Where does the universe end (if it ends) and what is beyond the universe if it does end?

Question

Does anyone find it difficult to believe that the universe goes on for ever? I don't believe the universe is infinite, but at the same time I find it difficult to comprehend what would be beyond the universe if it it did end. Also before the big bang what was there. Don't say nothing, because what is nothing? Don't say an empty space, because even an empty space is something.

Answer 1

i love these questions....
oh its so nice to look down on my creation, n see all my little children asking unanswerable questions, what a sarcy old god i am!
i knew one day mankind would become clever little beggars, so i set a trap for him, since i'm an all-knowing old farrt, i decided to create things n do things which by any stretch of the imagination, is going to be impossible to simulate, recreate, or contemplate, without goimg totally insane.....
as for the universe, i'l give you a clue, dont limit your plain of thought to the dimensions iv'e laid out before you, nor try to define my wondrous ways with your little computer thingy's, i created something far more complex than that, i gave you all a brain, n look at you, so simple you only use a fraction of what i gave you......expand your minds, n ask again in about five million years.....if you havent blown yourselves up by then!!

Answer 2

If you want real answers to this question you should read Hawking's "A brief history of time" and "the universe in a nutshell". If these are a little bit daunting start with Carl Sagan's "cosmos". Basically put: everything, as we understand it, began with the Big Bang. That is Space and Time. The Universe is expanding, which means that it is not infinite. There are numerous theories around that try to explain what the Universe is but without some basic knowledge you will find it hard to comprehend. I know that sound patronising but i can't give you a better answer. As i said: start with "Cosmos" and see how it goes. Good luck.

Answer 3

Of course you can't comprehend the infinite. We have a beginning and end so it's hard.

An empty space is actually nothing.
Cos 'nothing' just means no-thing. There are no things in an empty void.

So before matter formed from the big bang there was nothing. Unless you count energy as a thing.

Think about it! Whatever is at the end of the universe needs 'space' to be in. Or it can't exist.

Answer 4

Woah.

That's really deep.

I've tried fathoming that also, but I agree with you, an empty space, or a void- it is something,because it takes up space. So what was it that filled this "void" in which we are here today? I don't think our minds are capable of imagining an infinite distance, or time, or anything infinite for that matter.

But I guess it's all in your perspective. To me, it reminds me of the whole Science vs. God arguement.

If you're into Science, then perhaps the "void" was filled with tons and tons of gases that somehow reacted with each other and created everything in space including Earth, that evolved from bacteria into who we are today.

but...

If you're into God, then he created everything that we see and are today out of nothing in 7 days... it's that simple.

If you're into both... then perhaps the void was filled with empty gases and God decided that he would make everything- who's to not say that God, Himself, created the "Big Bang"? Crazy as it all sounds- I could be right for all we know, or I could be wrong, but, the 7 days that it took Him to create everything were never defined as 24-hour days... who's to say that 1 day was 98543935496 million years, and the next day was 1 second, and the third was 100,000 years, and so forth? God apparently has a master plan, so what if the "Big Bang" and everything else is part of it?

My fellow ponderer, I don't know if we'll ever know what was here before there was nothing, or what will be here after the end. I'm sorry that if this didn't really help you solve that which vexes you, but I just thought I'd add to another point of view.

- Atticus

Answer 5

Try reading Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku. It's quite a good book, which suggests that we are all in "bubble universes", which sprout off from each other in the form of singularities. In the begining, there was the Big Bang (so coined by Sir Fred Hoyle
and then not changed because no one could think of anything else to describe it that was better), which is in fact, a contradiction in terms because is wasn't at all big and because space is a vacuum and therefore sound is not possible.

The Big Bang came from a singularity, which in turn could have come from a Super/Hypernova imploding in on itself to a miniscule pin point and gaining so much pressure that it finally explodes....?

These kinds of things happen all the time in our universe, but are so far away that they happened millions of years ago. The most recent, was Supernova "1604", also known as "Kepler's Supernova" or "Kepler's Star", which happened in our Milky Way (which is our galaxy and just for the record... the Milky Way is roughly about 100,000 light years in diameter and this means that if you travel at the speed of light, which is 186,282ish miles per SECOND, it would take you 100,000 years to get arcoss it!), anyway, it's in the constellation Ophiuchus.... and as of 2005, it is the last supernova to have been unquestionably observed in our own galaxy. It was very very bright!!!

So basically, they do happen, but just because they don't cause our world "as we know it" to end... it doesn't mean that it isn't starting another whole new universe somewhere else?

The main thing that Super/hypernova's cause are Black Holes, which aren't as scary as they sound. In fact they are in the centre of most Galaxy's!! Our Milky Way has one, but it's not about to devour us!!!! Haha... We don't really know where everything that goes into a Black Hole "goes" - so it COULD in fact, be "feeding" a new universe?

Cool huh. The book is really cool!!!

Answer 6

By definition, there is nothing beyond the universe, because the universe is defined as everything there is. Whether or not "everything" is infinite, I am not prepared to make a guess.

One of the ideas about the big bang that is hard for people to understand, is that the concept that there was a time "before" the big bang is incorrect. The big bang theory (whether the theory is correct or not) states that TIME started with the big bang. There was no before. It seems counter-intuitive, but that, in itself, doesn't make it wrong, either.

Answer 7

If something was beyond the end, it wouldn't be the end. According to the current views of cosmologists, if the universe's average density is above a critical value, the universe curves back in on itself, meaning you could travel in a straight line and eventually end up back where you started. If it's below that critical value, it will expand forever.

Answer 8

I think the universe is infinite, i also dont think it is the only universe, and there are aspects of the universe that we or our scientific instruments, cannot possibly see, because we only see the universe 4 dimensionally Width, Height, Depth, and Time, and we can only control our movement through the first 3 dimensions, there are probobly dozens more dimensions to this universe that we can't begin to understand.

About empty space, Pink Floyd's song Empty Spaces is pretty sweet

Answer 9

If we live in a Multiverse instead of a Universe, well another universe/multiverse is there. Alternate realities maybe.. or if you represent our universe as a bubble, many bubble could exist like sudds in water.
Our imagination can lead us a stray or to the right answers. We may never know what is at the end of the universe...

Answer 10

Sorry, Where does the universe end is unanswerable.

No, I don't have any problem comprehending what I don't understand. Not understanding everything is with me every day.

However, if you like unanswerable questions, you certainly don't have to go to the universe to find them.
Where does a circle start and end?
Where is the center of the surface of a sphere?
How many sides does a mobius strip have?

Those are easier to visualize and a lot closer to play with.

Answer 11

I do have a theory for what lies at the end of the so called univerese, firstly inagine the universe as a flat pieace of paper, and imagine that there are holes punched all the way through the paper, ( black holes, worm holes ) now connect all the holes with and interlockable string so that you can travel from any one hole to any of the other holes. now imagine that there are more than 1 piace of paper all under neath every hole and above every hole and that every other piace of paper also has holes and the strings, all I have done, is a siplifed method of the spring theory.