Re: Universe: finite/infinite, closed/open

[Jim Green <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>]

> I think the quoted statement is trivial, because astronomers *define* open
> and closed to mean infinite and non-infinite respectively.  (There's
> nothing "fundamental" or "in principle" about it.)

I need further tutoring:

I thought "open" and "closed" were used to describe whether the Universe
would collapse or not -- ie whether the Universe would expand forever or at
some point start to contract to an eventual Big Crunch.

But this aside for a moment --and whether we can actually "see" (by
whatever means) to the "edge" of the Universe -- doesn't the current
standard model assume that the Universe is finite in size -- although I
don't know what that would mean:  There could be no one standing outside
the Universe with a large caliper to measure the size.  Or maybe there is ....

I clearly need tutoring here.


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen