Big Bang Theory - If the world is expanding.. what is it expanding into?

Question

I'm just curious..

I don't want rubbish answers like "i dunno" =]

Answer 1

Big Bang applies to the universe, not the "world". The planet earth is not expanding and big bang really has nothing to do with our planet in its current state. If Big Bang is correct, light is traveling in every possible direction at 186,000 miles per second in space. I think Big Bang is one of those "comfort" theories to appease the human brain. We need to explain things and something that has no apparent end or beginning is difficult to understand.

This I do know, the sun will eventually burn out. When that happens if we are still on Earth, bye bye human race.

Answer 2

It's not expanding in to anything.

It's hard to visualise but its generally accepted that the Universe is curved in a higher dimension, which means that if you went far enough in one direction you'd end up at the opposite end of the universe - the shape is basically a 3-torus which is why you hear people talk about a doughnut shaped universe. If you've never looked in to these concepts before its a little tough to get your head around.

Imagine an old videogame like asteroids - you fly off the screen, you come out the other side. In that case it would be like the screen was expanding - you'd have to go further and further to 'wrap around' the larger the Universe became. Therefore it doesnt make sense to ask what its expanding in to. The spacetime bubble is all we have.

If you still don't quite get it, I'd recommend you read 'hyperspace' or 'a brief history of time' or 'the fabric of the cosmos'.

Answer 3

It's the universe that is expanding not the world. I think you know what you intended in your question and it is an interesting subject to ponder.

It is more a theory than fact. Some research lean toward an expanding universe while others believe that just the opposite is correct.

The best way to form your own feeling is to look at the data about both idea's. This is quite easy with the use of the PC. You can go to Wikipedia and type in both theory's or the many other sites available on the net.

Have fun and keep expanding your mind.

Answer 4

The universe is continually expanding, but it is not expanding "into" anything.

Beyond the universe is "nothing." This is a very abstract concept for the human mind to conceptualize since ideas and images for us can only begin to be formed by assigning positive qualities. Even questions about space or "privation" must begin with an understanding of what should be somewhere, and then working backwards from there.

The human intellect is incapable of conceptualizing "nothingness" just the same as it is incapable of conceptualizing "infinity." We can only think of an infinite number or quantity using finite concepts.

Since we can't accurately conceptualize what "nothingness" is; the best we can do is describe it in terms we would understand. It would be like a balloon continually expanding...

The universe does not expand into empty "space" which lies beyond the borders. This is because space means that there is something there which is capable of hosting either mass or energy (which consequently means that it is "something" and therefore part of the universe anyway.)

One of the better explanations I have ever heard about this topic was in a book by Mortimer Adler entitled: "How to Think about God: a Guide for the 20th Century Pagan."

Answer 5

If the Universe were infinite, it could expand and it would still be infinite, no problem.

It is likely, however, that "our" Big Bang is not infinite. It is really, really big, but probably not infinite. By really, really big, I mean that the region of space that is like the Universe we can see is likely to be at least 10^20 lightyears across. That's more than a billion times bigger than the 20 billion lightyears out to our event horizon, which is the furthest we can see. Our Big Bang may be expanding into a space left over from a previous universe. We don't know, although we may learn something from a more complete unified theory of physics, if and when we develop it.

Answer 6

That, my friend, is one of the problems with the 'Big Bang' theory..the expansion of the universe, universe being comprised of everything that there is in existance.
The latest suggestion that I have seen intimates that the universe may be of finite size and that the collections of galaxies, superstrings, or whatever is expanding into that finite sphere. If that be true, then at some time in the future, these objects will stop moving apart from each other and begin to move closer together eventually ending in a 'monobloc', which will explode and restart the expansion/contraction cycle.

Answer 7

I've always said that if we knew what held our universe we would have an easier time figuring things out (other than what holds the thing that holds our universe).
Generally, there's three ways it can go.
You can have the Big Crunch, which is to say that there is too much gravity in the universe and when it expands to its maximum limit it starts to fall back into itself and CRUNCH.
Or you can have the universe that is so perfect on gravity it just expands to its maximum point and never collapses, never expands.
Then there's the infinite universe in which there is too little gravity and it just expands and stretches forever. If you read Manifold: Space, Manifold: Time, and Manifold: Destiny by Stephen Baxter, he gives you a pretty damn good idea of the future ahead of us for any of those possibilities.

Answer 8

Big Bang fly in the face of science and the laws and principals of thermodynamics. Lets be logical people.

In the First Law of Thermodynamics: matter cannot be created or destroyed. In the beginning to the Big Bang, there is nothing present to explode, and zero energy to explode it. There are zero observations, or documented test results for spontaneous generation, let alone matter from nothing.

Expecting to have matter, and energy just show up, when none is present is like taking an absolutely empty box, and after billions of years, or any other amount of time, expect to open that box, and inside have a operational world in all its complexity. Spontaneous generation something out of nothing, used to support the Big Bang is in direct conflict with the first scientific Law of Thermodynamics.

Answer 9

The world isn't expanding, the Universe supposidly is. The theory is it will keep expanding in an infinite space til it looses momentum, then start contracting back into a tight ball of energy.

Answer 10

There wasn't a "big bang" in my opinion. These so called smart scientists theorize that a mass the size of a period (.) <---- yes that size was spinning really really fast billions of years ago, and this mass of nothing EXPLODED into the planets, stars, moons, galaxies, people, plants, and life as we know it. Anyone who buys into that THEORY, yes a THEORY for those of you who don't know what that means, it means something that's not proven. It's based off of what mankind thinks happened, I wouldn't trust someone telling me what happened biiilllions of years ago because think about it, billions of years? come on. And to disprove the BIG BANG theory quite quickly, when this MASS was spinning and exploded then everything in the universe would be spinning in that same direction. Then why are some of the moons and planets spinning in a different direction than the rest? Evolution is wrong and it's a theory yet we're teaching it in schools that this stuff all happened that we evolved from ROCKS.