What is outside the universe?

Question

Okay so what is outside the universe?

My Physics teacher and books tell me there are nothing outside of the universe but how can there be nothing to contain the universe?

He also said that there ARE ABSOLUTLY nothing before the big bang. Not even time existed and not even space. So if there wernt space how the hell would the big bang, BANG?

I really wish God will tell me all this when im dead.

Answer 1

God

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&Mytoken=1218BD5C-7FFA-4DB1-923281949A90A61564489877

Answer 2

we don't know is the only answer. it could be nothing or it could be something who can say. however i feel i should correct a few of the slightly incorrect statements above. firstly the universe is not infinite. you can prove this with a simple thought experiment. if the universe were infinite then there would be an infinite number of stars therefore the sky would be full of light and not just the stars we observe therefore it cannot be infinite. secondly it is no longer commonly believed that the universe will end in a big crunch because galaxies are observed moving away from as at an increasing rate so space must also be increasing.

your teacher is right to say space and time did not exist before the big bang but we do not know that outside the universe is nothing. hope this helped in some way

Answer 3

Well, I think there is no end to the Universe, if you come to something and someone says its the end, there is always something after it. Unless space is like a loop, where once you reach the end you arrive back at the opposite side, but I doubt this. The big bang is theorised because all matter seems to be separating, it is possible that it all one day was one tiny little object. But it does not seem physically possible that a Universe would expand from an explosion, even at the magnitude that the big bang would have been. So its gotta have always been like that, if space is unlimited and there is no end to the Universe, there is unlimited possibilities for basically everything.

For all we know, we could be some science experiment.

Answer 4

Nothing is outside the universe, because that's the definition of the universe. If there was something outside of it, then that would also count as "part of the universe".

Before the Big Bang? There are lots of theories on that. Some think there was another universe, that went through a "Big Crunch" and shrunk down really small. Others believe that the universe formed out of nothingness. Subatomic particles have been known to form out of nothing in an empty space. The thought is that a REALLY DENSE particle may have formed on its own, and then exploded into the Big Bang.

Answer 5

Nothing,when you try to think of it,is actually something!! What is "nothing" ask him that one!!?? Ask him also about Anti matter,Dark matter,and how come you would still need to expend Energy travelling through Nothing!!! He is either very dismissive or a fool! God wouldn't of existed so therefore he does not now (he couldn't of said let there be light without a candle and some wind) (God squad please this is a little fun) Maybe Nothing is God!.The big bang is still being heard today by radio telescopes,the white noise you hear between radio stations is that sound,hiss.Why not ask him to work out by physic's exactly how far the sound has travelled through space,also get him to calculate the amount of light and how far this would of travelled from that point where the sound originated! Do not let him pass it back on you to do unless he does these calculations with you.If your not Grinning or at least happy with this Then ask him to show/prove what Nothing is.(try very hard to think of nothing ,What are you thinking of? Apparently i was once informed,God actually holiday's at the end of the Universe,so he can try and forget Nothing!(If i die before you do ,which is very probable,i hereby promise to come and haunt you,both proving the existence of ghosts and will do my utmost to give you the whole mystery solved OK.! ( I may give your Physic's Tutor a visit first)

Answer 6

The Universe might be infinite, in which case it would be sorta true that there's nothing outside it because technically there would be no "outside". Everything is part of the Universe.

The statement that there was nothing before the Big Bang might also be true, because it is thought that time began at that moment (the Big Bang created space AND time). So asking what existed before is a meaningless question -- it would be kinda like asking where is negative 1 inches on a ruler.

Answer 7

First of all ,teachers and indeed all of the worlds finest cosmologists or mathematicians haven`t a clue. Many and varied thoeries are propounded year on year but that is all they are, theories. It is just as likely that there have been countless big-bangs all over the emptiness called space. Only when energy turns into matter will the "experts" deign to refer to it as a universe containing space. Because light travels at a finite speed and we can only see as far as light has travelled since the birth of a light source. Consequently if there are billions of other universes out there we may NEVER see any of them if --
a. our best telescopes are not powerful menough OR
b. the universes are so far away that the light from any
of them has not yet had time to reach us.

Answer 8

Brane theory, the theory that is commonly held by most of the leading physicists proposes that the universe can be viewed as a brane, much like a sheet of paper. This brane moves in higher dimensions other than the 4 observable ones - length, breadth, height and time - and other universes exists outside of this universe and move in the same higher dimensions. Physicists disagree on whether it's 7 higher or 6 higher dimensions, depending on the math that they did. This theory explains why gravity falls off at an exponential rate instead of a linear rate like all other forces, with the explaination being that gravity is actually falling off in more than 4 dimensions. This also explains "dark matter" being non-existent, and the gravitational pull that are proponents for their existence come from other branes (universes). The big bang is similarly explained as a collision between branes. As these branes approach each other the masses in these seperate universes exert graviational pulls on each other, resulting in both universes contracting under gravity and ending (or beginning) with a new big bang.

Answer 9

The reason that science says there's nothing beyond the universe, and for that matter that there was nothing before the big bang, is that for science to recognise something, it has to be observable. Not even the Hubble telescope can come close to seeing the edge of the universe, and observation of the movement of stars with respect to each other shows that the universe is expanding, therefore running time backwards based on these observations of an expanding universe, we can theorise about the Big Bang Singularity, but not before. Ipso facto, there is nothing beyond the universe, and was nothing before the big bang.

Answer 10

Good question!

What you've got to remember is the human brain can't grasp this kind of thing fully. We're designed to cope with 3d objects in a 3d world where time runs one-way, always at the same speed. That works fine for our everyday lives, but it ain't how the universe works at a grand level.

Simple answer: there is no 'outside' to the universe. And there wasn't a 'before' the Big Bang (not a great name by the way, it didn't explode into anything, more like it unfolded, I prefer Big Bloom but noone else does :-( )

Complex answer: If you keep travelling in the same direction, you won't leave the universe, you'll eventually come back to where you started. It's thought that we exist on the 3d surface of a 4d 'hypersphere'.

To grasp this, imagine a race of 2d beings that believe they inhabit a 2d world, a vast sheet. One of them heads out on a voyage to find the edge, and see what lies outside the sheet, only to discover himself back where he started. It turns out they actually live on the surface of a huge sphere, but its impossible for them to visualise this.

Add an extra dimension, 3d beings on a 4d sphere, and you've got us. There may be other universes, but reaching them would be as difficult as the 2d beings travelling to other spheres, as they have no concepts of 'up' or 'down'. Similarly, these other universeses lie in directions we can't imagine.

What does the universe expand 'into'? A simple way of grasping this is to imagine the Tardis, and the space inside is getting bigger. On the outside, it remains the same size police box. It's not expanding into anything but itself.

Time is even more complicated. To begin, imagine if they whole of history, every moment, was spread in front of you all at once. From this vantage point, we can see that what we call 'time' is only the perception of beings within the universe, and caught up in the flow of time. The whole universe seems to lie self-contained for eternity. We can see that time is something that happens inside the universe, yet the universe as a whole does not exist in time, then we can begin to see that 'what happened before the universe' is like asking 'what is north of the north pole'?

Confused yet? I think everyone is... anyway, no-one can say for sure what lies beyond or before the universe. Since science should only deal with things that have evidence, it can't say much on this subject. Perhaps beyond the universe there does exist paraspace and hypertime, completely different to how we understand. Maybe metareality is just totally unrecognisable. Maybe the universe spawned in another universe, or maybe God existed before and beyond space.

If we're asking what caused the Big Bang, then the next question is, what caused that? Who made God? Or if we drop our idea of cause and effect, and say some things just are, maybe the big bang could just happen with no cause? Who knows?

Keep asking questions like this! It shows an open and expanding mind.

Answer 11

Okay, the theory that there was nothing before the big bang actually goes against the laws of physics that scientists keep telling you about. "Energy or matter cannot be created or destroyed". So if matter cannot be created then how was the universe created. And as to what i think is outside the universe,.............................. the matrix. LOL XD