center of the univers????

i was sitting in astronmy today and my teacher was
talking about the tellescope and how ever time we look
into it we are looking into the past which i understand.
but what i dont get is do we know where the center of
the univers is. if you think about it their is a therotical
edge of the univers where all space is expanding into
nothing. so there has to be a center right

i see it as this... the universe is two dimensional, but it's in the shape of a sphere. just like the outer layer of the sphere would be the universe and it's expanding outward like a baloon blowing up. i know that makes no sense, but i really can't explain it better. sorry.

Originally posted by neonine
i was sitting in astronmy today and my teacher was
talking about the tellescope and how ever time we look
into it we are looking into the past which i understand.
but what i dont get is do we know where the center of
the univers is. if you think about it their is a therotical
edge of the univers where all space is expanding into
nothing. so there has to be a center right

Well, like you said, There is a THEORETICAL EDGE of the Universe. So with that in mind, there would also be a THEORETICAL CENTER also. However, that is about as percise and just choosing somewhere out of a hat or something, and Science likes to be as percise as possible, or it's viewed as poor science.

According to Reletivity Theory the Center is determined by the Observer making the Observation or Measurement. According to physics, and in simple terms, imagine YOU as the Observer. YOU are the Center of the Universe and Everything else is in Motion, expanding away from YOU and YOU are the only stationary point of reference. It's all Relative to the Observer, Hence, Relativity Physics. I know that is a very simplistic and chopped up answer but it gives you one theory to kinda think about.

Try a google search for Relativity and Center of the Universe. There is a whole lot of info out there that will go deeper into it.

and just to make this question a little harder where are we in relation to the center or edge of this 2D circle

We're actually in one of the newer portions of our galaxy, which is one of the newer galaxies of the universe...relative to the ones we know of....

Like someone said Energy can Not be created nor destroyed so there is no end. So neonine pick a spot somewhere and space and call it your very own center

imagine YOU as the Observer. YOU are the Center of the Universe and Everything else is in Motion, expanding away from YOU and YOU are the only stationary point of reference. mOjOm

this is not totaly true because of the fact that we see blue and red shift

If you were to hold one end of an infinately long tapemeasure, you would see that it would extend to an equal eternity in all directions, thus esablishing yourself as the mathmatical center of the universe.

Well, we've got to assume we're right in respect to the universe expanding.

Now, the center of the universe would be the point at which all matter is moving away from. Drop a pebble into a still pond, and you see ripples. The center of those ripples is the center of the "ripple" universe. You wouldn't have had to actually see the pebble be dropped to know that's where it hit.

In the same vein, as far as we can see where matter is moving away form us is the 'known' edge of the universe.

NASA says it best.

If all the distant galaxies are flying away from us, does that mean that we're in the center of the Universe?

"Astronomers and physicists interpret the result that all distant galaxies are flying away from us as evidence for the uniform expansion of the Universe. In this case, any observer, at any location in the Universe, observes the same general motion: that the further a galaxy is from us, the faster its relative velocity with respect to the observer is. The famous (and very illustrative) example of this is to imagine a loaf of raisin bread as it is baking. The raisins in the bread spread away from one another as the loaf rises and expands during the baking. Pick any raisin and pretend you are standing on it (you're very small now!) and measuring the rate at which the other raisins are moving away from you. You will find that, no matter which raisin you choose, all other raisins appear to be moving away from you, with the furthest raisins receding the fastest."



[Edited on 2-3-2004 by kinglizard]

Originally posted by neonine

imagine YOU as the Observer. YOU are the Center of the Universe and Everything else is in Motion, expanding away from YOU and YOU are the only stationary point of reference. mOjOm

this is not totaly true because of the fact that we see blue and red shift

You are correct. I guess my example was misleading and wrong in that respect. See what happens when you try and cheat in Physics!!!

The problem in my first example is that in Special Relativity, one of the first basic laws is that there is NO STATIONARY FRAME OF REFERENCE. That would include the observer as well. So technically, YOU are not a stationary point of reference, but a moving point of reference. This doesn't exactly remove THE OBSERVER from becoming the Relative Center, that would still apply. However, the Blue Shift you see (result of objects moving toward you), would come from the fact that YOU are also in motion, moving toward objects.

I think I explained that correctly. Damn you for making me get sucked into this topic again. This isn't the first time it's come up...

not to stray off topic but the univers is expanding but they say it is expading into nothing what do you think this "nothing" is or is it just plane nothing

Originally posted by neonine
not to stray off topic but the univers is expanding but they say it is expading into nothing what do you think this "nothing" is or is it just plane nothing

AFAIK, you'll end up getting a bunch of technospeak and science-babble that is their little way of saying they don't know

Make a sideways 8, or an infinity symbol, whatever...

Our universe is like two balloons joined at their openings; at one point, all the air was in one balloon, but it started to expand into the empty one (creating our universe). Eventually, our universe will shrink back down, expand into the other, and so on and so on.

I think I read this idea somewhere... in a Discovery magazine about 10 years ago... sounds plausible, or at least as probable as most ideas. The center would be the balloons openings.

hmmmm. lol @ mojom, ive seen u post on practically every thread like this lol.

Imagine a sphere. This is the universe. We exist on the surface of this sphere, not inside it. There is no centre of the surface of a sphere. But then saying we live on a sphere, would mean we can't see all of the universe at once,just as you cant send a beam of light around the planet because it travels in straight lines, but then maybe we could see the whole universe because the gravity bends it constantly. o now i got myself all confused again. every day is like this >.<

Can i ask a question that is irrelavent and may seem stupid.

Isnt everything around us travelling at the speed of light? I mean our galaxy arm is travelling at super high speeds and then the galaxy is moving at a really high speed along with that, and then our galaxy cluster is moving even faster still, why doesn't that affect our mass? As your speed increasses so does your energy and mass, up to speed of light where its infinite?
I dont get this stuff.

well pretty much we will never find the center because 1st of all it is WAY too big for us to even travel across the universe...and 2nd of all the universe is always shapeshifting....changing in size....it either expands or the opposite of expand (forgot the word)...
but there is a theoretical center like this other guy said but itll always be changing because of the shapeshifting