2007-02-26 07:29:29 · 7 answers · asked by Kyle L 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Think of the universe as a very strange rectangular room. There's a door in each of the four walls, a round hole in the ceiling and another one in the floor. You've a ladder that goes up to the ceiling hole.
If you walk out the East door, you magically reappear through the West door. If you go out the North door, you magically reappear at the South door. If you climb the ladder and up through the hole, you find you have just come up through the hole in the floor. So it is all connected up. You can go as far as you like in the North direction but you'll just keep going around and around the same piece of room again and again. It's the same for any other direction.
This is a finite but unbounded universe. There's nothing outside it. This doesn't mean there is empty space outside it. It means there is no "outside". Everything is within the universe.
Now imagine the room getting bigger. The walls are getting further apart, and the ceiling is getting further from the floor. We've more room to move around, but it is still finite and unbounded. It hasn't expanded "into" anything. It's just expanded.
Now take away the walls, but leave the universe connected the way it is. We now have a mini version of our own universe.
2007-02-26 07:40:35 · answer #1 · answered by Gnomon 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Awesome Universe--Where Did It Come From? :
- The Big Bang ...
- Questions the Big Bang Does Not Answer
- The Light-Year--A Cosmic Yardstick
- "We Are Missing Some Fundamental Element"
http://watchtower.org/e/19960122/article_01.htm
2007-02-26 17:54:09 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
The word "universe" means "everything that exists".
So your question is, what is on the outside of the expanding everything that exists.
But ... if there was anything on the "outside", it would exist, so it would be part of the universe, so it would not be outside.
The universe has no "outside".
2007-02-26 15:40:35 · answer #3 · answered by morningfoxnorth 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good question, so what is the universe expanding into?
The standard answer is that the question is irrelevant, but that sounds hollow to me also.
2007-02-26 15:34:01 · answer #4 · answered by stargazergurl22 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nothing - really and truly *nothing* - it is space itself which is expanding, but not "into" anything.
2007-02-26 17:58:03 · answer #5 · answered by hznfrst 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would say nothing. but I think our concept of nothing is a bit hard to define.
2007-02-26 15:36:49 · answer #6 · answered by chica 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
there is no outside
even though that is hard to imagine
2007-02-26 15:46:39 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋