If the universe is expanding....

[UpperDecker]

What's it expanding into? There has to be something outside it that its expanding into.

[Eliminator]

nothingness

[sweboy]

That's the thing about it, it's not expanding into anything.

[UpperDecker]

I've heard a theory that its expanding into other universes.

[Knifeboy]

Isn't there already a 10 page long thread about this?

[Danger Bird]

I've heard a theory that its expanding into other universes.

"Other universes?" Isn't the universe defined as all matter in existance?

[lunchforthesky]

Some of the physics types like Auberge and others will be able to answer this.

[Dr Hooch]

"everything" is pretty much defined as "what is contained by the universe"

It doesn't expand into somehting; everything expands. You're suffering from monkeybrain (where you try to understand the universe using a brain designed to eat, sleep and ****, give or take...)

[griftadan]

What's it expanding into? There has to be something outside it that its expanding into.

why?

[Meatplow]

it's all an inflating and deflating balloon that could pop at any time

[UpperDecker]

why?


I don't know, it just seems logical to me. Guess its just my "monkey brain" as the one poster said.

[Pastorius]

It does not expand, the scale merely gets bigger.

It's hard to comprehend. Think of it as:

If the Universe was 1 ruler long a billion years ago, it's not 2 rulers long now, it's just the ruler has gotten bigger.

[CarnageFairy]

it's all an inflating and deflating balloon that could pop at any time

Which is why we don't run with scissors.

[UpperDecker]

It does not expand, the scale merely gets bigger.

It's hard to comprehend. Think of it as:

If the Universe was 1 ruler long a billion years ago, it's not 2 rulers long now, it's just the ruler has gotten bigger.

wouldn't that be expanding?

[Pastorius]

wouldn't that be expanding?

No. Not expanding, just, the scale is getting bigger. Like I said, it's hard to comprehend.

[Der Übermensch]

Itself...

[Surgicalgod]

If the universe is finite, then there's no logical or scientific answer to your question. This is basically because beyond the edge of space space no longer exists. There is no way to observe or study the outside of everything.

If the universe is infinite;however, then it is simply stretching. It is "expanding" and the distance between the galaxies multiplying. This is means that it doesn't really have to "expand into" anything. The total size is the same. After all, what is infinity + 1? or infinity*infinity? Still infinity.

[pedro durruti]

So my dick is technically bigger than it was the other day?

[Dr Hooch]

So my dick is technically bigger than it was the other day?

Yes but so is she

[Surtr]

What's it expanding into? There has to be something outside it that its expanding into.

Nothing. Who said it had to expand out in to anything? Why couldn't it be just expanding into nothingness?

[Eliminator]

plagiarism

[Surgicalgod]

So my dick is technically bigger than it was the other day?

No, not everything in the universe is stretching. This is because various gravity (Earth's gravity, sun's gravity, etc..) and atomic forces completely crush the universe's stretching or "expansion".

[pedro durruti]

No, not everything in the universe is stretching. This is because various gravity (Earth's gravity, sun's gravity, etc..) and atomic forces completely crush the universe's stretching or "expansion".
It was stretching until you said this

[Jharaski]

I'm just gonna go ahead, not read the thread, and post my idea.

It's empty space out there. Most of space IS empty, anyway. Matter (ie galaxies - stars, planets, big rocks, gases) expand into it. They're going pretty damn fast too.

[ashman]

hi2uphysicsthread.

The best explanation for this question is like what I posted in the other thread.

"If I was bound by a Nutshell, I could call myself the King of all Infinite Space"

That's from Macbeth if I remember correctly. What it's saying is, we're 'bound' by the Universe, you can't observe what's outside and at our current level of understanding/technology, we can't prove if what's 'outside' has any influence at all on our Universe. There is no definite answer, sure you can theorise and guesstimate all you want, but there's no proof either way.

As for the other questions here about things in the Universe expanding, it's quite hard to explain, but I'll try to.

Imagine, 4 dots in a line, about 10cm apart. Leave to stew for a few billion years, just enough for the distance between first two dots to double. Since this expansion is uniform, all of the dots would have expanded in a similar manner. Now let's measure these dots. The distance between the first dot and the second would be 20cm, the distance between the first and third dot would be 40cm and doubling .etc

The expansion only becomes apparent over large distances.

[italic zero]

hamlet

[ashman]

I blame capitalism :<

[italic zero]

i give you an A

[UpperDecker]

I honestly think that we know nothing about the universe. All we know is what we have obtained from this little rock we sit on. All this lightyear crap and speed of light i think is all bs. I don't think we'll know what the universe is about until we die......maybe. I hope you understand what I'm saying. We make all these rules and calculations that make things either true or false but whose to say its right? Has anyone ever seen a black hole? And if they think they have, how do they know its a black hole? I just think that in our human world we think we understand whats going on outside of this planet but we really have no frickin clue. We make up our own rules(calculations and what not) while the universe probably has its own.

[lunchforthesky]

I honestly think that we know nothing about the universe. All we know is what we have obtained from this little rock we sit on. All this lightyear crap and speed of light i think is all bs. I don't think we'll know what the universe is about until we die......maybe. I hope you understand what I'm saying. We make all these rules and calculations that make things either true or false but whose to say its right? Has anyone ever seen a black hole? And if they think they have, how do they know its a black hole? I just think that in our human world we think we understand whats going on outside of this planet but we really have no frickin clue. We make up our own rules(calculations and what not) while the universe probably has its own.

Answer me this: What makes you, a man with no qualifications who has done no test no calculations or any sort of research, think you know more about this than the worlds top scientists?

[Der Übermensch]

Has anyone ever seen a black hole? And if they think they have, how do they know its a black hole?
It would be quite amazing if we had... A black hole can't be seen, because not even light can escape it... Instead, we know they exist because we can observe light bending around the outer rim.

[Silly Beach Turtles]

I honestly think that we know nothing about the universe. All we know is what we have obtained from this little rock we sit on. All this lightyear crap and speed of light i think is all bs. I don't think we'll know what the universe is about until we die......maybe. I hope you understand what I'm saying. We make all these rules and calculations that make things either true or false but whose to say its right? Has anyone ever seen a black hole? And if they think they have, how do they know its a black hole? I just think that in our human world we think we understand whats going on outside of this planet but we really have no frickin clue. We make up our own rules(calculations and what not) while the universe probably has its own.
i lol'd at this

The absolutes laws are absolute

and you can't see a black hole, but you can see the lack of light around it

[SoulSeekerz]

All I know the universe is really,really big.

[UpperDecker]

Answer me this: What makes you, a man with no qualifications who has done no test no calculations or any sort of research, think you know more about this than the worlds top scientists?

I don't think I know more than the worlds top scientists. But that is just our worlds "top scientists". As the dawkins dude says about the "spaghetti monster" i compare the scientists. We don't know sh it. We live on a rock in the middle of nowhere. So what if we have made up laws that prove things that "we" say are right or wrong. We're just a dot in the universe. I think about it this way. Think about how your dog observes the world/universe. Well I'd say we're a little higher than that but can't even begin to comprehend what the hell is going on besides we have a solar system that revolves around the sun. Everything else is theory. Just like there's no proof of god, we have no idea whats really going on. We're on a rock, in the middle of blank space, and thats it. I'm not arguing, just stating my opinion. Also, what makes you think that calculations or research done on our tiny planet have anything to do with the universe. We have no idea whats out there and just cause some calculation tells me that this many lightyears away from that means this means nothing to me. I mean think about it. We're just a little dot in who knows how big of a universe and think we know something by calculations that "we" made, that make sense to us. Its all just stuff that we made up. Doesn't make it true. 1 plus 1 is 2 but that is just our rule. We have no clue as to what is what.

[SoulSeekerz]

Agreed. Just the fact that this little speck of dust we live on in the infinite cosmos has been orbiting around the sun for 4 billion years blows my mind.

[Surgicalgod]

I honestly think that we know nothing about the universe. All we know is what we have obtained from this little rock we sit on. All this lightyear crap and speed of light i think is all bs. I don't think we'll know what the universe is about until we die......maybe. I hope you understand what I'm saying. We make all these rules and calculations that make things either true or false but whose to say its right? Has anyone ever seen a black hole? And if they think they have, how do they know its a black hole? I just think that in our human world we think we understand whats going on outside of this planet but we really have no frickin clue. We make up our own rules(calculations and what not) while the universe probably has its own.

lol

[Pastorius]

I don't think I know more than the worlds top scientists. But that is just our worlds "top scientists". As the dawkins dude says about the "spaghetti monster" i compare the scientists. We don't know sh it.

Richard Dawkins is primarily in the realm of theology, something that has no place in this discussion. Besides, Dawkins gives full backing to the efforts of science trying to explain why we're here and what the Universe is. The Spaghetti Monster is a hypothetical monster designed to prove the absurdity of God.

We know rather a lot actually.


We live on a rock in the middle of nowhere. So what if we have made up laws that prove things that "we" say are right or wrong. We're just a dot in the universe.

No-one is saying we're 'right or wrong', we're just doing our best to logically explain the Universe around us.

I think about it this way. Think about how your dog observes the world/universe. Well I'd say we're a little higher than that but can't even begin to comprehend what the hell is going on besides we have a solar system that revolves around the sun.

By your logic we shouldn't even know that there is a solar system or that we're orbiting the sun. I can almost guarantee you dogs do not have the brains to deduce the fact that we're in a solar system.

Everything else is theory.

Everything is theory, the best theory we have at the time. It just so happens that our accepted theories fit our numerical system so perfectly it's almost impossible that things work any other way. Science is constantly evolving, that's what I love about it.

Just like there's no proof of god, we have no idea whats really going on.

While there is no proof of God, there is quite clearly evidence for scientific theories. Scientists don't just say "I bet there's a black hole there". Science is based on observations, thousands and thousands of observations. Theories don't just get plucked out of the air.

We're on a rock, in the middle of blank space, and thats it. I'm not arguing, just stating my opinion. Also, what makes you think that calculations or research done on our tiny planet have anything to do with the universe. We have no idea whats out there and just cause some calculation tells me that this many lightyears away from that means this means nothing to me.

This means nothing to you because you've never studied cosmology in any of it's forms. We're on a rock, but we have instruments that can detect emissions from outer space.

We're on a rock, but we can still receive signals from outisde our rock. Not too long ago, a gamma ray detector started receiving regular pulses of high intensity gamma ray bursts (gamma rays are electromagnetic waves with a lot of energy) that, as it happened, seemed to prove that Einstein's famous E=mc^2 equation was wrong. It means that an explosion producing energy can only produce a finite amount of energy. It caps the amount of energy that can possibly exist. If it doesn't exist, it throws our entire system of thinking into disarray. I won't bore you with the details, but a theory arose that these pulses were only being emitted in 2 narrow beams, which made it possible for huge amounts of energy to be emitted. I don't think you'll read all that, but y'know, worth a try.

I mean think about it. We're just a little dot in who knows how big of a universe and think we know something by calculations that "we" made, that make sense to us. Its all just stuff that we made up. Doesn't make it true. 1 plus 1 is 2 but that is just our rule. We have no clue as to what is what.

Once again, we didn't "make them up". In a sense we did, but not willy nilly. It fits. That's what science is, it's what fits best. If it doesn't fit well enough, it's discarded. If something fits better, it is ushered into the world of science.

Wew, big post.

[Slapping Penguin]

^^^ Bravo!

[bradc1988]

I honestly think that we know nothing about the universe. All we know is what we have obtained from this little rock we sit on. All this lightyear crap and speed of light i think is all bs. I don't think we'll know what the universe is about until we die......maybe. I hope you understand what I'm saying. We make all these rules and calculations that make things either true or false but whose to say its right? Has anyone ever seen a black hole? And if they think they have, how do they know its a black hole? I just think that in our human world we think we understand whats going on outside of this planet but we really have no frickin clue. We make up our own rules(calculations and what not) while the universe probably has its own.

i lold

Anyway, with the dots analogy, would the dots get bigger?

[Dr Hooch]

Upperdecker that's not an opinion that's a hatecrime against reason


Hey pasta lets make some new scientific theories



"The core of the earth is so dense because the gravitons are bent in their path by the earth's magnetic field"

Anyway no dots have no dimensions to get bigger

[bradc1988]

oic

[UpperDecker]

uhhh.........ok u guys win.

[SoulSeekerz]

Until we can actually explore deep space, the universe will be a mystery for hundreds maybe thousands of years to come.

[Eliminator]

upperdecker's theory of stupidity

[Dr Hooch]

Until we can actually explore deep space, the universe will be a mystery for hundreds maybe thousands of years to come.

It's not that mysterious. Some people think we know more about space than we do about our own planet. I'm not sure what standards that was decided on, but a cosmologist and an astronomer can tell you a heck of a lot. Point to a star and that night they can look at its spectra and brightness and stuff and tell you what it's made of, how far away it is, how fast it's moving...

[spitfirejunky]

One of the reasons that people fail to realize how we can know so much about space is that they don't have even the most basic understanding of the nature of light.

[spitfirejunky]

This explanation seems somewhat accurate, although it doesn't go into the details of general relativity.

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=274

[Der Übermensch]

One of the reasons that people fail to realize how we can know so much about space is that they don't have even the most basic understanding of the nature of light.

Which is strange, since I learned it in HS Physics... I'd imagine most schools are the same in requiring something of the sort?

[Knifeboy]

Most physics teachers are boring and incompetent

[spitfirejunky]

Which is strange, since I learned it in HS Physics... I'd imagine most schools are the same in requiring something of the sort?

Well, for certain topics you may need a bit more than a HS understanding of physics. But something like the following shouldn't be at all hard to understand for a highschooler.

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/ir_tutorial/

[Dr Hooch]

Most physics teachers are boring and incompetent

word

if you learn somehing as useful as physics you can afford ot get a job doing real physics or get a job that pays well

not one that's neither

[ashman]

i lold

Anyway, with the dots analogy, would the dots get bigger?

Well the dots are just place holders. They're arbitary in this case, but if you understood my analogy (I don't blame you if you didn't, I'm quite bad at explaining that), the rate of expansion is only noticeable over large distances. It's a Logarithmic scale.

Erm...lol at the "we can't see black holes" thing. Strangly enough, it's true, we can't see Black Holes. The things that we've labelled as 'Black Holes' are labelled that because of a few things. They have an accretion disc, which is a rotating disc of Plasma around the Black Hole and this accretion discs (along with little spurty things at the pole) emit a lot of X-Rays and Gamma Rays. Also, I don't see how a measurement of distance is BS :rolleyes:

We have a lot of theories out there, we have a fairly decent understanding of Stars and observable things. One thing I've always found interesting, was for a long time, scientists had pretty much worked out everything about Neutron Stars/Pulsars, but that was going on the assumption that they were Uniform in mass and that particles weren't interacting inside (Very much like the Ideal Gas thingy). As soon as they got rid of that assumption, it all went tits up and they didn't work.

I guess the point I'm making is that Science isn't infallible, it has it's flaws and can be wrong. Just don't put too much stock in it.:thumb:

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Mainly into peoples heads.

People sleep at night dreaming, who knows the vast sprawling metaphysical mumbo jumbo that goes on in there, and in that unending space does the verse-of-uni inflate. That's it, the universe expands into your imagination. How's that? Do you feel better about yourself overall in general as a person? You should, I do.

[SoulSeekerz]

Mainly into peoples heads.

People sleep at night dreaming, who knows the vast sprawling metaphysical mumbo jumbo that goes on in there, and in that unending space does the verse-of-uni inflate. That's it, the universe expands into your imagination. How's that? Do you feel better about yourself overall in general as a person? You should, I do.
I have no idea what you just posted.

[bradc1988]

Well the dots are just place holders. They're arbitary in this case, but if you understood my analogy (I don't blame you if you didn't, I'm quite bad at explaining that), the rate of expansion is only noticeable over large distances. It's a Logarithmic scale.

Na I understood it, it was just that I was thinking of something else.

[SoulSeekerz]

ok that makes much more sense.

[DxRocker]

All I know... is that we are as-good-as insignificant in the whole universe story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZJWvnJ4_E&mode=related&search=

We are far, very far, from answering your question.