Most people seem to think that the Universe is eternal. How is it? we got to where we are then?

Question

As without an end it doesnt have a start. So how did we manage to get to where we are.....2007 ?????

Iwas not saying that the Universe began 2007 years ago but using it as a point in time, to say how did we reach this time?
Also as for saying the Universe began after the so called big bang.... What happened or Wha was here the day before the Big bang?

dashes say the universe is speeding up......Great news, but if it is speeding up....where is it going????

Answer 1

There are two possible futures for the Universe:

1. The Universe will continue expanding for eternity. The is called Red shift. As galaxies move further away they drop frequency. This is known as the Dopler effect. An example of this is when an ambulance travels past you fast the pitch of the siren drop frequency as it is moving away from you. Hence Red shift because galaxies are moving away from us.

The second possiblity would be that they Universe could result in The Big Crunch. However, this will only happen if there is enough mass in the universe. Evidence for this happening would be Ultra violet shift (opposite to red shift) suggesting galaxies are moving closer towards us.

Answer 2

First off, 2007 is a date defined by man. It has no bearing on the age of the Earth or the Universe. The date could be 4,000,002,007 or it could be 14367, or some other date.

As far as the Universe being eternal, I have a difficult time imagining a beginning or an end. Now it's entirely possible that the Universe we live in today is the first version or even the one millionth version but that's something we just don't know and probably can't know. It's also impossible to know what will happen to our Universe. Will it continue to expand forever or will it eventually collapse on its self and form a singularity before another Big Bang? There's also the whole space/time thing that basically says time at the singularity was infinite or something like that.

Even if you believe some supernatural being created the Universe, it raises the question of who or what created that being? What existed before the Universe was created? Trying to wrap your mind around these questions can give you quite a headache.

Answer 3

Whether the universe is infinite or not depends on which of the following scenarios you believe.

1) The universe started at a singularity, expanded, is still expanding but at a slower rate and will eventually collapse back to a singularity when time will end along with space.
2) The universe is expanding but the start was either not a singularity or was a singularity but the big bang was caused by the collapse of the previous universe into that singularity. AS in 1), it will eventually collapse but will not end but there will be another big bang and the universe will recycle. But then, it is possible to say it is not the same universe as, according to the general theory of relativity, nothing can carry over through a singularity.

So take your pick, it may be eternal it may not.

Answer 4

Well this is a really hard one,even for someone who's infallable .Looking at the speeds of recession of distant galaxies it is possible to calculate the time when everything started out moving apart or more correctly space started moving apart and this is calculated to be 13,700 million years ago,give or take a year.At that time all the matter in the universe was in a tiny ball called a singularity except there wasn't any matter actually,it was all in the form of energy and turned into matter a fraction of a second later after it had cooled down a bit.Where will it all end?Well as hot things grow cold it will eventually end when there are no more sources of energy available and that is a very long way off.As nothing can alter then time itself will have ended,for what is time except the measurement of change.And so the universe has an allotted lifespan which ends when time ends.The universe is not eternal and lasts to the end of time.'When God made time He made a lot of it'-old Irish proverb.Infallablejeff.

Answer 5

actually most people DONT think that. the universe began approximately 13.5 billion years ago. how do we know this? all the galaxies are moving away from each other at a given rate, and this rate is increasing at a given rate. with a little help from calculus this observation can be played in reverse until all the galaxies are at the same point at the same time (the math says they formed an infinitely dense point, like a black hole going in reverse). this point occurred just about 13.5 billion years ago.

really though, there's no way to "prove" the universe wasn't created a thousand years ago, or ONE year ago, or yesterday or even TEN SECONDS ago and that everything else we remember before that is some elaborate construction. this is the idea that lets some hard-core religious people sleep at night; since it fits perfectly into their little world of non-understanding.

good thing science doesn't allow for that kind of reasoning, yes? :-)


addendum:
the universe is NOT going to start contracting. that possibility was ruled out over a decade ago. it is not just expanding, it is getting faster. so it will continue to expand forever.

addendum2: what happened the day before the big bang
well that's a weird one really. you see, the laws of physics are immutable all the way up until the moment of the singularity; that is, the moment just before the explosion. since the point would have been infinitely dense, just like at the core of a black hole, it's gravity would have been infinitely strong. if it's gravity is infinitely strong then time is completely taken out of the equation, since time is slowed to a total stop. and since you NEED time for current physics to work, and physics is all we have that scientifically explains the universe, the answer is: "we just don't know; please check back in a hundred years and see if we have a better understanding of quantum gravity."

Answer 6

It isn't eternal. It had a definite start. It may or may not have a definite end. Carl Sagan's Cosmos has a nice history of the universe. It portrays the whole history from the big bang until now as a year. I think life on earth happened in the last couple of months. The dinosaurs were like 5 days ago. Primates like a day ago. Cave man a few minutes. History is like 30 seconds and your life is like a quarter second out of the year.

Puts things in perspective.

Answer 7

Because the year is not the year since the dawn of time. 2007 means it was 2007 years ago (give or take) that Jesus died. I don't think any scientists, religions or philosophies claim that humans started the same instant the universe did, so far you are the only person I have ever heard of to have come up with this concept.

Answer 8

The Universe one day will either stop expanding and stay in a still position or, it will contract into itself and probably big bang again.

Answer 9

Your guess is as good as mine. Scientifically speaking, it all began with the Big Bang.

Answer 10

The universe began with the "big bang". Who lit the bloody fuse ????, eh, eh, load a bollocks, God made the world, everybody knows that, 'not sure who lit his fuse though.