Space didn’t used to be a big place

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/space-big-place/

Today, our observable Universe extends for 46 billion light-years in all directions. But early on in our history, things were much smaller.

There are few things we can conceive of that are as mind-bogglingly large as space is. Our observable Universe, out to the deepest recesses of space that we can possibly see, takes us out some 46 billion light-years in all directions. From the Big Bang until now, our Universe has expanded while gravitating at the same time, giving rise to stars and galaxies spread across the expanse of outer space. All told, there are currently several trillion galaxies present within it, as for every galaxy we know about, there are perhaps 30 to 100 that are too small, faint, and distant for us to presently observe.

And yet, if we go back in time, we learn that not only was our Universe a much smaller place, but that in the earliest stages, the Universe itself was anything but impressive. If the Universe has been expanding and cooling for 13.8 billion years, then long ago, it must have been smaller and denser, implying that there may not always have been such a remarkably large volume to contain all the particles that have existed for so long. Space may not always have been a big place, and it’s only the fact that our Universe has expanded so thoroughly and relentlessly that made it so big and empty today.

More…

Now we wonder, is it said that things didn’t had to be or things didn’t have to be¿

SCIENCE said:

Now we wonder, is it said that things didn’t had to be or things didn’t have to be¿

Well if they weren’t there, would we even be here?

roughbarked said:

SCIENCE said:

Now we wonder, is it said that things didn’t had to be or things didn’t have to be¿

Well if they weren’t there, would we even be here?

Did possibilities seem to be, or did they seemed to be¿

> There are few things we can conceive of that are as mind-bogglingly large as space is.

Which space?

The visible universe?
The whole universe?
The quantum multiverse?
The multiple universes of eternal inflation?
All the universes connected by black holes?
The brane-verse of M-theory in 11 dimensions?

The visible universe is beginning to appear rather small and cosy these days.

I have heard it said that at the end of the era of cosmic inflation, the universe was so small that it could not fit in even a single subatomic particle.

mollwollfumble said:

> There are few things we can conceive of that are as mind-bogglingly large as space is.

Which space?

The visible universe?
The whole universe?
The quantum multiverse?
The multiple universes of eternal inflation?
All the universes connected by black holes?
The brane-verse of M-theory in 11 dimensions?

The visible universe is beginning to appear rather small and cosy these days.

I have heard it said that at the end of the era of cosmic inflation, the universe was so small that it could not fit in even a single subatomic particle.

Yeah, but if you extrapolate backwards way beyond the level where there is any observable evidence ridiculous conclusions are to be expected.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> There are few things we can conceive of that are as mind-bogglingly large as space is.

Which space?

The visible universe?
The whole universe?
The quantum multiverse?
The multiple universes of eternal inflation?
All the universes connected by black holes?
The brane-verse of M-theory in 11 dimensions?

The visible universe is beginning to appear rather small and cosy these days.

I have heard it said that at the end of the era of cosmic inflation, the universe was so small that it could not fit in even a single subatomic particle.

Yeah, but if you extrapolate backwards way beyond the level where there is any observable evidence ridiculous conclusions are to be expected.

Sure. But there’s evidence for most of this. I don’t say conclusive evidence, but scientific evidence none the less.

eg. The whole universe.
Evidence, space is very close to flat out to the finite limits of observation, so it makes sense to infer that this flatness extends beyond what we can see.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

> There are few things we can conceive of that are as mind-bogglingly large as space is.

Which space?

The visible universe?
The whole universe?
The quantum multiverse?
The multiple universes of eternal inflation?
All the universes connected by black holes?
The brane-verse of M-theory in 11 dimensions?

The visible universe is beginning to appear rather small and cosy these days.

I have heard it said that at the end of the era of cosmic inflation, the universe was so small that it could not fit in even a single subatomic particle.

Yeah, but if you extrapolate backwards way beyond the level where there is any observable evidence ridiculous conclusions are to be expected.

Sure. But there’s evidence for most of this. I don’t say conclusive evidence, but scientific evidence none the less.

eg. The whole universe.
Evidence, space is very close to flat out to the finite limits of observation, so it makes sense to infer that this flatness extends beyond what we can see.

That makes no sense at all to me.

But that’s not really the point in this case.

The point is that we have absolutely no evidence for how matter behaves when all of the matter in the visible universe is shrunk down to the size of a sub-atomic particle.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Yeah, but if you extrapolate backwards way beyond the level where there is any observable evidence ridiculous conclusions are to be expected.

Sure. But there’s evidence for most of this. I don’t say conclusive evidence, but scientific evidence none the less.

eg. The whole universe.
Evidence, space is very close to flat out to the finite limits of observation, so it makes sense to infer that this flatness extends beyond what we can see.

That makes no sense at all to me.

But that’s not really the point in this case.

The point is that we have absolutely no evidence for how matter behaves when all of the matter in the visible universe is shrunk down to the size of a sub-atomic particle.

We have large scale evidence that it ends up like this.

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

Sure. But there’s evidence for most of this. I don’t say conclusive evidence, but scientific evidence none the less.

eg. The whole universe.
Evidence, space is very close to flat out to the finite limits of observation, so it makes sense to infer that this flatness extends beyond what we can see.

That makes no sense at all to me.

But that’s not really the point in this case.

The point is that we have absolutely no evidence for how matter behaves when all of the matter in the visible universe is shrunk down to the size of a sub-atomic particle.

We have large scale evidence that it ends up like this.

It seems that at least one of us misunderstood what the other just said.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Yeah, but if you extrapolate backwards way beyond the level where there is any observable evidence ridiculous conclusions are to be expected.

Sure. But there’s evidence for most of this. I don’t say conclusive evidence, but scientific evidence none the less.

eg. The whole universe.
Evidence, space is very close to flat out to the finite limits of observation, so it makes sense to infer that this flatness extends beyond what we can see.

That makes no sense at all to me.

But that’s not really the point in this case.

The point is that we have absolutely no evidence for how matter behaves when all of the matter in the visible universe is shrunk down to the size of a sub-atomic particle.

How would something this dense “explode” into the big bang, how could it overcome gravity (or was gravity created after it expanded)

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

That makes no sense at all to me.

But that’s not really the point in this case.

The point is that we have absolutely no evidence for how matter behaves when all of the matter in the visible universe is shrunk down to the size of a sub-atomic particle.

We have large scale evidence that it ends up like this.

It seems that at least one of us misunderstood what the other just said.

Don’t worry just think of us as a large language model, no understanding, just masses of data fitting patterns of response.