If the universe is everything, and scientists say that the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?

infinite

How does infinite expand?

everything in the universe is moving away from the point of origin,some objects move faster than others thats why galaxies collide etc. also galaxies are moving farther from each other
where they end up nobody knows

It's because scientists have very poor communication skills.


The universe isn't expanding, the placement of the matter in the universe is expanding. The "empty space" of the universe has always been the same size (infinite), how far out "matter" has stretched since the big bang is a different story. Just like when the universe starts to collapse, space won't be any smaller, just the distances between things will be.

Actually that is incorrect. Our universe is expanding and it is the expansion of space itself that has caused the realization of the presence of dark energy. Space, in our universe, is a combination of volume, time, and energy; not emptiness. There may be many universes with or without their own big bangs and their own space but the volume of ours is increasing at a measured rate.

Einstein was the one to realize that space/time is a fabric; not a void. It was he who realized that the fabric of space/time can be stretched with the result being what we perceive as gravity.

We once thought that after the expansion, gravity would cause the universe to collapse back inward. This is not the case. The universe is expanding at an accelerating rate due to dark energy. It will never fall back inward because the creation of dark energy has the opposite effect as gravity.

One "proof" of the expansion of the universe is the distribution of matter in the cosmos. Matter expanding from a central "point" would leave the matter in a shell speeding from a center. The actual expansion of space leaves a characteristic uniform distribution.

Infinity is a concept, not a reality. For the universe to be expanding, it must be finite.

As I understand it...The universe is expanding from the center out, due to the forces of the big bang. There is nothing for the universe to expand into, because nothing physically exists outside of our universe. Space ends where the universe ends. Space is curved, so you can't go outside of the universe, you would just go around. It would be like walking on the inside of a sphere.

Here is a short primer on the expansion of the universe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwZAmADJdc0

infinity is a concept, but if it exists it is also a reality

we don't know the ends of the universe or where we r expanding to

most of it is math equations anyway

The universe is expanding. If it can get bigger, it can't be infinitely large.

yes it can

Aye... Whatever...

It was once believed that an elephant held up the earth. Yet lo... the elephant is also standing upon something.

Just because our universe might be contained in a singularity (event horizon would work both ways)does not mean that there is not a greater reality beyond that event horizon...

Limits are something you place upon yourself.

The real question is not what the universe is expanding into, it's at what level of expansion the universe will abruptly collapse inward upon itself. By the current time scale, I'd say we have at least another, oh, 500 billion years or so.

Well, to begin with, you should know better than to trust what scientists say.

Have you never heard scientists suggest that there may be other universes? If that's true then the "universe" cannot be everything.

Of course, I'll be the first to agree that this is a semantic oxymoron. If the universe is everything, then there cannot be "other" universes since they too would be part of "everything" and thus just be part of the "universe".

The other thing to consider is the scientific view in general. Science basically views the universe as being physical, and therefore it is concerned solely with the "physics" of the situation. But what is physics but mathematics applied to observations. And what is mathematics but a formalism that we created from having made observations. So science is a closed system and can never go beyond chasing its own tail.

Instead of thinking in terms of science just recognize that life is but a dream and then ask, what is the dream expanding into?

This most likely won't help. But at least it will take your mind off physics.

I love how people take unproven theories and speak of them as if they are laws.

We can only estimate the size of our universe by the what we can observe, so we are limited in that manner.

If the Big Bang can happen once in any point in space, then what is to say that it can't happen again at an unimaginably large amount of light years away.

It is likely that there is no way we will ever be able to know if the universe is a closed system, or if it is indeed open indefinitely to allow matter, or other universes, to fill the "empty" fabric of space.

Personally, I try to look at the bigger picture, of why any of this exists in the first place..

Does it just exist because it does? Or is there something more to it that we cannot observe in a physical aspect?

Technology to measure has grown exponentially. The measurements of space caused by the big bang are now quite accurate.

There may be many big bangs but current theory is that each would cause their own universe, not be part of ours. Understanding the limits of the universe is also understanding the concepts of what a universe is; a math set. The universe isn't everything. Our universe is what was created by our big bang. Therefore our universe, by definition, would be a closed system.

Consider a balloon with 100cc of air in it. You are a bacteria living on the inside of that balloon, limited to the surface of the balloon. The balloon is everything. Travel long enough in one direction, you will loop back onto your own path. There is nothing in your world outside of the surface of the balloon.

Now inflate the balloon.

The surface of the balloon is still everything, and now it is larger.

If our 3-space is curved in a higher dimension (the 4th, discounting time), then its easy to imagine that our universe is both everything and also expanding.

Sweetest wrote:


Um...okay. There is a lot of math involved, true. Is this intended as a dismissal of some kind?

Spider wrote:



I agree the universe is finite, but I'm not convinced that the ability to get larger is a property limited to finite things. Take any slice of the real numbers, and start adding numbers to it. Like: take all even numbers, and start adding odd numbers. Or take the irrational numbers and start adding rationals.

Is it possible for a physical universe to exist that is both infinitely large, and expanding? I think so. Consider a 3-space universe where movement in a particular plane will eventually curve back onto itself, while movement orthogonal to the plane continues forever. Obviously its looped back onto itself in a higher dimension, but not like a sphere, more like a cylinder. Oh, and then let the radius of the 4d cylinder increase.