One thing space has no shortage of: cubic meters.
Let’s see how many cubic meters per universe.
They say the universe is about 13 billion years old. So that’s 26 billion light-years (that is, 26×10¹⁰ ly) across (measured from big bang to big bang).
Cube that to get cubic light-years (in a cubical slice of cubical space-time):
1.7576×10³⁴ ly³/universe
Now, there are more than 9.46×10¹⁵ meters in a light-year. Cube that to get cubic meters in a cubic light-year:
8.46590536×10⁴⁷ m³/ly³
Together, that’s more than
1.48×10⁸² m³/universe
It’s a fair number — you might say, plenty — but compared to what?
The Universe is the largest place we know of, so we can’t compare it to other places. Maybe it would make sense to compare it to numbers of things.
Try comparing numbers of cubic meters to numbers of atoms.
I turn to the Fount of All Knowledge, where the self-proclaimed cite estimates of
10⁷⁸ to 10⁸² atoms/universe
(It must be true, otherwise why would they print it on the Internet?)
That means, if one were to vaporize all the matter in all the galaxies in the universe (in the interest of Science), and distribute the atoms evenly (which seems only fair)…
…there wouldn’t be enough atoms for the cubic meters.
To visit your nearest neighbor atom, you might have to travel a few meters — which is a long trip, for an atom.
I guess we could try counting numbers of photons. The trouble with counting photons, though, is that they’re hard to corral, once they’ve flown the coop. And even if you did corral them, the number depends on how you corral them.
Or neutrinos… who have likewise moved on to (presumably) greener pastures… but the reason they left in the first place is, they’re so bad at interacting, it’s hard to get any count at all.
If you love them, it’s best to let them go — whether they showed any sign of loving you back or not.