how can the universe be self-contained? It is mostly made of nothing anyway. Are the borders perceived as where matter has passed, or is it some other factor?
2007-02-23 09:56:03 · 6 answers · asked by Tony topcat 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The universe is not made of nothing. Space is not nothingthingness. Space is substantial, it has structure, it can be distorted and twisted and warped, it's relationship with time gives up what Einstein called space-time.
As for the borders of the universe all I know is what the astrophysicists tell us which is that there is no boundry. There is no place you can go to where the universe ends. It doesn't make sense to me but that's what they say.
2007-02-23 11:01:07 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Self Contained??? Not sure what that is supposed to mean.
True, most of the universe is empty space.
There are no borders. We just cannot see past a certain point that is roughly 45 Billion Light years in all directions.
Take a few moments to figure out what kind of distance 45 billion light years represents in Miles or Kilometers...
That is a rather huge distance wouldn't you say...
The reason that people get a little mumbly jumbly talking about things beyond that point is that it is impossible to measure a distance from here to nothing way out there.
There is no reference out there in "nothing." Visualize trying to use a tape measure from the surface of the Earth where you are standing to a point someone is pointing at in the sky (not the Moon, or some star), just a
point in the sky. ...impossible to do, right? It is even harder when what you want to measure is behind the brightness of a far distant galaxy.
2007-02-23 19:31:02 · answer #2 · answered by zahbudar 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Imagine you were 2 dimensional and lived on the surface of a huge sphere. Your world would have no boundary yet it would be finite & limited. Similarly, our universe may be curved, but it would be like the surface of 4 dimensional sphere. The surface of that sphere is the 3 spatial dimensions that we live in. We can travel around, we may come back to where we started from , but we can't hit an edge.
2007-02-23 18:08:45 · answer #3 · answered by J 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
maybw the universe ( space , even empty ) has no borders, in that case its easy to see that the universe is not contained in space but that the universe is the space.
If you think that there is a border around the universe, that is defined by "were some matter" has been and beyonf that there is nothing even no space uhhmm. ell that is ok too i think..
2007-02-23 18:02:20 · answer #4 · answered by gjmb1960 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The boundaries are too far away to be detected -- like 80 billion light years away, and the furthest that can be seen is 14 billion light years away. Hence, the edges of the Universe can never affect us or be detected in any way; they are, or appear to be, receding away much faster than the speed of light in any case.
2007-02-23 18:46:50 · answer #5 · answered by poorcocoboiboi 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the borders are so far away it is difficult to tell, also the universe is supposedly getting bigger, from the big bang, it is like still exploding, i really cannot explain. my friends and i are trying to figure out how the universe started, my head hurts too much :(
2007-02-23 19:49:21 · answer #6 · answered by Josey 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋