Where Are We?
Welcome to the cartography department, where asking for coordinates reveals that the universe has a terrible filing system and considers “everywhere” a perfectly acceptable answer to basic administrative questions. In this examination of cosmic positioning, we discover that the Big Bang didn’t happen at a location—it happened to space itself, everywhere at once—which is the sort of answer that satisfies physicists and frustrates everyone else.
Our quantum-coherent correspondent guides us through the balloon analogy (with proper caveats about its limitations), the cosmological principle that states the universe looks the same everywhere, and the uncomfortable realization that every raisin in the cosmic loaf is equally central and equally ordinary. Meanwhile, the real science reveals why asking “where did the Big Bang happen?” is a badly-formed question, how the observable universe places us at the centre of everything we can see but only because we’re doing the seeing, and why the universe either extends infinitely or loops back on itself in ways that refuse to provide the edge we keep requesting.
Coordinate System Warning: This episode contains concepts such as “expansion of space itself,” “observable universe versus actual universe,” and “the distinction between information horizons and physical boundaries.” Listeners may experience side effects including appreciation for balloon analogies that only work if you ignore the inside of the balloon, understanding why every point in the universe can legitimately claim to be central, and the uncomfortable realization that “here” is simultaneously the most accurate and least helpful answer to questions about cosmic positioning. Side effects are considered normal and may persist until you question why your street address seems more meaningful than it cosmologically should.
The Big Bang Was Not an Explosion in Space
Human intuition insists that explosions happen somewhere and expand outward into empty space. The Big Bang wasn’t that. It was the expansion of space itself. Every point in the universe was once closer together. Every point expanded. There is no privileged location you can point to and say “it started there”—because it started everywhere at once.
This means asking “where did the Big Bang happen?” is rather like asking “where on Earth’s surface did the surface begin?” The question contains a conceptual error that makes it impossible to answer properly. The Big Bang describes the expansion of space itself, not matter flying through pre-existing space from a central origin. Every region of space was once closer together; every region expanded.
We do observe something that looks suspiciously like we’re in the middle of things. The observable universe extends roughly forty-six billion light-years in every direction, placing us conveniently at the centre of a sphere containing everything we can possibly see. This isn’t because we’re special—it’s because we’re observers. Every civilization anywhere in the universe sees themselves at the centre of their own observable universe, like every person in a crowd believing the crowd is organized around them specifically.
The Balloon Analogy: The expanding balloon analogy survives because it communicates one essential truth: no point on the surface is the centre of the surface, every point sees all other points moving away, and expansion happens everywhere simultaneously. If you live on the surface, you cannot point to the centre on the surface—because the centre exists only in a higher-dimensional description that is not part of your reality. The limitation is that the balloon’s surface is two-dimensional, and we can visualize a centre inside it. But in this analogy, only the surface matters. The inside doesn’t represent anything in our universe. You can have expansion without a centre.
Why There Is No Edge (And What That Means)
The universe appears to be either infinite, or finite-but-unbounded. Both options refuse to provide an edge. The finite-but-unbounded possibility works like Earth’s surface—you can travel in any direction indefinitely and never reach an edge, even though the surface has measurable area. The geometry curves back on itself. The universe could work similarly in three dimensions instead of two.
The alternative is that the universe is infinite—flat or negatively curved, stretching on forever in all directions. In this scenario, there’s no edge because there’s nothing to be an edge of. Space simply continues. Current measurements suggest the universe is either flat or very close to it.
We do observe something that looks like an edge: the limit of the observable universe. But this is not an edge of space—it’s an edge of information. Beyond that horizon, light simply hasn’t had time to reach us yet. The universe out there continues existing; we just can’t see it. If you travelled to the edge of the currently observable universe, you wouldn’t find a wall. You’d find more universe, with its own observable horizon extending in all directions around your new position.
The Cosmological Principle: Modern cosmology rests on a deceptively simple idea: on large scales, the universe is the same everywhere and in every direction. This doesn’t mean galaxies are evenly spaced or that structure doesn’t exist. It means that when averaged over vast distances, no location is special. No region is privileged. No point can claim to be “the centre.” This principle is not philosophical modesty—it is an empirical conclusion drawn from observation. The cosmic microwave background radiation is almost perfectly uniform across the entire sky, which wouldn’t be possible if we were near some special edge or close to some cosmic centre where things behaved differently.
Observer-Dependent, Statistically Ordinary
We are not in the middle. We are not near the edge. We are not at a special location at all. We are somewhere ordinary, in a universe that refuses to supply a global reference frame. “Where” turns out to be a local concept—something that only makes sense when there is something else nearby to compare against. Cities, stars, galaxies give us orientation. The universe itself does not.
We’re somewhere ordinary in an extraordinary situation. We exist at no special location, near no meaningful boundary, inside a structure that may be infinite or may loop back on itself, and which refuses to provide external reference points of any kind. And yet, paradoxically, we’re also at the only location from which our specific observations can be made. Our perspective is unique precisely because every perspective is unique. We’re simultaneously nowhere special and the only place we could possibly be.
In cosmic terms, Earth’s address is mostly relational: we are here relative to that galaxy, which is over there relative to another one, all of it drifting apart with no fixed reference and no forwarding address. We are simply on the balloon, moving with it, doing our best to describe our position while the diagram quietly expands underneath us.
Join us for this exploration of cosmic positioning and reference frame confusion, where the Cartography Department discovers that “here” is the only answer that holds up under scrutiny, every observer legitimately believes they’re at the centre of everything, and the real science reveals why the universe operates like a filing system designed by someone who never learned to organize properly and considers “everywhere” perfectly acceptable. Because in the multiverse of spatial references, we’re all just temporary observers at arbitrary coordinates, filing reports that describe reality from perspectives that are simultaneously unique and entirely unremarkable.