Tuesday, May 20, 2008

To those who believe the Universe is Infinite...

I present to you the dark-sky paradox, also known as Olbers's paradox. This was named for Willhelm Olbers, a 19th-century astronomer who brought to the forefront an argument presented by Edmond Halley to the Royal Society. He fought the idea of an eternal universe, saying it had to have a beginning because "if the number of Fixt stars were more than finite, the whole superficies of their apparent Sphere would be luminous.''

If the universe were infinite, with all the stars and galaxies about, any person would not see dark spaces between stars, because the spaces would be filled with more stars, and the sky would be briliant with a uniform light.