Is The Universe Finite?

Thanks to Brilliant for supporting PBS. Learn more at: The universe is big, really, really big. Although according to a new paper, it may literally be infinitely smaller than we previously thought. Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt O'Dowd Graphics by Leonardo Scholzer & Adriano Leal Directed by: Andrew Kornhaber Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber End Credits Music by J.R.S. Schattenberg: Every time you walk out the door, light from the Big Bang strikes your face, enters your eyes. This is the cosmic microwave background radiation - the left-over heat-glow from the very early universe. We can’t see this microwave light with our eyes, but we can catch it with even a simple radio antenna. As soon as we became aware of its existence we’ve been feverishly building better and better devices to collect it. Why? Because it encodes so many secrets. And within this light, a group of scientists have just found evidence of the limits of space. A clue that our universe may be actually be finite in size. Today on Space Time Journal Club we’ll delve into the Nature Astronomy paper that just reported this: Planck evidence for a closed Universe and a possible crisis for cosmology by Eleonora Di Valentino, Alessandro Melchiorri, and Joe Silk. Big Bang Alexander Tamas Andrew & Brenna Craig Stonaha David Barnholdt David Nicklas Fabrice Eap John S Juan Benet Matt Miller Morgan Hough Quasar Mark Heising Mark Rosenthal Vinnie Falco Hypernova Chuck Zegar Danton Spivey Donal Botkin Edmund Fokschaner Hank S John Hofmann John Pollock John R. Slavik Jordan Young Joseph Salomone Mathew Matthew O'Connor Syed Ansar Gamma Ray Burst A G Adrian Hatch Adrien Molyneux AlecZero Andreas Nautsch Bradley Jenkins Brandon labonte Dan Warren Daniel Lyons David Bethala DFaulk Eric Kiebler Frederic Simon Geoffrey Short Graydon Goss Greg Smith James Flowers Jamie Frederick John Funai John Griffith John Robinson Jonathan Nesfeder Joseph Dillman Josh Thomas Kevin Lee Kevin Warne Kyle Hofer Malte Ubl Michael Conroy Nick Virtue Nick Wright Paul Rose Scott Gossett Sean Warniaha Steve Bradshaw Tatiana Vorovchenko Tim Stephani Tonyface Yurii Konovaliuk