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Re: universe expanding, not from any particular spot

At 08:10 PM 8/13/00 -0400, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
In the spirit of Newtonian mechanics trajectories of ants
(residing on the expanding balloon) are straight lines
intersecting at one point. That was the 'spot' to which
Lisa was probably referring.

I don't think so. On a spherical balloon, an obvious symmetry argument
says that no such special point can exist.

Suppose you are one of the ants. You will observe that all the other ants
are expanding in straight lines directly away -- but if you announce (based
on this observation) that you are the center of the universe, all the other
ants will laugh at you.