What in the world? What is the universe? Aren’t those phrases the same? Many people have been prone to confusing the two entities on numerous occasions. However, today we finally draw the distinction between the two.
In most cases, the “world” is used to refer to the Earth, and all of its civilizations, climates, and history. The “universe” is a representation of all contents in spacetime. This means that the universe is bigger than the Earth because the latter is but a tiny fraction of the matter that makes up the former.
We take a look at the two terms, what they imply in most contexts, and the real facts behind them. Prepare for takeoff.
What defines the world?
The world, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “the Earth with all its inhabitants and all things upon it”. This is the first of nine somewhat distinct definitions.
A personal favorite of mine is “a state of existence: scene of life and action”. As Earthlings, the Earth is our immediate environment. Everything we touch, every sound we hear…everyone we love. All part of the entity we call “the world”. Our drive for instant gratification often leads us to over-inflating our senses of self, which, in turn, results in us forgetting that we’re puny particles on a little spinning rock in space.
Throughout history, various tribes, kingdoms, and empires have had varying scopes of the Earth and how far it (and their influence on it) extended. In Europe and the Old World, before Columbus’ seismic voyage, the existence of the American continents was not even so much as a myth. To his credit, Columbus did have the theory that sailing westward, combined with the curvature of the Earth, would eventually lead him to East Asia and India. He severely underrated the size of the planet though, and accidentally stumbled upon the western continents. The New World was born.
Away from mainstream culture, various tribes and nomadic/semi-nomadic bands would have considered their worlds to be limited to their geographical locales and ways of life.
Perhaps the pressing nature of survival left little time for the kind of existential contemplation that led to the “global village” of the modern era. I suppose it’s a little difficult to think about international forex trading while you are preparing your village’s defenses against potential raids…and plotting raids of your own.
Nowadays, globalization is driving us towards a more centralized, if not unified, world. The internet makes distance a non-factor when it comes to communicating with people from the far reaches of the planet. Today, all seven continents exchange information at a rate that has never been witnessed in human history. Remote working, YouTube videos, social media…the “world” is now just a few clicks away.
Of course, cultural mores and historical norms still exist, and different places can often be described as “different worlds” on the back of their seemingly insulated cultures. For example, downtown Mogadishu, Somalia, is a different world from rural Cumbria, England, which, in turn, is a different world from Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Science has shown that our world is one of eight planets currently orbiting the sun, the star that holds our solar system together. The Earth is one of the only planets whose gravitational force can hold onto an atmosphere in the face of solar winds. This atmosphere is an intricate mix of various gases such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and more. Also, the planet has one thing that may make it unique…water.
The word “world” itself is derived from the Old English noun woruld, which also spawned the Dutch language’s wereld and German’s welt.
What defines the universe?
The same dictionary defines the universe as “the whole body of things as observed or assumed” or, simply, “the cosmos”. According to Brian Greene’s book The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, the universe is “all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy”.
The overall size and scale of the universe are not known to us due to our limited technology. Modern telescopes may be highly advanced, but the ability to see the entire universe from Earth, or space, is still a very distant dream.
For now, we have to settle for the observable universe, a spherical region with an approximated 93 billion-lightyear diameter. The observable universe contains all matter that is observable from Earth, space probes, and telescopes.
The origin of the universe is equally unclear, with science at constant loggerheads with various religious and traditional beliefs. The scientific community’s primary assertion regarding the formation of the universe is the Big Bang theory. The fact that the man who birthed this theory, Georges Lemaitre, was a Roman Catholic priest is one of the greatest ironies one can think of.
The Judeo-Christian creation belief is the most famous religious assertions surrounding the universe’s beginnings. According to the book of Genesis in the Bible and the Torah, God created the world, the universe, and the first human beings. The creationist perspective may acknowledge the vast and unknowable nature of the universe, but it regards these as being incomparable to the vastness and mystery of God.
Many ancient mystical religions and various New Age beliefs place the universe at the center of their faiths. Unlike the Judeo-Christian view, mystics and “New Agers” believe the universe to be the deity that governs existence itself. A common view in these circles is that each living creature is part of an interconnected spiritual network.
This is often referred to as “the collective consciousness” or “the universe”. The lack of formal doctrine or codification means there is no clear scriptures or text to reference how all of this works though. However, many New Age practices have ties to Hinduism and eastern mysticism (Karma, Chakras, etc.), so consultation with spiritual leaders in those communities is not a bad place to start when seeking answers.
The multiverse theory, while still unrefined, makes for some interesting reading too. This theory presents the possibility that “our” universe is part of a collective group of universes that are running concurrently.
Known as parallel universes, or “alternate dimensions”, these universes are touted to be alternate, butterfly-effect-style, realities. In other words, there could be another Earth, another human, and another you that is currently undergoing a different set of experiences based on decisions or events that did not take place in our current reality.
For example, if you went to college and became a lawyer, there could be a parallel universe where you dropped out of high school and became the world’s youngest billionaire.
What is bigger, the world, or the universe?
The universe is incalculably bigger than the world. Regardless of whether you take “world” to mean the Earth or the extent of human influence within the cosmos, it is insignificant insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe.
The Earth has a diameter of 7917.5 miles (12 742 kilometers). While that is massive, at ground level, it is almost nothing when you remember that the observable universe (the part that we know of) has a diameter of 93 billion lightyears! You might want to note that one light-year equals 5.8 trillion miles! This means that the observable universe has a diameter that is 93 billion times 5.8 trillion miles. Ludicrous numbers indeed.
Another way of looking at it is to understand that Earth is not even the biggest, second, third, or even fourth biggest planet within our solar system. Jupiter and Saturn combined are more than 400 times heavier than Earth. Our sun and solar system, in turn, are a minuscule speck among the other stars and planetary systems in our home galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way is a fairly sizeable galaxy in its own right, but it is just one among hundreds of billions in the observable universe.
Even if the world included the places that man has explored beyond planet Earth itself, it would still be mindbogglingly tiny in relation to the universe. Man has only gone as far as the Moon, which is a quick dash away, relatively speaking. A human has never reached Mars, our nearest neighbor, let alone the far reaches of the solar system or galaxy. Thanks to NASA’s Voyager program though, unmanned interstellar travel is the best we have come up with so far.
What is the difference between the world and the universe?
The main difference between the two is sheer size. The world is everything that is on and directly influenced by the Earth and its inhabitants. The universe is everything…everywhere. Including space and time.
There is also direct causality between the existence of the world and the existence of the universe, as the former would not be possible without the latter.