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JamesJM
Couple of things come... we can define, and re-define, the term 'center' based on many postulates, but that doesn't change what I theorized. I used the word 'relatively', and relatively it's mathematically sound for any point to claim 'center' status... the laws of physics are still in place for each 'relative' point.
You say:
"You can say, but it seems that way in terms of my perspective, but that's just as true of everyone else. That's the same as saying the earth looks flat when you look at it from your own vantage point. Okay, but...it isn't."..
that's true and false. The first and second sentence are almost exactly what I said... but it's nothing like saying "the earth is flat" because that defies physics. I'm not defying physics from my office chair... if I say my chair is hotter than the sun I am.
Most, (not all), of what I read uses "Mass" of the known universe as way to speculate about the "center". But, and as you point out, in a way, that's an unknown. It simply helps us to understand structure better by setting a base point, but doesn't have to be "Mass"... it could be spatial distance which may or may not coinincide with mass.
I understand why physicists love the phrase.. it helps in portraying the real grandeur that is the Universe - that there is so much beyond us.... but I don't think it's a 'mathematical' claim. - JamesJM
Well I just take it that "from my perspective" and "mathematically objective" are different things. From my perspective, Calfornia is 3000 miles away. (Actually in terms of air travel distances it's 2,633 miles but close enough for philosophy.) From yours it's zero miles away. It's Maine that's 3000 miles away. Assuming the rough crudity of my distances, someone who is at the center between each of us as the boundary of the measure, would be 1500 miles away from each of us. (Let's call that Nebraska. Nebraska being the place that illustrates why you would want to be in either Maine or California.)
So I say it also defies physics to say that every living human being is the center of their world, since I take center to mean equidistant in every direction from the boundary of the space in question. And they can't all be that.
A dot located at a point near the boundary of a circle is not equidistant from that boundary in every direction. One exactly square in the middle is.
What I was saying about the universe is this. It's impossible, right now anyway, to know it's size, since there are places out there already too far away for its light to ever reach us.
So we don't know if it's finite with a boundary and a shape, or infinite.
In which case, it's impossible to know if it even has a center.
