Are we at the centre of the Universe?

Question

Am I right in thinking we can "see" the edge of the universe?
If we can, can we see the edge all around and is it equidistant? In other words are we roughly at the centre.

Answer 1

No we are not. We are just off to the bottom left hand side..........roughly anyway! ! !

Answer 2

From scientific observations it is not possible to tell.

Any answer you get is a philosophical one.

Those who believe in the Big Bang accept the underlying Copernican principle. An implication of this is that the universe (this is an assumption) has no centre and no edge.
Imagine the 3D universe is represented by the surface of a balloon. For an ant on the surface of the balloon there is no centre and no edge.

Many people who accept the Big Bang do not realise the assumptions being made.
I do not accept the Copernican principle, and do not accept the Big Bang hypothesis. Even evolutionists realise it is full of holes - they just don't want to accept the alternative.

I believe that the universe does have an edge and a centre, and we are at or very close to that centre.
The universe was created by God - and the first thing he made was earth. The stars were made 3 days later.

Note it is not possible to prove scientifically any idea about the past. Our ideas on how to interpret present day observations are based on our philosphical assumptions. We all have the same data - it is just interpreted differently.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1570/

Answer 3

If you look at the microwave background radiation of the universe then it is roughly the same no matter in which direction you look.

Assuming an even distribution of matter from the big bang, this means one of the following should be true:

* We are at the centre of the universe and we can see the edge

* We can't see the edge because at some point the universe was expanding at speeds greater than the speed of light - but we could still be at the centre of it.

Answer 4

The problem with considering ourselves at the centre of the Universe is an extremely complex issue in Physics. The long and the short of it is NO.

There is no possible way of reaching the edge of the universe (even if we could travel fast enough) due to the way that light bends.

If we start at one point in the universe and travel in a straight line then we will eventually get back to where we started from for the above reason.

Answer 5

We are in a way, because everything is at the centre of the universe - and it stretches out equally in all directions from where ever you happen to be.

This does not imply that the universe is infinite, though. I can't really explain why this should be (heavy duty physics) but I think it's all to do with the fact that the big bang happened everywhere.

But, no, you are not right in thinking that we can see to the edge of the universe. Nowhere near.

Answer 6

you guys are thinking abouth this all wrong, there is no such thing as the edge of the universe. thats like a person walking on earth saying that the earth is flat and you can fall off the edge. if the universe was a shpere which it is not then you might say can we get out of the shpere...but it doesnt work like that, you people are thinking in a 3 demensional sense, so far as we know the universe exists in 4 demensions. so you cant explain the shape of the universe in eucliean geometry. so NO we are not at the centere..but i can see how you would come to that conclusion though. read a good cosmology book this might help you understand a little better. i like books by timmothy ferris, but there are many great authors out there. good luck!!!!

Answer 7

Nope.

We have not seen the "edge" of the Universe.

We have been able to see to a distance of about 47 billion light-years in all directions though. This is called the "observable" Universe.

We are obviously at the centre of our observable Universe.

Answer 8

since every part of the universe emerged from a single point and we can just give a rough decription how that exactly happened its difficult to say where the center is.

when the universe was very young it started expanding to all directions same time, so as a conclusion out of that one must say that the center is near, for every piece of matter which was created in the early stages.

from our location we can in fact see a great wall moving outward.. or better .. we see some glimpse of radiation out there which resulted from the big bang.
the kind of radiation leads to the conclusion that the ammount of matter which is expanding at this wall is infinite and what we observe are just fluctuations due to the fact that radiation in that area is being reflected on itself.
sounds somewhat weird, but its more or less the current opinion about the universe

Answer 9

If we were at the centre - according to astronomical (literally this time) calculations - we would be sitting spot on top of a black hole. Now if we *were* in the centre of the universe, would you think we would be able to even ask that question? Or would you say we've been swollowed whole by that black hole?

I wouldn't say we're at the edge either. It's not one or the other. We're SOMEWHERE in the universe and that's enough for me.

... As long as we're nowhere near a black hole.

Answer 10

No The Earth and it's system surrounding the Sun are situated in a spiral arm of a galaxy way out towards the edge of the universe

Answer 11

When the universe started it progressed radially from the center.
The emergence of man may have been billions of years after the beginning that would put us in a layer light years from the center.