speculation: how is it possible for something to expand forever?

[aznballa1992]

it sorta of hard for me to grasp the idea that our universe is continually expanding, because there has to be a stopping point somewhere, right?

We can't just keep moving apart and apart....

[TPTaylor]

Why not?
At current status, we are unaware if the universe will keep on expanding. This is due to the fact that we don't know how much matter there is in the universe.
By estimate, we are close to the balanced state, whereby the universe's growth is slowing down. It's around 5-10% every 10 000 years or something. (Maybe it's a Million years, I can't remember now).
There are 3 possible situations.
The big expanse.
The big crunch.
Or the level state where everything is equidistant from one another.
At one point or another, the Universe was smaller than an atom. Is that hard to imagine?

[aznballa1992]

it is very hard for me to imagine the universe being a tiny atom and then exploding to the size it is today

i just cant imagine it happening

but then again, if that didnt happen, was the universe just "here"?

[dracule]

scientist say there may be a white hole. which instead of having immense gravity, it emits negative gravity and more mass into the universe.


it is strange how everything is moving away from us, and the farther away it is the faster it moves away.

[Hooger]

i found something cool out. that the milky way galaxy (ours) and the andromeda galaxy (our neighbour) will collide oneday. and combine.

[Shadow-BOT]

Yes but when they do collide, everything will change, left will be right, up will be down, its like we will be in a whole new dimension.

[soccerPMN]

It is interesting to think about the universe expanding. If you compare it to a large room that EVERYTHING is in, and that room's walls are moving outwards, what is on the outside?

[Shadow-BOT]

Its funny we are actually moving a few million km each 10 seconds, it doesnt even seem like we move at all now does it?

[soccerPMN]

Yea, its so weird to think about.

[Shadow-BOT]

Its even wierder to think that we expanded from something smaller than an atom, like one of the other posters said.

[soccerPMN]

Well, I think of it as like a densely packed atom, and the density is gradually increasing or something... I don't know, that's how I try to understand it.

[Shadow-BOT]

Lol I think if all of our matter is put into the size of an atom, and earth and our solar system still existed, you would have to hold that atom a few billion light years away, or else it will be so bright it will superheat everything, thats a way I see it ;)

[TPTaylor]

I've never heard of such thing as the white whole before. I'm not so sure about that theory...
The beginning of the universe is not the only place where or when matter is crammed into a space smaller than an atom. Black holes also have this feature.
At the beginning of time everything broke down, including the laws that we have gained in physics. Only if we know the exact state of everything in the universe will we be able to work out how it started. That could take a bit of time...Not only that, but we may not be able to know the exact state of the universe because there is no absoloute time. Your watches may say the same time, but in reality, it's different. If you take a clock into orbit around the earth, and keep one on the earth, eventually they will go out of sync bit by bit.

[Siouxsie]

If you want to know about white holes, you should watch the episode of Red Dward about them... Utter class.

[TPTaylor]

*Spelling error - Red Dwarf. Hmmm...If it was on that program it's gotta be real!

[Siouxsie]

I never said it was real, I just said it was amazingly funny :P

[aznballa1992]

Its even wierder to think that we expanded from something smaller than an atom, like one of the other posters said.

like me

this just totally breaks all my rules of gravity, and matter, blah

nothing can grow forever, its gotta stop....sometime, or somewhere

we cant just have an infinte space can we?

[TPTaylor]

Who's to say? Just because we can't imagine doesn't go to say it doesn't happen, or that it isn't real.

[Abe_Froeman]

The rules of gravity can't currently be applied at the quantum level. That's why the holy grail of all science is a unified theory that can combine gravity and Einstein's theory of relativity with the theories that govern quantum mechanics and electromagnetism.

If this is ever achieved, we will have a much better understanding of how the universe works.

Who know if the current string theory and multi-dimension theories will ever be able to achieve this, but if they do, the amount of knowledge that can be gained and applied to absolutely every scientific field will be immeasurable.