Have you ever stared up at the stars and wondered just how far you’d have to travel before you reached the edge of the universe? The answer — as Minute Physics illustrates — is far. Like really far. Like somewhere in the neighbourhood of 46 billion light years starting wherever you’re standing.
And not only is that distance getting greater every second as the universe continues to expand, it only accounts for the area we can actually observe. Astronomers believe the universe is technically an infinite void, so while you could keep on sailing past the 46 billion light-year marker, but there wouldn’t be much to see after that. [YouTube]
I've always struggled with the concept of infinity. It seems impossible, but at the same time I can't comprehend there being an "end" to existence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyskTIDk3VA
Damn it I had it at 46 trillion light years!
Gotta stop carrying the ten on my Abacus
I'd be more interested in something explaining the difference between the universe and existence. You can say the universe has been existing for so long and it's gotten so wide, but saying the space that free space itself is infinite makes me feel dizzy. If someone says that all matter/energy/space is constantly existing, never 'begun' existing and will exist eternally, then that explains something but even then that's kind of hard to wrap your head around anyway. Someone please explain what I need to know!
The universe is supposedly closed, so if you start off in any direction you will eventually end up back where you started. Of course by then the Universe may have collapsed and reformed several times.
He said the whole universe has no centre?
What happened to the big bang? Wasn't that the centre?
Rubbish, a cockroach cannot understand Universe. Only what it can see and think.
^ Best answer for these posters.
(Thought bubbles floating out of these creatures) 'Teetering bulb of dread and dream let us readily make confident conclusions about existence, let us contradict the posts above! its our opinions not you or even you! weee for only meee!'
Space is big.
Really big.
You might think it's a long way down the road to the shops, but that's just peanuts to space.
Thank you Douglas Adams.
It's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll.
Thank you AC/DC fans.
True enough.
Reminds me of this great little bit from Mass Effect 2:
"Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth.That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-***** in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?
Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!
Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!
Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire a husk of metal, it keeps going until it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years.
If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your **** targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a **** firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip.
Recruit: Sir, yes sir!"