So how many galaxies out their are ours?

I thought it was pretty easy to understand myself.

The universe could be bent back upon itself due to gravity. There is no edge, that kind of thing.

Think about walking around the surface of the Earth. There is no edge but the Earth is finite. You could walk around the equator forever and never reach an edge (the oceans don't count). If you took long enough you'd never reach a place you recognised (due to plate tectonics, etc) and so would think that you weren't back to where you started.

Could the same be true for space? When you look out into the universe we see many galaxies. Some could be our very own, billions of years ago. We wouldn't recognise them as the Milky Way because the Milky Way would've changed greatly in that time.

Tobruk wrote:

I thought it was pretty easy to understand myself.

The universe could be bent back upon itself due to gravity. There is no edge, that kind of thing.

Sounds like your 'science' is a bit 'edgy', to me; are you talking about the curvature of space/time?

Tobruk wrote:

Think about walking around the surface of the Earth. There is no edge but the Earth is finite. You could walk around the equator forever and never reach an edge (the oceans don't count). If you took long enough you'd never reach a place you recognised (due to plate tectonics, etc) and so would think that you weren't back to where you started.

Could the same be true for space? When you look out into the universe we see many galaxies. Some could be our very own, billions of years ago. We wouldn't recognise them as the Milky Way because the Milky Way would've changed greatly in that time.

A trip around the equator of our planet which is 4/5ths water; and "the oceans don't count"? And the motion of the continental plates which takes millions of years will effect the trip? That's moving pretty slowly!
Looks like Drake and Magellan, and their ilk, must have been brilliant navigators to circumnavigate a mobius planet!

Please, where do you get these ideas from?

The idea that one could go right round the universe and end up where one started
makes good science fiction, but it doesn't have much practical significance,
because it can be shown that the universe would recollapse to zero size before
one could get round. You would need to travel faster than light in order to end
up where you started before the universe came to an end - and that is not
allowed!

Have never taken it as gospel and certainly didn't present it as gospel.

Just trying to illustrate the point.

The only way it's possible is if the the universe is MUCH older and MUCH smaller than we currently think it is.

Interesting idea though.

Cheers.