WTF is the universe expanding into ??

Do we have any clue whats on the other side of the "end"

I bet we are in a marble sized universe like in MEN IN BLACK. Some kid is playing marbles with our universe.

editors note :

u assume there is something outside the universe to expand into

there is literally nothing... think of the universe like a rubber band... stretching

>> ^packo:

u assume there is something outside the universe to expand into
there is literally nothing... think of the universe like a rubber band... stretching


Could say the same thing about what you stated. The ASSuming part

That is unless you can back that up with something, and I do want you to ( as I am interested).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV33t8U6w28&feature=related

about 3:35 is where it gives answers
sorry about the long intro before anything starts

They got a million bucks for that?

>> ^BoneRemake:
I bet we are in a marble sized universe like in MEN IN BLACK.


Not even that big.

Our universe is simply what you would see if you could see into the nucleus of an atom. It would look just like a swarm of galaxies orbiting around a central point of origin (the nucleus). But it's complex and ever-changing simply because, from the way we see it (from inside the atom), we can't tell that the arrow of time is cycling our universe through representations of every atom that has ever existed.

I think the problem of perception comes from the fact that all the atoms that have ever existed (the ones that the universe represents) were all created from the particle accelerator at CERN. That's why the universe is expanding faster and faster. Because all the atoms that it represents were created in a huge vacuum to begin with.

I don't know why nobody else reaches the obvious conclusion. Or why I always feel the need to explain it.

There are two predominant theories (last I knew anyway). One says that the universe will expand to such an extent and cool to such an extent that it will eventually just fly apart. The other is the idea of a rubber-band that eventually it will fall back in on itself. Right now what is baffling is scientists really don't know enough about what the energy is that is pushing the universe apart or even if it's what they think it is. I suspect whomever answers that question will get the next Nobel.

Maybe it's not expanding faster, it's just as everything slows down, we are seeing everything else through some sort of universe-sized lensing effect. The stuff isn't further away, light is just taking an ever more circuitous route to us.

>> ^Payback:

Maybe it's not expanding faster, it's just as everything slows down, we are seeing everything else through some sort of universe-sized lensing effect. The stuff isn't further away, light is just taking an ever more circuitous route to us.


Interesting. I've thought it's also possible that the universe might be expanding at a constant rate, but everything in it is shrinking!

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^Payback:
Maybe it's not expanding faster, it's just as everything slows down, we are seeing everything else through some sort of universe-sized lensing effect. The stuff isn't further away, light is just taking an ever more circuitous route to us.

Interesting. I've thought it's also possible that the universe might be expanding at a constant rate, but everything in it is shrinking!


Or, the speed of light has slowed over time. It just takes longer to get here from that far away. All interesting questions. Ahh, science.

@BoneRemake, @packo. I think people often make the mistake of thinking that the universe started as a bunch of energy/matter suspended and then exploding into an existing, infinite 3D space; but that is not the theory. It seems to me like the video that @packo linked to is partially suffering from this error--especially when it shows the universe as floating and expanding into a sea of "outside" stars (but it gets many things right--I am still glad you posted it, thanks). As I understand it, the big bang is meant to have *created* the dimensions (including time) and it is the dimensions themselves that are expanding, possibly "into" a higher dimensional space that we are not equipped to perceive.

The usual metaphor (presented by Steven Hawking, among others) is to think of the 2-dimenstional surface of a balloon as it inflates. 2D beings trapped on the surface of the balloon would observe that all points on the expanding surface are moving away from each other, but such people would be incapable of imagining into what, since they have no intuitive understanding of a third dimensions. The balloon also illustrates the concept of "finite yet unbound." The 2D balloon-surface citizen could travel forever in one direction on the surface and never find the boundary; instead he just goes eternally round and round on the balloon which, never the less, still has a finite area even though the border remains imperceptible to the 2d resident. It is possible that the universe is a 3d version of this.

Because it is space itself that is expanding (not matter expanding into existing space), the speed at which two objects "move" away from each other increases in relation to how much expanding space their is between the two objects. In reality, the objects are not moving apart as we normally think of it--space itself is just getting bigger in between them. This means that regardless of where you are in the universe, it will look like you are at the center of a huge explosion with everything else rushing away.

All points (and all space) in the universe were once at exactly the same place, a single point, which means that all points in the universe began in the center and, in a sense, still are at the center from their own perspective. At large distances, this speed adds up until it exceeds that of light, which means we will never see or visit objects that are currently more than X light years away; and the value of X is shrinking so that, in fact, the entire universe will eventually fall behind a relativistic curtain until all the galaxies and even stars disappear eternally from each others' view, with space filling in faster than light can catch up. This does not violate relativity, again because the objects are not actually moving faster than light, there is just a huge area of space growing between them.

I am less sure about this, but I think even the space between the atoms and subatomic particles might take on properties (such as an expanded Plank length) that eventually prevent such particles from getting close enough together for the electromagnetic/strong/weak/gravitational forces to function and that's the end of chemistry.

>> ^packo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV33t8U6w28&feature=related
about 3:35 is where it gives answers
sorry about the long intro before anything starts