RE: [asa] George & heliocentricity (center of the universe)

Skrogh said:
" I would say, no. The earth is at the center of the universe, but so is every other point."

I have heard the balloon analogy before, and I would say I disagree with you when you say 'everything' is at the center. I would rather say nothing is at the center as there is no center (there is no center on the surface of a ball).

My appeal goes to the definition of "center."

But there is more than one definition for 'center' so I suppose the confusion goes there (def. 1 and 3 below; I was thinking more of 3, Sandage is referring to 1). From:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/center

cen*ter
1. A point or place that is equally distant from the sides or outer boundaries of something; the middle: the center of a stage.
2.
a. A point equidistant from the vertices of a regular polygon.
b. A point equidistant from all points on the circumference of a circle or on the surface of a sphere.
3. A point around which something rotates or revolves: The sun is the center of our solar system.

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of skrogh
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:25 PM
To: ASA
Subject: RE: [asa] George & heliocentricity

I would say, no. The earth is at the center of the universe, but so is every
other point. Allan Sandage put it this way in an explanation of the Big
Bang.

"It is not as if the universe and the galaxies are expanding into a space
that is already there, space itself is expanding, carrying the galaxies with
it. The expansion creates the space. One can conceptualize this as the
two-dimensional analog, as the surface of a balloon. Mark a bunch of dots on
the balloon and blow it up and then imagine yourself on any of the dots. You
seem to be in the center, and all of the dots are moving away from you. Now,
take the air out of the balloon and look what dots do. All the dots come
toward every other dot. If you could take all the air out of a perfect
balloon, the surface itself would go to zero. All the dots would be back at
one place at on time, every place is the center of the expansion. When I
talk about this, the question that always comes up is, 'Well, can you find
the center of the expansion?' Every place is the center of the expansion,
there is no one center to the beginning, every thing was back at one place
and every place and every time was identical, in the beginning."

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Received on Mon Jul 13 13:51:01 2009