if the universe is expanding into more space...what is that "space" and how did that get there????

Question

surely there cant be an end to things expanding, so in theory the so called "space" that the universe is expanding into...must be expanding into something else...so what is exactly is everything expanding into????

Answer 1

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=0009F0CA-C523-1213-852383414B7F0147
http://universeadventure.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_cosmology
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_01.htm
http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/m_uni.html

this is actually a common misconception about the big bang. the universe is not expanding into anything. the universe is four-dimensional, but a two-dimensional version may be something like the surface of a sphere, and it is this surface that is expanding. the universe seems to be finite in size, yet it has no center and no edge. nothing, not even space-time, seems to exist "outside" the universe. the big bang was the entire universe, and everywhere in the universe was once the big bang.

the earliest, and oldest, radiation we can observe is the cosmic microwave background, and we see it in every direction we look, but the universe was much smaller at that time. the universe had expanded and cooled enuf for electrons and atomic nuclei, about 74 percent hydrogen and 26 percent helium, to combine and form neutral atoms. before this time the universe was much like a heavy fog, but when atoms formed, there were no free electrons to scatter light, and the universe became transparent. today, we see this light stretched to microwave wavelengths by the expansion of space-time.

anything with a cosmological redshift of 1.7 is receding at light-speed, c. anything with a greater redshift is receding faster than c. the redshift of the cmb is 1089. the cmb seems to be at least 78 billion light-years away, but the universe is only 13.7 billion years old.

Answer 2

That's a very interesting question. However, present cosmological models are unable to simulate conditions before the Big Bang when particles were subjected to high energy densities.

Standard Model, string theory, and all GUFT all fall apart. Our current theories only hold up after we reach electroweak unification conditions. Therefore, there is no mathematical model that is accepted by the general scientific community that describes conditions before the Universe was born, hence they cannot say what the universe is expanding into. In the mathematical sense, it's irrelevant to what the Standard model can predict.

This said, there are mathematicians and physicists out there that have developed a multiverse model. Which may or may not shed light on the subject of cosmological development.

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

It is the Universe that expands it does not expand 'into' anything. There would be no 'into' for the Universe to expand in to, because until the Universe 'expands' there is no space, no void simply non-existence. There is no beyond.Think of it as a balloon with nothing outside it.

Answer 4

Since there's no good answer to support with quotes from Phd level experts, allow my to share my best guess.
---------------------- Purely a hypothesis from the mind of Jorrath Zek ----------

The Universe is not expanding. It's an illusion caused by gravity.

Let me explain...

Every year scientists accumulate more and more data that the stars are moving away from each other, and the Galaxies are moving away from each other and so on...

Recently they have discovered that this "expansion" is not evenly distributed. In fact, there is clear evidence that the Universe is "expanding" more quickly in in some regions and less quickly in other... However, it is "expanding" in all regions as far as they can tell...

The trouble with this expansion theory we've applied to our observations is that it presumes that the volume of specific objects (bodies of maytter) is static.

I believe that the universe is not expanding. I believe, rather, that Gravity is causing all matter to shrink in upon itself as the subnuclear particles of matter draw each other closer.

Remember that there is an infinate amount of space in the nucleus of an atom that it can continue to shrink into, and between the nucleons and even smaller between the quarks and muon that make up those nucleon...

The presence of other matter in the same region slows this constriction as the forces of gravitational attraction of different vectors cancel each other out.

As such, the regions of space with more matter in them will apear to be "expanding" at a slower rate than the near empty regions of space.

Further, this constriction of matter/energy would account for a certain amount of red shift in the photo spectrum as light is forced to migrate to lower energy levels to compensate for the longer waveform.

-----------------------------------

But if you're interested in what the Phd people have to say on the subject -
The multi-dimensional (more than 11) universe has unfolded only three of it's spacial dimensions, which are a form of "Super-String" that can stretch indefinately. As these three "Super-Strings" stretch the universe we perceive continues to expand with varying rates in regions based on the varying ratios of the super string expansion...

Which is another way of them saying that the Universe is expanding and they can't actually tell why. It just is...

Unless, of course, it isn't... ;-)

Answer 5

It is actually the space itself that is expanding. The universe doesn't expand 'into' anything. Neat huh? Another way of looking at it (which is even correct in a certain sense) is that the universe is expanding 'into the future'.

Answer 6

You are trying to conceptualize a multi-dimensional universe from a three dimensional perspective. Unfortunately, three (or four if you count time) dimensions are all humans can perceive.

Personally, I believe that our universe is a bubble formed in the bottom of an incredibly large mug of beer. It is expanding as it rises toward the top where it will become foam and be consumed.

So, the answer to your question would be "BEER".

I think of this every time I drink a cold one. Now, so will you.

Answer 7

well actualy you can discover this in high vacuum respearch, with difusion pumps. where the large confined space does not actualy change. you just have some molecules moving around, in the absence of rarefaction and compaction, where others used to occupy. but the actual volume is actualy fixed relative to all finite totality. with a lot of moving bubbles, moving around inside of a rotating bubble. kind of like a snow globe, when you shake it all the snow moves around in a liquid filled glass bubble.

Answer 8

Space means nothingness cos there nothing there so its expanding into space or nothingness to put it simple for you.

Answer 9

I think people want to limit what we can think...