It’s said that the universe goes on forever but how do we know?
In: Earth Science
The same way we know anything else – by building models that explain what we observe while requiring the least assumptions.
In many contexts it makes sense to *model* the universe as infinite because that assumption alone predicts a number of other properties that we observe our universe to have (such as its flatness and its absence of any clear structures or boundaries even as you approach the “edge”).
It’s also a simpler model to work with because it means you don’t have to worry about what happens when you hit the edge. So assuming the universe is infinite makes a whole bunch of your calculations much easier to perform.
tl;dr we “know” the universe is infinite in the sense that an infinite universe is the *simplest* model consistent with the reality we see
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