If Space Wasnt Infinite

where would it end? Would it suddenly stop at a black wall or something? Wouldnt it have to be sitting on something like a table? in a box or something. =) anyone have any thoughts? the thought it mind boggling to me.

 

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A crude analogy is to compare space to the surface of the earth. You can go north, south, east, or west in any direction, and you can continue in that direction forever. But the earth's surface is not infinite, just like space is not infinite.

 

yes, you wouldn't be able to "escape" space, even if it was finite.

 

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I don't see how they can tell if the background radiation is "symmetrical" with respect to anything...it's distribution is almost perfectly uniform throughout the universe.

 

Of course matter finite... theres a limit to the edge of our universe, and its expanding, and you could travel beyond there.

Interestingly, the universe has enough matter to undergo a big crunch and collapse in on itself, but its still expanding, and now seems to be expanding more rapidly... the expansion is speeding up.

Which means theres either some tremendous force of antigravity pushing the universe away faster, or even crazier, there some force outside the galaxy causing it to draw the universe towards it.

Physicists are now just throwing guese at what it could be, one theroy is quantum particles are reapearing and disaperaing outside the universe and thats causing it to have mass outside the universe drawing the universe out faster...

I don't think I'm quite smart enough for quantum physics, so I just read and guess.

nobody understands quantum mechanics, says Feynman.

 

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so what would be outside the box?
See once you hypothesise an answer another question emerges...Kinda infinite in itself...

 

I must interject-

this is all theory at best.

The Universe is finite because time is finite- and visa-versa!

 

ah, thats all truely another language to me. i couldnt fatham being able to think up such ideas.

another idea that isnt clear to me is the initial point from which the universe expanded . This was an incredibly condensed mass of energy? I read that the first molecules formed about 300,000 years after the initial bang. i dont understand how atoms/molecules were created, since matter cannot be created.

 

yeah, thats where it gets nutty. i picture the universe extended infinitely in all directions, then i think of myself looking at it, but from where? i try to relate it to something like walking down a long stretch of road, and eventually coming to a gas station or seomthing....but there is nothing in space. just black forever and ever.

 

Matter is energy.

If there was a big-bang, it was an explosion of energy. If Energy=mass x lightspeed squared (E=MC2), then that's ALOT of energy squeezed into quantum (smallest possible) point in space/time.

In such confined "space", some energy is "forced through pressure(natural laws)" into it's compact form of Matter.

Since the original universe was more-or-less a "point", it's expansion included expansion of the original "point" through time/space. The result is that ALL points are the original point.

Now before shaggie chokes- this is by no means a valid explaination. But it's not completly off base, and I think it does convey the general idea.

 

what do you mean by "ALL points are the original point"?

 

You can't travel the present-day universe to find a "point of origin," because it does not exist. Try not to think of the universe as a particle expanding into the void, because space itself is contained within the universe.

Everywhere in the present-day universe was once part of that little particle, including all of the empty space that separates stars and galaxies. Therefore you won't find any point of origin.

 

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I'm a laymen when it comes to quantum physics and such, but I have a theory of the universe being like Pac-Man. Remember when you reached the end of the screen in Pac-man he would just appear at the opposite end? Thats what I believe would happend at the "end" of the universe.

 

Actually Shaba thats not crazy. Not long ago the topolgy of the universe was thought to be a torus shape (doughnut). Wheter it still is i dunno.
The reason that all points are the center of the universe is because it all started form the same point. In which ever direction we look the universe is moving away from us implying we are in the middle. However whever you are in the universe you will experience the same thing.