We all know that the universe is constantly expanding...?

Question

but what is it expanding into?

I know we don't know, it's just fun to think about and hear what crazy respnses people come up with. :)

Answer 1

check this vid out. its kinda long, but talks a bit about it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4183875433858020781&q=Parallel+Universes&total=1159&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=5

Answer 2

Islam and Science



(iii) The expansion of the universe

According to the Holy Quran:

“And it is We who have constructed the heaven with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.” (51:47)

The word “heaven”, as stated in this verse, is used in various places with the meaning of space and universe. Here again, the word is used with this meaning.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann and the Belgian cosmologist Georges Lemaitre theoretically calculated that the universe is in constant motion and that it is expanding.

From the moment of the Big Bang, the universe has been constantly expanding at a great speed. Scientists compare the expanding universe to the surface of a balloon that is inflated. Observing the sky in 1929 with a telescope also proved this fact. Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer, discovered that the stars and galaxies were constantly moving away from each other. These observations tell us that when everything in the universe moves away from each other, it is considered to be a constantly expanding universe. This fact was revealed in the Quran when no one knew about the expansion of the universe 1,400 years ago. This is because the Quran is the word of Allah, the Creator and the Ruler of the entire universe.
http://www.cometoislam.com/IslamandScience.htm

Answer 3

In nature, infinity doesnt really exist. I think that until science can produce something from nothing we must assume that the universe and whatever is outside is finite and just maybe beyond our scale of measuring.

Scientists say that vaccume is actually filled with the activity of particles and antiparticles forming and destroying one another in a malestrom of activity. This is uncertainty at work. Perhaps the wave front from the big bang is a change from falce vaccume to vaccume or from certainty into uncertainty.

String theorists suggest that there are 6 or more dimensions on top of the 4 we can observe. Perhaps the universe isnt expanding like we observe, we are trapped by our realitive view point of 4 dimensions.

Basically we dont know, but its an interesting thing to consider.

Answer 4

Hi,

The universe is like an elastic band, it will expand up to a point and then either snap or spring back.

Either way it won't be for another 100 thousand years.

Answer 5

I just try to imagine "what" the universe is expanding into as being an infinite and absolute void...no energy, no mass, no spacetime, etc.,.

Answer 6

No one really knows. All we know is that it is expanding away from us. The rest are very educated guesses.

Answer 7

it isn't expanding into anything. space itself is expanding. it's a little like blowing up a balloon. (space *is* the balloon, the fact that real balloons exist in space is irrelevant to the analogy, try to ignore that)

Answer 8

Unfortunately, that implies that we know something about the ultimate bounds of the universe when we know we haven't yet reached the bounds. In short, we DON'T know.

Answer 9

I agree with braxton_paul, but no scientist will accept the idea of a void.

Answer 10

wait.....let me go ask my momma