Is The Universe Infinite?

Infinity is one of those concepts I don’t think any of us can truly understand. If we put it in a way where we are saying space has no end we can’t really understand that statement. It may just be we are limited by our brains and there could be races out there who find this concept not only perfectly acceptable, but logical. One group says we will finally be able to see the end of the universe when we build our newest and largest telescope in Hawaii. They base this observation on the fact most scientists believe we are seeing so far back to the beginning of the universe now, the additional power of the new telescope will allow this to come true. Do we really know this for sure? Another group states there could be other objects and clusters beyond what we think are the youngest. We say youngest, because the further away we look in space, the longer it takes the light to reach our telescope and that is why we are seeing things like they looked in the past. So far we have been able to see back about 13.3 billion light years. In other words we are seeing galaxies as they looked that far back in time.

It has been said this represents the beginnings of the Big Bang, the Big Bang is supposedly the moment when a super-atom exploded and created the expanding universe. There is something which is accelerating our expansion and we notice it more the further away we look. I have talked about this before and made many different suggestion as to what it might be, but there are those who are now saying they don’t think it is a super black hole or anything like that. They believe the acceleration is caused by another universe pulling us toward it. This is an intriguing thought. They give an example of a pool of water with a lot of bubbles rising and space being like this except the bubbles in this case are universes. This would mean there are so many universes we would not be able to count them. It is an interesting thought. When you think about it why couldn’t it be true? For quite some time we didn’t think there were galaxies and the debate about what those spiral shaped objects in space were raged among scientists. It wasn’t until 1923 when they agreed those spiral objects and other star groups were galaxies and not just gas clouds.

One of the problems we have when it comes to our view of infinity is we are looking out from our home planet which is located in our solar system in our galaxy which is giving us our observations of the universe. This is a problem, because if we were on some other planet in a galaxy millions or billions of years from here, what would we seen then if we look out as far? Some think we would see more galaxies and they would be much older, but look young. They think that somehow what we see might be a matter of prospective or there is just more out there. Others think beings in this position might be able to see another universe, the one which is pulling us toward it, if that is what is going on. We might be shocked if we could get a view that close, because there could be things visible we have never seen before. It could also turn out if there was a Big Bang and an expanding universe, it may not be the first time and there could be other remnants of other Big Bangs out there. There have been other theories about how the universe formed and for quite a while the most popular was the Oscillating Universe theory which stated there was a Big Bang then the universe expanded and eventually slowed down and began to retreat until it formed a super atom again and exploded. What if this was partially right, but instead of the universe collapsing onto itself and creating another Big Bang, one was formed by some other means? The universe might be like a sign which used to be in Times Square, New York. It showed a man blowing smoke rings. The universe might be blowing Big Bangs.

 There might be a universe creation machine located somewhere in space for all we know. Since the time spans between creations would be so great, we might not ever notice it. It could easily be mistaken for something else due to our lack of knowledge in this area. We might not know one if we saw one.

For all we know there is some force outside our universe which creates universes. It could be a rip in space where the contents of other dimensions leak through and build up until they explode every fourteen or fifteen billion years. That time period is just a guess. The European Extremely Large Telescope is under construction and will be the biggest telescope until the one in Hawaii is built. It has a 39.3 meter mirror area which will allow it to see further with its adoptive optics than any other telescope. The question is will this telescope which should be functional in about 9 years be able to see past the earliest objects and if so what will it see?

If we look past the earliest objects in space which are predicted to be just about another 500 million light years away, will we find something which is unsettling? Will there be some huge area of space where things are being gobbled up and squeezed back into their components? Maybe there will be nothing beyond the galaxies which were first created. Could we get our first glimpse at another universe sitting beyond those young structures? Some say what we will see is the other end of our universe, because the universe is round and is really a loop. This is just as confusing as saying it is infinite as far as I am concerned. The questions of how can space be infinite or how can it curve into a loop seem to be equally confusing. I guess we will just have to wait for the answer.