Talk:Center of the universe

12 June, 2007 cleanup

I've edited the page to conform to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), and these are the entries I removed. If the entry already includes a link, that page does not include information pertaining to "center of the universe". If there is no link in the entry, I couldn't find a suitable one.

• An undesirable location to which all existence began and shall end.
• center of the universe is a misconception of the big bang. In the big bang, there is no center, and thus the universe has no center, even though common sense insists that an explosion should have a center to explode from.
• The (often derogatory) nickname of Toronto (spelled 'Centre').
• A spot designated as the "Center of the Universe" located on a pedestrian bridge over railroad tracks near East Archer and North Boston Streets near downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. When standing in the middle of a brick formation laid into the bridge and speaking in any direction, an unexplained phenomenon causes the speakers voice to be amplified and reverberated; however the effect may only be heard by the person standing within the formation.
• A small town in Northern Ontario called Chelmsford.
• The University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, has a coordinate origin sculpture of square concrete culvert, identifying that spot as the Center of the Universe.
• Centre of the Universe is a location in the TV show LEXX, where the Greater Uncertainty Principle comes into play.
• Centre of the Universe is where the timeship Terminus is located in the Doctor Who TV show.

If anyone knows more about these entries, or if articles are written about them, they can be re-added. PaladinWhite 12:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Significant crossover in the two sections?

The untitled first section of this article contains many places that are indeed "On Earth"...shall we put these (London, Dali's train station, etc) in the second section, or otherwise reformat the category sub-headings, or is there some finely nuanced distinction I'm failing to notice? Wormwoodpoppies (talk) 23:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

2009.11.19

Since when Wikipedia considers advertising as fact? "Stara Zagora, Bulgaria is center of the earth according to a billboard placed in the city"?! --cade (talk) 16:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Center of the Universe

There is a centre: the singularity. If we accept the theory of Big Bang, then there is a centre of out Universe. --PlasmaZebulon (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Correct! What was the "big Bang"?

It was NOT everything being made out of nothing. We see "big bangs" all around us. New ones are being created in new supernovas. There is one in the center of every galaxy. We know where the center of the milky way is.

Our big bang was the beginning of the big crunch of a previous universe. This is still a young universe, otherwise there would be a lot more heavy elements. That big crunch is probably still going on and our event horizon is still expanding, but it has a center, or there was no big bang. DaveC1 (talk) 15:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Rewrite and Cleanup

Major rewrite and cleanup to keep to WP:MOSDAB. The main articles about astronomy/cosmology were missing. All nicknames have been removed. The topic in fact should be notable enough to have an article on it, based on the main articles.

added comment "do not put any nicknames, slang, or entries based on places in the earth - see WP:MOSDAB "

• According to the cosmological principle, all points in space ought to experience the same physical development, correlated in time in such a way that all points at a certain distance from an observer appear to be at the same stage of development. In that sense, all spatial conditions in the Universe must appear to be homogeneous and isotropic to an observer at all times in the future and in the past. This statement implies that there is no center of the universe, since space is declared to be homogeneous and isotropic. Klaus Mainzer and J Eisinger (2002). The Little Book of Time. Springer. ISBN 0387952888.. P. 55.

• New York City, a nickname.
• Boston, which calls itself "The Hub of the Universe."
• Ashland, VA, a nickname.
• Also a nickname specifically for Times Square within New York City.
• Fremont, a Seattle neighborhood which proclaims itself "The Center of the Universe.".
• Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, by the documentary Rabbit Hash, Center of the Universe
• Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, according to a billboard ironically placed at the city entrance, which says "Welcome to Stara Zagora - Center of the Universe."
• Ma On Shan (town), which is nicknamed 'Center of the Universe' in Cantonese
• Vrbové, Slovakia , "Center of the World and Universe" monument created by local artists
• Tank 1397 an arbitrary reference point in Essex used to indicate the futility of the concept.
• A manhole cover in Wallace, Idaho
• A stone and brick structure in downtown Tulsa noted for its unusual acoustics.
• Canadians, especially from the Prairie provinces or small towns, sometimes sarcastically refer to Toronto, Ontario as "The Centre of the Universe"

• The swamp where the Man-Thing lives contains the "Nexus of All Realities" in the Marvel Comics Universe.
• San Dimas, California, according to Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
• Terminus, according to the Whoniverse
• Bowser's Galaxy Reactor, according to Super Mario Galaxy

• A documentary film with famous climbers as Alexander Huber, Lynn Hill, Jim Bridwell. The film is about climbing in the Yosemite Valleyon famous peaks like El Capitan or Half Dome.

• Many places in the world are referred to by the inhabitants or outsiders as "The Center of the Universe". Usually this is meant tongue-in-cheek but may also refer to some particular attribute of the place.

• Dalí caused the Perpignan train station (France) to be entered into the history of art by naming it the "center of the universe" after having experienced there on September 19, 1963, in his own words, "a sort of cosmic ecstasy [stronger than all those I had had before. I experienced a precise vision of the construction of the universe"[1].
• Palm Court in the center of the Pei Dormitories on the New College of Florida campus in Sarasota, FL. Palm Court is known to Novo Collegians as "The Center of the Universe".

Widefox (talk) 11:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

References

Azatoth

The article is in bad shape. It's not important, but it annoyed me that H. P. Lovecraft's Azathoth was described as a '"planet" instead of a god. So I changed it. Wikipedia is supposed to be here to disseninate knowledge; obvious errors should be corrected; it was not, as I said, a big deal. Somebody reverted it. If you think Azathoth is a planet, then fine. You could look it up, though. 24.27.31.170 (talk) Eric —Preceding undated comment added 04:17, 29 May 2011 (UTC).

I see you restored it, but the ref you another editor used isn't really helpful (all Amazon refs can do is show that a book exists, or facts about the publication of it), so I replaced it with a ref from Lovecraft's writing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Toronto

Toronto is sometimes called "The Centre of the Universe" by Canadians as a tongue-in-cheek, pejorative reference to the role the city has on Canada's culture as New York City has on American culture.

This sentence was clearly written by someone from Toronto; someone who doesn't understand why Canadians call Toronto the center of the universe. First of all, Toronto is not New York! Canada's relationship with Toronto is really quite different from America's relationship with New York. Toronto really doesn't impact Canada's culture much, since most Canadians don't really consider Toronto as being part of Canada. The arrogant, oblivious assumption that Toronto is somehow a beacon of culture to which other Canadians aspire is exactly why Canadains use this pejorative term. Please, someone rewrite this sentence. 99.241.43.94 (talk) 11:42, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, if Canadians don't consider Toronto to be, culturally, part of Canada, this may very well be VERY MUCH like how most Americans consider New York City, or at least this was true before 9-11. See the section under "aberrations" in the article on The Nine Nations of North America. I was born and raised in NYC (though not in lower Manhattan, which is the part considered an aberration), and I can see why people would think that way, given how New Yorkers are portrayed in the media (see Seinfeld). Bloody Viking (talk) 19:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Many countries and civilizations have ambiguous feelings about their capital, or capitals, for any number of reasons: a perceived superior attitude from the inhabitants of the capital(s), a sense of their own inferiority, their economic or political or culural dependence on the capital(s), and so on. Here in the U.S., we have essentially three capitals: Washington, D.C., the political capital, Los Angeles, the entertainment capital, and New York, the business and cultural capital, and Americans have mixed feelings about all of them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

References

An editor is removing the references in the list, on the ground that WP:MOSDAB says not to use references. This is indeed true, WP:MOSDAB says: References should not appear on disambiguation pages. Dab pages are not articles; instead, incorporate the references into the target articles. This is a good suggestion, and normally should be followed. However, this particular DAB list has been the subject of a fair amount of inappropriate additions to the list, as people add their hometowns, or favorite places, or locations that they sincerely believe are called the "Center of the universe". For this reason, the references in this DAB list serve the useful function of validating list entries that might otherwise be deleted. Since WP:MOSDAB also says Application of these guidelines will generally produce useful disambiguation pages which are consistent with each other and therefore easily usable by most readers. Usefulness to the reader is their principal goal. However, for every style recommendation above, there may be pages in which a good reason exists to use another way; so ignore these guidelines if doing so will be more helpful to readers than following them. On this principle (a re-statement of WP:IAR) I am restoring the references, as they are helpful in maintaining an accurate list. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:47, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You're revert warring is also restoring complete bullshit. You can't just claim IAR everytime a guideline runs up against your non-standard layout preferences. If there are things in this list that don't belong, then just remove them. The place for refs is in articles. Dabs are for navigation. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Your intransigent inflexibility is not in line with the founding philosophy of this project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:42, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I think the removal of the references is ridiculous, but, perhaps, a resolution could be found in the following: Let's create an article specifically on real locations known as the center of the universe, and put the refs there. I, for one, went to a great deal of effort to get the ref for MIT's Great Dome, so I have moved that ref to the article on the MIT campus. I don't know whether anyone will object to that (I needed to add a line about students referring to it that way).

I think that as it stands, no matter the MOS direction (which is always able to be ignored), the references are not absurd. The really foolish thing, though, is all the places listed with no real cause. Couldn't we move them to List of places sometimes called Centre of the Universe? It's hard to think that anyone would ever type Centre of the Universe in the search box and expect to get here or here or even here. You just know they don't. Then, i think, the reference issue would disappear. Possible? Cheers, Lindsay^Hello 16:18, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I think a separate article listing places, real or fictional, nicknamed (or, for some fictional places, located at) the centre of the universe would be very helpful. Then this DAB could focus on its core purpose of getting people to the article they were looking for when they came here.--Trystan (talk) 18:17, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Big Bang entry

I think the entry for the Big Bang article is incorrect, but I'm not quite sure how to fix it. From what I can understand, the Big Bang Theory does not suggest there is a single central point in space that everything exploded from, but rather that it is space itself getting larger, with each point moving away from each other point. Theories as to the shape of the universe are that it is either infinitely large, or curved back on itself. In neither case would it have an edge or a centre.

This question is what led me to this DAB, so I think we want to include something, but there is no obvious article that directly addresses the apparrent misconception (that I can find) that the universe has a centre. Perhaps the Big Bang link should be replaced with a link to Metric expansion of space?--Trystan (talk) 20:01, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I believe you're correct. If you define center (or centre, for those of you across the pond from the center of MY universe) as a point that is the minimum distance from the edges of a given volume of space (of any shape), then there is no center of the universe, since the universe has no edges, and never did. The expansion of the universe is defined by ALL celestial objects (or, at least, stars and galaxies) moving away from each other, not by all objects moving away from some putative center.

Bloody Viking (talk) 21:36, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at revising the section. It goes a bit beyond what WP:MOSDAB would suggest to add, but it's a bit of an odd case, so I think the exception is warranted. The centre of the universe is a reasonable topic for inquiry, but because it doesn't actually exist, we don't really have an exact match article to link to.--Trystan (talk) 01:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation Page vs. Set Index

The purpose of this WP:DAB article is to help users who search for "Center of the Universe" find the article they are looking for. I note that this page has been cleaned up a few times in the past to remove entries which are not likely to be what someone is looking for under this title. I would include in that everything under fiction other than the TV show, and all of the nicknames for cities. We used to have a set index article, List of places referred to as the Center of the Universe, which was combined with this dab page. I suggest re-establishing that article and moving those entries there.--Trystan (talk) 18:17, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I've carried out the split.--Trystan (talk) 02:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)