Science Explained: Where’s the Center of the Universe?

The Big Bang occurred about 13 billion years ago. Before that, it can be said that there is no time (or space). If there is something in front of the Big Bang, we can not say anything about it, because of the restrictions imposed by astrophysics, we can not study it.

But how about the big bang itself? What do you think about this event? For example, where does it happen? Where is the center of our universe?

This is actually a very common problem. Now it seems that a reasonable way to determine the center of the universe is to find the original location of the big bang where it began. This will be a convenient and reasonable place called "the center of the universe".

However, many people are not aware of the fact that the Big Bang is that it has not detonated into the empty space. On the contrary, the big bang is an expansion of the universe itself.

When the Big Bang happened, everything was in one place. Think of it as a minute point. And this will spread until we get the universe of today. It is worth noting that this is the whole universe and is expanding. Therefore, this is not a big explosion in certain parts of the universe, but it expands from it and happens everywhere. Every space starts to spread - the point between the points starts to grow - it grows not only at the edge but also moves outward

That is the way it is: the space is still spreading in the same way. This does not mean that your atoms are growing (or the material is expanding). The only extension is space. If you think about the universe, it will extend in all directions, just as the bread rises in the oven. Bread is a space. However, nothing such as large bananas and raisins is growing in bread. Instead, because the breaks between them are enlarged, these bananas (galaxies) are pushed away and pushed further

Since this expansion occurs everywhere, the word "center of the universe" does not mean anything. In fact, we can say that all observers are in the center of their own universe. This is because of the so-called "light horizon".

How much we can see is called "Bright Horizon". The speed of the light in the vacuum is constant (and the space is largely vacuum), our range of light is about the same distance on all sides (since the light travels at the same speed, It is not smaller than the direction).

Therefore, when using the illumination layer to determine the center of the universe, you will see that it is always at about the same position as the observer. You can find a good example here.

David S. Yeager is an associate professor of development psychology at the Stanford Behavioral Science Research Center (CASBS), University of Texas at Austin, Co-Chair of the Mindset Scholars Network, and a researcher at the CASBS interdisciplinary network. Christopher Bryan is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Chicago Business School of Business School and is the first author of the study described in this article.

Frank Lovett was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Washington in St. Louis and was a visiting researcher at Laurance S. Rockefeller of Princeton University Human Value Center from 2008 to 2009. His main research field concerns the role of freedom and control in the development of justice, equality, the rule of law, his future book "General Theory of Governance and Justice" will be published by Oxford University Press is.

1 Matthew C. Ingram is a political science associate professor at the Rockefeller Public Policy Postgraduate School and a fellow of the Social Demographic Analysis Center (CSDA) at the State University of Albany, New York State. Marcelo Marchesini da Costa is a doctoral student at the University of Albany under the administrative department. Please send all correspondence to mingram@albany.edu. The writer is responsible for errors and omissions.

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