Though artist’s illustrations are sometimes used to signify the Massive Bang, there isn’t any middle and no boundary to the universe. Credit score: Astronomy: Roen Kelly
The place is the middle of the universe (the place the Massive Bang occurred) and the place is its edge?
As counterintuitive as it might appear, the universe has no middle, and it has no boundary.
The thought of a Massive Bang appearing like a large fireworks explosion hurtling matter and power outward is pervasive, however deceptive. As weird because it sounds, it wasn’t “stuff” that exploded outward, it was space itself! In essence, the Massive Bang occurred in all places. Because the time of Einstein, it has been identified that space is just not merely a backdrop by which we transfer, however an precise factor that may be measured. It has form, it may be bent, and it may increase.
If this sounds nonsensical, consider the floor of a balloon increasing into three-dimensional space. A two-dimensional creature confined to the floor of the balloon might by no means discover the middle, as a result of the middle is situated in 3D space, and never within the 2D space by which the creature lives. We’re 3D creatures caught in a universe with no less than 4 dimensions, so we can not see the middle of our universe. Actually, there’s no motive why there has to even be a middle wherever.
The identical reasoning holds true for the “edge” of the universe. The place is the sting of a balloon? To outline an edge (or a middle), it is advisable to assume that there’s something into which the universe expands. As I simply defined above, that needn’t be true, and even whether it is, we are able to by no means detect this “metaverse.”
When interested by cosmology, at all times keep in mind the phrases of British biologist J.B.S. Haldane: “The universe is just not solely queerer than we suppose, it’s queerer than we can suppose.”
Phil Plait
ACC, Inc.
(March 1999 challenge)
