Wondering something about the expansion of the universe

[Earl]

It's true to an extent only that the initial expansion happened everywhere but the current observed expansion isn't happening everywhere. The galaxy clusters may be getting further apart, but the galaxies local groups like ours are bound to each other and are getting closer to each other. So I wouldn't say "Everything happened everywhere and is expanding from everywhere".

The space is still expanding, even between the Earth and the Sun, but the gravitational bond is keeping them at the distances they are

that is how I understand it works, I very well could be wrong though.

[Starblazer]

Where is the centre of the surface of a balloon? (not where is the centre of a balloon.) There isn't one.

You are imposing on the universe the idea of its having a shape. But - this is a new line of thought for me so bear with me - it seems to me that a shape is defined as a form within space. Sit inside a cube, in the middle. Send out rays in all directions until they hit a wall (a boundary) and cut them off there. So if you know how long each ray is you can define the size and shape of your cube. (Well, if it is a cube it is a cube, but the point is clear, I hope.)

If you did the same from the inside of a giant rugby ball then the rays would be cut off at different lengths when they met the leather boundary and now your rugby ball shape and size would be defined and measured.

Now then, now then, if the rays are never cut but go on forever, what shape do they diefine? They don't, because they are never cut. A sphere? No because the rays never reach the surface of a sphere to be cut. So only something finite can have a shape. By definition something infinite cannot. Actually, in cosmology the term infinite alone will not quite do. You can have a model universe that is infinite, or one that is finite but unbounded. But I think my point will work for both. You only meet a shape when you meet a boundary. If you don't meet a boundary you never encounter a shape. The universe does not have a shape.

If this is unpalatable, here are two great quotes. Einstein; 'Common sense is just the name given to that set of prejudices accumulated by age 18.'

And better still, Neils Bohr to Einstein when Einstein said, God does not play at dice.

Bohr; Stop telling God what to do.

(The God in question was not, I think, God in the usual sense but rather more like 'reality.')

We see the universe in human terms with human minds in human language. The Universe, however, can be whatever it wants to be and if we don't get it, tough!

This was Bohr's point, I think, and it is very, very deep.

Olly

Very well put Olly, and I agree.

This is the annoying part about the human mind...although the evidence suggests otherwise, my mind can't help but put it all in a bubble lol.