English

The Universe is Odd

Popular Physics 2025-04-01 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

The cosmological principle posits that the universe does not exhibit any specific preference for position or direction. However, it remains unclear whether the universe has a distinct preference for parity: whether certain properties are more likely to be classified as even or odd. In this study, we analyze the largest available galaxy group catalogs to explore this hypothesis: specifically, whether the number of galaxies within a galaxy group or cluster is more likely to be odd or even. Our findings convincingly indicate that the universe indeed favors odd numbers, with results achieving a significance level well above the 4.1σ4.1-\sigma threshold.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.22839,
  title  = {The Universe is Odd},
  author = {Shiyin Shen and Nan Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.22839},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

This manuscript is deliberately announced on an odd-numbered date

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:38:38.037Z