![]() ![]() While this is easiest to comprehend in two dimensions, the same holds true for three dimensional spaces. (In reality this is the farthest you can walk in a straight line without drowning.) ![]() The surface of the Earth, on the other hand, has no edge and thus is unbounded: regardless of what direction you choose to walk, you will eventually end up back where you started. The surface of a table for example, is bounded (also finite and flat, but we’ll come back to those later). Something is bounded simply if it has an edge. As we’ll see, all three are related but refer to slightly different things:īounded: This is the most straightforward of the three. So, the probability that the universe is finite and unbounded is - roughly speaking - 0.5%.Įxactly why the Universe’s flatness precludes it from also being finite and unbounded is a bit more subtle, and requires a precise understanding of what we mean when we say the Universe is ‘flat’, ‘finite’, or ‘bounded’. To be specific, the most recent measurements (2015) from the Planck collaboration find the Universe is flat to within 0.5%. (A finite but unbounded universe is typically referred to as a ‘closed’ universe.) Since we are pretty much certain the Universe is flat, the chances of it being closed instead are correspondingly small. The short answer to this question is that the Universe cannot be both flat and closed. But what exactly are the chances of the Universe being finite but unbounded? I know it’s an unanswered question in cosmology, but is there any estimate? Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team, Source.īased on the 2001 WMAP results, the Universe is flat with a 0.4% margin of error. ![]() A timeline of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day. ![]()
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