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# Then all bets are off, depending on how you define 'universe'
For us, it basically just means 'everything', so by definition entropy can't come into it from outside, and neither can heat nor anything else. What we see might just be a tiny patch of it, but what we attempt to describe is everything. (We'd term something we can't see as 'superhorizon' - our metaphors are still kind of stuck in the 15th century.) Cosmology depends on superhorizon scales, but you can get some seriously interesting stuff going on if you play around. Topology is a nice example. General relativity is lovely and all, but it says *nothing* about how the world looks as a whole; it's entirely possible that's doughnut shaped, or like a football, or like any crazy shape you can imagine, perhaps like a loaf of bread that someone drilled repeated holes into. Each model can easily describe our actual universe and all our observations, but each have extremely different behaviour.

So basically if you start taking stuff outside the observational universe seriously, a lot of things can happen.

Plus, I've never been able to draw horses :( I basically can't even draw :(
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Fri 23 Sep 2011, 23:58, archived)
# I have enjoyed reading this.
informative informed opinions.
(I helped save b3ta! arrangedletters, Sat 24 Sep 2011, 0:13, archived)
# I would quite like to have a physicist on speedial
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Sat 24 Sep 2011, 0:17, archived)
# i'm not quite on speeddial
but i'm on b3ta quite a bit and normally willing to offer my opinionated opinions

edit: i also enjoy this kind of thing :)
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Sat 24 Sep 2011, 0:19, archived)
# hah excellent can't beat a good chat about physics
Edit: i do have some questions about dark energy, but its too late
(I helped save b3ta! Rebel biscuit stercore sumus et nos esse novimus, Sat 24 Sep 2011, 0:30, archived)