That’s why it shouldn’t be viewed as ignorant to ask questions that put a different spin on the problem, that potentially no one has asked yet. And why “this is the best explanation that we have at this time” is no reason to shut down conversation/speculation about it.
I don’t view you as ignorant, and it hasn’t been my intention to shut down the conversation. If that was your impression, I apologise. I was very honestly just trying to give my own best interpretation of what the common consensus is, and why it is the way it is. Asking questions is an unequivocally good thing, and I enjoy trying to answer them to the best of my (meagre) ability: It helps me gain new perspective.
How does anybody presume that the universe isn’t vastly bigger than what we’ve observed of it to date?
I’m honestly not quite sure, but I think it’s broadly accepted that the entire universe is far larger than the observable universe. From a more philosophical stance one could ask if anything outside the observable universe should really be considered part of “our universe” since, as far as we know, it is unreachable even for light (hence, unobservable).
As for estimating the size of the (entire) universe, I think they do that indirectly by estimating the age based on observing the cosmic microwave background, and then estimating the size based on the age and rate of inflation.
Of course, as with anything in natural science, everything is based on imperfect models that (I personally believe) will never more than asymptotically approach the true underlying reality. Thus, there’s always a possibility that anything we haven’t explicitly verified empirically will turn out to be completely wrong.
Someone once asked me how I would react if the second law of thermodynamics was proven to be wrong (I’m a theoretical chemist), and I responded that I see the second law as an extremely good model that’s been shown capable of representing a truckload (put mildly) of things accurately. A single counter-example doesn’t mean it suddenly becomes inapplicable to all the things we use it for today. The same things apply to Newton’s laws, and a bunch of other models that already have been proven wrong. The point is: I see no reason at all to believe our current astronomical models are the “actual truth”, but I do think they’re good models for the things that we’ve actually verified that they work for.
I don’t view you as ignorant, and it hasn’t been my intention to shut down the conversation. If that was your impression, I apologise. I was very honestly just trying to give my own best interpretation of what the common consensus is, and why it is the way it is. Asking questions is an unequivocally good thing, and I enjoy trying to answer them to the best of my (meagre) ability: It helps me gain new perspective.
I’m honestly not quite sure, but I think it’s broadly accepted that the entire universe is far larger than the observable universe. From a more philosophical stance one could ask if anything outside the observable universe should really be considered part of “our universe” since, as far as we know, it is unreachable even for light (hence, unobservable).
As for estimating the size of the (entire) universe, I think they do that indirectly by estimating the age based on observing the cosmic microwave background, and then estimating the size based on the age and rate of inflation.
Of course, as with anything in natural science, everything is based on imperfect models that (I personally believe) will never more than asymptotically approach the true underlying reality. Thus, there’s always a possibility that anything we haven’t explicitly verified empirically will turn out to be completely wrong.
Someone once asked me how I would react if the second law of thermodynamics was proven to be wrong (I’m a theoretical chemist), and I responded that I see the second law as an extremely good model that’s been shown capable of representing a truckload (put mildly) of things accurately. A single counter-example doesn’t mean it suddenly becomes inapplicable to all the things we use it for today. The same things apply to Newton’s laws, and a bunch of other models that already have been proven wrong. The point is: I see no reason at all to believe our current astronomical models are the “actual truth”, but I do think they’re good models for the things that we’ve actually verified that they work for.