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