Thread: What is beyond the universe?

Beyond space there are endless variations of dimensions and other universii, per my understanding that is what String theory is pointing to. There may be other universes there where everything is going backwards as to what we are experiencing, or the laws of physics may be totally different , for example where there is no conservation of energy or mass. We may be able quantify these theories mathematically or symbollically with new super computers, which will develop new mathematics or frameworks, and know what effects it produces, but to truly understanding the phenomena taking place is beyond our limited human capability.

Well, not to get bogged down in semantics, but if the Universe is “Everything that exists anywhere”, there really cannot be anything outside of the universe; because it would just be part of the Universe.

Originally Posted by tom

When I think about space, I think about what is beyond our known universe. It confuses me. If it is infinite, then by definition can anything be beyond it? Maybe in other dimensions that are not part of our known universe???

Or if its limited but curved does our universe limit itself by rolling back into itself?

Also what is it expanding into?

Space isn't expanding into "something". Don't picture matter in space moving outward like you would an exploding bomb.

The space in between matter is what is expanding. Galaxies are moving away from each other. A popular explaination of this is the example where you blow up a balloon to 1/3 fill. Then, all around the balloon you glue pennies to it - all pennies being an equal distance from each other. As you continue to blow up the balloon to it's full fill, the pennies all are moving away from each other.

Now HOW this is happening is still of course a mystery, or where the "dark matter" is coming from that takes up the space, is still a mystery too.

Just don't picture an "edge" or anything in the universe.

Author Brian Greene has an excellent explanation regarding the popular theory of expansion in "Fabric of the Cosmos". He does a good job of explaining things for the lay person, although the expansion section was still a difficult read.

Another thing that might help is to know about the early stages of the Universe. VERY soon after the Big Bang there was a brief period where the early sub atomic particles (quarks) were evenly distributed throughout the entire universe (remember, the universe was comparitively still quite small at this point.) So it isn't like chunks of matter were being shot across the universe, matter was there. Quantum jitters (the random behaviors of matter at a quantum level) brought some particles close together which created kind of a snowball effect with gravity, eventually leading to the creation of basic particels like Protons and neutrons.

Originally Posted by 1946dodge

Most likely outside of space-time there is no space-time, but something we cannot ever imagine or understand, since we live in space-time. We can, of course try to figure it out, but there is probably no way to test our theory, since whatever is outside of space-time isn't space-time. There are two theories that have been offered since the beginning of physics - there is nothing, and there is God, and of course there are those who say they don't know and don't care. I believe that the athiestic "nothing" and "God" ideas are both unprovable, but a universe that just happened for no reason is an absurdity for me. The problem with the God thesis, is that it must be based on faith, but has evolved into belief systems that have no evidence. This leads to fighting and misery when the belief systems differ and this is rediculous. When we die, and that will be too soon for most of us, we will find out whether or not there is a God, what God is, if he exists and what is outside of space-time. So discussing ideas and theories about it is always useful, but fighting over it is pointless since we will all find out eventually what the story is.
IMHO, of course.

Interesting, 1946dodge...one must think outside the box (as one fast food chain likes to say) in order to understand or imagine what is outside of space-time. It is quite possible that there is only space outside of space-time...especially since space-time and space are not the same. It is MHO that the current 'argument' between the evolutionists and the creationists miss the 'complete picture' so to speak. If one cares to compare the length of a 'day' on Mercury with that on earth with that on Pluto, one would find a vast difference in said length. Now consider the length of God's 'day'...who knows how long that may be thus one of His days could be 10 billion of our earth years for example. While the human mind at that time could not fathom a billion years it could understand six days so what God created, evolution took over and instead of being six days it was actually 60 billion years. In other words, it is a combination of both; God created and when He was done, evolution kicked in to further develop His creations. Just my HMO...your milage may vary....

Originally Posted by stereobot

The space in between matter is what is expanding. Galaxies are moving away from each other.

So how does one accept the beautiful pictures NASA has provided of galaxies colliding (and absorbing) each other?

Originally Posted by David E. Eaton Sr.

So how does one accept the beautiful pictures NASA has provided of galaxies colliding (and absorbing) each other?

They move apart only if the Cosmological Constant (72 kilometers per second per megaparsec) is greater than their combined gravity. Remember, large galxies like the Milky Way have the gravity of of trillions or even tens of trillions of suns. If they are close enough, they attract. For example, all of our satellite galaxies (the Large and Small Megallanic Clouds, Ursa Minor, Leo I & II) are being slowly sucked into ours; the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies are being attracted towards us until, at some untold point in several billion years, our galaxies collide and form one elliptic supergalaxy; and our entire Local Group is being pulled towards the Great Attractor, a huge "gravitational anomaly" 250 million lightyears away in the constellation Norma.

On a side note, if the expansion of the universe was greater than gravity in all cases, what would keep our bodies from flying apart under the expansion of spacetime?