Big Bang Picture

Most recent answer: 04/04/2019

Q:
Standard theories have no particular center and on a large scale the Universe looks the same everywhere, supporting the idea that there's no special center.Isn't it contrary to the basic hypothesis of a major Big Bang theory that assume the spread of matter in the form of a spherical wrap around the center of a great bang, which would ultimately lead to the conclusion that most of the cosmos needs to be empty and the whole matter to be distributed in the spherical layer around the prime center - the Big Bang point ?
- Brano (age 69)
Podgorica, Montenegro
A:

No, the picture is not one of something happening in a pre-existing space. It's a picture of what space itself does. For ease of picturing, let's say that the universe is finite. (No one knows if it actually is.) Then the space wraps around on itself, just like the 2D surface of a balloon wraps around to make a finite 2D space. The 3D space can expand just like the 2D balloon space expands. Everything in it gets farther apart, but there's no particular point in the space that's more central than any other point.

Mike W.


(published on 04/04/2019)