The Universe Might Not Be Flat and Cosmologists are Freaking Out

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The Universe Might Not Be Flat and Cosmologists are Freaking Out

This is one of the most fascinating unsolved problems in cosmology, and it almost never gets talked about outside of research papers.

It's called the curvature tension, and it links in to the "crisis in cosmology". Astrophysicists have always thought the geometry of the Universe is flat, not its shape, its geometry: which is a very different thing.

But back in 2019, a careful analysis of 6 years worth of data from the Planck telescope suggested the geometry of the Universe wasn't flat, and instead was closed. And since then, the debate has gone back and forth in the scientific literature, with some data pointing to a curved Universe and some to a flat one. This video will dive into the details of the curvature tension!

Dr. Becky

astrophysicist

The Universe Might Not Be Flat and Cosmologists are Freaking Out

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