when you get to the end of space, your back where you started
when you get to the end of space, your back where you started
i have learnt to do what my wife says!
For Steve as well.Originally Posted by bornatbirth
when you get to the end of space, your back where you started
Yes if the universe would simply stop expanding and you could travel at the speed of light in a straight line it would take roughly 2pi x 14,000,000,000 years to return to where you started (that's a guess I could be wrong). It would not matter what direction you set out in you would always end up back where you started.
However because the Universe is continually expanding you could never in fact circumnavigate it.
When people ask where did the big bang happen the answer is everywhere at the same time, every point in the Universe participated in the big bang.
The centre of it if, you have to think in those terms was at a point in time 14 billion years ago and at that time the entire extent, the entire size of the universe was smaller than a single atom, a lot smaller.
Where did it come from?
Well the idea is that it came about from a rare quantum fluctuation of huge proportions in the vacuum energy, however once again that raises the question "quantum fluctuation in what?"
Physicists would answer that it was a fluctuation in a scalar field, the vacuum energy, something with magnitude but no directionality, it is implied that the scalar field simply exists, words like when and where have no meaning in respect to this field. Sadly these are difficult concepts to get ones head around.
This also implies that many universes could arise this way, indeed an unlimited number of universes which gives everything and everyone a kind of immortality.
Personally I grew away from this idea many many years ago, I am me, this version here now experiencing these moments, another slightly different copy is not me, an identical copy in an identical Universe? Well that is me but there is no way to tell the difference between instances, so it's irrelevant. Like everyone else I am born, I live and I die, I get the privilege of experiencing existence rather than never being that's good enough for me.
As for Aliens even if there are none in this Universe there certainly will be lots in other Universes.
Jim
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