Black Holes, for Eta Carinae

This doesn't sound right. It suggests that the speed of light is changed in the gravitational field. I don't think that is true.

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Common sense isn't

This is a very common misunderstanding. It comes from having the wrong picture of the nature of the big bang.The big bang is not and explosion! There is no center. Or equally you could say that everywhere is the center. All the 'places' that there are now, the floor under your feet, the place where Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the point where the Spirit rover is on mars now and a place on a planet in a galaxy far, far away where all right next to each other. NOT the planet, moon or your floor but the place in space where they are now were all crammed side by each. The space expanded carrying those points with them. They were all right there, right close up to the big bang. So they are all near the "center". But there isn't a center.Refer back to discussions here using the famous (or infamous) balloon analogy. Every point on an expanding balloon moves away from every other. NO point on the surface of the balloon (which is the universe) is the center of the expansion. No where in our universe is a central point.

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Common sense isn't

The raisen bread analogy is also a bit dangerous. You're thinking of the bread being in a "space" of it's own - the kitchen. So it appears to be an "explosion" out into the kitchens air. But there is not kitchen for the big bang, there is no other "there" that is still part of our universe. I'm not knowledgeable enough to get this right actually. Eta is needed back again.However, I think that it is true that there is no "centre of mass" either. To find that you would find a point where there was,say, 13.7 G light years of universe on one side and 13.7 light years of universe on the other side (and so on). But the point is the every place in the universe has that much around it. They are all just as good as a centre as anywhere else.

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Common sense isn't

Ya know, the whole thing keeps getting more and more confusing and harder and harder to wrap your head around.I've talked to some physicists who say the only way is to deal directly with the math. Otherwise they say you get the wrong idea. Others say that you should be able to get an idea of it without the math. Einstein was one who pictured and even "felt" some of what he was thinking about. I guess different people manage in different ways.But I think it is probably sure that you don't really have more than a weak, fuzzy image of what the physics is really about without the math. Unfortunately a lot of that is out of reach for a lot of us.

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Common sense isn't