The Enigma Of The Universe : (C) Summary

We have discussed in this chapter the two important aspects of the enigma of the universe, the first being “how big is the universe” and the second being “how old is the universe”. We have found that both these questions have put the scientists in a dilemma. Whether the universe is finite or infinite with respect to space and time has not been unanimously decided by the scientists. To quote the words of Prof. Henry Margenau, as he writes in his book on the philosophy of modern physics, “Are time and space infinite? On this, perhaps the most interesting questions of all, present science is unfortunately non-committal. The reason lies in the uncertainties which still surround the exact form of the metric ds², for it is by an appeal to the detailed mathematical structure of this quantity that the decision as to the finiteness of time and space must ultimately be made. Of the detailed forms so far proposed for ds², perhaps the most successful ones imply a finite space-time; some suggest a finite space and an infinite time, someone finite in both components. The Minkowski metric used in the special theory of relativity is infinite in both.”^[1]