This is what I, a starstruck amateur, have never understood about the ‘Big Bang.’ We see it depicted as a cone blaring out stars as a horn blares out notes, or an expanding balloon with birthday stars printed on the rubber surface moving farther apart as the balloon gets bigger. But both of these models have the same thing in common: a center point. So, where are we in this animation? Are we at the end of the cone or on the surface of the balloon? If we look out around us and everything is 13.4 billion years away, then we must be at the center of the universe. That makes no sense. If everything is 13.4 billion years away from the center then the center must be empty, like the center of that balloon. That makes no sense either. If everything is 13.4 billion years away from everything else, then there are countless centers. That actually makes sense. If everything is the center, then nothing is the center, and the universe is infinite.

If the universe is finite, it had a beginning and therefore must have an end. What came before or what will come after is infinite nothingness. Either way, it seems as though you just cannot get around infinity.