This vCalc page discusses the question:  What is the Universe?  I discuss how I view something that is so vast, so massive, so complex and yet so simple in its many facets. I discuss the nature of its extents and what we know of it today.  I discuss the size and age and material nature.  I discuss the theories of its expansion, its birth, its never changing business of creation.  I discuss how we examine the universe and how we see it.

This page is connected to numerous other pages which delve into some specific questions that lie beneath the surface of "what is the universe."

NOTE: Many vCalc equations are embedded throughout vCalc descriptive pages like this page.  Even though they may not stand out in the text, if you hover over the name of an equation it will likely be linked to an actual, pop-up executable equation. For example:

What's in the question: "What is the Universe"

Asking what is the Universe, our Universe, is to assume we can grasp the idea that our Universe is estimated to be 13.799+- 0.021 billion years old? ^{1 2 3 4 5}
The question assumes we can grasp the idea that the Universe is 93 Billion Light Years in diameter/ But the science behind the ability to conjure such estimates is even more fantastic. That we have the means to estimate something's age that is so ancient that we think in terms of numbers of years that are in the billions is mind-boggling in itself.  

It is mind-boggling to learn some of the ways our Universe has been explored/  It is thrilling to listen to the leaders in science who spend lives wrestling with all that is unknown in our Universe.

The question, "What is the Universe?" seems like a pretty simple question "on the surface".  But that gets right to the heart of the complexity of answering "what is the universe?"   Where is the surface?  Where does the universe end? or does it?

Many questions arise from studying what is the universe and what are the extents of the universe:

• Where does the Universe end and what is beyond that end.  
• What defines the boundary of the  Universe?  
• How and where did the Universe begin?
• And do the questions of boundary and beginning even make sense to ask? 

The universe can be most fundamentally defined as everything.  

`"Universe " = " Everything"`

The universe is comprised of all space and all time and all that spacetime assumes.  Everything that is in the Universe defines the Universe.  The Universe has existed billions of years before mankind and will exist long after mankind, long after our Sun, long after the Milky Way galaxy.  The Milky Way is too big to know and the Universe holds a vast number of galaxies like our Milky Way -- too many to count.

We live in our Universe/wiki/1\/1 Let's Define a Universe Collection is phrased in estimates.

It's just too big to know and too old to fathom.  We estimate its age and we estimate its size.  We estimate the magnitude of masses in the universe that are just fly specs on the map of the Universe.  We try to grasp the enormity of a star, of a galaxy and then take that great leap to the universe.

The Universe is much more than we could ever hope it to be.  It contains more stars than we can hope to count.  It offers more puzzles than we can hope to solve. It holds all that is beautiful, all that is queer to us, and all that is harmful and disastrous to life.

The Universe is our place/  Our place in the Universe began here on this spec of a dust ball in a piece of lint that is our solar system in the backwater eddy of a minor galaxy that numbers among billions of galaxies/

The Universe includes planets, moons, stars, galaxies, the intergalactic space, and all matter and energy. The Universe includes time.

The Universehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe holds infinite surprises and all the answers.  It is the universe after all.

The Universe is elegant and complex and precise/ We owe all to its magic.

So, to get started, let's define further what is a universe.  Follow along to the next discussion.

1. ^ Age of the Observable Universe
2. ^ Planck Collaboration (2015). "Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters (See Table 4 on page 31 of pfd)."
3. ^ Planck Collaboration (2015).
4. ^ Bibcode
5. ^ 2015arXiv150201589P