The Theory of Nothing

Is the universe finite?

Is the universe finite?

This is a very interesting question and there are many opinions on this. The opposite of finite is infinite and current thought is that the universe is flat and therefore infinite. However, there is no proof for this. The observable universe is finite only because we can only see out to the 13.7 billion light years that we think is the age of the universe since the big bang. The only way we could check this out is to go to the edge of the expanding universe, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Up until the beginning of the 20th century, most scientists thought that the Milky Way galaxy was the universe. A astronomer by the name of Edwin Hubble blew that idea away when he used the Hooker telescope at Mt. Wilson to show that there were other galaxies out there beyond the Milky Way. He also proved that the universe was expanding. Up until then, most people thought that the universe was static. Edwin Hubble changed everything.

Since then, observations of other galaxies has shown that they are moving away from us and that the further they are away, the faster they’re moving. And, the crazy part is that this moving away effect is accelerating. This is thought to be the result of dark energy, which makes up 68.3 percent of the universe. Dark matter makes up 26.8 percent and stuff we can see is only 4.9 percent, and there is a lot of stuff we can see out there, which only goes to show how much can’t be seen.

The nutty thing is that space can accelerate faster than the speed of light. Light, which is a form of electromagnetic energy, can’t break the light speed limit, but space, which is a thing, can expand faster. It appears that at the edge of the known universe, space has accelerated faster than light, and that means that we can’t see what’s beyond, at least not from our perspective.

I believe that our universe is finite because of the big bang. All of the matter that is in our universe was created at the time of the big bang, so unless other matter came into existence after the big bang, the amount would be the same and therefore finite. Remember that matter and energy are related by Einstein’s equation E equals M time C squared.

However, this does not preclude the existence of an infinite number of universes. This wild idea is known as the multiverse theory and many cosmologists ascribe to it. The multiverse theory is a product of the expansion theory. This is the idea that a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. Some cosmologists theorize the bubbles were created during this expansion period, something like a quickly boiling pot, and these bubbles formed other universes, some with different physical constants. Then, there is the parallel universe idea where there are universes just like ours with duplicates of us but in different timelines. I prefer this theory because it makes for many good science fiction plots, but scientists don’t have proof for any of it.

The bottom line is that in my opinion the universe is finite, but that there are an infinite number of parallel universe, and by infinite, I mean some large number.

Thank you for reading.