# The entire universe rotates? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 8, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634 "2025-07-08T17:37:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/21 "2025-07-10T15:31:42Z")
That sounds like one of those ‘technically the truth’ things ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/22 "2025-07-10T15:33:19Z")
OK, now I’m more confused. Suppose everything in the universe (or most) are rotating, but with their axes of rotation pointing in random directions. If the rotations don’t net out for every possible axis, do you claim that is a rotating universe. If so it seems hardly surprising that the universe would be found to be rotating. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/23 "2025-07-10T15:48:55Z")
These sorts of threads always humble me, as I usually have no idea WTF is being said. They also make me happy that this message board exists and that it contains many smart folks, all of whom, I assume, are also rotating. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/24 "2025-07-10T15:52:11Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > OK, now I’m more confused. Suppose everything in the universe (or most) are rotating, but with their axes of rotation pointing in random directions. For any finite region you look at, it will surely be true that the random rotations don’t all exactly cancel out. But as you look at larger and larger regions, it’ll get closer and closer to all canceling out. Unless there really is some master rotational bias to the Universe, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/25 "2025-07-10T16:09:04Z")
Yes I understand this. It’s a probabilistic statement in general, so we should interpret your previous statement about all objects rotating the same way as it really couldn’t happen unless somehow the universe imparted these rotations presumably during the big bang. And of course we’re back to the question of whether the universe (not the observable universe) is finite or not. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/26 "2025-07-10T16:20:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For any finite region you look at, it will surely be true that the random rotations don’t all exactly cancel out. But as you look at larger and larger regions, it’ll get closer and closer to all canceling out. The idea that the universe rotates comes from the JWST observation that two thirds of galaxies rotate clockwise and only one third counter-clockwise. That is far from cancelling out: [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/james-webb-space-telescope-reveals-that-most-galaxies-rotate-clockwise-180986224/](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/james-webb-space-telescope-reveals-that-most-galaxies-rotate-clockwise-180986224/) What I don’t know is whether the galaxy sample is big enough to be meaningful or is just a fluke. The article also states that another possible explanation would be that the universe is inside a black hole, which, frankly, sounds even stranger to me. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/27 "2025-07-10T16:46:45Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > the JWST observation that two thirds of galaxies rotate clockwise and only one third counter-clockwise. OK, really stupid question, how do they determine that? For example, looking at that linked pic (and many others I’ve seen) some galaxies are horizontal (WRT to the view we are seeing), some are at a 45 degree angle, some are vertical and everything in between. Why can’t the horizontal galaxies be ‘upside down’ as opposed to spinning counter-clockwise? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/28 "2025-07-10T17:06:06Z")
I don’t think your question is stupid at all. In fact, I don’t know the answer either, but there will surely be a methodology the JWST team used. They are not dumb, there must be a logic in that statement. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2025, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634/29 "2025-07-10T20:33:58Z")
I’m also confused - a room full of spinning ballerinas is not a spinning room. If all of the angular velocities in the universe don’t cancel out, surely that means it’s a universe that contains some rotating things, not a rotating universe. Unless this is ‘universe’ in the sense of ‘the set of all physical matter’ rather than ‘spacetime and everything in it’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-entire-universe-rotates/1020634.md?page=1)