Its name is Igdrossil.

In Norse cosmology, it's a sacred tree, an immense ash that sits at the navel of the world.

It is the axis of the universe.

The gods assemble under the tree to make their deliberations. Great creatures

make the tree their home, including a dragon, an eagle, and three stags. Its roots stretch for miles

beneath the earth, and its branches grow all the way to the heavens. And it is the source of Ragnarok, the end of days.

Igdracil is just one of many great trees found throughout mythical cosmology.

Indeed, it's just one variant of an almost universal theme, an axis mundi, an axis of the world. In many cultures, it's a tree.

In many others, it's a pillar or a spire or a mountain. In some cultures, it's a holy site

within reach, something that exists on the far edge of the horizon or in the center of a city. In others,

it's purely mythical told of only in legends and stories. The Axis Mundi connects all the realms

of existence from the subterranean to the earthly to the heavenly. It is the central fulcrum of all existence. Every cosmology

has an axis mundi, a center of the universe. But what about modern cosmology based on physics

and observation? Where is the center of our universe? The center of the Big Bang? Where did it all

come from? And if conditions are right, where will it all return to? Well, let's follow the journey

of modern cosmology from its birth in the Cupertican Revolution to see where the Axis Moondi, the all-important center of the

universe, has ended up. Throughout the Middle Ages, in Europe, astronomers gained an ever-increasing

understanding of the cosmos, and they developed a cosmology. This cosmological model, this structure of the

universe, traces its roots to Claudius Ptolemy, who lives somewhere between 100 and 170 AD.

And of course, it was tweaked and modified and expanded, but this is the roots.

If we're looking at the scientific revolution, which started in earnest in the late

1500s in Europe, this is the model they were dealing with.

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