Every once in a while we all have that moment when we feel like we are the center of the
universe and everything revolves around us but have you ever wondered where the actual
center of the universe is and sorry but as we hinted earlier
it's not you welcome the Factnomenal and today let's find out where the universe has its midpoint
when we look up at the sky at night we can see a vast space full of stars that are not even one
percent of the entire universe and yet the site is so beautiful and poised that one cannot help
but imagine as we are looking up the cosmos are they looking back at us as if we are right in the
middle of everything but are we obviously not we are not even in the center of our galaxy or even
of our star system so where would the exact center of the universe be the simple answer to that
simple question would be that the universe should not have a center why well because the universe
is everywhere and if it's everywhere how can you find a point equally distance from its boundaries
when the universe has no boundaries one may argue that what about the origin point of the universe
people often misunderstand that the big bang was an explosion that burst outward from a central
point of detonation and now the universe is expanding further and further away from it
yeah also this visual representation of the expansion of the universe doesn't help much
to dissuade that common myth either what actually happened during the big bang was
that the universe started out extremely compact and tiny then every point in the universe not
one single point mind you expanded equally and that expansion is still going on to this date so
by that argument if there was no point of origin you cannot have a point that can be classified as
the center of the universe confusing let's try to understand this at a relatively smaller scale
imagine you are inflating a balloon that has a two-dimensional ant living on its surface
the balloon inflates to a perfect spherical shape and now what this ant would perceive
is a vast surface that looks the same everywhere no matter wherever that ant travels on the balloon
the surface available on its left right forward and back wouldn't change its perception wouldn't
change much so it cannot denote any point as the center of the balloon because all points are
pretty much exactly the same there is no center on the sphere surface because there is no edge
if you keep on inflating the balloon the ant will notice its two-dimensional universe expand for
example if there was another ant on the surface of the balloon as the balloon will expand so will
the distance between the two ants they both will notice that but again without edges there will be
no center the only difference between the 2d ants universe and our universe is the third dimension
and unlike ours the balloon universe is finite we can go up and down the ant cannot the surface of a
spherical balloon is also limited while the only limits we have assumed till now in our universe
is how far light has traveled since the big bang what we call the observable universe but there
is no reason to believe that the universe ends at the edge of our observability one
way to understand that at a smaller scale in the little demonstration we proposed earlier
is by replacing the spherical balloon with an ever expanding flat rubber sheet
if that doesn't help to comprehend the state of our universe you can imagine an infinite loaf
of raisin bread that's continuously expanding the raisins in this case represent the galaxies
flying away from one another but again unlike real bread there will be no edges there will be no end
oh wait sorry got distracted by the thought of an endless delicious bread
another reason why we use the rubber sheet and balloon to represent the universe in our
demonstration is that we can assume the same about the surface of the universe
depending on the gross amount of mass and energy in the cosmos the universe could be flat or curved
if the mass and energy density of the universe or in other terms critical density is just right the
universe would be flat like a sheet expanding at a steadily accelerating rate but if the density
is higher then the cosmos would be curved like a balloon the extra gravity from this increased
density would slow cosmic expansion eventually bringing that growth to a halt interestingly if
the critical density was lower than just right the cosmic expansion would accelerate even more
in this scenario the universe would have negative curvature with a shape somewhat like a saddle
so let's look back at all the observations and evidence we humans have found so far about our
ever surprising universe such as cosmic microwave background radiation and the afterglow from the
big bang both of them and other minor observations remarkably point out that the critical density
of our universe is just right and thus our universe is flat contrastingly unlike our earth
also the after glow from the big bang sounds about right right but back to
the flatness of our universe there's still one problem cosmologists still aren't sure
if the universe is indeed flat or if the curvature is so wide that the universe only appears flat
quite similar to how the earth feels flat for us on the surface given our perception
is so small to experience it without looking very closely towards the horizon you can blame those
cosmologists though they don't want to declare our universe to be flat too soon and be ridiculed by
their extraterrestrial peers at galactic council for cosmology for being a flat universe cult
this debate is crucial for finding a center for the universe because if critical density is not
balanced then we can define the point with the highest or lowest mass as the center of
the universe in the case of a balanced critical density there will be no such point because the
mass is distributed equally in all directions and this scenario gets more complicated in the case
of the concerned object being infinite that most likely our universe is if an object is infinite
and uniform you simply cannot define a center of mass because all points are identical on the other
hand if an object is infinite but not uniform you can define the center of mass of the entire object
as the center of mass of the non-uniformity for instance it has a single knot of high density
at one point for example look at the clouds in the sky certain kinds of clouds don't have
a well-defined boundary but instead just stretch out in all directions getting thinner and thinner
even though the cloud stretches out effectively to infinity the high density region of the cloud
exists in a limited volume so you can find a center of mass through a limiting procedure
observations currently indicate that the universe is infinite in size although planets and stars
do represent non-uniformities in the space-time structure on the universal scale such uniformities
are randomly dispersed in totality that brings back the average density of the universe to a
uniform value being infinite and uniform there is no way to define a center of mass for the universe
bummer likewise if our universe had curvature we could define the point of highest or lowest indent
as the center of the universe like a salad ball there could be a central point to the
universe from which all other points curve away but as we already discussed we haven't found
any evidence supporting the existence of a curve in the universe yet we are not a flat universe
cult mind you extraterrestrial scientists just lacking evidence to believe the contrary
everything that we know that exists in our universe is either rotating on its own axis
and also likely revolving around an object in the center of an umbrella object
moon earth sun sagittarius a and the milky way all are rotating on their axis so one can assume that
the universe may have an axis too like a wheel rotates around its axle if the universe has an
axis it will rotate around a central point but it's safe to say that for whatsoever reason
the universe doesn't appear to have an overall spin or rotation to it it all goes back to our
universe being most likely flat and looking the same in all directions as in being isotropic
another study found a 95 chance that the universe is homogeneous
meaning it is the same everywhere on large scales so flatness equals no rotation which very well
again is the outcome of lacking a central point another possibility is the center of the charge
similar to the center of mass this would be a point in an object where the amount
of electric charge is on average the same in all directions surrounding it the center
of charge for a uniformly charged sphere would just be the center of the sphere
and again similar to the mass distribution the charge distribution of the universe is infinite
and uniform on average so that there is no center of the charge so it seems our universe very much
is a centerless infinite blob that is expanding similarly in all outward and inward directions
or we are just not advanced enough to find that center maybe the question of where is the center
of the universe will go down in the archives as one of those unsolvable mysteries but whatever
the answer is we can say one thing for sure you or somebody that you know is not the center of the
universe so why don't you be a little humble like the video share it with that arrogant friend of
yours to help them step down from their high horse and tell us in the comments what other mysteries
of the universe shall we cover in our next video as always thanks for watching Factnomenal