Re: how big is the universe?

"Gordon D. Pusch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Joe Zorzin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > http://www.forestmeister.com
> >
> > "Ed Gibbs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >> I think when they say "infinite" they mean just that - goes on forever
> >> and ever without end.
> [...]
> > Since the universe was once very small, and as it grew, it must have
been
> > finite- how does something go from being finite to infinite?
>
> It can't, and it doesn't.
>
>
> > Or, does the model say that it was infinite from the beginning, and what
> > does that really mean?
>
> See <http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/infpoint.html>.


hmmmmm..... wow.... I remember how I once struggled with the idea that the
universe didn't just blow up into some vast, infinite vacuum- that it
contained all space and the space got bigger with nothing outside of it,
that there was no edge, that space wrapped around itself. After some
considerable amount of meditating on this, it started to make perfect sense.
But now, that web site shows something like a more primitive view- that our
observable universe blew up into that infinite space, which may have other
observable uninverses (assuming there is anyone in them to observe). It
says, ".... the box is an infinitesimal fraction of the whole Universe". OK,
so what can be said about the "whole Universe"? That it is infinite and
eternal with lots of popping little universes?

And this "whole Universe" may actually be infinite in the ordinary sense of
the word with an infinite number of galaxies? I can see that astronomers
aren't going to run out of work any time soon. <G>


>
>
> -- Gordon D. Pusch
>
> perl -e '$_ = "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'