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Where is the center of the universe?


Pyridium

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This topic is more of a mental exercise and will start with a few variable stipulations.

The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.

Our Milky Way galaxy is moving at 370 miles per second. Assuming the big bang began at a very small point, and our galaxy has traveled in a straight line away from this point at the same speed for the past 14 billion years, it seems pretty easy to calculate where the center of the universe is in relation to our own galaxy.

At a speed of 370 miles per second, and using 14 billion years as the beggining, our galaxy is now 163,356,480,000,000,000,000 miles from the point of origin. It takes 27,700,000 light years for light to trave that distance.

We could now look at other galaxies and determine where they are in relation to this hypothetical center point of the universe. 27.7 million light years away from the Milky Way is my answer. Wish I could fund this research.

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Since it's infinite, imo, the center could be at my belly button for all I know :w00t: but then, I'm not all that smart, so take it for what it's worth.....

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There is no center of the universe. Everywhere is its center, as all galaxies are moving away from all other galaxys. As we look into the night sky, all galaxies are moving away from us. If we were located on any of these other galaxies we would see the same thing.

Because of this, the expansion of the universe, we cannot trace the path of our galaxy to determine a center.

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There is no center of the universe. Everywhere is its center, as all galaxies are moving away from all other galaxys. As we look into the night sky, all galaxies are moving away from us. If we were located on any of these other galaxies we would see the same thing.

Because of this, the expansion of the universe, we cannot trace the path of our galaxy to determine a center.

I know about the "balloon" expansion theory, but, was there no "Big Bang" from a singularity?

Even a balloon has an original "center of origin"

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Right now Its in the kitchen.

Thats where my wife is and she keeps insisting that she is the center of my Universe.....

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The balloon analogy is in two dimensions, there is no center of the surface of the balloon. Trying to visualize this analogy in three dimensions of space is said to be impossible, or at least very difficult for the human mind to imagine.

The big bang is not like an explosion that occurred at some point in space. As we are inside the BB singularity as it is expanding, the center of origin is all space. The BB happened everywhere. There is no preferred direction in the universe, everywhere we look it looks the same, everything moving away from everything else. As this is so, we cannot define a center. Every point in space can be considered the center from its own perspective, but this is the local perspective from every point in space.

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Under my assumptions, our universe started from a point. Inflation forced all matter away from this point in all directions. This does fit the balloon map of the uiverse where all matter is on the skin of the balloon and the balloon is expanding from the point of origin.

If indeed we do live on the edge of the balloon, I have calculated that the point of origin is about 27.7 millions light years away from us. It would not be too difficult to find a few galaxies and backtrack its path. I believe all matter is 27.7 million light years from the point of origin no matter what direction. I would predict a single very large black hole still there after cleaning up after the mess.

StarMountainKid, a two dimensional thing is flat! A balloon implies a center and the surface is expanding as it inflates. Our universe is inflating at an accelerating pace. As the balloon grows larger, the matter on the surface can only be pushed apart by the expanding surface. There is still a center point to this balloon, all matter is on the surface moving at the same speed away from the center; therefore all matter should show the same distance from the center as all other matter on the surface of the balloon no matter where it is located on the surface.

I do agree with a lot of what you say, but that is a different theory of creation. I am trying to test just one theory at this point.

Edited by Pyridium
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According to the big bang theory every thing is projecting outwards maybe just trace a line backwards about 13 + billion years you might just find it that's if the B.B.T is correct. :alien:

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If we backtracked all the galaxies in the universe to a common point, we would be inside that point, so how could we determine where that point is? There would be nothing 'outside' that point to use as a reference.

The 2D balloon analogy is a convenient concept, but it fails as an analogy when we consider 3D space. We are not on the skin of a 2D balloon as it expands, nor does the skin of the 2D balloon have a point of origin. No matter how small we shrink the balloon, its surface will never have a center.

In the same way, no matter how small we shrink the universe, the universe will never have a center, a point of origin. No matter how tiny the universe becomes, all of space will look the same from all perspectives. There will be no preferred point from which space will look different than from any other point in space.

I know it is difficult to conceptualize, but trying to find a center of the universe is looking for something that does not exist.

Edited by StarMountainKid
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I don't think you can determine where the center is. First you have to know how big it is and I don't think we know that yet. Then another question is did the universe expand equally fast in each direction.

One thing I would like to know is how it got started.

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One thing I would like to know is how it got started.

The Evil Vulgarians created our universe out of childish spite. I've said this before, but no one seems to believe me. But as I look around I can come to no other logical conclusion.

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If we backtracked all the galaxies in the universe to a common point, we would be inside that point, so how could we determine where that point is? There would be nothing 'outside' that point to use as a reference.

The 2D balloon analogy is a convenient concept, but it fails as an analogy when we consider 3D space. We are not on the skin of a 2D balloon as it expands, nor does the skin of the 2D balloon have a point of origin. No matter how small we shrink the balloon, its surface will never have a center.

In the same way, no matter how small we shrink the universe, the universe will never have a center, a point of origin. No matter how tiny the universe becomes, all of space will look the same from all perspectives. There will be no preferred point from which space will look different than from any other point in space.

I know it is difficult to conceptualize, but trying to find a center of the universe is looking for something that does not exist.

I beg to differ.

- The "backtrack" itself would be the outside reference point.

- Not all galaxies are moving away from each other. Some are actually in collision. Check it out.

- A Universe expansion requires, by default, a point of origin of the expansion; else "expansion" is impossible by definition.

Just my thoughts...

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- The "backtrack" itself would be the outside reference point.

I understand what you are saying, but this "backtrack" reference point is arbitrary, and within this 'outside' reference all galaxies are still moving away from each other from every perspective.

- Not all galaxies are moving away from each other. Some are actually in collision. Check it out.

Yes, but that is just a local phenomenon. Galaxies in collision and clusters of galaxies are moving toward each other, but If we view the universe as a whole, all galaxies and clusters of galaxies are overall moving away from each other. Eventually these clustering galaxies will unite, but these united galaxies are still part of the expansion of the universe, and will eventually be separated from all other galaxies.

A Universe expansion requires, by default, a point of origin of the expansion; else "expansion" is impossible by definition.

The way to view this is, the expansion of the universe is uniform from from every location in the universe. If there were a central location from which we would see everything moving away from this special, specific location, then this point would be the center of the universe, the center of expansion.

But we never find this special location. From each and every location we view the universe around us, everything is moving away from us. Therefore, there is no preferred location of expansion. The universe is expanding uniformly from every location we view it. Everywhere seems to be the center from which expansion is taking place, so there cannot be a central location that is special. This is the critical fact to keep in mind.

As I said before, no matter how small we contract the universe, we will never observe a center, we will continue to see the universe as we see it now, a general uniform expansion from every point in space. No specific point being different or special.

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- Not all galaxies are moving away from each other. Some are actually in collision. Check it out.

Yes, but that is just a local phenomenon. Galaxies in collision and clusters of galaxies are moving toward each other, but If we view the universe as a whole, all galaxies and clusters of galaxies are overall moving away from each other. Eventually these clustering galaxies will unite, but these united galaxies are still part of the expansion of the universe, and will eventually be separated from all other galaxies.

It is possible to explain this "local phenomenon" using the expanding balloon analogy.

The standard was that the balloon is used to show the galaxies moving away from each other is to draw dots on the balloon to represent galaxies. Then as the balloon expands it can be seen that each dot moves further from every other dot. The problem is this analogy falls down if you take it too literally as it can not explain palladin point about colliding galaxies.

In reality galaxies have independent motion. The way I suggest that you can think of this is this; instead of representing the galaxies by drawing dots on the surface off the balloon, replace them with live ants. The ants are free to walk about on the surface of the balloon. As the balloon expands the ants will still on average be getting further away from each other. However, because they are free to walk about, sometimes a couple of ants will move towards each other, maybe even collide once in a while. As the balloon continues to expand, and the average space between the ants get larger, these collisions will become less frequent.

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How about the bubble theory, the galaxies are inside the bubble. The bubble represents space which our galaxies are floating around in. Reason some galaxies are colliding with each other due to the rate of speed or they have encountered the edge of space. Due to this, thousands of galaxies are colliding and converging with each other to create new galaxies as well.

The Big Bang itself could have started by another bubble colliding with our bubble, which has a different set of fundamental laws that governing over its atoms. The new atoms introduced into our universe go through change from gas to solid state matter that rules our galaxies today. It has been show from the background radiation that our membrane of our bubble has taken a few hits, meaning we probably had multiple big bangs which added more matter to our universe.

Of course there is no way to know how many bubbles there is outside of our own, unless we actively puncture and leave our universe. For all we know, there could be infinite number of bubbles outside of our own universe that could collide or combine with our own...

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But wait, we are in the absolute exact centre of the observable universe.

(See what I did there? :P)

BTW, it's interesting to note.. in theory, as we become able to look further and further outwards, *if* we were to notice that in one direction, nothing further is found... that would raise some fascinating questions..

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Tony Blair thinks he is"!

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Everywhere is the center as infinity expands in all directions from the perspective of everything.

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The centre of the universe is everywhere. Its centre is in your bathroom; it's in your garage; it's under your blanket with you in bed. That's because the Big Bang was not an ordinary explosion which caused matter to blow outwards from a centre into space. Instead the Big Bang was an inflation of matter from an infinitesimal point and this inflation is happening equally at all places, as far as we can tell.

The best way to visualise the expanding universe is to imagining a balloon with dots on it. Imagine the ballon started life as an infinitesimal point which then suddenly expands. If you imagine the dots on it to be galaxies, you can visualise the Universe’s expansion by observing how the dots are brought away from one another as air is slowly blown into the balloon. If you just focus on the surface, you'll notice that each and every dot will drift further away from adjacent ones and that no single dot will appear as the centre. Also, if you picture yourself as an ant at the centre of a single dot, all the other dots will move away from you as if you were the centre, just like in our universe.

This also means that the Big Bang also occurred everywhere in the Universe.

In other words, you cannot have a certain point where the Universe started and where the Big Bang occurred - the centre of the universe - and everywhere else. The universe started life everywhere and that everywhere is expanding.

Edited by TheLastLazyGun
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OK, well, but if the "big Bang" can be validated it must have a spacial origin.

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OK, well, but if the "big Bang" can be validated it must have a spacial origin.

No, because space itself was created by the big bang.

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the b.b.t. was a rapid expansion of space and time... we could have existed inside the singularity just at much denser atoms... there was no space or time to measure from before the big bang so the center of the universe is logically still where it was before. i laugh at this dark energy theory i hear about... imagine the singularity never stopped.. imagine that time is simply the distance you have moved from the opening of the singularity and the "dark energy" and expansion is simply the new time and space spewing out of the singularity and pushing the "older" time and space outward in all directions.....this would truly support the infinite universe theory and the cold ending theory ... after you have been out of the singularity long enough all the heat and energy has dissipated and spread itself evenly throughout the space and that's it... i also fancy the idea of time travel with this thought... you could travel inward towards the singularity back in time to the time of your birth.... and find there is no planet earth there at all... thus separating time and events.... or you could see it as time is directly tied to events and the universe happens constantly over and over spewing out of the singularity....... i guess I'm saying i logically find it quite easy to explain this mysterious expansion and find it odd that in a highly repetitive universe that something so extraordinary and magnificent as the big bang would happen only once. logic dictates otherwise. the universe is constantly resupplying all of its aspects atoms blow apart and new ones coal-est stars burn out explode and reform planets even life constantly renews so why not time and space?

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I guess the title of this thread just invited a slew of "old and tired" theories rehashed with a few fantasy twists. The big bang happened everywhere at the same time...what hog wash. We are living in a singularity...what hog wash.

They say our Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light years in diameter...according to some people, no matter where you look at the milky way, all you see is yourself in the reflection...what hog wash.

When we see a galaxy 12 billion light years away, it is just our imagination, we are just making up that number, since there is no mid point between our 2 galaxies. No matter where you measure the distance, it all adds up to the same..what hog wash.

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So you claim these theories are "old and tired" and "hog wash". That's cheap talk. Let's see you provide evidence to dismiss the standard theories. Let's see the mathematics that backs you up, because THAT is the basis of a scientific theory, not just simply making stuff up out of thin air.

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I've just re-read my above post and realised that it comes across as far more aggressive than I intended, sorry about that.

However my point still remains, what evidence can you provide to show that the standard explanations are, in fact, incorrect?

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