What do you think is at the edge of the universe?

Question

And do you think that there is a edge or end to the universe?

Answer 1

Actually, there really is no "edge" of the universe so we can't go past it. There are two cases that could happen. One is that the universe will expand forever. This means that the universe is infinite in size so it doesn't have an end. It just goes on and on and on. The second case is that the universe will end in a Big Crunch. In this case the universe is finite in size because of gravity.

So if it's finite in size, why isn't there an edge we can go to? That's because of a weird little thing gravity does to space--it curves it!

Einstein first came up with the idea of gravity curving space. That's how the Earth orbits the sun. It wants to go straight but the Sun curves the space around it so the Earth can't go flying off.

There is so much matter in the universe that space is bent back on itself! It's sort of like how you can bend a wire until its ends touch, you come up with a circle. You can walk around a circle forever without coming to an edge.

So, the universe can be finite but have no edge. It's similar to the Earth. The Earth has a finite surface area but it doesn't have an edge that you can fall off (lucky for Columbus...)

Answer 2

Well, people did used to think that the earth was flat, and that ships would fall off the edge if they sailed too far into uncharted waters.

A similar situation is thinking about the universe, in terms of the edge of it, the end of it, et cetera. I believe that if we don't destroy ourselves, that we might find the answer one day.

I contend that nobody knows the answers to this question. There are some questions that either have no answers, or the answers are unknown to us. No one has been to a point that distant from the earth- a point that we might consider or deem to be the edge of the universe.

Have you ever walked in the woods, and tried to find your way out, but ended up at the same place you started? I think that the cosmos is like that, in a fashion. If we tried to fly out in a starship in a "straight" line into deep space, we might end up back at our starting point again. However, a few problems exist. The universe appears to be extremely vast- maybe 15 Billion Light-years wide. So if we are going to be able to circumnavigate the universe, we would have to be able to travel at inordinately high speeds- maybe faster than light, even. If our current laws of physics are correct, then there is a cosmic speed limit. Evidently, nothing can travel faster than light. Even if we could travel at speeds near light-speed, it would take many many years to travel all the way around the universe.

It's kind of hard to explain this- but in a way, the universe is like a balloon that is forever expanding. We are inside this enormous balloon, as are the stars, planets, and other galaxies. The universe is finite, but unbounded. Maybe there is a brink, but since it is receding, there is no way to reach it. Does that make sense at all?

So, maybe there is something on the exterior of the cosmic balloon. I have forgotten what the flaw in this argument is, but someone else pointed out the problem to me before. Something about the balloon theory is faulty. But maybe there is no outside to begin with, and so the point of talking about it lacks meaning. It may be something sort of like traveling into the belly of a black hole, in that it is an experience that humans cannot physically endure, and so we may never know the truth about this mystery.

Imagine if you will being literally in the middle of nowhere. What would that be like? That is probably what it's like to be beyond the barriers of our universe. I have no frame of reference really, except for the few images provided by movies and television...but like the scene in "The Matrix" where Morpheus and Neo are in the program, and it's all white everywhere...maybe this is what it's like to be external to the realm of creation.

Answer 3

If the universe is just a void, it's only defined by what is in it. So the end of the universe would just be where there are no more celestial bodies moving outwards any further. Pretty big concept, but there would almost have to be a limit to the outward motion of those bodies.

Answer 4

the edge of the universe

Answer 5

More universe with no end.

Answer 6

There is no edge of the universe. Doesn't it go on forever?

Answer 7

more of the universe. it has no beginning and it has no end.

Answer 8

Neverland?

Answer 9

A restaurant.

Answer 10

not neverland, neverend