Re: OT: Where is the center of the universe?

"Burt Johnson" <burt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1hwasoq.n3ajzx135qpffN%burt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Getting close...

I understand about the "looking back in time" issue. However, let's
paint a mental picture and see how it plays out.

I am sitting on the edge of the point that defines the start of the
universe. There _is_ an edge because it was not really a point per se,
but a very small ball -- smaller than a city if I remember the details
right.

No, it is a point. There is no edge, only the point. Kind of like the
singularity at the center of a black hole.


OK, the Big Bang occurs and I get thrown into newly created space at
sub-luminal velocity. 500 Million years go by and Lo! There is Light!
The first galaxies begin to coalesce and form enough density to begin
glowing with star formation.

I was at the leading edge of this Bang, so I look back and can see the
light forming (after a few million years perhaps for the light to reach
me) across a hemisphere. If I look out "ahead" of me though, I see only
dark. That is because no matter went further than I did, since I was on
the initial leading edge.

Again there is no leading edge. Even 1 second after the Big Bang, there is
still no leading edge. Hmmm. Strange, but true.


14.5 Billion years go by and apes evolve enough on a speck of dust to
start to wonder about The Origin. One of them gets hooked by WoW and
starts a chat here... :-)

He looks "inward" and sees light for as far as his instruments can see
-- all the way 13.5 Billion light years away, or within 500 Million
years of that first observation of light.

He looks "outward" though, and should see... darkness? He is still on
the leading edge, so why would there be any light when looking outward?

One can not look outward, only inward.


OK, so we were not the leading edge. That means we can see _something_
looking outward. But 13.5 Billion years there too?

Again you can not look outward. That is the future. You can not see into
the future.

I am still mentally stuck picturing a sphere. Anywhere I place myself in
it, I get the same results. In order to see 13.5 Billion years in all
directions, the diameter must be 27 Billion years or larger -- and that
would be if we were in the exact center...

Yes, you are still stuck, but don't feel bad, we are all stuck at some point
in time ;-)

Observations say that not only is the universe expanding, but that rate of
expansion is accelerating. But what does that mean. If we observe very old
objects that appear to be accelerating away from us, does that not imply our
past, not our future, is accelerating away from us. The further in the past
we look the faster the acceleration appears. This may lead one to believe
the universe was of infinite size at the moment of the Big Bang and our
future or present is a singularity. This seems backwards, or is it :-)


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