"Starboard" wrote in message
ups.com...


Does it have a center in some higher dimension?

It might, but not necessarily. The universe need not exhibit radial
symmetry.

Tell me this: Did the entire universe that we know today expand from a
point? What is it exactly that is expanding? I visualize it as light
from the early universe radiating out, pushing the frontier in all
directions, creating new space, as we speak?

Errol


Not that this answers your question, but I'd like to interject my
"perspectives", since you are "visualizing".

1) We can only measure so far. Therefore at some point we reach that limit
in all directions, and that defines a sphere.

2) #1 doesn't necessarily define the shape, origin, or expansion of the
universe.

#1 is a simple concept that just about anyone can understand. I give this
model to others who are not normally astronomy minded, because, well,
because they generally don't ever give the universe much thought. I myself
do not grasp much, if any of #2 in detail, so I'm silent on the subject,
other than to say what I just said above.

I can live the rest of my life perfectly happily accepting the simple model
of #1 and being a star-gazer, appreciating the "simple" elegance and beauty
of large scale, or Newtonian physics, stars, and the universe as I
understand it day to day. I think most "non-astronomers", and non-physicists
appreciate having a simple view of a spherical universe to start with, and
then if they wish, to pursue the matter of considering what lies beyond that
sphere, what consitutes the sphere, and how the universe itself is a living
thing (in that it possibly has a life cycle of its own) in which that sphere
exists.