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May 20, 2024

If we consider the spacetime of the universe to be four-dimensional, does the Big Bang lie in its center?

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Apologies for the (hopefully now somewhat less) clickbait-y title. Now, of course, I know that the Big Bang did not happen at any point connected to a single point in our current $3$-dimensional observable universe by a one-dimensional causal curve. I also know that at any point in the universe, all other points seem to be moving away from that point. However, according to our current understanding of physics, the universe is (at least) $4$-dimensional. Just like how in the classical “balloon” analogy for an expanding universe, the points do in fact all move away from a common point on the interior of the balloon, all spacetime points do move away from the Big Bang, or at least some kind of cosmological horizon which surrounds it — this is how I understand going forward in time, at least. Does it make sense to think of this as a sort of “center” for the full, $4$-dimensional spacetime? Or are there further subtleties to this situation?

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