doesn't the universe have a center?

[nath]

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The end of the universe is in Houston where there is two starbucks right accross the street from each other. When you're there look at your watch. TIme stands still!

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Oh God I live like 5 minutes from there. It's the [censored] ritzy neighborhood. It's gross. I like driving by the people sitting outside drinking Starbucks and yelling "Go across the street!"

[nath]

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If you choose to accept the big bang, what caused the big bang? and what was before the big bang?

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Good question. Nonetheless, the hypothesized background radiation left over from the Big Bang was found, and extrapolating everything backwards in time leads you to approximately a point.

I acknowledge that the BB theory is constantly getting tweaked. I'm just sick of the God-did-it crowd.

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And why are you sick of the God-did-it crowd? The Big bang is just a theory, like evolution. I'm not telling you that these are wrong, but I am questioning your shots at the "God-did-it" crowd. Can your beliefs in theories be proven/disproven any more than thiers?

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intellectual dishonesty makes me LOL

[DcifrThs]

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If you choose to accept the big bang, what caused the big bang? and what was before the big bang?

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Good question. Nonetheless, the hypothesized background radiation left over from the Big Bang was found, and extrapolating everything backwards in time leads you to approximately a point.

I acknowledge that the BB theory is constantly getting tweaked. I'm just sick of the God-did-it crowd.

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And why are you sick of the God-did-it crowd? The Big bang is just a theory, like evolution. I'm not telling you that these are wrong, but I am questioning your shots at the "God-did-it" crowd. Can your beliefs in theories be proven/disproven any more than thiers?

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further, we've recently found that the dark matter that exists in the expanding universe in which we live does not have the critical mass to cause an implosion (does not have the gravity necessary to pull the universe back from expansion).

therefore, at somepoint, there had to be SOMETHING before the big bang.

personally, im a deist and believe god was analagous to a swiss watchmaker who makes a watch (the universe), sets it in motion (the big bang) and never touches it again.

Barron

[doubLe a tom]

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I also dont get how there cant be a center of the universe. Someone said something about a blank canvas, and there are clearly edges and a center on a blank canvas. That makes no sense.

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If the universe is infinite it can have no center. Just like a blank infinite canvas can't have a center.

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Who said anything about an INFINITE canvas.. wtf is that anyway?

[Rhone]

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As long as there isn't infinite mass, there is a center of gravity. I would consider that the center of the universe.

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why? id think it was the point from which as many possible "ends" of the universe are of similar distance in light years.

average mass would pull the center towards the areas w/ more dense objects and heavier/larger stars/solarsystems.

id vote distance from the expanding edge.

presumably, if the universe's edges were expanding at the same rate and always have been then there definately is a center and it's where the big bang occurred.



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This roughly characterized my thinking when I asked the original question. People who know more than I do about this stuff seem to think it's wrong, but I still don't really get why.

[Keepitsimple]

Wouldnt center of gravity be the same as the average distance of the expanding edges

edit: well ok, you can have a tiny particle flying way ahead in one direction. what I meant was that if you have an explosion the mass will spread evenly away from the center

[davidwilcock]

Id pretty much guessed the content of this thread after reading the title. At risk of sounding like a bit of an arse, there are a lot (majority) of people in this thread talking on a subject they know very little about. The question itself, although appearing simple, is very complicated and open to a wide interpretation and definition. I suggest if you really want to know the answer ( this is to OP and the people who have followed up with some pretty shady responses) just read the wiki articles that seem to be written by people with some actual credentials rather than people guessing on what they remember/forget from TV show once.

[Uethym]

I'm unclear on how this thread has gone on so long, with so much incorrect information, when Quicksilvre gave the right answer in the fourth post:

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The Big Bang blew out everything that is in the universe now (as far as we know), so if you extrapolate any spot in space back in time, you wind up right on top of the Big Bang. Therefore, the Big Bang happened everywhere.

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In other words, you are the center of the universe. But I am also at the center. <u>Everywhere</u> is the center of the universe, because when the Big Bang first occurred, everywhere was all at the same point in space.

Note -- I'm a physics prof, so I'm not just making this up.

[Bartman387]

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If you choose to accept the big bang, what caused the big bang? and what was before the big bang?

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Good question. Nonetheless, the hypothesized background radiation left over from the Big Bang was found, and extrapolating everything backwards in time leads you to approximately a point.

I acknowledge that the BB theory is constantly getting tweaked. I'm just sick of the God-did-it crowd.

[/ QUOTE ]

And why are you sick of the God-did-it crowd? The Big bang is just a theory, like evolution. I'm not telling you that these are wrong, but I am questioning your shots at the "God-did-it" crowd. Can your beliefs in theories be proven/disproven any more than thiers?

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You know that the idea that the earth revolves around the sun is just a theory, right?

You may want to investigate what a theory actually entails. It does not mean, "wild guess with no scientific backing."

[DcifrThs]

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As long as there isn't infinite mass, there is a center of gravity. I would consider that the center of the universe.

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why? id think it was the point from which as many possible "ends" of the universe are of similar distance in light years.

average mass would pull the center towards the areas w/ more dense objects and heavier/larger stars/solarsystems.

id vote distance from the expanding edge.

presumably, if the universe's edges were expanding at the same rate and always have been then there definately is a center and it's where the big bang occurred.



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This roughly characterized my thinking when I asked the original question. People who know more than I do about this stuff seem to think it's wrong, but I still don't really get why.

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b/c of two things,

1) the universe may not be flat and you can't think of it like that. einstein once said that if you were capable of seeing all the way to the end of the universe, you'd be looking at the back of your own head...meaning the universe folds back on itself. the universe can be a torus, or a figure 8 or some shape that we cannot empirically determine.

2) it is highly unlikely (read: IMPOSSIBLE) that the universe has equally expanded at the same rate for all time. expansion means there is enough energy to carry the metaphorical edge of the universe outward. well gravit is a strong force and it pulls things towards those objects with the greatest mass...so after the inflationary period of the big bang when things started to settle down and planetary and or solar systems were formed, those areas w/ the larger and/or more numerous objects would now start expanding slowly making the "center" uneven. this is an argument for the "mass average center" somebody mentioned earlier...or some normalized version of it.

Barron