Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Very weird question

This is topic Very weird question in forum Officers' Lounge at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://flare.solareclipse.net/ultimatebb.php/topic/10/1190.html

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

While surfing on the site were Capps got his headacher, i found this question:

"so, if scientists reckon that the universe is everything, and the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?"

COme to think of it, it *is* a bit true...any comments?

(Maybe if I see this question again tomorrow, it'll be all clear)

------------------
"When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators, Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life."
-- Management slogan, Ridcully-style (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent, Discworld)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prakesh's Star Trek Site

Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :

I suppose all you can do is theorize...

Maybe the universe is creating itself as it goes along infinitely.

------------------
"No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and have lived to tell about it." Sideshow Bob

Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :

Here's the bestest answer ever:
No-one really knows.

It's one of those things that Humanity hasn't gotten around to visualising, let alone comprehending (and subsequently raping and destroying, if these are the same humans I know of).

What could be out there?
A vacuum? Well isn't there one in the Universe as it stands, such that a vacuum expanding into another vacuum won't change all that much.

What if it's a total vacuum, one where even massless photons and gluons do not exist?
[remember, space isn't a perfect vacuum; there's stellar elements + interchange particles + neutrinos]
If so, then there could be no way of detecting it (photons = radiation, gluons => Strongly interacting matter). Then, that might be what's out there.

[Actually, I'm not too sure about the gluons having mass. I'm knackered, and could not be arsed to go and see if they have, even thought I'm being examined on this in a few weeks. Joy. Pure, unbridled joy.]

What if there are other bubble universes, created out of the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics? Fair enough, they might be there, but then again the question arises "What's between them?"

Jeff's suggestion of created mass has been proposed, and actually was one of the two explanations for a Steady State universe, known at the time to be expanding (thanks to Hubble). It was put forward that matter creation was necessary to explain the expansion viz. the old matter stayed where it was, while new matter is being created constantly at the extreme edges of the Universe.
But once it was realised that galaxies are moving away from each other and from a single point, and that Conservation of Energy would most likely be violated by the concept
(mass =energy /(speed of light^2))
it was discarded in favour of the Big Bang theory, a model of which agrees with the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation found all over the universe.

Oh,and I don't have the foggiest idea what exists outside our universe. Probably the same "stuff" that existed outside of the infinitely-dense Primordial Atom from which Frank was spewed upon us.

------------------
Devil: Oh look at the time! I'm late for services.
Stone: Services?
Devil: A group of young teenagers that have been celebrating the Black Sabbath are planning on deep-sixing their gym teacher tonight. I'm gonna go and give them a little encouragement.

Brimstone. May it rest in syndication.

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

I sure am popular these days...

------------------
Frank's Home Page
"Frank, sometimes you are frightening on a scale that boggles the human imagination." - Krenim

Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :

Frank, since when where you not?

------------------
7 alarm clock: "Do not touch me."
Dilbert: "Then how do I turn you off?"
7: "Believe me, I am plenty turned off."

Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :

What I meant was not that matter was being created, but space itself... Where the laws of physics as we know them come into reality.

You can have matter, and you need the space to put it in. Maybe that space is ever-increasing.

------------------
"No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and have lived to tell about it." Sideshow Bob

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Jeff has this one close to nailed down. The question of "what is outside the universe" is essentially meaningless. There IS nothing outside the universe. That's why we call it that. It is not expanding into anything. It is merely expanding. And yes, it is space itself that is expanding, not matter.

The problem is that this is so completely counterintuitive, as it violates our common experience. But the universe rarely does things based on how well we will be able to understand them.

------------------
"What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity."
--
Camper Van Beethoven

Posted by HMS White Star (Member # 174) on :

The cool thing about the universe that is expanding in to areas with nothing is before the universe is there in that area there is nothing, and if you believe in the space/time continum, in that area of nothing not even time exists, so the cool part is when the universe is there time starts, now here's the weird part, when the universe starts to get smaller area has nothing again is that going to be the literal end of time in that area, just a thought.

------------------
Somehow you were linked to this page, which doesn't really exist. Well, this one does, but the one you were trying to get to doesn't. Actually, that's not really true either, because it probably does, but either you mistyped it or our webmaster is asleep at the wheel. If the later is the case (you were linked here from a page within **********.net) then please let us know.

If you were linked here from an external site, which is most often the case, it would be nice of you to let them know.

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

As I said, I can see it now.

The UNIVERSE is everything, and the amount of 'everything-ness' is expanding. That's it (I think)

Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :

It's just filling the void.

------------------
Fool of a Took, throw yourself in next time!!
Gandalf

Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :

Why can't the universe be like another galaxy, with other universes nearby, all floating in a "megaverse"?
Isn't it egocentrical to think that our universe is the centre of existenz?
I mean, since we can't be sure of anything we shouldn't rule out anything.

------------------
-At least I can get it up without biomechanical pumps.
-Try falling into a pit of lava, Moffy. Then see how horny you feel.

[This message has been edited by Nimrod (edited April 20, 2000).]

Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :

Well, because we can't measure 'other' universes, it would be impossible to theorize if there ARE other universes...

Personally, I believe in multiverses, rather than one big megaverse.

------------------
"No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and have lived to tell about it." Sideshow Bob

Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :

Or, the entire universe is just one single atom part of an icecream some six your-old Q is holding

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

BUt if our universe were just one of many, then it wouldn't be the universe. The universe is everything. So, if there were other "universes", we'd have to come up with a different word for them. And then people would still go, "Well, how do we know that there aren't other omniverses? Isn't it a big egotistical to assuem that ours is the only onmi/multi/ego/fishverse in existence?"

And then we'd get "How do we know that there aren't other existences out there? Isn't it a bit vain to assume that there is just our existence? How many other "everything that exists"'s are out there?"

And then language collapses.

------------------
"Sometimes I wish the planet would be scoured with cleansing fire. Other times I just wish Frank would be."
Sol System

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, there is a word for it, as already mentioned: multiverse. Anyone who's read enough Trek novels has to have seen it crop up at least once... :-)

And, actually, there are scientific theories out there about multiple "universes". The problem is that we can't observe them, so there's no way to know if they're there or not...

------------------
"Compared to you, every male on this ship is an expert on women!"
-Geordi LaForge to Wesley Crusher, TNG: "Sarek"

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

I read an article a few days ago about a way to detect them indirectly, but it only works if they act in a very specific manner.

------------------
"Oh, it's an anti-anti-WTO song. It's essentially a pro-Starbucks song. I saw this picture of a guy sticking his foot through a plate-glass window in a Starbucks in Seattle, and he was wearing a Nike. Man, couldn't you just change your shoes?"
--
M. Doughty

Posted by Fructose (Member # 309) on :

Michael Crichton's book Timeline used the multiverse concept. He deals with some of the 'what ifs' in it, but he kinda makes a little of it up too. But it's all based on solid physics.

------------------
It doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing as long as you look good doing it.

Posted by The Talented Mr. Gurgeh (Member # 318) on :

Other universes could exist, but time and space are a property of the universe/universes itself/themselves, so whatever is between them is undefinable in our terms, so in effect, if there are other universes, they are infinitely separated in space and time.
The question arises; "If there is more than one universe, with each one continually expanding(this is dependent on the Hubble constant but that aside), will they not eventually meet at some point?". But again, this question is pointless. If you were to suppose that you had more than one universe and that they were to expand until they met, you would have to assume that they had "positions" in the "void". But as position etc . is a property of the universe, you cannot have a way of telling "where" one universe is in relation to another. So again, the universes are infinitely separated in space and time.
Still though, I would mind a look at that article Sol mentioned.
As for the question of what we'd call our universe if other universes were discovered, well, I think thats a bit irrelevant. It's only a name after all.

------------------
"Try not.
Do.
Or Do not.
There is no try."
-Yoda, Jedi Master.

Posted by The Talented Mr. Gurgeh (Member # 318) on :

Also, if you had more than one universe, who's to say that another universe's time and space parameters would be the same as our own? They could be completely different. Actually, the more I think about the existance of other universes, the more potential problems I see. For example, what size would another universe be in comparison to our own, and how could one compare them? If the other universe had different space parameters... I'm getting a headache.

------------------
"Try not.
Do.
Or Do not.
There is no try."
-Yoda, Jedi Master.

Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :

Don't bother thinking of them... Camparison is impossible, because they'll have different rules. In fact, since they are outside all we know, we can only imagine what they are like.

------------------
"No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and have lived to tell about it." Sideshow Bob

Posted by Teelie (Member # 280) on :

It's expanding into the void of nothingness, making nothing something.

------------------
Admin at the trekbbs.com

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Actually, the theoretically infinite universes that make up the multiverse are not separated by space and time. In space/time coordinates, they may actually be colocated, or "superimposed" on one another. The problem is that they are still utterly separate.

What separates them? Well, it isn't space and time, so perhaps its yet another one of those incomprehensible dimensions the scientists are always touting. Since I am not aware that this subject has been directly addressed, I propose that we call this "separating dimension" be called unspace/time.

Thank you.

------------------
"Huh? Wuzzat?"
-- Any Teletubbie
http://www.geocities.com/cyrano_jones.geo/

Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :

Hmm. I was going for the more marketable "Flibble-line" myself.

------------------
*Amusing quote not available, please call back later*