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Space - does it end?

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TooFriendly

TooFriendly

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Oct 30, 2017
2,026
I think the current most popular theory is that the universe is infinite and flat (a triangle drawn on it would add up to 180 degrees).
End_of_universe.jpg


it won't end up in a Big Crunch or the big rip, it will continue to expand faster and faster until galaxies are so far away that light from them cannot reach to each other (as the space between them is so vast and expanding that the speed of light cannot compete). The universe will end in a 'heat death' as the energy is dispersed in entropic decay over an incredibly long time scale.

I think you can imagine the universe as if you are sitting on the surface of a balloon that's being inflated. You are on one dot drawn in the balloon, and other galaxies are other dots. As the balloon inflates, the other dots move further apart from each other. Except this balloon isn't 3 dimensional. Maybe the balloon is a 4 dimensional hyper torus or something.

I'm probably completely wrong and confused but that's my layman's understanding
 
Liquid Plejades

Liquid Plejades

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Mar 3, 2018
4,512
RustyNails said:
I dont want to sound reductivist, but what is outside the balloon? what happens if I make a magical rocket and go past the boundary of the balloon?
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someone else can correct me, but I think one of the strongest theories scientists believe in...or at least some hypothesize/theorize, I shouldn't say believe when it comes to theoretical stuff like this...is that there are other balloons. Maybe infinite amounts of them. Basically there are other universes. I don't recall currently if the theory talks about whether there is something in between the balloons in that "empty space" or not. Will have to read that again.

Then there's the whole debate of whether they are parallel universes or just other universes. That's a whole different can of worms. You start talking about these other universes and how the rules of physics are different there. Maybe instead of carbon another thing is dominant. There's also scientists that have theorized that black holes are rips in universes to lead into these other ones.

These stuff fucks me up if I think about them too much.
 
19thCenturyFox

19thCenturyFox

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Oct 29, 2017
4,309
I think this is more of a philosophical question than a scientific question. In my opinion nothing is endless, everything has an end, except for a sausage which has two ends, but that's not the point.
 
j7vikes

j7vikes

Definitely not shooting blanks
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Jan 5, 2020
5,622
Pretty sure it stops at Pluto. At least according to all the fourth grade science fairs I witnessed.
 
subpar spatula

subpar spatula

Refuses to Wash his Ass
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Oct 26, 2017
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TheSkullPrince said:
I think about this shit from time to time.

-If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? (Unless the universe is defined as all the mass and energy, and it's expanding into empty space).

-If space is nothing, then why can gravity warp it?

-Does the universe have a floor or ceiling? Is it infinite in all directions?
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We expand into the universe. Humans just are really incapable of really understanding this part because we work best in 3D. 4D and up makes more sense answer wise but it's really hard to grasp. There isn't some bubble edge that if you pierce the veil you will see some blank area with our universe behind it as an expanding bubble or something. You won't see a lot of universes floating around. This space doesn't exist. The universe encompasses everything, so it only expands itself. This is where higher than 3D comes into play because we assume based on our tiny 3D processing brains that if something like a balloon exists and it is expanding it is expanding into another space, our air space or wherever we are. For a universe, that's not the case because it is technically everything so that "space" is also the universe and it expands with it.

Space isn't "nothing"

it is infinite in all directions similar to how a circle is infinite.
 
TooFriendly

TooFriendly

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Oct 30, 2017
2,026
RustyNails said:
I dont want to sound reductivist, but what is outside the balloon? what happens if I make a magical rocket and go past the boundary of the balloon?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

if you were to go further out than anything had been, then you would just be further out. And you'd be taking space time with you.
I think that the balloon analogy is to represent the explosion that is our universe.It's not really moving in to anything. Space time is being formed as it goes I suppose.
Its kind of like saying 'what was before time?' Your answer is in the question, there was no time so there's nothing to measure. Can time exist without matter/space? Probably not.
I'm not a physicist though of course, just talking shit.

check out astronomy cast if you are interested in this stuff. I used to listen to it all the time. This episode is probably relevant:

 
zoltek

zoltek

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Oct 25, 2017
1,917
Lebon30 said:
There's no start. There's no end. It's infinite, like time. There was an infinite amount of timelines before our big bang. There will be an infinite more after ours.
We aren't meant to "know" the beginning or the end. Nothing is created, nothing is lost and everything changes. Perpetually. Forever and ever. Even after all is said and done, when there is no stars left, in the darkness, slowly but surely, at the atom level, things will escalate again to create a new universe. Forever.

This is philosophical, I know. And I wish that, sometimes, scientists stop to try to understand space itself and focus on ourselves. We weren't meant to know.
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Quitter!

(You are right... but nobody likes a quitter :) )
 
HeyNay

HeyNay

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Oct 27, 2017
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Chrome Hyena said:




Watch this to REALLY have your mind blown about the nature of not just space time, but reality period.





Here are some fun facts from said video:

What is Spacetime: Spacetime refers to whatever external reality underlies our collective experiences of the space between things and the time between events.

Suppose two observers are moving relative to each other and particles count as observers. Fact, they don't agree on the time between events, the space between events or the order of events,. And yet each of them measures things properly and is entirely consistent which means neither of them is wrong."

I like the ending, which describes our reality to me: "Imagine we're all reading a flip book on graph paper, we all agree on the events of the story, but don't agree on where they happen on the page, on how many pages there are between events, or even on the order of some of those events and yet we're all reading the same book. Only there's no graph on the paper, there are no pages, and their is no book. All of that is just an imposition our brain makes to perceive whatever "this" (spacetime) is. Why do we perceive reality in such a vividly spatial and temporal way? No one knows yet."
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Look at Donald Hoffman's work in this area. Spacetime is an agreed upon concept we share as conscious participants who share the same relativity. But it's only a concept - something the mind evolved for environmental adaptation.

Outside of consciousness there is no space and time. All matter then has no definite position relative to each other. Quantum entanglement has shown that particles can interact with each other simultaneously from light years away. Only when we observe something does space and time become relevant.

Some scientists have been timidly exploring the idea that consciousness precedes matter, and may be a fundamental part of the Universe, rather than an emergent one - something that Eastern philosophy has been teaching for millennia.
 
zoltek

zoltek

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Oct 25, 2017
1,917
subpar spatula said:
We expand into the universe. Humans just are really incapable of really understanding this part because we work best in 3D. 4D and up makes more sense answer wise but it's really hard to grasp. There isn't some bubble edge that if you pierce the veil you will see some blank area with our universe behind it as an expanding bubble or something. You won't see a lot of universes floating around. This space doesn't exist. The universe encompasses everything, so it only expands itself. This is where higher than 3D comes into play because we assume based on our tiny 3D processing brains that if something like a balloon exists and it is expanding it is expanding into another space, our air space or wherever we are. For a universe, that's not the case because it is technically everything so that "space" is also the universe and it expands with it.

Space isn't "nothing"

it is infinite in all directions similar to how a circle is infinite.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
My understanding, or at least someone's theory, is that it's not the substance that makes up space that is expanding, but the distances between said substance that's expanding.
 
TooFriendly

TooFriendly

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Oct 30, 2017
2,026
i think that saying 'we weren't meant to know' is a total crock of shit. Who says we aren't meant to know things?
By some fluke of nature we were given enough brains to be able to question and observe the nature of the universe.

if you don't want to find out how the universe works then that's fine for you, but don't pretend that there's an overarching law of nature that we can't comprehend the laws of nature.
 

Pikelet

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,399
RustyNails said:
I dont want to sound reductivist, but what is outside the balloon? what happens if I make a magical rocket and go past the boundary of the balloon?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is impossible as your magical rocket would be required to exceed the speed of light in order to touch the boundary of the ballon in this analogy. Objects must obey the speed limit, but the expanding space between objects (aka the air in the balloon) does not.

The space between objects is expanding, and the further away something is, the faster it appears to be moving away from us.

At a certain distance the space between the two objects is expanding so fast that it exceeds the speed of light. This means that an object travelling at the speed of light will never be able to go from one of these objects to the other. Furthermore, absolutely nothing beyond this distance will ever be able to affect us in any way.

This is called the cosmological horizon, and it sets the boundary for our observable universe.

Talking about what is beyond this point is kind of meaningless because by definition we will never ever be able to observe it even if we had infinite time and resources. To us beings who exist locally it is indistinguishable from something that doesn't exist at all.
 
Lionheart360

Lionheart360

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Oct 27, 2017
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RustyNails said:
I dont want to sound reductivist, but what is outside the balloon? what happens if I make a magical rocket and go past the boundary of the balloon?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Short answer: more space. The surface of the balloon is only the edge of the observable universe. Space likely goes on for infinity. Even if you go past the limits of observable matter, spacetime will still exist and quantum fields will still be active.

If you're asking about *outside* our universe, then that's a whole different thing. Most theories point towards a dimension where an infinite number of infinite universes like our own are expanding not only themselves but also away from each other. So picture an infinite number of inflating balloons that begin next to each other and then move out away from each other at a speed in which they'll never interact with another balloon.
 
Lebon30

Lebon30

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Oct 27, 2017
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I'm not going to reply at each and every one of you who replied to my philosophical speech. Philosophy isn't meant to be correct or incorrect.
I believe in what I believe, right or wrong. I can understand what you all guys say but it's only a different philosophy. I'm open to them but it doesn't mean that I agree with them.

RustyNails said:
Ok but where is big bang occurring? It is "occupying" an area where our universe is, right? Sorry if I'm being an idiot. But I can't fathom what's outside it.
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Yes. And I don't think we are meant to understand infinity so don't feel bad about it.
 
gforguava

gforguava

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Oct 25, 2017
4,696
Space is a void, it doesn't have a size that can be measured or quantified. If you could travel to the very edge of matter in the universe before you would be an 'expanse' of nothing, it would appear infinite but it really isn't. It isn't there at all, it doesn't exist.

Or it is the Source Wall, good call geomon

Or The Dark Tower:

"The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.

You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die?

Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.

If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?"
 
Saray

Saray

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Nov 26, 2018
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i think time and space doesn't exist outside of the universe. As creatures born inside the four dimensions, we have trouble understanding that concept because we measure everything by it.

it's like asking what was there before the big bang. As time and the other dimensions didn't exist yet, there was no before.
 
Kotze282

Kotze282

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Oct 27, 2017
1,248
I imagine it like in a 3D editor on a computer. "Space" itself is infinite. Matter, information and spacetime as we know it is expanding into that.
 
xir

xir

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Oct 27, 2017
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I wanted someone way smarter than me give a very simplified explanation of a theory that space is like a chemical process like fire and it's constantly growing and that's why it's so weird but once the process is done poof it will be done
 
KDR_11k

KDR_11k

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Nov 10, 2017
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Wouldn't space expanding faster than the speed of light mean that the big bang's causality reaches outside its lightcone?
 
AGoodODST

AGoodODST

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Oct 28, 2017
2,480
Depends on your definition of end. Our observable universe has an "end" due to the cosmic event horizon (which is going to get smaller as the expansion of the universe increases).

It's impossible to ever see beyond our own observable universe due to the finite speed of light so 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
Tempy

Tempy

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Oct 25, 2017
3,333
Lebon30 said:
There's no start. There's no end. It's infinite, like time. There was an infinite amount of timelines before our big bang. There will be an infinite more after ours.
We aren't meant to "know" the beginning or the end. Nothing is created, nothing is lost and everything changes. Perpetually. Forever and ever. Even after all is said and done, when there is no stars left, in the darkness, slowly but surely, at the atom level, things will escalate again to create a new universe. Forever.

This is philosophical, I know. And I wish that, sometimes, scientists stop to try to understand space itself and focus on ourselves. We weren't meant to know.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is Anti-Science dribble.
 
Lord Azrael

Lord Azrael

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Oct 25, 2017
6,976
Lebon30 said:
There's no start. There's no end. It's infinite, like time. There was an infinite amount of timelines before our big bang. There will be an infinite more after ours.
We aren't meant to "know" the beginning or the end. Nothing is created, nothing is lost and everything changes. Perpetually. Forever and ever. Even after all is said and done, when there is no stars left, in the darkness, slowly but surely, at the atom level, things will escalate again to create a new universe. Forever.

This is philosophical, I know. And I wish that, sometimes, scientists stop to try to understand space itself and focus on ourselves. We weren't meant to know.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You okay there buddy?
 
Devilgunman

Devilgunman

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Oct 27, 2017
7,451
Universe is infinite and probably beyond our comprehension with minimal data we have now. That's why when I think of space I just limit myself to our own galaxy.
 
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