How can the universe not have a center?

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If I understand the big bang theory correctly our whole universe was in a hot dense state. And then suddenly, rapid expansion happened where everything expanded outwards presumably from the singularity. We know for a fact that the universe is expaning and has been expanding since it began. So, theoretically if we go backwards in time things were closer together. The more further back we go, the more closer together things were. We should eventually reach a point where everything was one, or where everything was none (depending on how you look at it). This point should be the center of the universe since everything expanded from it. But after doing a bit of research I have discovered that there is no center to the universe. Please explain to me how this is possible.

Thank you!

In: Physics

50 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Imagine a number line like the ones pinned to the wall in 1st grade.

Let’s pick “center”. Zero seems like a natural place.

No let’s imagine that number line extends infinitely in both directions. Starting from zero, going right, we have 1, 2, 3, and so on. Going left from our “center”, we have -1, -2, -3…

With this in mind, our “center point” of zero becomes arbitrary. We can pick any number, anywhere on the line, and when we look left, infinite numbers. When we look right, also, infinite numbers. No matter what location we chose to examine the number line from, we still find that we have the same amount of line in either direction.

Space works in a similar fashion, except instead of just looking at it as an x-axis number line, we have a Y and Z axis to account for. Even so, the rules don’t change.

We can add time, which is nothing more than another axis, perpendicular to our x,y, and z.

To help this relate to the Big Bang, at one point, there’s was absolutely no space between our numbers. There was still an infinite amount of them, but they were all touching. We can go in and add a millimeter between each number, then centimeter, inch, foot, yard, mile, light year.

The addition of that space between the numbers is our big bang, but it doesn’t change anything regarding our earlier attempts at finding the center.

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