Cam

Thought provoking. Presumably e=mc2 is in your view a something rather than a nothing. Is this a view you accept?

Thanks, It looks like I won't be able to understand as it is beyond my capability too. I had some notion of a series of big bangs occurring "out there" creating a series of parallel universes. I guess things will progress in time. It was not long ago that mankind thought the earth was flat and it must have been a great leap to find out about and then comprehend a spheroidal planet. I don't know who discovered this. It seems it may have been discovered by ancient civilisations but no-one told the European populations until later. So if you are brought up with a flat earth and what you perceive is a flat earth it's a leap of comprehension to suddenly believe it's a ball, actually. It would be so interesting to travel back in time and speak to scientists at various points in time and tell them what we now know and see how they handle the news!! So let me pose another question. What, briefly, did the universe look like a fraction of a second after the start?

Yes, I think you have nailed it - difficult to conceptualise. We are limited by various boundaries in our daily lives. We can see beyond some of them eg a fence. I have never been able to rationalise the concept of infinity and I hear my mathematical friends talking of big infinity and little infinity as a concept. Of course I understand there are more points on a football than a pin head although the number is infinite for both. As far as the universe is concerned (multiverse?) I cannot feel the fact that it goes on forever. Or if there is a limit then I cannot grasp the lack of anything outside of it or perhaps there is not "an outside" of it. As you rightly say, it is not within human experience to be able to relate to. I envy the most talented mathematicians who have insight into this far beyond any capability of mine!

I appreciate your patience! Sadly I have had no formal education in this area but it does fascinate me. I take your point about the lack of an edge of the / this universe. If it is true (is it?) that the matter of the universe is derived from a single point then is it possible to have an "edge" being the furthest extent that matter has so far reached from the point of origin? If the matter is moving away from other matter, ie expanding, it is moving into something - space? So, like a tsunami, the edge must be the boundary between where it is and where it is not. Maybe I could better understand if I knew what the universe was from a physicists or cosmologist point of view - is it just the expanding matter and energy related to the matter from the original explosion or is it more?

I can grasp the fact that we are moving away from the rest at a constant rate and that this can be perceived whichever raisin you may be viewing from. But, after 13.5 billions years or so I seem to feel that there should be a big hole in the middle of the loaf - is that correct?

Thank you. But using the balloon analogy, it expands from a central point, let's say the centre of a circle or the centre of a spheroid. What is inside the perimeter of the balloon - energy? matter? nothing?

I have been confused in this area, being a biologist and not a cosmologist. I'd be grateful for clarification and am sure it will be easy for some of you guys. Before my main question I'd like some insight into the big bang, remembering I'm not into heavy maths. So, is it presumed to be like a firework in the sky where all matter, stars etc radiate outward from a central point? Or is it more like a lava flow with a degree of continuous explosion from a supposed singularity? It seems generally accepted that the universe is expanding and will continue to do so (we seem to attribute this to dark energy to fill the knowledge gap). If we are a passenger within this expansion what speed are we travelling at from the point of origin compared to the speed of light? It seems to be accepted that we cannot be expanding faster than light speed. Therefore chances are we are moving slower. If we are moving slower then any light generated by the big bang will have accelerated, or at least passed, beyond us. It is accepted that if we perceive a star 10 light years away in our time it will have moved 10 light years from that point by the time we perceive the star. However if we accept the "firework" type of big bang then that star will be on the same perimeter of matter as we are and 10 years is nothing compared to the age of the universe. If we take a star on the other side of the perimeter it will be still on the same perimeter as earth but we will perceive it as it was much longer ago. My impression is that the further we probe away from earth the further back in time we can perceive. Presumably there is some kind of limit here as if light is faster than us and the bang was brief then everything ( I suppose I mean light, visible, invisible, CMB) should have escaped from the point of origin faster than the matter and so how can we look back in time to perceive the origins of the universe? Clearly I am missing something elementary but would be interested to gain insight.