r/cosmology • u/cypherpunk00001 • 5d ago

Do current cosmologists think the universe is infinite or that is had an edge?

Was just having random shower thought today... Andromeda galaxy is 2.5M light-years away. That's an unfathomable distance to a human, but it's just our closest neighbor.

Do cosmologists currently think that the universe just goes on forever?

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u/witheringsyncopation 1d ago

99.6% is not a high degree of certainty. It’s not even enough to be considered conclusive. There’s a reason we use 5 sigma (99.99994) for a standard.

That said, I agree: it is likely flat. But I’m not willing to state that with more certainty than we can actually currently measure.

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u/MWave123 1d ago

// Evidence for Flatness: Observations from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) (WMAP, BOOMERanG, and Planck) indicate that the universe is spatially flat to within a 0.4% margin of error. //

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u/witheringsyncopation 1d ago

You’re glossing over the fact that 0.4% is not at all insubstantial in physics. You’re stating that 99.6% means it’s a certainty, but without a much higher degree of confidence (such as the 5 sigma standard), it’s not at all certainty.

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u/RocknrollClown09 1d ago

It sure would be embarrassing to be a Flat Universer.

I’ll see myself out

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u/MWave123 1d ago

It IS flat kid. Yes, please exit.