{"id":204926,"date":"2025-01-30T09:35:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T15:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe"},"modified":"2025-01-30T09:35:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T15:35:46","slug":"cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe","title":{"rendered":"Cosmologists Try a New Way to Measure the Shape of the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/cosmologists-try-a-new-way-to-measure-the-shape-of-the-universe2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Is the universe infinite, Aristotle asked in 350 BCE, \u201cor is this an impossibility? The decision \u2026 is \u2026 all-important to our search for the truth.\u201d The Greek philosopher opined that \u201cthe heavens\u201d (meaning the moon, planets, sun and other stars) travel around the Earth in circles, and that a \u201cbody which moves in a circle is not endless or infinite, but has its limit.\u201d Moreover, he assumed that Earth sits at the center of the universe. In that case, the universe must be finite, Aristotle reasoned, for otherwise it could not have a center. With that, he\u2019d apparently resolved an issue that had confounded both his predecessors and his contemporaries.<\/p>\n<p>Circular as Aristotle\u2019s logic was, his conclusion could still be correct. More than two millennia later, we still can\u2019t be sure if the universe is finite or infinite. The universe could be boundless, continuing in all directions without end, or it could be sealed up in a compact shape such as a sphere or doughnut.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, modern scientists have wondered about this issue as well. They\u2019ve devised strategies to investigate the universe\u2019s overall topology, using methods more rigorous than Aristotle\u2019s. The first tests, conducted about two decades ago, linked a range of possible topologies to signals that might have been spotted in astronomical data. Efforts to find those signals have come up short, but hope may be on the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is the universe infinite, Aristotle asked in 350 BCE, \u201cor is this an impossibility? The decision \u2026 is \u2026 all-important to our search for the truth.\u201d The Greek philosopher opined that \u201cthe heavens\u201d (meaning the moon, planets, sun and other stars) travel around the Earth in circles, and that a \u201cbody which moves in a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}