Back when I was a kid, the universe was infinite. it had no edge, no end. That was back before there was a Big Bang to give it a limit, and to give physicists something to debate and pat one another on the back about. I remember, as a kid, trying to imagine infinity, limitlessness, no end to everything, ever. It made my brain hurt. It probably made other kids' brains hurt, too, so when they grew up, they became physicists and invented the Big Bang so that the universe had an end, and their brains would no longer hurt.
I'm told that light has a finite speed, around 186,282 miles per second, or something like that. We are told that light from the edge of the universe takes 13.8 billion years or so to get to us from there, and that is a 13.8 billion year radius in all directions. That would place us at the exact center of the universe, the point of the Big Bang... sort of.
But what about the light going in the exact opposite direction of the edge of the universe from us? Where does it go if there is nowhere for it to go? Does it bounce off the edge and come right back at us anyhow? OR - is there more universe for it to expand out into in that opposite direction? How would we know? We can only "see" for 13.8 billion light years - beyond that is unknown, because of course we cannot see what is there.
So, while there is a "horizon" beyond which we cannot see, we only call that the edge of the universe. There is no way we can actually KNOW that it IS the edge of the universe.
Can a civilization sitting at that "edge" also see 13.8 billion light years in all directions from there? If so, then we are just inside a sphere with a 13.8 billion light year radius, but there would also have to be a larger sphere beyond that, in all directions, that has a 13.8 billion light year LARGER radius (27.6 billion light years, if extended in all directions).
How long does that go on? Infinitely? Does the universe rally even have an edge, just because we say it does because that's as far as we can see?
=====================================================================
What was, before the Big Bang? I'm told that everything that is was packed into a super dense "singularity" which suddenly exploded... but if there was no space for it to explode into, how then could it possibly explode? "Space" was allegedly created by this big bang, but it would necessarily only exist inside the limits of the explosion... so what did the explosion expand IN TO? There was no space there for it to explode into, so how does that work?
Anf if this "super dense singularity" existed before the big bang with everything in the universe squished up into a pin point, then of course the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe - the universe merely changed form after the alleged explosion. We don't say that water is "created" when an ice cube melts... it just changes state, it's not "created". So, the Big Bang still does not explain the origin of the universe. Where did the "super dense singularity" come from?
So, really, the Big Bang doesn't actually explain anything. It just kicks the questions down the road, and it does it not much differently to any religion or voodoo explanation of "how the universe began".
I don't have the answers, only questions. We may never have the answers, because what we can "see" is limited to that artificial horizon which we cannot see beyond. we don't know what is beyond it, if anything. it could be anything... or nothing. we may never know.
Science itself may never know. The scientific method requires observation. When our observation reaches a limit, science ends. Science requires repeatability and falsifiability. If we cannot show something to exist, or not to exist, we can't "science" it up. we cannot run experiments on what we can not, in any way, physically or visually, reach.
Life is a mystery. Perhaps an unsolvable one.
Maybe one day we'll discuss the Methuselah Star. Why try to see beyond the veil of the edge of the universe when we can see a star potentially older than the universe in our own back yard? But either way you go with it, the Methuselah Star promotes questions itself, whether it is or is not older than the universe.
.
I'm told that light has a finite speed, around 186,282 miles per second, or something like that. We are told that light from the edge of the universe takes 13.8 billion years or so to get to us from there, and that is a 13.8 billion year radius in all directions. That would place us at the exact center of the universe, the point of the Big Bang... sort of.
But what about the light going in the exact opposite direction of the edge of the universe from us? Where does it go if there is nowhere for it to go? Does it bounce off the edge and come right back at us anyhow? OR - is there more universe for it to expand out into in that opposite direction? How would we know? We can only "see" for 13.8 billion light years - beyond that is unknown, because of course we cannot see what is there.
So, while there is a "horizon" beyond which we cannot see, we only call that the edge of the universe. There is no way we can actually KNOW that it IS the edge of the universe.
Can a civilization sitting at that "edge" also see 13.8 billion light years in all directions from there? If so, then we are just inside a sphere with a 13.8 billion light year radius, but there would also have to be a larger sphere beyond that, in all directions, that has a 13.8 billion light year LARGER radius (27.6 billion light years, if extended in all directions).
How long does that go on? Infinitely? Does the universe rally even have an edge, just because we say it does because that's as far as we can see?
=====================================================================
What was, before the Big Bang? I'm told that everything that is was packed into a super dense "singularity" which suddenly exploded... but if there was no space for it to explode into, how then could it possibly explode? "Space" was allegedly created by this big bang, but it would necessarily only exist inside the limits of the explosion... so what did the explosion expand IN TO? There was no space there for it to explode into, so how does that work?
Anf if this "super dense singularity" existed before the big bang with everything in the universe squished up into a pin point, then of course the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe - the universe merely changed form after the alleged explosion. We don't say that water is "created" when an ice cube melts... it just changes state, it's not "created". So, the Big Bang still does not explain the origin of the universe. Where did the "super dense singularity" come from?
So, really, the Big Bang doesn't actually explain anything. It just kicks the questions down the road, and it does it not much differently to any religion or voodoo explanation of "how the universe began".
I don't have the answers, only questions. We may never have the answers, because what we can "see" is limited to that artificial horizon which we cannot see beyond. we don't know what is beyond it, if anything. it could be anything... or nothing. we may never know.
Science itself may never know. The scientific method requires observation. When our observation reaches a limit, science ends. Science requires repeatability and falsifiability. If we cannot show something to exist, or not to exist, we can't "science" it up. we cannot run experiments on what we can not, in any way, physically or visually, reach.
Life is a mystery. Perhaps an unsolvable one.
Maybe one day we'll discuss the Methuselah Star. Why try to see beyond the veil of the edge of the universe when we can see a star potentially older than the universe in our own back yard? But either way you go with it, the Methuselah Star promotes questions itself, whether it is or is not older than the universe.
.
“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger.”
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake