Rebelistic Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I was asked by a colleague, what would happen if you went to the edge of the universe?How do scientists know where the edge is and what is beyond? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urban mammoth Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 there is no edge to the universe because it is always expanding.what we see in the sky from earth is delayed by millions of years because of the time it takes the light to travel from the stars to us.you have to be able travel faster than the universe is expanding to get to the edge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash-Kennard Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 is there even an edge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urban mammoth Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 there is no edge to the universe because it is always expanding.is there even an edge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willy Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Just because its expanding doesn't mean there isn't an edge, it just means the edge is moving further away... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash-Kennard Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 you have to be able travel faster than the universe is expanding to get to the edge.nice contradiction then... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poopipe Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 nice contradiction then...not reallyanyway, the answer is - the other edge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilikeriding Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 How do scientists know where the edge is and what is beyond?They don't and they don't Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ash-Kennard Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 there is no edge to the universe because it is always expanding.you have to be able travel faster than the universe is expanding to get to the edge.not really Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebelistic Posted August 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 So if it was possible to travel faster than the universe is expanding and you kept going - does anyone know what you would find?Perhaps as you are part of the universe it would expand with you so you couldn't actually get beyond the edge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilikeriding Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 So if it was possible to travel faster than the universe is expanding and you kept going - does anyone know what you would find?Perhaps as you are part of the universe it would expand with you so you couldn't actually get beyond the edge?who says theres an edge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I was asked by a colleague, what would happen if you went to the edge of the universe?How do scientists know where the edge is and what is beyond?is there even an edge? there is no edge. time and space wraps around itself so if you tried to go to "the edge" and beyond you would "come back in" at another point sort of thing.... there are afew shapes scientist believe the universe could be , and some are pretty wierd and wonderful. read the first few chapters of THIS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
downhill_rob2@hotmail.com Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Its expanding into total nothing... supposidly... lolIts creating new area as it expands... and its meant to expand by thousands of miles per millisecond or something stupid... how the hell do they know that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greetings Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Maybe there's a fourth dimension thanks to which even if you travel in a straight line, you'll keep doing circles and come back to the place you set off from? Meh, it's all too clever to understand so i'll just keep believing that the edge of the universe is full of awesome things like good food, naked birds and featherweight trials bikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebelistic Posted August 9, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 there is no edge. time and space wraps around itself so if you tried to go to "the edge" and beyond you would "come back in" at another point sort of thing.... there are afew shapes scientist believe the universe could be , and some are pretty wierd and wonderful. read the first few chapters of THIS.Is there any evidence of this 'wrap around'?Its expanding into total nothing... supposidly... lolIts creating new area as it expands... and its meant to expand by thousands of miles per millisecond or something stupid... how the hell do they know that?I would have thought that as space is 'nothing' you would just find nothing ie. empty space with no matter. But they say time expands with the universe so there would be no time there.But yeah how would anyone know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I think that beyond the universe might be where heaven is.Well, scientists have proved that it isn't above the clouds, having flown through them, but all the laws of physics etc are based in this universe, based on rules such as gravity and all that crap.I did AS level physics, so I should know what I'm talking about, but alas, no.We don't really know what happens after death. Is the "Soul" real? Does that mean that it gets its memory wiped and stuck in some other body? Or does it go to heaven?We had to talk about it in physics once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilikeriding Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 (edited) Is there any evidence of this 'wrap around'?I would have thought that as space is 'nothing' you would just find nothing ie. empty space with no matter. But they say time expands with the universe so there would be no time there.But yeah how would anyone know?Time cant expand with anything including the universe, you wouldnt say time is expanding if you blew up a baloonId like to think thered be something after the universe (if it ends), if there wasnt it'd make the rest even more pointless Edited August 9, 2007 by afroman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben_travis Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 philosophy, what if the universe is actually just a black ball in and about loads of other black balls.........inside of a giant mans ball collection??basically, our earth is actually only minuscule, and our metres are actually only a millionth of a mm.oooooooooooo, new controversy, brought to you by ben travis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fixed Pants™ Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Dangnabit, i really like to have discussions on stuff like this, in a non geeky way, but f**k typing all of my thoughts. I think we should meet up at some conference room in central london , but seriously, i've had conversations like this for 2 hrs+ just about nuclear war/'nukes'.In short, we won't find the end of the universe for a good few 10000 years. You'd also need to catch up with the edge if it is 'expanding' and keep up with it, which would be a massive problem for technology today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Unfortunately though, before that happens we will die off due to global warming. But that is going to take a few years anyway.But before that, we are going to run out of oil, which means no petrol, which means no classic motorbikes for me. Shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Haz Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Time is a dimension, and whilst it's difficult to grasp, it must be flexible within our universe.Time is only a bi-product of matter, which is dictated by radio-active decay.Blowing up a baloon is not expanding time, because we have no control over time, as far as life is concerned, it will continue, at the same rate.Time expanding is the reason a second has to be added onto atomic clocks, to resyncronise them in time with our solar system, because the expansion of time means the time period of our days, months and years will fall out of time after a very long time, I guess into the millions of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muel Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 When my Dad were a lad, they had a leap second and they all reset their watches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krisboats Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 there is no edge to the universe because it is always expanding. If theres no "edge" what fills the area the universe is expanding to and what defines the difference, how do you measure its expansion without an edge? It most certainly would be an edge of some sort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobnobs Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 Think of it like a balloon with points drawn on it. When you blow the balloon up, all the points move away from each other, but there is no edge. Thats one model of how the expansion works that i was taught. The universe isn't expanding into anything, because apart from the universe, there is nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted August 9, 2007 Report Share Posted August 9, 2007 I thought the universe was infinite and expanding. Which leads to the impossible question 'What is it expanding into?'.By the way, they know the universe is expanding due to the Hubble equation and Doppler shift. Stars in the distance appear red due to 'red shift' - this indicates that they are moving away from us. It's pretty basic really, no philosophy required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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