Do you believe the Universe is endless?
Sounds bizarre, but I have to think about Ockham's Razor. It's slightly more believable (for me anyway) that the universe is endless than that there is an unseen wall that marks it's edge. Because I would ask: "Whats behind that wall?". Sure you can go in circles if the universe is bend into itself, but even then, there has to be an 'outside'. Like walking endless around the Earth, you still can go 'up'. If the universe is bend, I would like to go up and see how this bend Universe looks like from the outside.
Endless universe?? does this make sense?
I was thinking since time is relative to speed, there is no time if there is no speed. If nothing moves, nothing happens and thus there is no time to notice. As much gravity as there was before the Big Bang, nothing could move, was there also no time? could the endless expanding of the universe just be the expansion of time? I am not a scientist but I am not really buying the "the universe was all ways here" and "the universe is endless" because in my reference frame these things are not possible. So i figured if there is no time before the big bang and no time behind the end of the universe, than there is nothing to perceive (because to perceive you need time) So is the beginning of the universe just the beginning of our possibility to perceive it, and the expanding of the universe just the expanding of our possibility to perceive? P.S. this all may be very stupid, because i didn't get further then high school science and a lot of BBC Horizon docu's ;)
Is the universe endless?
Good question - first, a comment.The only way we could know it was not endless would be if we could see an end to it. So far, we haven’t. It’s a case of ‘the farther we look, the more we see’.The Huble Space Telescope has been used to take a number of so-called ‘deep fields - essentially long (repeated) exposures of the same very small spector of the sky.The first was assembled from 342 separate exposures of an apparently ‘empty’ sector of the sky. It was taken over a period of ten consecutive days and most of the 3000 objects appearing in the image were not distant stars but galaxies.There have been other yet more intensive studies but they are not necessary to address your question. Consider that somewhere in those very distant galaxies there are sentient astronomers who are also looking at the universe with equally powerful instruments. When they point them toward us, they can presumably see the Milky Way galaxy - our home.The question is, ‘What do they see when they point their telescopes the opposite direction? Do they see more of the same or do they see an ‘end’ to the universe?Interesting speculation, isn’t it?
If the Universe is endless how come the same comets come back over and over?
Comets are part of the solar system, just like the planets and asteroids. Some are in short orbits, always staying closer than Pluto. The famous Comet Hally, that comes back every 76 years is one such periodic comet. Most comets don't come back though. They come from far beyond Pluto, pass the Sun once, and disappear back into deep space out past Pluto. Orbital plots show that they do not come from interstellar space though. They are still bound to the Sun by gravity. They just have REALLY large, long orbits. You seem to think space is a lot smaller than it really is. It would take an object moving at the speed of a comet WAY more than 76 years to even get to the nearest star. It would take many millions of years to make it all the way out of the Milky Way galaxy. It would take trillions of years or more to reach the most distant galaxies that we can see with telescopes.
What does it mean to say that the universe is infinite?
Let me answer this in terms of probability, when we say that our universe is finite, it means that there is an end to it. There are only a limited number of possibilities, but in an infinite universe, anything, everything is possible. If there is a chance of something happening, it is already definitely happening.Finite probability implies definitely happening due to infinite space:Statement 1: Now my neigbour and me are having a conversation about life, death and nirvana. Statement 2: There is a chance that him and me are having a conversation, but it is about a different topic. In a finite universe, the first and second statements cannot happen together, but in an infinite universe, this is most definitely true. In fact, there are several versions of him and me in parallel worlds conversing about different topics.Infinite time (and Infinite Monkey Theorem)Now when you say infinite universe, you also have the concept of infinite time, so if you give a monkey a typewriter and an infinite amount of time, it will definitely end up typing Hamlet, one of Shakespeare's novels.When scientists simulated the above experiment, with a monkey typing at 5 words a second, they found that it took two weeks for the monkey to type out a a matching four character string from the novel. And it takes about the time from The Big Bang till now for the monkey to type a matching 14 word string from the novel.Hence, in an infinite universe, there is another copy of each one of us doing exactly what we are doing at this very moment. In an infinite universe, you are not unique, you are insignificant.The consequences of an infinite universe are incomprehensible and astonishing.
If the universe is never ending then whats on the other side because it has to end at some point doesn't it?
OK as i was lying down in my bed trying to go to bed i started to think about the Universe. Every one says that the universe is never ending right? Well if its never ending then where does the new growing parts go? By that i mean that if you spill a glass of water on a counter top it keeps going untill it has to stop becasue its completely flat and there no more water to push it to keep going. And say that the water is the universe and that the dry countertop is something. What is that nothing? The nothing cant be the universe because it has ended(the water), well whats all of the dry surface. If you add more water to the puddle it will just expand by taking over the nothing-ness. So when the universe ends or the part thats keeps growing what is the nothing-ness? Im 14 and i cant get over this concept that i though of as i lying down. Can any one explain it or has an article about this type of promblem.(please correct me if i made any mistakes while typing