exists, and all of the others do not?
It just seems too big.
T he other you's in the universe would be quite upset to find out that the universe is too small for them, and only big enough for you.
Infinity
--There was a knock at the door at this time. I opened it to see the old Chinese man who lived at the other end of the hall. It was dark in the hallway behind him. My apartment was illuminated by the flashlight and he probably assumed I had either power or candles. The old man didn't speak English and when he started trying to speak to me in Chinese, all I could really do was stand there and listen. After a few seconds, my guest stood up and took another round light out of his jacket pocket. It turned on and he gave it to the old man. The old man thanked us and left. My guest returned to his seat, and grabbed another bottle of juice from the case. He sipped it slowly this time, and continued.
Look, if you think back to Charlie Brown, after you explain to him that his simple 2D universe is lacking an entire dimension, he would say exactly what you are saying to me right now. "My universe is vast, huge, infinite in fact. I could walk forever and never see the end. I could climb forever and never see the end. Now you are adding an entire new dimension to the universe that would create infinitely more space for me to deal with."
You are right, t o Charlie, the universe didn't just double or triple in size, it became infinitely bigger. You could fit an infinite amount of his 2D universes into our 3D one. He would insist such a massive universe, comprising of an infinite amount of his flat universes, is impossible.
Of course this notion is laughable. To us, adding a dimension of depth to his flat world, no matter how massive or even infinite, seems completely natural, not mind blowing at all.
Could C harlie ever accept such a possibility?
Yes , it is not so difficult. Just like you, Charlie would need to overcome one very significant mental obstacle; this obstacle is a misunderstanding of infinity. You can try to imagine infinity in your mind, however what you imagine is not infinity, it is just something really, really big. This is because in your world, you are surrounded by the finite. All things around you are limited; even your known universe.
I thought you said our universe is an infinite universe.
Actually, i t is impossible to know whether your universe is truly infinite. You can only know for certain if it is finite. You can only know what you can observe, and your observable universe, the one you can see and measure with your telescopes, is definitely finite, but expanding.
So what we can see is finite, but the actual universe beyond that may or may nor be infinite?
Yes. Your knowledge is limited by a lack of information. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, and light is information about space. Thus information about the universe travels at the speed of light. When you look at a star that is five light-years away, you are actually looking at what the star was like five years ago. The star could have exploded yesterday, but you won't know it until five years from now when its light, its information, reaches you. Hence you we look at the observable universe, you can only see as far as it has taken light to travel since the big bang. The big bang happened around 14 billion years ago.
S o the farthest we can see is 14 billion light-years.
Actually it is more than that because the universe has been expanding. Y ou can really see about 50 billion light-years in any direction. You cannot see what is beyond 50 billion light-years, because light has not reached earth from any further yet.
But what is beyond the 50 billion light-years?
Well light is you source of information. What is beyond it you do not know. Literally, to you, it does not exist. You get no information from beyond your 50 billion light-years in all directions. You can think of it as a flashlight illuminating one round
It just seems too big.
T he other you's in the universe would be quite upset to find out that the universe is too small for them, and only big enough for you.
Infinity
--There was a knock at the door at this time. I opened it to see the old Chinese man who lived at the other end of the hall. It was dark in the hallway behind him. My apartment was illuminated by the flashlight and he probably assumed I had either power or candles. The old man didn't speak English and when he started trying to speak to me in Chinese, all I could really do was stand there and listen. After a few seconds, my guest stood up and took another round light out of his jacket pocket. It turned on and he gave it to the old man. The old man thanked us and left. My guest returned to his seat, and grabbed another bottle of juice from the case. He sipped it slowly this time, and continued.
Look, if you think back to Charlie Brown, after you explain to him that his simple 2D universe is lacking an entire dimension, he would say exactly what you are saying to me right now. "My universe is vast, huge, infinite in fact. I could walk forever and never see the end. I could climb forever and never see the end. Now you are adding an entire new dimension to the universe that would create infinitely more space for me to deal with."
You are right, t o Charlie, the universe didn't just double or triple in size, it became infinitely bigger. You could fit an infinite amount of his 2D universes into our 3D one. He would insist such a massive universe, comprising of an infinite amount of his flat universes, is impossible.
Of course this notion is laughable. To us, adding a dimension of depth to his flat world, no matter how massive or even infinite, seems completely natural, not mind blowing at all.
Could C harlie ever accept such a possibility?
Yes , it is not so difficult. Just like you, Charlie would need to overcome one very significant mental obstacle; this obstacle is a misunderstanding of infinity. You can try to imagine infinity in your mind, however what you imagine is not infinity, it is just something really, really big. This is because in your world, you are surrounded by the finite. All things around you are limited; even your known universe.
I thought you said our universe is an infinite universe.
Actually, i t is impossible to know whether your universe is truly infinite. You can only know for certain if it is finite. You can only know what you can observe, and your observable universe, the one you can see and measure with your telescopes, is definitely finite, but expanding.
So what we can see is finite, but the actual universe beyond that may or may nor be infinite?
Yes. Your knowledge is limited by a lack of information. Nothing travels faster than the speed of light, and light is information about space. Thus information about the universe travels at the speed of light. When you look at a star that is five light-years away, you are actually looking at what the star was like five years ago. The star could have exploded yesterday, but you won't know it until five years from now when its light, its information, reaches you. Hence you we look at the observable universe, you can only see as far as it has taken light to travel since the big bang. The big bang happened around 14 billion years ago.
S o the farthest we can see is 14 billion light-years.
Actually it is more than that because the universe has been expanding. Y ou can really see about 50 billion light-years in any direction. You cannot see what is beyond 50 billion light-years, because light has not reached earth from any further yet.
But what is beyond the 50 billion light-years?
Well light is you source of information. What is beyond it you do not know. Literally, to you, it does not exist. You get no information from beyond your 50 billion light-years in all directions. You can think of it as a flashlight illuminating one round
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