however weren't synonyms.
Note that I'm not a native speaker of English; it tremendously helps if you use full sentences.
Anyway, I think I now understand what you are trying to say: That “level” means “horizontal and planar”.
On my experience: Well, where I live, the Earth is certainly not very planar ;-)
But what I know from personal experience, and what is not compatible with a flat Earth, but fully with a spherical Earth, is the fact that from the top of a mountain you see much further than from near the bottom (but high enough to look over local obstacles).
Of course, from the surface itself, a curvature radius of over 6300 km is damn flat, flat enough that you won't recognize any difference from a plane with your naked eye unless you can see over huge distances.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.