Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / Classic episode - How big is the Universe?

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Classic episode - How big is the Universe? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:05
Speaker 1: Inside space? Is there a place where the matter ends
0:09
Speaker 1: and it's just empty space? And then path that space?
0:13
Speaker 1: Is there something else that's not space? Can space have
0:16
Speaker 1: an edge? Right? And so that to me is the
0:19
Speaker 1: is this concept of the universe all the matter in
0:22
Speaker 1: all the space, Okay, things beyond that space? If there
0:25
Speaker 1: is anything there I would consider not part of our universe.
0:27
Speaker 2: Oh I see, So we could like there could be
0:29
Speaker 2: through stuff and maybe at some point we run out
0:32
Speaker 2: of stuff there, but there's still there could still be space.
0:35
Speaker 1: There could still be space. Hi. I'm Daniel and I'm Horehane,
0:52
Speaker 1: and we're here to explain the universe.
0:55
Speaker 2: Today we're going to talk about the biggest question in
0:58
Speaker 2: the universe.
0:58
Speaker 1: The biggest question you could even possibly imagine.
1:04
Speaker 2: How big is the universe?
1:07
Speaker 1: Like really, how big is it? Like? Does it go
1:09
Speaker 1: on forever? Is it just a little bit bigger than
1:12
Speaker 1: we can see? Does it wrap around on itself? Is
1:14
Speaker 1: it some other crazy thing? That's what we are going
1:17
Speaker 1: to try to tackle today. We went out in the
1:19
Speaker 1: street and we asked people what they thought about this
1:21
Speaker 1: the biggest of questions.
1:24
Speaker 3: Oh man, it's pretty big, Like I'm pretty sure it's
1:27
Speaker 3: like unmeasurable because like we don't really know much about it.
1:31
Speaker 3: So I'm pretty I wanna say, like pretty big, like
1:33
Speaker 3: it's really unmeasurable.
1:35
Speaker 1: Tend to the something particles. I don't know, do you
1:38
Speaker 1: want like a number or whatever you think is appropriate.
1:42
Speaker 2: I remember reading some of where that's like it's always growing,
1:45
Speaker 2: so it's like infinite.
1:46
Speaker 1: Right, So most people seem to feel like, wow, the
1:49
Speaker 1: universe is pretty big, right. Some people thought it was
1:52
Speaker 1: like infinite, and some people thought, m just just really big.
1:56
Speaker 2: Nobody thought it was small.
1:58
Speaker 1: Nobody's like I can see the end of it's just
2:00
Speaker 1: about it.
2:02
Speaker 2: It's only as far as I can see.
2:04
Speaker 1: That's right, And ascually that's really interesting because I bet
2:06
Speaker 1: like if you ask prehistoric man how big is the universe,
2:09
Speaker 1: they would just like say, like, look around you, this
2:11
Speaker 1: is what there is, and they couldn't even really imagine.
2:18
Speaker 1: So let's break it down. There's all the stuff right
2:20
Speaker 1: as particles. There's matter, right, you know, there's matter and
2:24
Speaker 1: energy and all.
2:25
Speaker 2: That stuff feel and touch and see mm hm.
2:28
Speaker 1: But I think there's one other component which I think
2:30
Speaker 1: is a little less usual for people to think about,
2:32
Speaker 1: and that's the space.
2:34
Speaker 2: Space.
2:34
Speaker 1: I would think of the universe as all the stuff
2:37
Speaker 1: and all the space that it's in.
2:40
Speaker 2: Okay, space like the stuff we can actually move around in.
2:44
Speaker 1: Yes, the place we can move around in the space
2:47
Speaker 1: we have.
2:48
Speaker 2: At some point that space ends.
2:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, the space could end right now. Somebody out there listening,
2:56
Speaker 1: you smart, good looking listener, you might be thinking, what
3:00
Speaker 1: how good space possibly end? He's talking about space like
3:02
Speaker 1: it's a thing, like it's water and the fish could
3:05
Speaker 1: run into the end of it or something. But briefly,
3:07
Speaker 1: we should just remind people that space is not just emptiness.
3:10
Speaker 1: It's not just a backdrop. It's not just the nothing
3:13
Speaker 1: in which stuff happens. It's stuff. It has properties. It
3:17
Speaker 1: can bend and expand and ripple and do all sorts
3:20
Speaker 1: of weird crazy stuff, and so we know that it's
3:24
Speaker 1: a thing. It's a dynamic, physical thing that could do stuff.
3:27
Speaker 1: So we have to consider the possibility that it ends.
3:29
Speaker 1: Like that's part of the question how big is the universe?
3:32
Speaker 1: Is how much space is there? And can it end? Right?
3:35
Speaker 2: It's like we're fish and we're asking how big is
3:38
Speaker 2: the ocean?
3:40
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, okay, exactly how big is the I wonder
3:44
Speaker 1: do you think fish wonder about how big is the ocean.
3:47
Speaker 2: I think fish wonder about not getting eaten by other
3:51
Speaker 2: fish occupation.
3:55
Speaker 1: Right, And fish might also wonder like are there other oceans? Right?
3:59
Speaker 1: That's the multiverse for fishes.
4:02
Speaker 2: But in our universe, you're saying space might have a
4:05
Speaker 2: limit to it, like there might be an end to it. Yeah,
4:10
Speaker 2: but so is it like a wall or is it
4:13
Speaker 2: like a what does it mean for it to be
4:15
Speaker 2: at the edge of space?
4:17
Speaker 1: Well, there could be an edge to space, and to
4:19
Speaker 1: think about what that means, we have to think about
4:21
Speaker 1: what space is a little bit more like we have
4:23
Speaker 1: to think about whether space can curve or if space
4:27
Speaker 1: is flat right right, And this kind of stuff is
4:31
Speaker 1: really hard to think about in three dimensions, like what
4:33
Speaker 1: does it mean for space xyz space right xyz being
4:37
Speaker 1: one two, three dimensions, The curve really hard to think
4:41
Speaker 1: about because it's hard for us to think about that
4:43
Speaker 1: about space curving in some higher dimensions. So usually it's
4:47
Speaker 1: best if we think about it in two dimensions, so
4:49
Speaker 1: we can think about it as curving in that third dimension.
4:52
Speaker 1: So imagine that we are two dimensional scientists. We're like
4:55
Speaker 1: living on a sheet of paper where we can only
4:57
Speaker 1: move in two dimensions like X and y, and then
5:00
Speaker 1: we can ask those two dimensional scientists can ask is
5:02
Speaker 1: our space curved? Is our paper universe curved?
5:06
Speaker 2: Right?
5:06
Speaker 1: And that changes the answer, Like say you discover that
5:09
Speaker 1: it is curved and it has a positive curvature. Positive
5:13
Speaker 1: curvature would be like on the surface of a sphere
5:15
Speaker 1: or a planet. Right, if it has positive curvature, that
5:19
Speaker 1: has consequences for its shape, because if it's positively curved,
5:22
Speaker 1: it can't go on forever, right, Like the Earth. You're
5:26
Speaker 1: standing on the surface of the Earth and you know
5:28
Speaker 1: the Earth is curved, and that means that Earth can't
5:30
Speaker 1: be infinitely big, right.
5:32
Speaker 2: Right, right, So you're saying, at the edge of the universe,
5:35
Speaker 2: maybe the space space is curved.
5:38
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's a possibility you have to consider that
5:41
Speaker 1: maybe space is curved everywhere. If the universe had curved
5:45
Speaker 1: space and it was positively curved, that would mean that
5:48
Speaker 1: it could be sort of looped on itself very naturally,
5:51
Speaker 1: the same way the surface of a planet is, and
5:54
Speaker 1: you could travel around it through space and not really
5:57
Speaker 1: get to the edge, right, Like where is the edge
5:59
Speaker 1: of the Earth? Well, the Earth, the surface of the Earth,
6:02
Speaker 1: a two dimensional surface doesn't have an edge.
6:05
Speaker 2: Like people in electoric times. Maybe they saw the earth
6:09
Speaker 2: around them and it thought, oh man, this is pretty big.
6:11
Speaker 2: It probably goes on forever, but they didn't know that
6:14
Speaker 2: actually the land curved.
6:16
Speaker 1: That's right, And.
6:18
Speaker 2: It turns out that we're actually kind of on this
6:20
Speaker 2: sphere and if you keep going in one direction you
6:23
Speaker 2: kind of loop back around.
6:24
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, And it's not like you get to
6:27
Speaker 1: the edge and you get magically transported back to where
6:29
Speaker 1: you started or something. There's no you know, shortcut or
6:33
Speaker 1: magic there on the surface of the earth. You keep walking,
6:35
Speaker 1: you come back to where you.
6:36
Speaker 2: Start, just connected back onto itself exactly.
6:39
Speaker 1: That's the key.
6:40
Speaker 2: So that's a space like space that we're in. Could
6:44
Speaker 2: kind of like if you keep going in one direction
6:46
Speaker 2: on a spaceship, you'll come back around to the same
6:48
Speaker 2: spot exactly.
6:50
Speaker 1: And the way you said it was perfect. It's the connection.
6:52
Speaker 1: So we like to talk about space by using this
6:56
Speaker 1: analogy of living in two dimensions and thinking about it
6:59
Speaker 1: being curved in a dimension. Now pop that up to
7:02
Speaker 1: three dimensions, right, because we know our space is at
7:04
Speaker 1: least three dimensions.
7:05
Speaker 2: Popping up and popping an asp rain because now I'm
7:07
Speaker 2: getting ahead.
7:11
Speaker 1: Did we work on getting Advilt to support this podcast
7:13
Speaker 1: because we're sending them a lot of customers.
7:15
Speaker 2: My god, that could be a great sponsor.
7:19
Speaker 1: That's right. So pop that up into your three dimensional space, right,
7:24
Speaker 1: and then you can ask, well, what does it mean
7:25
Speaker 1: for three dimensional space to be curved? Well, it's not
7:29
Speaker 1: that we imagine that it's curved in some other fourth dimension.
7:33
Speaker 1: It's not that it's hanging in four dimensional space and
7:36
Speaker 1: has a curvature in it. It's how the space is connected.
7:39
Speaker 1: We call it intrinsic curvature because it reflects how one
7:43
Speaker 1: part of space is connected to another part of space.
7:46
Speaker 1: So without hanging in four dimensions, you can be connected
7:49
Speaker 1: in a way that space is curved and you loop
7:51
Speaker 1: back on yourself without ever really noticing.
7:53
Speaker 2: So when we talk about the size of the universe,
7:56
Speaker 2: we mean that it has maybe some kind of edge,
7:58
Speaker 2: but maybe that edge is like how we think of
8:01
Speaker 2: an edge as like a stub or a wall. Maybe
8:03
Speaker 2: it's just kind of looped around, and so the size
8:05
Speaker 2: of it is kind of like this blob of.
8:08
Speaker 1: Space, right, yeah, exactly. And the possible answers for the
8:13
Speaker 1: size of the universe depend on how it's curved. Right,
8:16
Speaker 1: If it's positively curved, then it can only really be
8:20
Speaker 1: like a big sphere, which means it's finite. Right if
8:23
Speaker 1: it would have been negative. If it's not right, if
8:26
Speaker 1: it's flat. If space is flat, like it doesn't curve intrinsically,
8:31
Speaker 1: then it could potentially go on forever. If space is
8:34
Speaker 1: negatively curved, that's like the shape of a saddle, it's
8:37
Speaker 1: a negative curvature, then it could have all sorts of
8:40
Speaker 1: really weird shapes, but it could still be infinite.
8:42
Speaker 2: Okay, so the options are infinite or not infinite.
8:47
Speaker 1: That pretty much categorizes the options for everything. How big
8:50
Speaker 1: is your househoorg? Is it infinite or non infinite? I
8:53
Speaker 1: want to see that option actually on Zillo from.
8:55
Speaker 2: The Yeah, I would love to have infinite square feet
8:59
Speaker 2: house because.
9:01
Speaker 3: Then I.
9:03
Speaker 1: Needed to look forever for your kid's shoes, Right, where'd
9:06
Speaker 1: you put them? I put them in room number somewhere
9:08
Speaker 1: between here and infinity.
9:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. So let's talk about the possibilities of what could
9:12
Speaker 2: be beyond the observable universe. I mean, we talked a
9:15
Speaker 2: little bit about before about maybe it's infinite, maybe it's
9:18
Speaker 2: not infinite. Do we really have no idea whether the
9:22
Speaker 2: actual universe is just a little bit bigger than the
9:26
Speaker 2: observable universe, much bigger than the observable universe, or it
9:30
Speaker 2: could be infinite. We really have sort of no indication
9:34
Speaker 2: of which possibility it is.
9:37
Speaker 1: We have a few clues, they're kind of indirect, and
9:40
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that some more, but first
9:42
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. One clue comes from the
9:55
Speaker 1: curvature of space. We talked earlier about how the curvature
9:59
Speaker 1: of space affects the how the size of the universe
10:01
Speaker 1: could be. And if a space is curved positively or
10:04
Speaker 1: negative or flat, that limits the options, right, So that's
10:07
Speaker 1: something we can measure. We can measure it here. We
10:10
Speaker 1: can look around us and measure how curved is space
10:13
Speaker 1: in our universe. And that might be a bit of
10:17
Speaker 1: a puzzler, right, like, how does that mean? How could
10:19
Speaker 1: space be curved? How could you possibly measure it? And
10:23
Speaker 1: to think about that, it's best to go back to
10:24
Speaker 1: the two dimensional example. If you're living on the surface
10:27
Speaker 1: of a planet. For example, if you were a two
10:29
Speaker 1: dimensional scientist living on the surface of a planet or
10:32
Speaker 1: some surface, and you wanted to know is this surface curved.
10:36
Speaker 1: What you could do is make a triangle. Because triangles
10:39
Speaker 1: are very sensitive to curvature. For example, you draw a
10:42
Speaker 1: triangle in a sheet of paper, you add up the angles,
10:45
Speaker 1: then you get one hundred and eighty degrees every triangle,
10:48
Speaker 1: every flat surface, no matter what, beautiful.
10:50
Speaker 2: Results in geometre, basic geometry.
10:53
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, Now imagine that triangle sitting on the
10:57
Speaker 1: surface of a tennis ball. You can draw triangle on
11:00
Speaker 1: the surface of a tennis ball that has three right
11:03
Speaker 1: angles on it, because triangles behave differently on a curved surface.
11:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could imagine that could be ninety degrees, meaning
11:11
Speaker 2: that it adds up to two hundred and seventy degrees.
11:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So let's take a break so everyone can
11:16
Speaker 1: go get a tennis ball and a sharpie. You try
11:19
Speaker 1: this at home, and we'll be right back when you
11:21
Speaker 1: have your tennis ball, all right, Assuming you're holding a
11:24
Speaker 1: tennis ball, yeah, and you've annoyed your partner or your
11:27
Speaker 1: spouse or your child by drawing triangles on it. You
11:30
Speaker 1: can see the triangles behave differently on a curved suraace.
11:33
Speaker 2: It looks kind of bloated.
11:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it looks distorted. And so if you just
11:37
Speaker 1: make a triangle and add up the angles, you can
11:39
Speaker 1: see whether or not the space you're in is curved
11:42
Speaker 1: or flat.
11:43
Speaker 2: Is that kind of a great way to think about
11:45
Speaker 2: the curvature space. It's kind of like a distortion of space.
11:48
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, it's a distortion and how the pieces of
11:51
Speaker 1: space are connected to each other, which changes how you
11:54
Speaker 1: move through space. Changes like how you can get from
11:57
Speaker 1: one spot in space to another spot in space.
12:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I think I'm going straight, but I'm actually
12:02
Speaker 2: kind of being distorted in one way.
12:04
Speaker 1: Or the other. Yeah, it changes what straight means.
12:07
Speaker 2: Okay, So then the curvature might give some clues as
12:11
Speaker 2: to whether, like we wrap around in ourselves or or
12:13
Speaker 2: whether we don't. I mean, that's all it can tell us, right,
12:18
Speaker 2: It's whether we're in a sphere or we're not in
12:20
Speaker 2: a sphere.
12:21
Speaker 1: Well, there's one other option, which is that we're on
12:23
Speaker 1: a sort of a saddle if space is negatively curved.
12:26
Speaker 1: Imagine you have a sheet of paper that's formed sort
12:29
Speaker 1: of like a bowl, right the opposite of a sphere,
12:31
Speaker 1: and you're in the middle of that bowl. You can
12:33
Speaker 1: draw a triangle in that and it will have angles
12:36
Speaker 1: of less than one hundred and eighty degrees.
12:39
Speaker 2: You measure distortion.
12:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not quite a bowl because that's just the
12:45
Speaker 1: inside of a sphere, but something that has a sort
12:47
Speaker 1: of saddle shape. And so you draw triangle, you make
12:51
Speaker 1: a measurement, and that tells you. And so we've done that.
12:53
Speaker 1: We've made those triangles and we've measured them to very
12:56
Speaker 1: high precision in three dimensional space.
12:58
Speaker 2: Like this is on this in the sheet of the universe.
13:03
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. We've done it in two different ways, at
13:07
Speaker 1: least that I can think of off the top of
13:08
Speaker 1: my head. One is that we looked at giant cosmic
13:12
Speaker 1: triangles in space. You know, we've looked at the cosmic
13:15
Speaker 1: microwave background radiation this leftover photons from the birth of
13:18
Speaker 1: the universe, and drawn these triangles and measured the angles
13:21
Speaker 1: and and they come out to one hundred and eighty degrees.
13:24
Speaker 1: It seems like space is flat. Space is flat flat, Yeah,
13:30
Speaker 1: And that's a puzzle. It's really interesting that a lot
13:33
Speaker 1: of people wonder, like, why is space flat? We've measured
13:35
Speaker 1: to be flat to within you know, zero point one percent,
13:39
Speaker 1: and for a long time that was a mystery. But
13:41
Speaker 1: some people do.
13:42
Speaker 2: Think that space could be curved, like what would why
13:47
Speaker 2: would Why would that be weird?
13:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well that's that leads perfectly into the second
13:52
Speaker 1: way we've measured the curvature of space, which is you
13:54
Speaker 1: might ask what causes space to curve? Right, why would
13:57
Speaker 1: you expect space to be curved or flat or negative curved?
14:01
Speaker 1: And the answer is that the thing that curves space
14:03
Speaker 1: is matter. Right, You put stuff, matter and energy into
14:07
Speaker 1: space and it curves it. That's what general relativity tells
14:10
Speaker 1: us that that gravity is in fact the curvature of space.
14:14
Speaker 1: So we know that space gets curved. Like you put
14:16
Speaker 1: the Sun in the center of the Solar System, it
14:18
Speaker 1: curves space so that the Earth very naturally moves in
14:22
Speaker 1: a circle around it. Right, that's an impact of the
14:24
Speaker 1: curvature of space. Nobody's turning the Earth. Nobody's like driving
14:28
Speaker 1: the Earth around the Sun, right, but constantly turning. It's
14:31
Speaker 1: moving in what it considers to be a straight line,
14:34
Speaker 1: but the space is curved, so it's just moving constantly
14:37
Speaker 1: in an orbit.
14:39
Speaker 2: Gravity is not like a force pulling the Earth towards
14:41
Speaker 2: the Sun. But gravity is more like its distorting the
14:45
Speaker 2: space around the Sun, so that the Earth just kind
14:47
Speaker 2: of naturally goes around it.
14:50
Speaker 1: That's right. That's a great way to think about it.
14:52
Speaker 1: And so matter distorts space and causes curvature of space,
14:58
Speaker 1: and so you can ask is there enough matter and
15:00
Speaker 1: energy in the universe to curve space or to make
15:04
Speaker 1: it negatively curved or positively curved? Right? And if space
15:08
Speaker 1: is totally empty, if there's no matter in it at all,
15:10
Speaker 1: then it's negatively curved. You have to add energy and
15:13
Speaker 1: matter to make space zero have zero curvature. And so
15:18
Speaker 1: we've measured this. We've measured the total energy.
15:20
Speaker 2: It naturally wants to be negatively curved, but if you
15:23
Speaker 2: add stuff to it, then it gets straight.
15:26
Speaker 1: That's right. Space with no energy density in it at
15:30
Speaker 1: all would have negative curvature, and so you add stuff
15:33
Speaker 1: to it. In fact, if you add I think it's
15:35
Speaker 1: six hydrogen atoms worth of energy per square meter, then
15:40
Speaker 1: space has zero curvature. It's between five and six. And
15:44
Speaker 1: so we've measured the amount of stuff that's in the
15:47
Speaker 1: universe and it all adds up to be just about
15:50
Speaker 1: the right number to make space be not curved, which
15:54
Speaker 1: is seems like a weird coincidence, right, It seems like
15:56
Speaker 1: an important clue, like, why does all the stuff in
15:59
Speaker 1: the unverse happen to add up to the number that's
16:02
Speaker 1: just right to make space not be curved?
16:05
Speaker 2: Would that Let's take a break. We'll be back in
16:08
Speaker 2: just a short minute.
16:19
Speaker 1: Space seems to be flat, at least space in our
16:22
Speaker 1: part of the universe seems to be flat. It could
16:24
Speaker 1: be that in other parts of the universe it's curved, right,
16:26
Speaker 1: but in our part of the universe seems to be flat.
16:29
Speaker 2: And we think that sort of a that it maybe
16:32
Speaker 2: extends out to as far as we can see.
16:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems to follow the same rules. Okay, and
16:37
Speaker 1: so you're absolutely right. That rules out, you know, the
16:40
Speaker 1: potato universe that we're living on the surface of its
16:42
Speaker 1: huge cosmic potato or bubble universe whatever. It rules out
16:45
Speaker 1: the saddle universe or the universe's negative curvature. Seems like
16:49
Speaker 1: space is flat, which is.
16:50
Speaker 2: Flat going one direction forever, I'll just keep going.
16:56
Speaker 1: Not necessarily right, we know space is flat. That doesn't
16:58
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that it's infinite. It's a natural idea, right.
17:02
Speaker 1: If space is flat, then it doesn't curve on itself,
17:05
Speaker 1: And so it seems like you could be able to
17:07
Speaker 1: go on forever.
17:07
Speaker 2: But earlier that you can't just have a wall.
17:11
Speaker 1: You can't just have a wall. But but since we
17:13
Speaker 1: don't know what space is, we don't really know how
17:15
Speaker 1: it works, we don't really know how it's connected. It's
17:18
Speaker 1: still possible that it could be flat but connected in
17:21
Speaker 1: a weird way, so where one edge is connected to
17:24
Speaker 1: the other edge, like you go flat you're moving through
17:27
Speaker 1: flat space, but it just loops on back on itself,
17:31
Speaker 1: like it's connected in that way, like an asteroids game.
17:35
Speaker 1: You know, you go at the edge of the screen,
17:37
Speaker 1: but you appear on the.
17:38
Speaker 2: Other side, like you teleport to the other side.
17:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and not necessarily teleport, Like that could just
17:45
Speaker 1: be the way space is connected.
17:47
Speaker 2: So that's weird. That's that wouldn't feel you mean, like
17:50
Speaker 2: an asteroid games or like pac Man where you walk
17:53
Speaker 2: off one side of the screen and suddenly you appear
17:55
Speaker 2: on the other side, Like that is it possibility? Physicists
17:59
Speaker 2: are like, hey, that could be true.
18:01
Speaker 1: That certainly could be true. Yes, absolutely, But the other
18:04
Speaker 1: possibility is also true, which is maybe it just goes
18:07
Speaker 1: on forever. Right, It could be that the that space
18:10
Speaker 1: goes on forever, And that's also kind of weird because
18:14
Speaker 1: that's infinite.
18:15
Speaker 2: Space in space.
18:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it could be that space is flat,
18:21
Speaker 1: but it just ends because we can't see past the
18:24
Speaker 1: observable universe, and so we have intuition and ideas and
18:28
Speaker 1: speculation and we think, oh, this would be more natural,
18:31
Speaker 1: or that would be more natural, or I wish the
18:33
Speaker 1: universe looked that way, but at this point that's all
18:35
Speaker 1: we can do. Yeah. So it's a fascinating concept, infinity because,
18:44
Speaker 1: as you say, if things go on forever and then
18:48
Speaker 1: you get infinite number of tries at everything, then that
18:51
Speaker 1: means that, given quantum randomness, you really do get every
18:55
Speaker 1: possibility out there. So that means it's somewhere out there,
18:57
Speaker 1: there's a universe where we're recording podcast and I'm named
19:01
Speaker 1: Jorge and you're name Daniel, and right, you know, another
19:04
Speaker 1: universe where every possible thing you can imagine happens. That's
19:07
Speaker 1: really true, I mean, it's actually happening. If there is
19:10
Speaker 1: an infinite universe with infinite space, it means it could
19:13
Speaker 1: be really far away and we could never get there
19:15
Speaker 1: and improve it. But if that is reality, then it's
19:18
Speaker 1: really happening right now, which is crazy to think about.
19:21
Speaker 2: It, right, right, we just will never see it.
19:24
Speaker 1: We'll never see it, yeah, or if we wait long enough,
19:27
Speaker 1: maybe we would. But it's also so it's on one hand,
19:30
Speaker 1: like really crazy to imagine infinite universe with infinite stuff
19:33
Speaker 1: in it. On the other hand, it's sort of natural, right,
19:36
Speaker 1: Like what's the simplest explanation is it's simpler to imagine
19:39
Speaker 1: an edge, right, like a limited amount of stuff. I
19:43
Speaker 1: find those ideas to be sort of weird, and they
19:46
Speaker 1: sort of call back to, you know, geocentrism, the idea
19:51
Speaker 1: that we're the center, we're an important place in the universe.
19:54
Speaker 1: It's much more natural for me to think the universe
19:56
Speaker 1: just goes on forever and we're just at one dot
19:58
Speaker 1: in a random spot in it. Otherwise they have to explain,
20:02
Speaker 1: like why the universe began here, Like imagine the scenario
20:06
Speaker 1: the infinite space but finite stuff scenario. Then you have
20:09
Speaker 1: to ask, why did the Big Bang happen here and
20:12
Speaker 1: not fifty billion light years to the left or to
20:14
Speaker 1: the right.
20:15
Speaker 2: In that infinite space? Why is that clump matter here
20:19
Speaker 2: where we are?
20:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, So my personal preference, based on no science at all,
20:24
Speaker 1: is the infinite space, infinite stuff universe because It sort
20:27
Speaker 1: of puts to rest some of those questions who raises others?
20:31
Speaker 2: Right? It doesn't raise weird questions or inconsistencies.
20:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just asks you to imagine creation of an
20:39
Speaker 1: infinite stuff in a moment. I mean that's not too
20:42
Speaker 1: much that Yeah. Currently, I don't know of anybody who
20:46
Speaker 1: has such clever ideas for ways to determine whether the
20:50
Speaker 1: universe is infinite or finite by just looking at stuff
20:53
Speaker 1: around us. So the only way we could do it
20:55
Speaker 1: is direct by looking at the universe, which of course
20:58
Speaker 1: we can't. So currently it feels impossible, but you know,
21:01
Speaker 1: we always have to leave a little bit of an
21:02
Speaker 1: open door there for some future physicists more clever than
21:06
Speaker 1: us comes up with a clever way to probe whether
21:09
Speaker 1: the universe is finite or infinite just by looking at
21:11
Speaker 1: clues around us.
21:12
Speaker 2: You might say that there's plenty of room to grow.
21:19
Speaker 1: There. Certainly is there? Certainly is cool.
21:21
Speaker 2: Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that discussion. Yeah, and
21:26
Speaker 2: maybe when you look out at night into the stars,
21:29
Speaker 2: do you think about the idea that maybe the universe
21:32
Speaker 2: is infinite or maybe we're seeing all that there is?
21:37
Speaker 1: And regardless It's a beautiful, gorgeous universe out there, and
21:40
Speaker 1: if you're into views, the best view out there is
21:43
Speaker 1: the night sky in the top of a mountain where
21:45
Speaker 1: you can see billions of light years across amazing vistas. So,
21:49
Speaker 1: however big the universe is, go out and enjoy it.
21:57
Speaker 1: Do you have a question you wish we would cover,
22:00
Speaker 1: Send it to us. We'd love to hear from you.
22:02
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22:05
Speaker 1: Daniel and Jorge One Word, or email us to feedback
22:09
Speaker 1: at Danielandhorge dot com.