2006-09-05 22:34:14 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
What's the matter?
I think it's expanding into itself, this makes about as much sense as any other explanation.
2006-09-05 22:41:04 · answer #1 · answered by J C 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Universe is made of Space/time and Matter/energy. It is the space/time which is expanding. The Matter/Energy is believed to be constant. This means that the Universe may get emptier and emptier. Or it may start shrinking again and collapse back into a Singularity, like the one at the beginning of our Space/time. Scientists have not yet determined which of these possibilities are most likely.
So we cannot say that the Universe is expanding "into" anything. There is no "anything" outside the universe. The universe is a closed system, nothing goes out, nothing comes in. Outside and Inside don't really have any meaning with respect to the universe.
The Universe is not infinite, it is just big, but we don't know exactly how big.
2006-09-06 00:07:18 · answer #2 · answered by hi_patia 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
'The matter is what's expanding.'
That is not true in either context. Either you mean that actual atoms and molecules and subatomic particles are somehow getting bigger, or that the amount of matter in the universe is increasing. Both ideas are false.
'Because of the big bang, evrything in space is moving away from the point of the bang , and further away from each other.
This is wrongly thought of as the expansion of the universe.'
This is also not entirely true. If you bake a currant bun, all the currants get further apart from each other as the bun expands. However, they are not growing apart from a single point. You use the term 'everything in space', well unfortunately for our ease of comprehension, space is part of the universe. Actual nothingness is impossible to comprehend, as it involves thinking in zero dimensions which if anything is more difficult than thinking in four.
The best answer to your question is an anology. The universe is like a ball. For an ant on a ball, he is on a two dimensional surface spread over a three dimensional object. The universe is a three dimensional surface spread over a four dimensional object. There is no centre on the surface of a ball, and likewise there is no centre of the universe. If you pump up the ball, it gets bigger and points on it get further apart from each other. It expands from the ants point of veiw, into nothingness. It gets bigger, unless he appreciates the three dimensional structure he cannnot understand how.
Likewise, the universe expands into a four dimensional void. Without understanding four dimensions (which unfortunately, we can't) we cannot really appreciate exactly how it works.
The universe is a hypersphere, a four dimensional sphere. Like the ant, if you went in one direction for long enough you would eventually get back to where you started.
2006-09-05 23:32:34 · answer #3 · answered by tom 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The universe isn't expanding because it's already infinite. The matter within the universe isn't expanding either - there is no more matter now than there was at the time of the big bang. The thing is that everything in the universe is getting further and further apart. However, I suspect that your real question is 'What is infinity?' That, I believe, is beyond comprehension.
2006-09-05 22:44:49 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is just exapnding, stretching if you will. If you think that it must expand into something, well, there is in theory nothingness beyond space but since nothing can travel beyond space it has no meaning to the universe. Space itself is not merely nothingness, but rather a vacuum upon which the laws of physics in the universe play out. It bends with gravity, light and mass travel through it. Hence any apparant "edge" is merely where everything stops: space, time, the laws of physics themselves. But everything in the universe needs space with which to travel and react, so even if an object were on the "edge" of the universe, it wouldn't be able to travel beyond it, or even know the edge were there. Einstein's relativity states that all objects not un der accelerated motion have a valid claim of being motionless. Hence an object at the edge of the universe may be expanding and moving away from the rest, but from it's viewpoint it is stationary.
2006-09-05 22:41:11 · answer #5 · answered by jleslie4585 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It is space itself which is expanding. It is important not to think of the big bang as blowing matter and energy into an existing void. The big bang is the start of the process which expands space itself, matter and energy going with it.
Tom's answer is excellent, though I would argue with the assumption that the universe is the three dimensional equivalent of the surface of a sphere. It may be, but as far as I know this has not been established. It is just one of a number of possibilities.
2006-09-07 03:02:38 · answer #6 · answered by Philip N 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's expanding into nothing. The universe consists of matter. The matter is what's expanding.
2006-09-05 22:36:28 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Universe if everything. If it's expanding (not sure if that has been established but assume it has) then it's not expeanding into anything.
I know it's had to grasp but cosmology is about huge distances, and the geometry defy our intuition which is based on everyday distances such as centimeters and kilometers, not billions of light-years.
2006-09-05 22:49:28 · answer #8 · answered by helene_thygesen 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Star's collapse creating black holes, passages into the fourth dimension. The expanded part of the universe has slipped through these holes, therefore it is expanding into the fourth dimesion.
2006-09-05 23:26:49 · answer #9 · answered by island_laddie 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The universe is infinite.
Because of the big bang, evrything in space is moving away from the point of the bang , and further away from each other.
This is wrongly thought of as the expansion of the universe.
2006-09-05 23:00:11 · answer #10 · answered by Vasudha 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋