# Anthony Aguirre on Reddit (u/Anthony_Aguirre)

Part of Scientists on Reddit, researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-07. Interactive version: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/scientists-on-reddit/anthony-aguirre

Anthony Aguirre: Cosmologist at UC Santa Cruz.

- Reddit account: [u/Anthony_Aguirre](https://www.reddit.com/user/Anthony_Aguirre/) (AMA only)
- How we know it's theirs: [The 2016 r/science AMA, posted from this account](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/49yiy8/)
- Where they post, in the records we retrieved: r/science (52), r/TheoreticalPhysics (4), r/space (3), r/worldnews (3), r/singularity (1), r/humanfuture (1)
- Known activity in the posts we found: 2016 to 2025
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Aguirre

## Moments

### u/Anthony_Aguirre in r/science, Mar 11, 2016 · Explains things

Replying to a redditor:

> reddit had a recent thread regarding the Universe not having a center - I've been racking my brain for two days about it and it still doesn't make sense. Maybe you could help with another or more detailed explanation? The explanation came out on top in our thread was that the…

> The balloon metaphor is good but suffers from the flaw that people always ask about the inside and outside of the balloon, when you're supposed to imagine being a flatlander stuck on its surface.
>
> Here's another way to think about a related version of a center-less universe.  Consider the ancient game Asteroids, or anything more modern where the screen wraps around in both horizontal and vertical directions.  That is, as you pass off the right edge of the screen you reappear on the left.  Now imagine that screen filled with little tiny galaxies placed randomly.  Where is the *center* of the distribution of galaxies?  You might say the center of the screen, but in terms of what each galaxy 'sees' nearby, there is no difference between the center and any other place -- the galaxies don't see the edge of the screen, since photons just go from one 'edge' to another.  In other words if you translate the entire thing to the right (or left or top or bottom) you don't change anything.
>
> Now imagine a 3-dimensional space that wraps around in just the same way -- maybe in minecraft-world instead of asteroids.
>
> This is a model of a flat universe with a toroidal topology.  A finite closed universe is technically different, but this might help conceptualize things a bit better.

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/49yiy8/comment/d0w9gnz/ · 32 points as of Nov 7, 2026