The Equalist
New member
One thing that has always confused me is the "shape" of the Universe.
From my understanding, it all began from one singularity, possibly the size of an atom. It exploded with massive energy. In conventional thought, an explosion explodes from a nucleus/center, from which energy and matter is released from that center outwards. And thus has a "shape". So I picture the Universe being shaped like a gigantic sphere with a center, continuously expanding from its center.
But I've been told that the Universe has no shape. Some people have said it has no "edge" and no "center". I've been told that the Universe isn't expanding from a "central" area outwards, but that everything is expanding uniformly. I don't even know what that means. That's just hard for me to fathom. Can someone explain this?
Thanks in advance.
DLM: Interesting. But a few questions - if there is no "edge", and let's say hypothetically you could travel at the speed of light or faster through the universe - if you kept going and going - would you come back to where you started? Given that it's not infinite - it won't continue on forever. But since there's no edge, you won't hit an "end". That's why it seems paradoxical. So will it be like doing "laps" where you'd end up passing areas you've already seen before?
From my understanding, it all began from one singularity, possibly the size of an atom. It exploded with massive energy. In conventional thought, an explosion explodes from a nucleus/center, from which energy and matter is released from that center outwards. And thus has a "shape". So I picture the Universe being shaped like a gigantic sphere with a center, continuously expanding from its center.
But I've been told that the Universe has no shape. Some people have said it has no "edge" and no "center". I've been told that the Universe isn't expanding from a "central" area outwards, but that everything is expanding uniformly. I don't even know what that means. That's just hard for me to fathom. Can someone explain this?
Thanks in advance.
DLM: Interesting. But a few questions - if there is no "edge", and let's say hypothetically you could travel at the speed of light or faster through the universe - if you kept going and going - would you come back to where you started? Given that it's not infinite - it won't continue on forever. But since there's no edge, you won't hit an "end". That's why it seems paradoxical. So will it be like doing "laps" where you'd end up passing areas you've already seen before?