If you had a space ship that could travel forever non stop in a straight line where would it end up?

Answer 1

great q

Firstly,it is highly improbable that you could travel in a straight line for such a time and distance without meeting a body or its gravitational effect.

But hypothetically ,our understanding of the universe suggests that you will simply continue to travel becasue the universe doesnt recognise the "end".

The other possibility is,
The recurring big bang theory ,where every particle will attract every other particle means that you as a part of the universe will shrink back too.

Finally,we know that we dont know everything(sic).
There may be dimensions and distortions in the fabric of space and time that could only become relevant over vast distances and equally vast time.

Answer 2

I'm afraid your question isn't valid. It's not possible to travel in a "straight" line - because such a thing does not exist. Space is affected by gravity and other phenomena (so is time for that matter - forever takes on a different meaning in astrophysics). An example is planets orbiting a sun. They are moving in a straight line (that is what inertia is after all - it only allows for single-direction motion), but gravity curves space, so a straight line is in fact curved.

But ok, speaking even more generally: Assume you tried making your way. Where you would end up is not certain - it depends on the shape of the universe (which I still believe is undetermined). I.e. flat universe, hyperbolic....you can read a little more about it on Wikipedia.

Answer 3

Would you be in the space ship? Because if you did, you would die before you could reach the end of the solar system. If you where traveling at the speed of light or faster, it is theorised that you would go back in time. Also it would theoretically impossible to travel in a straight line, because of the gravitational pull of singularities and other large objects, it would also be that if you traveled near a large black hole, or a super massive black hole, your little road trip would be over. Also we have no idea what lies a great deal in our universe, so it would be impossible to tell and because of the expansion of the universe, it would be like trying to play a game of football, but the goalposts kept moving, any time that you would get close to another galaxy, it would travel further out of your reach, so if you could travel for ever, if you managed to avoid all of the meteors or singularities, there probably be nothing.

Answer 4

a lot of people said "back where you started" I disagree. if space is curved, like einstein says, and you travel on a straight line that follows the curve, then yes, you will end up back to where you start. but, what if you really are going straight. and suppose you found a path where you won't run into a star. then i beleive that you will end up at nothing.
explanation: you travel due west on earth. are you traveling in a straight line? no, you are traveling in a curved path around the earth. it feels like you are going straight, but you really aren't. if you take away the fact that the earth is spinning, revolving around the sun, the sun is revolving around the galaxy, the galaxy is moving also. forget all that, and if you traveled in a straight line, when you reach the horizon, you would need to start flying because the earth is curved and you want to go straight. now, in space, if you kept going straight, true straight, ie, not following the curve of space, then you will keep going into the unknown. and my idea of what's out there is nothing. think of a firework. and think of the big bang. wouldnt you eventually get to the parts of space where matter hasn't reached yet. you would run out of stars to go past. this is assuming your ship can go faster than the expansion of the universe. we have no way of knowing how fast this speed is because we have nothing to relate it to. everything we can see is moving. we can estimate how fast our sun is moving relative to other stars but we don't really know how fast those other stars are moving. and even if we did, we can only estimate how fast our galaxy is moving relative to other galaxies. what we need to do is find out where the big bang happened and put a flag there. hopefully, an american flag. but that's a little bit too sci-fi to think that america will still be a country when the technology is available for that. but if we ever do find out where that occured, a lot of answers can be answered. like how fast is the universe expanding. is it expanding fast enough so that the forces of gravity will never overcome the rate of expansion. we don't know. i forget who coined the term critical rate of expansion. it might have been hawkins, but if the universe isn't expanding as fast as the critical rate, then someday the universe will collapse on itself because of the forces of gravity, but if it is expanding fast enough, it will continue to expand forever.
i'm done.

Answer 5

Depends how fast you are going. My theory is that you would not travel fast enough to keep up with a universe thats expansion is accelerating. Now if you could make the trip in a moment, then the answer, I think, is back were you started. I believe that the universe is a sphere as all things adopt this shape. Like a drop of water, gravity dictates its shape and I believe this is the same for everything

Answer 6

There's no real answer to this, I'm afraid - combining space and time in the way you are (forever & end-up) - it wouldn't end up anywhere, I'm afraid.

However, it's quite cool to imagine your straight line as an arc, albeit minisucle in existence: across space and time on an arc, it's plausible that it would 'end up' exactly where it started!

Answer 7

83 Ford Street, West Smethwick.

Answer 8

That is an unrealistic question since traveling forever would mean forever and there is no end to end up somwhere.

Answer 9

.it will end back where it started because the universe is believed to be round so it will travel right around on a straight line back to where it started.

Answer 10

Like many cosmologists ask and argue: What type of universe are we part of infinite or finite, or infinite and unbounded or , or, etc etc? So, when someone finally proves what type we are part of, then your question can be answered. Check back in a couple hundred years.