[continued from previous message]   
      
   > be utterly empty, and we're actually at the center of the universe. Or   
   > the quantum vacuum state is higher or lower than it is here. Heck, maybe   
   > the laws of physics as we know them are a localized phenomenon, and out   
   > where we can't see them, things work in unimaginably different ways.   
   >   
   > But science always requires some assumptions, somewhere.   
      
   So we have some type of estimate as to how large our universe currently   
   is as it continues to expand, and we have some idea of what fraction of   
   the universe is visible, and we just extrapolate how much mass could be   
   in the universe if we are in a representative section.   
      
   What if the decrease in the acceleration of the expansion of the   
   universe is some type of distance effect for the amount of dark energy   
   that our universe contains, and that it might be a density effect where   
   as the density of dark energy goes down it affects the rate of   
   acceleration?  Wouldn't that just cause an oscillating universe that   
   might expand and contract only to start expanding again when the density   
   of dark energy would be high enough to start the expansion again?  There   
   would never be a big crunch, just an oscilation of a very large universe   
   in terms of the space within the universe.  Unless dark energy decays   
   over time the big crunch would never happen.   
      
   Ron Okimoto   
      
      
   >   
   >>>>>> It doesn't matter, what I wanted was if the mass of the universe   
   >>>>>> estimate includes the mass that is not observable.  We have the   
   >>>>>> background radiation map of the universe, and estimates based on   
   >>>>>> what we   
   >>>>>> can see (these are based on the observable universe).  The estimates   
   >>>>>> would have included what we could not see within the visible universe   
   >>>>>> because we lacked the ability to detect the light from the distant   
   >>>>>> objects.  Did this estimate also include the mass that was too far   
   >>>>>> away   
   >>>>>> to be visible?  How do we know how much mass is no longer visible   
   >>>>>> and is   
   >>>>>> beyond the horizon of what we can see?  We've been trying to estimate   
   >>>>>> the amount of dark matter within the visible universe, so how   
   >>>>>> would we   
   >>>>>> measure the amount of matter further away than the visible horizon?   
   >>>>>> Even though we can't observe it, it is still part of our universe.   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Ron Okimoto   
   >>>>>   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)