is there an end to the universe >?

Question

im sure i once saw a documentary which stated that the universe did actually have a definate boeder to it, and was hexagonal in structure ???? cant remember what it was called.

Answer 1

I think the shape you're thinking of is not a hexagon, but rather a hexadecachoron. This is a 5-dimensional polytope into which the universe's 4 dimensional polychoronal Einsteinian spacetime is thought to expand.

The analogous figure in our 3d world would look like one tetrahedron, plus a second tetrahedron turned upside down, rotated sixty degrees and the displaced through the 4th-dimension, with 8 more tetrahedra joining the 4 faces of each of the first 2 to the corresponding corner of the other one.

There are people who think that such a polytopic universe is just one of myriad others that exist in higher dimensions all ultimately curled up into one ten dimensional multiverse.

When I'm tired of sitting up trying to imagine what our universe is really like, I find it's helpful to come back to ground on planet Earth with its two dimensions (north-south and east-west) and go to bed.

Answer 2

We don't really know the answer to this question, which must surely be one of the most fundamental questions there is.

Simple enough question, but we have no definite answer. The reason is because our observations today are too few and too limited. Even using the worlds biggest telescopes we can only see so far, and there's so much to see that it takes time to consider it all. Each idea about the size and structure of the universe predicts different things about what we should see if only we had a bigger telescope, so when such telescopes are built they will allow us to rule out some of these ideas. Eventually there will only be one idea of the size and shape of the universe that fits all the observations.

Until then chaos rules supreme and we are free to speculate as much as we like about the universe's fate and form, as long as such speculation is consistent with the facts that we have today.

One particular requirement is that any ideas about the shape, size and origin of the universe must be consistent with the fact that we exist, and that the various elements such as carbon and oxygen that we are made from were somehow created. The big bang theory is consistent with these facts, but that does not prove that it is right!

Questions one would want to ask about the hexagonal universe theory include: Why hexagonal and not some other shape? How did the hexagons originate? Does the process that caused the hexagons predict the current temperature, composition and rate of expansion of the universe?

The beauty of science is that if you want to, you and anyone else who cares to, can study really really hard, and one day answer this question for us!

Answer 3

Quite simply, nobody knows. We are limited by our technology as our telescopes can only see so far.
I personally believe that The Universe is many times larger than what we currently think it is.
I don't totally buy The Big Bang Theory. What if it wasn't "THE" Big Bang, but more like "A" Big Bang?
Just think about this: What if there was another Big Bang 100 billion light years away, that happened 20 billion years ago? We wouldn't even be able to see it for another 80 billion years! By which time, The Earth would no longer exist, so we would never see it.
Throughout Human history, we have been arrogant, and thought that we knew it all. We used to think that The Earth was at the centre of The Universe, and that all of the other objects in The Cosmos revolved around us. We now know that is not the case.
So why do we think that The Universe ends when we can't see any further? And that The Universe was created in The Big Bang? And not just our small section of The Universe was created in just one Big Bang of many?
That's right, it's good old arrogance at work again.

Answer 4

Nope. You are watching junk pseudo-science tv.

There was a closed hexagonal model which has been ruled out a short time ago, if I remember correctly. Not sure what the scientists proposing it were hoping to find. They likely did not believe in this structure, either. But since the geometrical structure of the model simply drops out of the formal question what shapes a finite cyclical universe can have, a good scientist has to investigate it. But I doubt that anybody had high hopes to find such a thing.

Answer 5

There is no end to the universe. The theory of the Red Shift proves this. Let me explain. Stars emit several types of energy, which can be seen using certain wavelengths. Some of the wavelengths emit a certain color, these colors are all the colors in the visible light spectrum. By using these wavelengths in special telescopes and computers, astrologers can see what color a certain star emits. If the color that the astrologer sees is red, then it can be determined that the star is moving away from the astrologers location. If the color is blue, on the other hand, it can be determined that the star is moving closer to the astronomers location. This is because the color blue is color closest to the end of the visible light spectrum, therfor being closer to the beggining of the wavelengths. It's vice-versa for red. Look up the Red Shift on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift.

Answer 6

In quantum physics, time and space are curved, if that curve is 360 degrees, then if you could travel at infinate velocity, you would just loop over and over again, things would repeat in a timeloop. A startrek episode or two was made about this theory. No one knows however, because no one has died, and somehow went into the past or future to verify to the rest of us such a loop exists. If you think of it though, infinity is a 360 degree angle, a loop that repeats. This verifies that reality has no beginning nor ending. Lets say you can travel way faster than light, you set your destination to a fixed point, in quantum mechanics, you will circle around and around. Going by your destination over and over again, going around in a circle even though you have set a target for straight ahead, as spacetime is curved, curved into a loop? Considering we spend trillions on wars over oil instead of peacefull and tech development to better humanity, like perhaps better space propulsion, or ways to protect us from killer meteors, till the US realizes what is really importent, no one will know how small our pebble in space is, or how the dynamics of reality work, which is rather sad. Alot of stuff can be answered, if we stop looking at crap like oil, and look to the future and the stars.

Answer 7

there is a definite structure to our universe, it's 81 billion light years across, i'm not sure about the hexagon part though

Answer 8

i dont know why everyone keeps saying that the universe is infinite. its not, that idea died almost a century ago when the big bang model was proposed. space started with the big bang and it has a definite speed of expansion, the scientific community agrees on that. so obviously it is finite, it has a definite and measurable size. anyone that says the universe is infinite is WRONG.

Answer 9

i don't know why hexagonal. i have heard spherical but i don't know who has been round it to see. i personally think it canot end, it probably goes on forever in a straight line. if you get to the edge and there is nothing then there must be just space. unless there is something we cannot imagine.

Answer 10

I do believe the universe as we think of it does end but there is just black empty space after that. People say the universe keeps expanding so it has to have somewhere to expand to right.......