***** Or, alternatively, get yourself a time machine. So long as you're okay with being stuck there. Because, you know, taking a time machine forward is a whole lot easier (read possible) then taking it back.
This is so interesting... the concept that there might be an edge is mind blowing. How does EVERYTHING just physically end? But it's equally amazing that it doesn't have an edge, which makes me think... what is the definition of infinite? How does something NOT just physically end?
Exactly, I feel like it'd be equally as impossible sounding either way - if there's no edge, how is it possible that something just never ends? If there is an edge, how can our everything have a physical limit? But one of those options has to be similar to the truth, right? It's crazy. I love it.
I remember being like 4 years old, staring at the ceiling in my room, and thinking that the texture in the ceiling looked like stars. I wondered if space ever ended. I asked my dad, and he said "there was no way to know for sure, but if it does end, there has to be something on the other side." I'm gonna leave it at that. I like this video because he put some logical thought into it, but it's still only a speculation. I like to think Space is, always will be and always has been, and has existed forever, and will continue to exist forever. Putting more thought into it hurts my brain. Space is something we cannot understand. Maybe because we are so familiar with borders and "edges" we can not comprehend that it just goes on forever. Not necessarily expanding, (because with that said, it would make sense to say that it is expanding into something) I believe that if you were to traverse Space, in a linear path, it would be like traveling down a number line. And this is a number line you can travel on forever. Starting at Zero, there is stuff behind and beyond you. When you get to 100, there are still numbers beyond it. 1,00,000 and there are still numbers beyond it. That's linear. But in reality space exist on and XYandZ Axis/dimension. (some would say there are even Axis/dimensions that we cannot comprehend/perceive) That's a whole other theory on it's own. And Now my brain is hurting.
well if you think of existence and the universe as one thing then Space/time is essentially forever No matter what you do. Existing before existence is redundant and gets us nowhere. So as long as there is a space time there is everything. and vice verse. There is no other logical alternative to have time begin or end, as that means there has to be a time before time. in otherwords, A and B time.Two different structures for the exact same law. so even if time behaved differently it was still Space/Time And not confusingly before the begining.
Time has always existed. But the universe was a creation of a demension of time as humans know it. All matter depends on time. Just like you cannot stop time from ticking or numbers from adding the universe has no end. Before the universe there was nothing but heaven
I remember where I was when I found out that Hank died. It is such a shame that such a talented and kind person would be taken from us so young. Rest in peace Hank Green 1980-2012
Thank you, Hank. We started studying the universe and whatnot about a week ago in my Global class. The second the teacher started talking about the edge of the universe, I interrupted him with the facts in this video and proceeded to show him this. It was a good class.
I know it's what you said, and I remember saying that you are correct lol. The expansion of space does not only exist between large far-away galaxies, it exists between everything. It's more noticeable between large far-away stuff, because the further away things are from each other the faster they move away from each other.
Is anyone else getting annoyed that Hank's videos are always so much quieter than John's? I hope this problem is fixed soon. (I'm watching them all 2007-today, by the way...)
@DriftingAimlessly just wanted to mention that some theories regard the 4th dimension as "time", but other theories talk about the 4th dimension as something else entirely, so it just depends which angle you look at it from.
I have a theory the universe is a sphere/round just like the Earth, therefore if you travel across the universe in one direction, eventually you will come back to Earth the other way. It would explain why everything in space and space itself looks the same (the light gets curved round as it travels/mirrored)...
It could also be round but not in the way that humans commonly perceive it to be, the Earth in our point of view is infinite if we 'walk' across it, a concept you just stated, because we move 2-dimensionally across a 3-dimensional space, but when moving across the universe, we have a new range of motion in 3 dimensions, which means that it could be possible that we cannot perceive it because we are within it, but the shape of the universe very well could be round on a four dimensional level (rendering it infinite to us unless we were to step out of it and observe our universe from the 'outside'). It may actually be finite when observing four dimensionally.
Actually physicists already thought about it and even measured the curvature of the universe and "We now know that the universe is flat with only a 0.4% margin of error" quote from NASA. So for the moment all evidence point toward a flat universe rather than a closed/round one.
Alex Popp Flat in the third dimension. If it was curved, it would be curved in the fourth dimension. A 4 dimensional sphere if you can theoretically understand it.
I work at a community television studio once a week, and during the regular crew pizza break, we got onto the topic of space (I don't know how, we often take strange tangents). Our tech guy asked where the centre of the universe is. Our AD said "The universe has no centre..." and without thinking I finished "...because there is no edge" We both looked at each other and shouted DFTBA! We've worked together for over a year, and just found out we were nerdfighters, hahaha
The nerd camp (I know) had a class that tried to define infinity in as many ways as possible. One of those ways was to prove that there was more than one level of infinity (like infinity times infinity or infinity to the power of infinity). I was happy to see you mention that :)
We went to Niagara Falls not long ago and as we approached it, my family started to say, "There's the edge!" and "I see the edge!" along with other phrases of the like. I immediately blurted "NOEDGE!" without thinking.
"So infinities are bigger than other infinities." The saying itself didn't blow my mind as much as that minutephysics has a video titled that, AND THEY TOOK THE TITLE FROM JOHN! HOLY CRAP, I NEVER NOTICED THAT! It's amazing how interconnected all the CZcams stars are, especially ones with similar demographic audiences.
I think that it's actually kind of comforting that the universe is infinite. It would be more scary if there was this border to existence as we know it; a place where somehow, there is nothing. Personally that just scares the sh#t out of me. I think the universe's edgelessness is also good because there will always be more to learn about the place in which we reside, and more of it to explore. Being a person who loves learning and exploration that brings me a lot of comfort.
Kinda both, what we think when we hear the word expansion is the distance between two or more points growing bigger as time passes and that is something that does happen in the universe, the expansion of space - literally space, the place the universe "takes up". 3 physicists got the Nobel prize in 2011 for showing that the expansion of space is happening at an accelerated speed. Hank is not absolutely incorrect, but it appears he mixed up 2 concepts. Google "metric expansion of space" for more!
That, my friendly fellow youtuber, is correct! The universe is not evenly dense and its density is reducing. The redshift caused by the doppler effect shows us that everything in the universe is moving away from everything else. The further away things are from each other the faster they move away from each other. If you take a look at a picture made by the Hubble telescope you will see objects of many colors, the red ones are the ones that are the furthest away from us.
In two of my physics courses we talked about the universe and it's shape. One of my teachers told us a theory, like our planet is a three dimensional ball it's two dimensional surface has no edge (the reason we can't fall off the edge of the earth). If the universe is of a higher dimension for example the fourth dimension it might bend in a way that our three dimensional surface has no edge.
I had the awesome opportunity today to see a presentation today from a professor at my university (montana state, sorry Hank I'm a bobcat fan) give a short presentation on his research of whether the universe was infinite or not. Super interesting!
They don't fill in the space. If they're close enough to each other, they can hold onto each other for a fairly long amount of time due to gravitational force. But the further away things are from each other, the weaker is their gravitational pull and that's why the distance of stellar objects between each other determines how fast they "grow apart", that's why the redshift can tell us how far away things are from us.
I was watching a Futurama rerun this afternoon. There was a part where they visited the scenic "Edge of the Universe" and I couldn't help but shout "DUDE, THERE'S /NO/ EDGE!" at my television.
When I was 15, learning that I was the center of the universe and the universe was constantly expanding from me was the coolest thing EVER. Nothing like scientific evidence to prove that I am the actual center of the universe.
It's finite but there's also no edge. Curled dimensions. Simple. There are more than three spatial dimensions, but the rest are tiny. The three expanding suddenly was the big bang, but they didn't uncurl, they just grew. Like the common metaphor of a balloon being blown up: It's finite, it's expanding, and it's also infinite (you can go in one direction and never get to the edge).
@The64v no, it's reletive to you, specifically the optical receptors in your eyes, what you see has a limit, technically, that limit is the edge of the observable universe for you, for me however it is slightly different as i do not occupy the same space as you do, hope that helped!
Heh, did you see that animation with the superhero-scientist dude and the particle cannon? Perhaps. I am not saying that it is an edge as we know it - just that there is an edge (that is, if the universe is not infinite). In order to even "hit" the edge, we will have to travel at beyond the speed of light, so the edge will never be neither reached nor observed, but it might be like a big ball, and if an edge is hit by a ship, it will not be stopped, but sent to follow one of the curves.
Actually, when you get to square number 2,147,483,647 on the x or y axis, the position number overflows and everything crashes. Also, near the edge of the map, strange formations start to apear
Exactly. Though what exactly do we mean when we say the universe is expanding? The observable universe is expanding, while the entire universe which includes the things further than 13.7 billion light years away might be infinite and not expanding. By "expansion" one might also mean the growth of of distances between objects/matter/galaxies in the observable universe. At this point it kinda becomes a matter of semantics lol.
Although the universe isn't expanding into empty space, the distance between our galaxies does in-fact shift when our galaxy expands--our galaxy isn't expanding on some crazy space-time level that we cannot observe, we noticed it in the first place because stuff was getting further away from and closer to us. IIRC, our galaxy is due to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in something like 6 billion years.
The idea of a bigger or infinite universe comes from the fact that the things we see when we observe the universe are things that have emitted light about 13 billion years ago. The light of whatever is beyond the "edge" of the observable universe didn't reach us, yet. The universe may be infinite but it's only 13.7 billion years old and that's why the things we see are in a 13.7 billion light-year radius, means there might be more behind our "horizon".
Astrophysics can be very hard to grasp, especially if you aren't math/physics mentally oriented. Congratulations Hank, you've given me an analogy I can use to explain the expanding universe to people who aren't passionate of the physical sciences.
(continued) By no edge, he just means that the universe can continue to expand because there is nothing to stop it. I think it makes more sense to say that big bang occurred in the 3d space, and the space that it is expanding is 3d. I just think that because we can trace back to where the universe orginally started.
Today, I was talking about U2 to my classmates, and I had brought up the fact that everyone knows Bono and The Edge, but they don't know the bassist or the drummers name. After a while, a student said "The Edge? who's that? I know Bono, but... who's the edge?" I responded with "You only know Bono? No Edge?" Immediately once I heard myself say that unintentionally, I cracked up, and thought of you guys! :)
Edward Spoonhands is the name of one of Hank's songs, it's on his first album "So Jokes". You can listen to it in this video /watch?v=1Mxi2DvIvZs it starts at 1:00 :)
But the problem with that analogy is that the jug its self is the beginning of the end or an edge. Also, if we can show that space is moving away from us and constantly "expanding" than wouldn't that indicate that it is in fact growing and has an end. The vast emptiness of space is made of stuff and that stuff is filling more and more of the places that have no stuff, and where that stuff meets parts where there is no stuff that to me would qualify as an edge. I really hope that makes sense.
this is something that ive been thinking about for years, if the univers dose have an edge whats beyond it? is there just nothing? and if there is no edge then the univers never ends which is just awesome and freakin crazy. i have overthought this to the point i dream about it...i love it
That's the thing, there is no real "beyond". One theory says that if you move "leave" the universe from one side, you just re-appear on the other. This seems incomprehensible for us and it kinda is. Another fellow youtuber used the balloon analogy and it's not that bad. If we'd project the universe's space onto a 2D surface, a balloon's surface would do fairly well. The balloon's surface has no real edge and it expands (when you inflate it). Balloons have a finite expanding surface, yet no edge.
I heard of this theory that everything in space might just be a hologram of information stored at the edge of the universe. That would not only mean that the universe actually has a edge, but that we are the edge.
In this video from 2012, Hank says: when you look out into the night sky, you are the center of the observable universe (0:26) In yesterday's video (2021), John gives as a "mindblower" to Hank that in fact, when you look out into the night sky, you are the center of the observable universe (czcams.com/video/b65D6i7K8is/video.html). Hank then kinda corrects him, not realizing that he was the one who put the idea in John's head in the first place. 9 years ago.
Would it make sense if the universe is a glome? (A 4-d sphere.) I learned about the 4th dimension in geometry class of all places. My teacher was saying how scientists have theorized that if you just go out into space in a straight line, you'll eventually end up where you started, similar to how an ant walking in a straight line around a tree would eventually get back to its starting point. I also saw Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos", and it suggested that black holes are spheres,...
well, if the Planck length is the smallest meaningful measurement, then its inverse should be the largest meaningful. (Thats a plug for a show on Max Planck.) The issue of the edge is really a semantics one. If there is no edge, then the wave functions of all particles are infinite--but they are not. Furthermore, if you consider that spacetime is a function of mass, which is not infinite, then spacetime must be likewise finite. [Mandelbrot fractal edge.]
Nobody can actually imagine the true shape of the universe. But the normal Balloon that can be expanded is the closest thing we've got to it. Don't try too hard imagining the actual universe. At least the "no edge" is quite obvious on a balloon surface. No edge simply means you can go on straight ahead forever without coming to a sudden end, but you might come to the same point in your journey eventually. - like if you walk on the earth, or if you move across the balloon's surface.
I've always questioned the concept of the edge of the universe... One time I asked someone what goes on after the edge of the universe. Nothing? Or do we just hit a big wall, or what?
9 years later and this is still in my head (I didn't realise this was 9 years old!) The universe having no edge is still my favourite fact of the universe:)
Photons don't travel through space, electromagnetic waves traverse space while photons are information transmitting particles that convey the electromagnetic force and only exist as long as information needs to be conveyed.
I was always interested in the theory that like the earth the universe is round- but 3-dimensionally round.. Basically meaning that if you continue to travel in one direction constantly you will eventually end up where you started- except there is no particular direction in which you must travel or place where it "turns over" ...
Like this upload! One thing though: it couldn't be that the universe was precisely even distributed. As Hawking explained, the imperfections of the evenness in the first milliseconds after the big bang, caused matter to clump together, to cause stars and planets and whatnots. If everything would be EXACTLY evenly distributed, than all the gravitational pulls would even each other out.
@flamingfigures The frequencies can happen in different quantities and configurations, I guess. And the future depends on the past from our frame of reference. Physicists did an experiment where a particle beam was guided into two paths (or something like that) When the scientist flipped the switch to redirect it, it had already chosen its path. It means that his/her/their observation changed the outcome of it's experiment. I personally believe that there are infinite cycling reference frames
At 1:45 you say that the galaxies are not moving away from each other, but isn't that exactly what is happening and the reason galaxies have a redshift, with further galaxies having a stronger redshift?
"How big is the universe?"
"Hella"
Ahh hella. My old favorite word
Like, dude, NO EDGE
Hank, you need to let your clone out more often.
No edge? How will I ever find the resturant at the end of the universe?
***** Or, alternatively, get yourself a time machine. So long as you're okay with being stuck there. Because, you know, taking a time machine forward is a whole lot easier (read possible) then taking it back.
Go to frogstar world b and wait a few years
@nifflertoast Earth science teachers are not known for their comprehensive understanding of astrophysics.
Dude, NO EDGE!
I love "no edge" Hank so much lol.
I'm just going to start going to people and whispering or screaming (depending on the circumstance) "No edge."
A nerdfighter from Tunisia
This is so interesting... the concept that there might be an edge is mind blowing. How does EVERYTHING just physically end? But it's equally amazing that it doesn't have an edge, which makes me think... what is the definition of infinite? How does something NOT just physically end?
Exactly, I feel like it'd be equally as impossible sounding either way - if there's no edge, how is it possible that something just never ends? If there is an edge, how can our everything have a physical limit? But one of those options has to be similar to the truth, right? It's crazy. I love it.
It doesn't end because it is the creation of existence. Just like numbers. No matter how many numbers you have you can always add one more
Thanks for that existential crisis… I did have stuff to do today but I’ve rescheduled to stare at the sky, mind falling out my ear
I love the TFIOS plug.
I didn't know Hank could be so edgy
eyy..t years ago!
I remember being like 4 years old, staring at the ceiling in my room, and thinking that the texture in the ceiling looked like stars. I wondered if space ever ended. I asked my dad, and he said "there was no way to know for sure, but if it does end, there has to be something on the other side." I'm gonna leave it at that.
I like this video because he put some logical thought into it, but it's still only a speculation. I like to think Space is, always will be and always has been, and has existed forever, and will continue to exist forever. Putting more thought into it hurts my brain. Space is something we cannot understand. Maybe because we are so familiar with borders and "edges" we can not comprehend that it just goes on forever. Not necessarily expanding, (because with that said, it would make sense to say that it is expanding into something) I believe that if you were to traverse Space, in a linear path, it would be like traveling down a number line. And this is a number line you can travel on forever. Starting at Zero, there is stuff behind and beyond you. When you get to 100, there are still numbers beyond it. 1,00,000 and there are still numbers beyond it. That's linear. But in reality space exist on and XYandZ Axis/dimension. (some would say there are even Axis/dimensions that we cannot comprehend/perceive) That's a whole other theory on it's own. And Now my brain is hurting.
Well said
well if you think of existence and the universe as one thing then Space/time is essentially forever No matter what you do. Existing before existence is redundant and gets us nowhere. So as long as there is a space time there is everything. and vice verse. There is no other logical alternative to have time begin or end, as that means there has to be a time before time. in otherwords, A and B time.Two different structures for the exact same law. so even if time behaved differently it was still Space/Time And not confusingly before the begining.
Time has always existed. But the universe was a creation of a demension of time as humans know it. All matter depends on time. Just like you cannot stop time from ticking or numbers from adding the universe has no end. Before the universe there was nothing but heaven
"No Edge!" ••• "No Edggggge!" "Ok that one was creepy."
Hank, you know what else has no edge? A Klein Bottle.
You're my favorite breakfast food
How is it possible that Hank hasn't won an Oscar for these videos?! Cinematographical masterpieces, I tell you.
I remember where I was when I found out that Hank died. It is such a shame that such a talented and kind person would be taken from us so young. Rest in peace Hank Green 1980-2012
What
... No edge. THE FUCK THERE'S NO EDGE??? Oh my god.
So many nerdgasms in one video, I can't
Thank you, Hank. We started studying the universe and whatnot about a week ago in my Global class. The second the teacher started talking about the edge of the universe, I interrupted him with the facts in this video and proceeded to show him this. It was a good class.
I know it's what you said, and I remember saying that you are correct lol. The expansion of space does not only exist between large far-away galaxies, it exists between everything. It's more noticeable between large far-away stuff, because the further away things are from each other the faster they move away from each other.
Dude... No edge.
Is anyone else getting annoyed that Hank's videos are always so much quieter than John's? I hope this problem is fixed soon. (I'm watching them all 2007-today, by the way...)
Love that you sing "Edge of glory" at the end XDD
@DriftingAimlessly just wanted to mention that some theories regard the 4th dimension as "time", but other theories talk about the 4th dimension as something else entirely, so it just depends which angle you look at it from.
I have a theory the universe is a sphere/round just like the Earth, therefore if you travel across the universe in one direction, eventually you will come back to Earth the other way. It would explain why everything in space and space itself looks the same (the light gets curved round as it travels/mirrored)...
It could also be round but not in the way that humans commonly perceive it to be, the Earth in our point of view is infinite if we 'walk' across it, a concept you just stated, because we move 2-dimensionally across a 3-dimensional space, but when moving across the universe, we have a new range of motion in 3 dimensions, which means that it could be possible that we cannot perceive it because we are within it, but the shape of the universe very well could be round on a four dimensional level (rendering it infinite to us unless we were to step out of it and observe our universe from the 'outside'). It may actually be finite when observing four dimensionally.
Pierre Kingbo There's also an important difference between the words "there" and "their", sooooo. . .
Actually physicists already thought about it and even measured the curvature of the universe and "We now know that the universe is flat with only a 0.4% margin of error" quote from NASA.
So for the moment all evidence point toward a flat universe rather than a closed/round one.
Sarastro404 How can you have a flat universe? The sucker is three-dimensional.(as far as we can tell)
Alex Popp Flat in the third dimension. If it was curved, it would be curved in the fourth dimension. A 4 dimensional sphere if you can theoretically understand it.
so edgy
I work at a community television studio once a week, and during the regular crew pizza break, we got onto the topic of space (I don't know how, we often take strange tangents). Our tech guy asked where the centre of the universe is. Our AD said "The universe has no centre..." and without thinking I finished "...because there is no edge" We both looked at each other and shouted DFTBA! We've worked together for over a year, and just found out we were nerdfighters, hahaha
Those last few seconds gives me a laugh every time :')
What if the universe is really tiny compared to whatever it is in?If the universe is expanding is there something that is not the universe???
What the **** was I talking about? Just realized time made me dumber
Iconic
Edge of Glory has been in my head for the past few days. I just got it out yesterday. Thank you for putting it back in hank. No edge!
The nerd camp (I know) had a class that tried to define infinity in as many ways as possible. One of those ways was to prove that there was more than one level of infinity (like infinity times infinity or infinity to the power of infinity). I was happy to see you mention that :)
So... the universe has no edge, no center, and expands?
I got it! The universe is a BUBBLE!!!
NO. FREAKIN. EDGE.
We went to Niagara Falls not long ago and as we approached it, my family started to say, "There's the edge!" and "I see the edge!" along with other phrases of the like. I immediately blurted "NOEDGE!" without thinking.
I turned on the vlogbrothers while I was doing my HW. I wasn't actually listening, Hank and John's voices just make me feel smarter.
DUDE. NO EDGE.
No edge.
"So infinities are bigger than other infinities."
The saying itself didn't blow my mind as much as that minutephysics has a video titled that, AND THEY TOOK THE TITLE FROM JOHN! HOLY CRAP, I NEVER NOTICED THAT! It's amazing how interconnected all the CZcams stars are, especially ones with similar demographic audiences.
My friend recently mentioned the "edge of the universe" and my response was "The universe doesn't have an edge." Thanks, Hank!
I think that it's actually kind of comforting that the universe is infinite. It would be more scary if there was this border to existence as we know it; a place where somehow, there is nothing. Personally that just scares the sh#t out of me. I think the universe's edgelessness is also good because there will always be more to learn about the place in which we reside, and more of it to explore. Being a person who loves learning and exploration that brings me a lot of comfort.
Kinda both, what we think when we hear the word expansion is the distance between two or more points growing bigger as time passes and that is something that does happen in the universe, the expansion of space - literally space, the place the universe "takes up". 3 physicists got the Nobel prize in 2011 for showing that the expansion of space is happening at an accelerated speed. Hank is not absolutely incorrect, but it appears he mixed up 2 concepts. Google "metric expansion of space" for more!
That, my friendly fellow youtuber, is correct! The universe is not evenly dense and its density is reducing. The redshift caused by the doppler effect shows us that everything in the universe is moving away from everything else. The further away things are from each other the faster they move away from each other. If you take a look at a picture made by the Hubble telescope you will see objects of many colors, the red ones are the ones that are the furthest away from us.
I remember this being the first vlogbrothers video I ever watched, way back in 2012 and I haven't looked back since :)
2:37 is, I believe, the most precious vlogbrothers moment so far.
In two of my physics courses we talked about the universe and it's shape. One of my teachers told us a theory, like our planet is a three dimensional ball it's two dimensional surface has no edge (the reason we can't fall off the edge of the earth). If the universe is of a higher dimension for example the fourth dimension it might bend in a way that our three dimensional surface has no edge.
10 years of no edge… wow how time flies!
I took an English Lit exam today. Proud to say i got the phrase 'NO EDGE' nicely into the poetry section :3 Felt awesome.
I had the awesome opportunity today to see a presentation today from a professor at my university (montana state, sorry Hank I'm a bobcat fan) give a short presentation on his research of whether the universe was infinite or not. Super interesting!
i loved your subtle product placement for your brother's book
They don't fill in the space. If they're close enough to each other, they can hold onto each other for a fairly long amount of time due to gravitational force. But the further away things are from each other, the weaker is their gravitational pull and that's why the distance of stellar objects between each other determines how fast they "grow apart", that's why the redshift can tell us how far away things are from us.
There is no edge to my love for the Vlogbrothers channel and all affiliated channels.
"The Universe is expanding... that should help ease the traffic." - Stephen Wright.
I was watching a Futurama rerun this afternoon. There was a part where they visited the scenic "Edge of the Universe" and I couldn't help but shout "DUDE, THERE'S /NO/ EDGE!" at my television.
When I was 15, learning that I was the center of the universe and the universe was constantly expanding from me was the coolest thing EVER. Nothing like scientific evidence to prove that I am the actual center of the universe.
It's finite but there's also no edge. Curled dimensions. Simple. There are more than three spatial dimensions, but the rest are tiny. The three expanding suddenly was the big bang, but they didn't uncurl, they just grew. Like the common metaphor of a balloon being blown up: It's finite, it's expanding, and it's also infinite (you can go in one direction and never get to the edge).
i have not watched youtube videos since the change of the menus.... this was nice to watch hank again....
You know how sometimes you look out at the night sky and feel so very small and inconsequential?
Yeah, this makes me feel absolutely miniscule.
@The64v no, it's reletive to you, specifically the optical receptors in your eyes, what you see has a limit, technically, that limit is the edge of the observable universe for you, for me however it is slightly different as i do not occupy the same space as you do, hope that helped!
It's ridiculous and probably unhealthy how happy this video makes me. No Edge Hank is kind of my hero
Heh, did you see that animation with the superhero-scientist dude and the particle cannon?
Perhaps. I am not saying that it is an edge as we know it - just that there is an edge (that is, if the universe is not infinite). In order to even "hit" the edge, we will have to travel at beyond the speed of light, so the edge will never be neither reached nor observed, but it might be like a big ball, and if an edge is hit by a ship, it will not be stopped, but sent to follow one of the curves.
Actually, when you get to square number 2,147,483,647 on the x or y axis, the position number overflows and everything crashes. Also, near the edge of the map, strange formations start to apear
Exactly. Though what exactly do we mean when we say the universe is expanding? The observable universe is expanding, while the entire universe which includes the things further than 13.7 billion light years away might be infinite and not expanding. By "expansion" one might also mean the growth of of distances between objects/matter/galaxies in the observable universe. At this point it kinda becomes a matter of semantics lol.
I think this might be one of my favorite Vlog Brothers videos of all time! I have seriously watched it at least 10 times.
Although the universe isn't expanding into empty space, the distance between our galaxies does in-fact shift when our galaxy expands--our galaxy isn't expanding on some crazy space-time level that we cannot observe, we noticed it in the first place because stuff was getting further away from and closer to us. IIRC, our galaxy is due to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in something like 6 billion years.
2:25 I love his face when he holds up the book
and I think fanboy!clone should be a thing
The idea of a bigger or infinite universe comes from the fact that the things we see when we observe the universe are things that have emitted light about 13 billion years ago. The light of whatever is beyond the "edge" of the observable universe didn't reach us, yet. The universe may be infinite but it's only 13.7 billion years old and that's why the things we see are in a 13.7 billion light-year radius, means there might be more behind our "horizon".
Astrophysics can be very hard to grasp, especially if you aren't math/physics mentally oriented. Congratulations Hank, you've given me an analogy I can use to explain the expanding universe to people who aren't passionate of the physical sciences.
(continued) By no edge, he just means that the universe can continue to expand because there is nothing to stop it. I think it makes more sense to say that big bang occurred in the 3d space, and the space that it is expanding is 3d. I just think that because we can trace back to where the universe orginally started.
Today, I was talking about U2 to my classmates, and I had brought up the fact that everyone knows Bono and The Edge, but they don't know the bassist or the drummers name. After a while, a student said "The Edge? who's that? I know Bono, but... who's the edge?"
I responded with "You only know Bono? No Edge?"
Immediately once I heard myself say that unintentionally, I cracked up, and thought of you guys! :)
Waaahhhhh! How did it take me so long to notice????!!! The John and Hank plushies I made are in the background! In the bottom right corner!!
Edward Spoonhands is the name of one of Hank's songs, it's on his first album "So Jokes". You can listen to it in this video /watch?v=1Mxi2DvIvZs it starts at 1:00 :)
I liked this video for two reasons.
1) Because Hank teaching us anything about anything is almost always enjoyable.
2) Hank singing Gaga. The end.
But the problem with that analogy is that the jug its self is the beginning of the end or an edge. Also, if we can show that space is moving away from us and constantly "expanding" than wouldn't that indicate that it is in fact growing and has an end. The vast emptiness of space is made of stuff and that stuff is filling more and more of the places that have no stuff, and where that stuff meets parts where there is no stuff that to me would qualify as an edge. I really hope that makes sense.
I've literally managed to bring up how the universe has no edge in every conversation for almost a week now...is that sad?
this is something that ive been thinking about for years, if the univers dose have an edge whats beyond it? is there just nothing? and if there is no edge then the univers never ends which is just awesome and freakin crazy. i have overthought this to the point i dream about it...i love it
No edge Hank is so adorable at 2:35!
That's the thing, there is no real "beyond". One theory says that if you move "leave" the universe from one side, you just re-appear on the other. This seems incomprehensible for us and it kinda is. Another fellow youtuber used the balloon analogy and it's not that bad. If we'd project the universe's space onto a 2D surface, a balloon's surface would do fairly well. The balloon's surface has no real edge and it expands (when you inflate it). Balloons have a finite expanding surface, yet no edge.
I love every single time Hank makes a TFIOS reference.
the start of "NO EDGE!!" so cool!!!
I heard of this theory that everything in space might just be a hologram of information stored at the edge of the universe. That would not only mean that the universe actually has a edge, but that we are the edge.
I am pleased that when I type NO EDGE into youtube, this is the first result that comes up.
I liked the subtle reference to TFIOS, Hank. It made me smile :)
About the expansion of the universe: The "Big Bang" was everywhere, it's just that "everywhere" was really close together.
In this video from 2012, Hank says: when you look out into the night sky, you are the center of the observable universe (0:26)
In yesterday's video (2021), John gives as a "mindblower" to Hank that in fact, when you look out into the night sky, you are the center of the observable universe (czcams.com/video/b65D6i7K8is/video.html). Hank then kinda corrects him, not realizing that he was the one who put the idea in John's head in the first place. 9 years ago.
Would it make sense if the universe is a glome? (A 4-d sphere.) I learned about the 4th dimension in geometry class of all places. My teacher was saying how scientists have theorized that if you just go out into space in a straight line, you'll eventually end up where you started, similar to how an ant walking in a straight line around a tree would eventually get back to its starting point. I also saw Brian Greene's "The Fabric of the Cosmos", and it suggested that black holes are spheres,...
There's a leading edge of creation and we experience it in the "now". Now is the leading edge of creation.
well, if the Planck length is the smallest meaningful measurement, then its inverse should be the largest meaningful. (Thats a plug for a show on Max Planck.)
The issue of the edge is really a semantics one. If there is no edge, then the wave functions of all particles are infinite--but they are not. Furthermore, if you consider that spacetime is a function of mass, which is not infinite, then spacetime must be likewise finite. [Mandelbrot fractal edge.]
Nobody can actually imagine the true shape of the universe. But the normal Balloon that can be expanded is the closest thing we've got to it. Don't try too hard imagining the actual universe.
At least the "no edge" is quite obvious on a balloon surface. No edge simply means you can go on straight ahead forever without coming to a sudden end, but you might come to the same point in your journey eventually. - like if you walk on the earth, or if you move across the balloon's surface.
I need to watch this many more times to wrap my mind around it all.
Many. More. Times.
I've always questioned the concept of the edge of the universe... One time I asked someone what goes on after the edge of the universe. Nothing? Or do we just hit a big wall, or what?
Aw, the No Edge Hank's face when Hank said there might be an edge...I feel bad for him.
9 years later and this is still in my head (I didn't realise this was 9 years old!)
The universe having no edge is still my favourite fact of the universe:)
Photons don't travel through space, electromagnetic waves traverse space while photons are information transmitting particles that convey the electromagnetic force and only exist as long as information needs to be conveyed.
Aren't photons waves and particles?
I think they might be particles of light, like a 'photo'
I was always interested in the theory that like the earth the universe is round- but 3-dimensionally round..
Basically meaning that if you continue to travel in one direction constantly you will eventually end up where you started- except there is no particular direction in which you must travel or place where it "turns over"
...
Like this upload! One thing though: it couldn't be that the universe was precisely even distributed. As Hawking explained, the imperfections of the evenness in the first milliseconds after the big bang, caused matter to clump together, to cause stars and planets and whatnots.
If everything would be EXACTLY evenly distributed, than all the gravitational pulls would even each other out.
@flamingfigures The frequencies can happen in different quantities and configurations, I guess. And the future depends on the past from our frame of reference. Physicists did an experiment where a particle beam was guided into two paths (or something like that) When the scientist flipped the switch to redirect it, it had already chosen its path. It means that his/her/their observation changed the outcome of it's experiment. I personally believe that there are infinite cycling reference frames
The surface of a balloon is an easy example of something that expands, but has no edge.
I love the "no edge" Hank's hair. That'd be a good look.
At 1:45 you say that the galaxies are not moving away from each other, but isn't that exactly what is happening and the reason galaxies have a redshift, with further galaxies having a stronger redshift?