h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank you Agapanthus - this question had me going for quite a few weeks - you have comprehensively answered it.

I love H2G2!

*Bows with extra elegant flourishes* my pleasure Woodpigeon, and thank you - I do love 'lecturing'...

<>

Yes it will, if you remain within the Earth's frame of reference it will be exactly where you left it. That's the point.

Just thought it was interesting. The origin of any coordinate system is pretty arbitrary and the Catholic Church happened to choose Earth. There is no physical "centre" to the universe, so they were not wrong to say the Earth is at the centre; only wrong in their assumption that everything else revolves around us.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Big Bang Theory (which I have never understoofd to be contarary to Relativity) pretty much *does* imply a centre - ie the source of the Bang?

That would imply that the big bang happened in "space", and all the matter produced expanded outwards into this space. In actual fact it is space itself which is expanding and taking all the matter and radiation with it. As there was no space to begin with, there was no centre. Try this:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/GR/centre.html