What Is Beyond The Observable Universe?

SirFishSlayer

Who is to say it doesn't.

Is there a truly empty place waiting for a universe to encroach upon it, or is the universe creating it as it goes along?

Again, what if there is the Multi-Verse thing happening and has been happening...Our universe in the grander scheme of the ExrtaVerse. Then there is something else out there and and so it is not empty. What do we call that "place" in between universes?

We would assume that it is truly empty...but we used to think that of deep space until we realized that there is stuff out there and our universe if filled with it, even if we can't see it.

BTW, love the discussion. Thanks guys.

DaveC426913

No, that is not the current understanding. The universe is not expanding into any void.

Jake4

I love the discussion as well :)

I would say that it doesn't need to be one or the other.

The universe could be expanding, without creating and without there being a void in which it is expanding.

as Dave said above.. the current understanding doesn't claim the existence of a void. Truthfully I don't know how one would really describe this void anyways.

Outside of the universe, the void would have to be space-less, and time-less.

The issue with most of cosmology (at least in my limited experience) is that the real mathematical representations cannot be efficiently translated into simplified conceptualizations.

I feel like that's the issue with most physics these days, and with the increase in pop-sci books.. the truth is being twisted and contorted into a conceptual mold that it just can't fit in, which is the only con.

The pro, is that more everyday people are becoming interested in science. That is such an amazing thing... even if it's storybook science, the bottom line is everyday people are starting to be curious :) and I like that.

DaveC426913

Well said. Formulae can accurately describe structures that cannot be adequately represented by human-understandable analogies, which are, by-definition, faulty.

Most of us strive to understand the unknown by comparing to known concepts, and therein lies the flaw. There is no comparison for the universe.


That being said, it is all right to create analogies to help understand how a model works, but it's lossy process. You can't do the reverse; you can't use the analogy to extrapolate back to the model. (A massive object may form a gravity "funnel" - but we do not then go looking for a cosmic drain plug!)

SirFishSlayer

I agree with that...space-less and time-less. Both are associated with our universe...neither existing into what we are expanding into.

I think we should make the cosmologist translate the math into concepts. Tell them to just give us the Cliff's Notes version, in 150 words or less, each theory they used (or created) to come to their conclusion...otherwise the grant money goes away. I'd think it would be cool to see a head explode...or implode.

The thing that has always keeps itching me is: what if we are not alone. What if there are more universes out there expanding like ours is. What if that is the natural order of things. When our universe finally fizzles out, will there be just a bunch of black holes out there eating those smaller ones around them. Assuming that they will still be traveling. Maybe at some point, when they have consumed enough, they can start another universe. Or do they just fizzle out themselves through leakage? Then what?

SirFishSlayer

Agreed. We are just along for the ride.

My personal "Heaven" would be to have it all explained to me, after I was given the capacity to understand it, then let me watch the re-run...with the remote control with the buton to zoom in and out.

Trenton

I personally postulate that the observable universe is a very large black hole sitting in a universe that is infinite in extent and populated with all the objects we have in our universe as well as other ultra massive black holes.

This is not about Russian dolls or wormholes but it does fly in the face of more established notions such as that in which all time and space was crunched in a singularity that somehow exploded - the key implication being that there was no 'before' or 'outside'.

Ultimately, any theory rests on one or more points of faith. For example, that the fundamental constants and the laws of physics are the same everywhere and are invarient with time. We don't know if this is the case and we have very little in the way of proof but we would all think the burden of proof would rest with anyone who disputed it as we would all ask the question 'why would the laws of physics change?' - and not come up with any answers.

To me, a hardcore believer in the invarience of the phycial laws and constants, the idea of an 'act of creation' is totally abhorent. Indeed the big bang as a unique event directly contravenes the principle of the invarience of the phycial laws and constants.

For the moment forget general relativity and quantum mechanics and go back to what we were learning when still in dypers. 1 + 1 = 2 The question is this. Was there ever a 'when' or a 'where' in which 1 + 1 did not equal 2?

It would seem not. 1 + 1 = 2 is true regardless of wether or not there are any entities to add. It is completely independent of the existence of time and space, of matter and energy.

So are all the laws of math - and the laws of physics. It does not matter if there were no photons, the speed of light would still be c.

Extending the concept (the faith) further - to the laws of physics as they really are (rather than as we understand them), the existance of matter and light, space and time, must be a direct conseqence of the laws of physics. Therefore these entities must have always existed and extended to the complete (infinite) set of legal coordinates. Therefore there was a 'before' and an 'outside'

Jake4

I like to think of the possiblity of different mathematical operators.. other than our standard +,-,÷,* .. in other universes :)

Trenton

I wouldn't. It would contravene the principle of invariance of math and physical laws. Besides they are not other universes, meerly other multi-billion lightyear radius black holes. By definition [of the word], there can only be one universe.

There is in any case, no shortage of math operators as things stand. What there is a shortage of are decent accounts of the workings and implications of some of the more exotic ones (eg derivation of the equation for the Schwartzchild radius and its implications)

Tanelorn

What is beyond the observable universe? The unobservable universe.

What is the unobservable universe like? The unobservable universe is like the observable universe except that we cannot observe it because it is beyond the observable universe.


Am I missing something?

SirFishSlayer

Stating it that way makes waaaay more sense. Now that you've explained the easy stuff, explain women to me...remember, under 150 words. Thanks mucho!

Darken-Sol

prove it

Trenton

Women have a fundamentaly different neurology - and more eratic hormones. (10 words)

But what you are missing over and above what all men miss, is that you have forgotten to postulate what make the unobservable universe unobservable. In what sense is it beyond the observable? Is it too far away? behind event horizons?

I suspect that advances in telescopes will come to widen the observable, ultimately by orders of magnitude. After all I can remember being told that 'all the matter in the universe amounts to less than 1 percent of that needed to ultimately bring about a big crunch'

Today I note that there is an article on Wikipeadia stating the Schwartzchild radius of the (observable) universe is approx 10 billion lightyears. That shows we have counted up many times more matter than before - because we have better telescopes.

Jake4

Farther, yes, but more.. no...

the universe is expanding at speeds much higher than the speed of light, thus it is physically impossible for us to see any more of it.

That is what causes it to be 'unobservable'

And I'll state again, that I do like thinking of different operators :) Not in any serious way, but it's fun :P

DaveC426913

What???

Chronos

'Outside the universe' is logically inconsistent given the universe, by definition, includes all aspects of nature that have observable consequences - or in simpler terms, 'all that is possible to see'.

ummm

Okay! I read about the first three pages of this discussion and skipped ot the last page, having the last post on May18-11, 10:16. I guess classes are out for summer, but I noticed that the discussion seems to be repeating the SOS. Since I didn't read all of the pages I'll probably get flamed for not doing so if my questions have already been asked but here goes:

1) If, at the time of the big bang, the entire universe was in, say, maybe a little ball, maybe the size of a baseball, or golf ball, or smaller like a grape or my brain (okay nothing's that small), then what was outside that little ball? What did the parts or gas or whatever, that was in the little ball of universe, expand into? Whatever it expanded into, obviously had to be outside the little ball of universe.

2) Since I'm not a physics phD, I'm still laboring with the notion that nothing is faster than the speed of light. If that is true, how can the universe be expanding faster than that?

Thanks for any answers.