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3. The universe and its origins
| 3.5 |
What
is the universe?
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| Before we journey too much further, let us define what we mean by the Universe. | ||
| The Oxford Dictionary defines the word Universe to mean: "the whole of created or existing things, including the Earth and the heavens; and all that is in them, considered as constituting a systematic whole." | ||
| When we look at a more contemporary or "scientific" meaning of the word, a range of terms come into play: o space o dimension o planets o galaxies o wave motion o sub-atomic particles matter in general. | ||
| The general and common understanding of the universe is "all the matter that forms planets and galaxies in the entire cosmos". | ||
| Interestingly, in the field of Logic, the word Universe is also used in describing the dimension of some group of objects in interaction. For instance, if an experiment was looking at one person, then in the experiment, that person would be "the Universe". In the case of a research poll, a market could be considered "the Universe", or even in economics, a country might be considered "the Universe." | ||
| In effect, these two definitions of the word "Universe" give use an effect where the concept of Universe is "scalable" (larger or smaller) depending on perspective. While this is useful and important understanding, it does not directly assist us in progressing towards the question- who or what created the Universe?, or for what reason(s)? | ||
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