# Do you think anyone will ever even come close to determining how big the unvierse is?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 27, 2001, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433 "2001-11-27T03:06:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Psycho\_Aquarius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Psycho_Aquarius)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/1 "2001-11-27T03:06:19Z")
Because if you think about it, it’s really hard to imagine
---
### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/2 "2001-11-27T03:46:44Z")
Ring or Chronos will probably be along to correct me but that’s never stopped me from taking a guess…
The Universe is infinite.
However, if we believe in a closed Universe (as was once thought but now seems to be out of favor) then you can never really tell the total size of the Universe.
Open or closed you still run into the same problem…our limits here on earth. So, you can say the Universe is at least 30 billion light years across. How do I know that? I don’t, really, but IIRC the age of the Universe is put at somewhere around 15 billion light years. For all practical purposes we are at the center of the Universe (all points are the center…or none are). Send a beam of light going ‘north’ and one going ‘south’ and 15 billion years later the two photons will be separated by 30 billion light years. Since nothing can go faster than light the size of the Universe is 30 billion light years across. Anything beyond that has zero effect on the earth and may as well not exist as far as we are concerned (at least till some aliens out there discover faster-than-light spaceships and invade us).
---
### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/3 "2001-11-27T03:48:34Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole \*
> …the age of the Universe is put at somewhere around 15 billion **light** years.
Err…make that plain old years and not ‘light’ years.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/4 "2001-11-27T03:51:16Z")
“The universe is big. I mean really big. You can’t imagine how mind-bogglingly big it is. It may seem like a long way to the corner chemist, but compared to the Universe, that’s peanuts.”
😃
---
### Author:  [@Crunchy\_Frog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crunchy_Frog)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/5 "2001-11-27T04:22:21Z")
I can answer this question, but I need a little more time. I am current working on a device that can actually measure infinite quanities. When completed, we will be able to gauge once and for all, the size of the universe and the number of digits following the decimal point in _pi_. I only need a few more items to finish building my new invention, but the doctors won’t let me have anything pointed. They even took my shoelaces! How am I supposed to measure infinity without a shoelace?
A bunch of quacks in this hospital, that’s all they are!
Now where did I leave the tinfoil?
---
### Author:  [@heptapod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heptapod)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/6 "2001-11-27T04:38:00Z")
The universe is open, not closed nor curved. Immeasurable.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid\_727000/727073.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_727000/727073.stm)
I don’t know how much more evidence has been observed along these lines or if there have been any more studies supporting the data gathered in Antarctica. I find this to be very satisfying because it’s less dramatic than the hypothesis of the “big crunch” and it fits my aesthetics where the universe ends with a whimper, quietly and dignified rather than some Jerry Bruckheimer-esque crunch which obliterates everything unless Stephen Hawking (played by Bruce Willis) can formulate the grand unified theory and have Aerosmith blare in the background.
---
### Author:  [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2001, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-think-anyone-will-ever-even-come-close-to-determining-how-big-the-unvierse-is/95433/7 "2001-11-27T07:16:43Z")
The universe is 4 times the size of my living room plus a very large constant.
Space is expanding. Matter is not being created. The universe is the same size, it’s just being spread out into more empty space.