How big is the universe?

[Succubus]

Or maybe I'm missing something.

Yes, you're missing something, it's a daft question.

---

It's at least as big as a blue whale, I'm pretty sure of that.

Ok mister smarty pants, how many bowls of petunias can a blue whale hold?

[Cyberman]

None - they prefer daffodils.

[Fireball]

It's at least as big as a blue whale, I'm pretty sure of that.

Jonah? Is that you?

[Whateverist]

Q: How big is the universe?

A: Hecka, but it is still smaller than the likely cosmos.

[Catholic_Lady]

I always imagined it to be infinite

[vorlon13]

certainly too much sizeism going on here

maybe it's a sensitive subject ??

[brewer]

OP: Would hearing the "That's about the size" song help?

[Brian37]

I always imagined it to be infinite

We don't actually know that part yet and we may never know. 

What science is running away from is the idea that a super cognition is required as a starting point.

Based on the science I have read, I view it as both finite and infinite. 

And actually that really isn't that far from middle school math, where you draw a finite line on a piece of paper and between the two ends you can have in infinite number of integers. 

Think of a light switch. It is off for a while but the "off" is temporary and leads to an "on" but the on is also temporary and eventually goes back to "off" meaning running out of energy. 

But the cycle from no energy, to energy back to nothing, that part I can see as infinite. I simply see no super cognition needed for the cycle to happen. No different than our planet changes seasons. Each season is finite, but the cycle repeats.

It is hard for many to fathom but my understanding is that "all this" be it one universe, or parallel or bubble "multiverse", is that regardless, some QM string and m theory scientists are saying this could be a giant wave function. Kinda like when you boil water and the heat evaporates to nothing. 

I have no problem with infinite as long as you are not saying a super cognition is the puppeteer of a perpetual motion machine. Of to on to of to on to of to on ect ect, as each are finite, but the cycle is infinite.

[Succubus]

The heat doesn’t evaporate to nothing.

[Alex K]

One source says it is 46 billion light years across. Another source say it's 23 billion light years across.

I try to do the math and there's no way I can think of that the universe could expand that far in less than 14 billion years. It would require particles to travel faster than light at least until very recently, meaning that the universe is slowing down, not accelerating.

Or maybe I'm missing something.

So the visible universe is more like 2 times 46 billion lightyears= ninetysomething billion lightyears across today.

That's squared with the mere 14 billion years of age since the hot big bang when you remember that cosmic expansion has nothing to do with things moving away from each other *in space* like an explosion, but is rather space itself stretching as a whole. I always employ the analogy of snails on a rubber band. If you have two snails sitting at a distance on a rubber band and if you then stretch the rubber, their distance can grow very quickly simply by the band expanding between them, much faster than it could through their own crawling on the band.