It has been explained to me that “Space” is finite essentially because we can measure things, distance, size, speed of light, ect. Therefore, if “Space” is finite then everything else is finite.
I understand that if you have an infinite number of stars in a finite space then there would be light everywhere for example. I don’t understand why the same would be true if the universe were also infinite. Would that not sort of cancel out the infinite nature of any one object as it would have infinite space to be in.
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I’ve read a book about this a few years ago named L’univers chiffonné which means The crumpled univers.
The book was exploring our current understanding of the univers shape and size and what could / could not be possible.
To briefly summarize, first we don’t know whether or not the univers is finite or infinite.
If the univers were to be finite, it should have a 4 spacial dimensional shape so that one could more forward and come back to its original position (ignoring any speed limit) like you would on the earth. The surface of the earth had no limit, you can move forward indefinitely but the surface is finite.
This reasoning should hold true for a 4D universe whose surface is in 3D (our universe).
The book talks a lot about the different 4D shapes and what it would implies but that’s beyond the point.
Now what is important, if the universe is indeed finite, it has to be of at least a certain size otherwise, beside a few case explained in the book, we would have noticed. The idea would be that if the universe would only hold 100 galaxies (soma very “small” one) when looking further we would just see the same object whose light just did a turn of the universe. It would be basically looking at your own back.
We know the universe has to be at least of a certain size for us to not notice it (i forgot the values, but it was quite decent of a distance)
Above that value more research is required.
There could be a case of the universe being finite but bigger than the visible universe. In that case we wouldn’t know and it would be impossible to differentiate it from a infinite universe
So the current take on the matter (from what I know ) is that we don’t know and unless some break through new technologies or science, we will probably never know unless the univers is small enough for us to notice it.
If the universe is infinite or finite but so big that it is akin to infinity (like bigger than the visible universe) there is no known way to know it beside the curvature of space but it has the same issue, I’d we find a positive/negative/no curvature, is it local? Is it global? Etc etc
A finite universe does sound more logical
Like, it would make sense that the universe contains a fixed amount of things, but at the same time one could argue that “it doesn’t have to” and in the end… The core of the issue hold, how can you know the size of something bigger than the distance you can see?
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