It’s not clear that the universe was ever finitely large. At the time of the big bang, everything was packed together very densely, but there still could have been matter going out forever in every direction.
As far as I know, this is the standard position. See also this FAQ entry. A lot of people sloppily say “the universe” when they mean the observable part of the universe, and that’s what’s causing the confusion.
I think pretty much everyone agrees that the universe could have been infinitely large at the time of the big bang, but I don’t know any more than that. I’m just going off an intro to astronomy class I took in college.
It’s not clear that the universe was ever finitely large. At the time of the big bang, everything was packed together very densely, but there still could have been matter going out forever in every direction.
Do you know how common a position this is among cosmologists?
As far as I know, this is the standard position. See also this FAQ entry. A lot of people sloppily say “the universe” when they mean the observable part of the universe, and that’s what’s causing the confusion.
I think pretty much everyone agrees that the universe could have been infinitely large at the time of the big bang, but I don’t know any more than that. I’m just going off an intro to astronomy class I took in college.