All this, everything you see around you, started in a big bang, from a point smaller than the point at the end of this sentence. It as an infinitesimally small point, called a singularity. This was a huge explosion of pure energy.
Like all explosions, we expect it to have started somewhere. It is this location that we call the center of the explosion. So, if the Universe started with a big explosion, where is the center of this explosion? Here is the shocking answer:
There IS NO Center…and there is an infinite number of centers. The big bang wasn’t an explosion in space, it was an expansion of space itself. Let me explain using the analogy of a balloon. In order to get this, you have to imagine that the 2 dimensional surface of this balloon represents the 3 dimensional space of our universe. Only the surface of the balloon is the universe, not what’s on the inside which is air. The 3D space we live in is like this balloon. And the points on this balloon represent galaxies or any point in space.
When we blow up the balloon, you will see that every point is moving away from every other point. If you were living on any of these points, you would think that you were at the center of the universe because you would observe that everything is moving away from you. This is precisely what we see, when we observe the universe. On the surface of this balloon, there is no center, or you could say every point is the center since everything is moving away from every point.
So where is the center of the Universe? Everywhere is the center. I am the center of the universe, and so are you. So when your dad says something like, “you are not the center of the universe young man” – you can say, I and Arvin would beg to differ, and you would have science to back you up.
