the_unchecked_expansion_of_the_universe birdmad diffusion 020211 ... god amen, brother 020211 ... carne de metal we're talking about an unchecked agression here. 020211 ... cube If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? There must be a boundary between our universe and the next thing. What thing is that? It cannot be nothing or there would be no boundary... ³ 020211 ... reitoei i dont think there is a 'next thing'. and last i heard omega 1 and the universe was going to collapse 020211 ... cube Damn! I'd better start preparing for the collapse of the universe. Let's see; fuel oil, generator, canned goods... musn't forget toothpaste... ³ 020212 ... Mateo Don´t wory, I have it all under control 020212 ... phil doesn't the universe have to be filling up with something, in order to expand? 020213 ... Xero antimatter I think is what they call it 020213 ... birdmad ripple effect universe accelerating ripples out from the epicenter faster farther away not a balloon bening filled but a flashlight beam losing its intensity as its beam is cast further away from the bulb 020213 ... Mateo CUBE3: What is there between the earth and the moon? nothing. Thats what the universe isa expanding into. After the last star there is nothing forever. but expansion is trying to help that, the fool. 020213 ... phil conventional ideas 020213 ... cube Mateo; who are YOU calling a fool? The space between earth and moon is probably filled with dark matter - that which comprises the major missing mass of our universe and which may be made up of neutrinos. That's a whole lot more than nothing... ³ 020214 ... blown cherry Hmmm. There's this thing called a vacuum, and see most of the universe is made of it, including the bit between here and the moon. Now this is going to be a bit hard to grasp, but there is NOTHING outside the univers, there is no space, no time, no vacuum. It's just like "before" the big bang" (if you subscribe to that theory). The big bang is the starting point for all space-time. There is no before, just as there is no outside. There is NOTHING AT ALL. Think about the most abstract version of nothing that you can imagine, no sound, no matter, no space, no time even, and that's not even close to what we're talking about here. The expansion is not just suns and galaxies shooting off further and further into the void, it's more like blowing up a balloon. I don't know how much snse this will make, but hear me out. When you blow up a balloon every point on the surface of the balloon gets further and further away from every other point, if you go in a line on the surface joining up the dots. Well try and imagine the universe like that. The surface of the balloon is the fabric of space-time, the universe is not so much infinite as it is boundless. Now I know you won't believe me about this, but it's what I've learnt and what I believe, but if you follow a straight line in any direction forever you will eventually arrive back at the point where you began, of course you'd have to be going faster than the speed of light to do it, and that could be a bit of a problem to start with. As for dark matter, there is heaps of evidence that the theory of it is correct, and if it is correct then the amount of dark matter in the universe will be the determining factor when it comes to finding out whether we keep expanding to oblivion or if we all end up in a big crunch and it potentially starts all over again. Any questions? Hope that cleared up a few points for some ppl. Maybe it only served to confuse. Maybe you all think I'm nuts. But then so are my lecturers. 020214 ... Mateo Cube3, To begin with, I wasnt calling you a fool, I was calling the expansion of the universe a fool. Based on an act of faith I believe there is absolutely nothing between here and the moon. I am very drunk. I like youre work man. Im going elsewere to blathere, youre hostility hurt me (but even drunk I realize its not youre fault, its the beers fault) 020216 ... Grievance it all made sense to me blown cherry, but then I've heard it all before. I'm partial to buying into the theory of sequences of big bangs: all mass was gathered in some point of oblivion, for some ungodly(or possibly godly) reason, it exploded and the mass has ever been diffusing into the universe, but it's slowing down now. and eventaully we'll start going retrograde as gravity starts doing it's part, and everything slowly begins to be attracted to each other, and eventually we'll end up "crunched" into one mass again, and then blow up again, and thus a very long cycle begins. The_universes_second_impulse_was_destruction 020216 ... cube Perhaps, at the very center of our universe there is a portal - the size of a pinhead. This portal could lead to another universe (or several). The mass of our universe had to come from someplace - perhaps it was delivered. If not, it would imply that our universe is eternal - running through this big bang cycle repeatedly throughout time... ³ 020217 ... phil I don't think it can be easily assumed that the universe has arrived at it's current state in any fashion. When someone figures it out I'm sure they will make a new words out of it, like Geromesilphoctus. I think we should contend with the idea that the universe is expanding, and not the begining of the universe itself. I think we at least have some perception of what is happening. I think simply the universe breathes, it unjulates, like a pendulum swings. I think little uncalculated things happen in it all the time, and that the universe is something that must be entirely experienced. Our minds were created for navigating the Earth, and our tendencies and goals comply to laws we feel around us, laws we don't even know excist, not universal laws. In the universe, let's say, there our no laws, the law is lawless, I think someone once said. I believe in purple and orange smushy cars floating around us all day, like whales. Since our body has no physical reaction to these forces, our mind does not sense them. The space between the earth and moon is filled with the same space between your ears. No disrespect. Space is not matter. To say nothing excists in space is an absurd notion, since space is everywhere. Space is a measureable area, it might have an out of bounds line, I don't know. If it did, would it make a difference? There is simply matter and the such that fell into loopholes, and have their own seperate excistence, that don't interact with anything else. There are know laws controlling them, no dimesional category or way to look at them. But I think they would have their own space. Space is limited by it's infincy, anything that is infinite must excist inside of itself, that means that in space, their is more space, always, like a bottle that has itself inside of itself. ya? So in a way it is limited, but unbreachable. I remember when I was a kid, I was amazed that you could see through one side of a hole,O and then see through the other sideO. Or something that was the begining of a hole@, was not a complete hole on the other sideO. Now that I'm older, I look through the hole and wonder if what apears to be seen through the hole is actually there, far behind the hole, or if it is created by the hole. If it excists within the hole. Maybe thousands and billions and trillions of universes that look excactly the same are continually having chaotic battles for supremecy over space. Destroying eachother, and even making love right under our noises. 020305 ... g h o s t will there be moon_boots involved? 020305 ... falling_alone i'd rather not even think about tomorrow let alone the unchecked expansion of the universe... :/ 031208 ... no reason personally, i'd rather think about the_unchecked_expansion_of_the_universe than tomorrow 031208 ... Strideo there are far flung galaxies that are so far away from us that the light of their stars cannot reach us faster than all the space between us is expanding. all the space between we and they is expanding at a combined rate at which the speed of light cannot overcome and yet at no point is space expanding faster than the speed of light. as far as we know there is no edge of the universe and there is no centre. people often imagine the expansion of the universe like a fire cracker going off and debris flying away from the explosion but this is not so. you could think of the universe as an expanding lump of dough with raisins in it. each raisin is "moving" away from the other even though it remains in it's relative position within the dough. now imagine that the dough has no observable edge and no observable centre. for all we know it could go on forever or it could be a closed space as blown cherry said and no matter where an object went if it could go far enough it would arrive at it's point of origin. . . . or maybe the universe IS a lump of dough and when the yeast is done rising it's all going into an oven! ^_^ ... 070515 ... z how do we know that they are out there if their light will never reach us. are we talking probable galaxies, galaxies inferred by the scientific method, predicted but not measurable or just possible? 070515 ... sameolme Expanding forever inward yet always singular beginning in every direction approaching infinity but never concluding 070515 ... Strideo the cosmological redshift of galaxies increases the farther away from us that they are. the higher the redshift the higher the apparent "recession rate" or the rate at which the galaxy appears to be moving away from us. of course the distant galaxy is not so much moving away from us as is the distance between here and there is growing. now recessional velocities that exceed the speed of light are not really in dispute. while an object cannot move through space at a rate higher than the speed of light the collective expansion of the space between us and a distant object can make the recession rate high enough that the the object's light can no longer reach us. many objects such as quasars with very high cosmological redshifts are already "moving away" at a higher recessional velocity than the speed of light can overcome but we can still see them because we are looking at the light they emitted billions of years ago before the recessional velocity was so high, in essence we are simply receiving information from it's past and we can never see what it looks like at the present time. so in answer to the question of whether or not there exist galaxies that started off so far away that their light never even had a chance to overcome their recessional velocities and become visible to us . . . uh yeah, we don't really know for sure. it depends on how big the universe is for one thing. if the universe is infinite then the answer is certainly "yes". if the universe is boundless and yet exists in within a closed space then the answer is "maybe" depending upon how big the universe is. if the universe is finite and contained within an open space then again the answer is "maybe" depending upon how big the universe is. ... 070516 what's it to you? who go blather from