Is it spherical?
Obviously not 2D flat, so I don't know is meant by flat.

I'm only about 15 minutes through this right now and so far they've talked a little bit about the universe being flat, another guy suggests it's slightly bent.



11:00-15:00 has an explanation.

So only because the lasers make a triangle that add up to 180 degrees, they consider it flat?
I still don't understand what they mean by flat..

flat as in a rectangle and not a big sphere, i think is what they ment. And if it wasn't irregular then the light wouldnt have been bent? Am i on the right track? not certain either, just how i perceived it.

fill a decent size balloon with water, place said balloon lightly on the ground, looks like that.

edit: more like this to us i meant.

ok that is only our galaxy (the milkway) in those photos, our galaxy itself its a flat spherical shape, however there are many different planes of existance for galaxies, there are galaxies below, above, diagonal from us. Those pictures only show our galaxy as seen from the surface of the earth. Not our entire universe which is every expanding at all directions, unless there is some crazy optical illusion that we have been seeing for centuries, then i really dont think that the universe is flat.

This post was edited by koat on Dec 5 2011 10:07am

flat and spherical don't go hand in hand...

flat and round

and the flatness isn't something you take literally... it's somewhat analogous only

You need relativitist knowledge to understand what the universe really is, it is not only a physical plane like our Earth is

It depends what you define as flat. No, the universe is not flat in the sense of two dimensional objects, but at the same time it is "flat" when compared with a sphere.

There are multiple theories regarding the actual "shape" of the universe, many of which dive into the specifics of the big bang theory and how light can bend under extreme gravitational forces (black holes for i.e)