If there is no end to the universe, how small can we go?

Question

if space can be infinitly big. can something be infinitly small?

Answer 1

Perhaps the whole Universe is but an atom of something larger.

Answer 2

The idea of the universe being infinitly big and expanding is that it is expanding into nothing, so things arent getting any bigger, its just that galaxies are moving away from each other.
As to something being infinitly small, it was once believed that you could not have anything smaller than an atom, that it was a fundemental particle and could not be broken up, however it was then discovered what made up these atoms and that they are not actually fudemental particles. Instead we have these more newly discovered fundemental particls which are believed to be the smallest things in the universe. Maybe not maybe they ae also made up of things not yet discovered.
space is made up of galaxies, galaxies are made up of planets, planets are made from atoms and so on, whether it stops or not you can only guess...

Answer 3

I keep seeing answers on these pages with people confidently claiming that the universe is infinite. Thats in total contradiction of the standard model that physicists have been working in for the past century. The universe effectively has a diameter of 13.8 billion light years.

Even if it was infinite there is no reason to suspect things could be infinitely small. Its believed that quarks and electrons are interchangeable - that is exactly the same. The implication is that they're irreducible building blocks. They may be formed by vibrating strings but no serious physicist believes that there are always going to be smaller building blocks.

Answer 4

If we accept the Big Bang hypothesis of the birth of the Universe, and that the Universe is expanding (and a lot of evidence supports this), one of the possible consequences is a Big Crunch. (This depends on a physical constant (H0), which I don't think is universally agreed yet. If this number turns out to be less than one, then the fate of the Universe is probably the Big Crunch.) This is the opposite of the Big Bang, and everything collapses in under it's own gravity to a singularity (a black hole). You could then argue that the entire Universe becomes infinitely small.

I'm not sure I'm convinced that we could consider it 'infinitely small' though, because we wouldn't a) exist or b) have any way of measuring it.

Answer 5

several theories cover this - the onion layer types (saying that there are many differant layers of size to the universe - ie: one persons microscopic could be the universe to someone else.)

or that the universe stops at the quantum level - where everything becomes a little blurry and indistinct

who knows? but i would give anything to know all the answers

Answer 6

No,we live in a quantum universe so a minimum size must exist.
If you divide a quantum unit of space it will go out of existence!

Answer 7

Here is a page than shows alot about the universe, I personally think that it is extremely large or infinite.
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/universe.html

Answer 8

I suppose it could, but I would have thought that there would be a finite point on small.

Answer 9

i would half to say priddy small. if not small then bigger. lets hope not to big we might explode.