Humans are sure about nearly everything: all diseases, galaxies, stars, people, cells, animals, molecules, technology - humans have figured out enarly everything. they have predicted for nearly sure how to galaxies and stars work, how far away the close planets are, whether or not they are liveable, etc.

But where does the universe end? What happens then? Does it keep on going? Does anyone have any idea?

I think it's going to be either -

i) The sun explodes some 5 billion years from now
ii) We [ Being, the Milky Way] Will eventually crash into one of our neighboring galaxies - Andromeda


But you know ..

Anything could happen ..

I don't think the Universe will ever end ..

Hence why I just posted OUR end [ And another possible 900 other civilizations, from Frank Drakes equation ]


And if that does ever happen - By that time I think we [ The Human Race ] Will be long gone anyway ..

Physically, where is the end of the the universe? Like, what happens? Is there a drop off?

I think that the universe itself is expanding into a state where limits and laws mean nothing because all that there is is "space" no gravity no other forces just an apparant 3d space with a 3d/4d universe expanding into it. I think it would be more interesting to ask what's AROUND this space. Well its hard to conceptualise because there can't be anything around it in the 3d sense. Its just like going from 2d to 3d. So something from whatever this space is to something else. I find it hard to believe that the universe just decided to explode one day. I feel something effected it in a different state of existance because we can't determine what happened before the big bang using the laws of physics we have derived thus far.

I think thats a 'hot' topic ..

I think that the universe is constantly expanding ..

But, I don't think theres a drop off, Perhaps the universe is .. growing into something?

But that brings us to the question - What is it growing IN ..



[This isn't really my field of knowledge so excuse me if I've gotten something wrong]

There is a drop off, but the drop off is at before the big bang. The universe and the 3d space its expanding into is an existance onto its own, it doesn't need limitations or drop offs or anything because it just continues going it IS. The same everywhere you look (outside the universe). It doesn't really matter since it is a constant. The drop off is at the beginning of the universe.

Okay, I don't totally understand the whole dimension thing - like, i know that 3D is depth and width, 4D is time, (I think), but what would 5D and 6D mean?

3D yeah is what we percieve as "space"

4D is every possibility of the 3D at once in a cronological order

We exist in a state thats a combination of 3D and 4D, its the 4th dimension from the 3rd dimenion's perspective. Imagine a giant wheel rolling down a hill, the wheel itself is the 4th dimension and the 3rd dimension is the flat of the hill its rolling on. We exist only where the wheel and the hill make contact, at that point.

The 5th dimension is possibility. Different possibilites of where the 3d/4d 4d dimensions exist. Though it would be happening all at once we can only percieve it as one state because of our dimensional limits.

Anyways its extremely hard to perceptualise what the beginning of the universe would have been like except nothing. I think that it was knocked off of its pedestal by something beyond what we perceive now. Imagine a jug of water sitting on a table. It is in equilibrium with all the forces acting on it. Once you knock it off it suddenly has forces which are out of sync. I think the beginning of the universe was similiar to this. It got knocked off and suddenly had a phinominally large amount of friction and density because it WAS perfectly "obsolute" Because it was surrounded by nothing where it got knocked into it had forever to try and ballance out again. Thus the big bang. I'm not sure what original matter would have been but yeah due to new laws of physics because of its material state our universe began to evolve in the way it did.

That's how I see it anyway.

Dark matter eventually wins.

You mean dark matter will possibly eventually win in the sense that the universe starts contracting.

You actually managed to make me more confused.

. Just kidding.

First of all, humans have only figured out everything that is known to them, so we don't really know if we have figured out almost anything.

Now if you are asking if the universe will have a dooms day, then any short study of the theory of the big bang will answer that, or maybe a small peek in the Astronomy forum.

If you are asking that if the universe has a certain size, and after that size there is no more universe, then according to the theory of the big bang, humans or anything else dinamically known in the universe cannot reach the end of the universe, if there is.

You blow up a balloon.

It's surface is constantly expanding.

Is there an end to that surface? no.

Yet it is expanding.

Personally, I don't like the balloon analogy as it implies there is something outside the universe that it is expanding into. The universe is unfolding into itself, imo. We perceive a linear expansion but the unfolding is happening inside the curved dimensions within the universe.

Imaging a shape with a convoluted interior, but the beings inside exist in an n-1 dimensional state compared to the shape. They perceive the convolutions as linear and if you add more convolutions they will perceive the shape as expanding.

However, the premise that there is no 'end' to the universe seems to be correct according to theory. The universe simply curves back on itself.

The universe's outer surface would most probably be made up of matter resulting from the big bang, everything around this is nothing, there isn't any outside pressure. The universe's only "pressure" in that sense is the gravitational forces within it. It is expanding in the sense that that which exploded, that matter that was created is moving outward.

This is assuming that the surface the universe exist's on is shaped to cause the universe to curve around on it. Wouldn't it collide with itself?

There is no 'surface' of the universe. That, and the whole 'what is it expanding into thing' is why I don't like balloon-type analogies.

While this is all still theory, of course, and I am not speaking from a position of absolute knowledge, it is surmised you could travel in any direction forever and never reach a 'surface'. You might end up back where you started from though

Well, a surface itself is 2D. The surface of a sphere is 2D. The 2D makes up the 3D. It just depends on how you look at it. A 3D viewing a 2D will be aware of the surface. What if whatever the universe is ON or WITHIN or whatever is a surface in itself we just can't see it because of our limited perception in the 3D? A 3D surface without a 2D surface defining it. A shape without definition. When we think of something 3D we require it to actually have limits. I see what you mean about the expanding into itself but how can that work if the universe IS apparantly getting BIGGER? Unless different parts of the universe behaves differently I can't really see how this would work.

My theory is that space is infinite in all directions but if you throw something away then it will eventually come back so nothing is infinitely far away because it would require infinite amount of energy and time. Dark energy is something mysterious and I think we still know too little about what causes it.

The universe is getting apparently bigger when viewed from within. If this is down to an increase in the curvature of space (through dimensional folding/unfolding) then it is quite reasonable to say the universe is not getting 'bigger' yet, at the same time, it is. The universe can only be viewed from within so any measurement of 'size' is relative to the universe itself. It is always the same size...the size of the universe.

The universe may not be 'on' or 'within' anything. Then there is no 'surface'.

Hopefully we are so advanced by then that we left our own galaxy and onto others

The universe is expanding into nothing. Nothing is hindering the expanse.

at the end of all of this when u have read it will ultimately fall back into your lap and ask u this what can u believe? what do you want to believe? and how far can you contemplate it all to conceptualize and visualize the constructs....u will then fall into a catagory of people that think inside the box or outside...or a bit od both.....choice is yours!

Well at some point in the past there had to have been a point where the universe got "bigger" because how do you go from a point to space? Unless this is something to do with the unfolding of the universe. *thinks* I wonder if the universe doesn't actually exist fully in the 4D as an actual 4D shape. It wouldn't need to be expanding into anything then and if it did exist ON something it wouldn't matter because it doesn't effect it. It would just BE what we perceive as expansion is just the 4D shape doing what it does. Going from a 2D plane to a 3D plane is an extremely complex jump.. All kinds of things become possible within the 3D that the 2D would never be able to begin to conceptualise like gravity heat etc. Things which can't exist on the 2D. I wonder if this would be the same going from the 3D to the 4D. If the universe existed as a 4 dimensional construct then it does have the possibility to have been there forever... Ergh that would be extremely difficult to work with because things would work differently in different sections of its 4D construct. Eh.. confusing myself now. But yeah I think I see what your trying to say.

It would just be like running around in a circle :\ which would mean the human race has existed several times and I've typed this same thing several/infinite times. Unless things on the quantum level are truely and utterly random. It would be different everytime a "cycle" is completed from where we're sitting. At some point it has to return to the big bang. That really is hard to work with.. Take time travel for example. If we somehow one day figured out how to time travel and we go back to the past then things would actually have happened differently/slightly differently because no two points of any cycle would be exactly the same :\ or the chances of it happening or so infinitely small its pointless to contemplate it. Well it would depend how you time travelled.. Going through a wormhole would probably produced stuffed up effects in the past. Actually physically turning back the whole thing might work. Anyways.. Shapes can be streched/broken/shattered etc with enough force. I think that massed going at very large speeds would stretch the shape of the universe. This might explain why things going at very large speeds are slowed down from where we're sitting. Eh idk i'm just babbling on now lol

the whole universe is in a computer, a big giant owns a computer and in that computer, he made a game, and he built a whole 3d world, that is our universe, our world

Why does it have to be a giant? This game principle though.. I find it unlikely that any being would find it entertaining to watch humans go about their things as infinitely small biological existances inside an insanely enormous universe compared to their size. Why would this be entertaining as a game? Who would want to keep a computer on for that long?

You're thinking of the point as having a 'size' looking at it from the outside. What if you were inside the point, how 'big' would it apparently be?

inside or outside the box thinking...wot is your preferred view!....lol...i love it like flys attacking each around the light...which one is more..lets say truthful....lmao...i know mine but im not telling..

i also herd from recent studies the curvature to space time is FLAT not curved....so alas, eat me!.....oh yes who actually thinks inside the box...how...BLAND...how...unexcitable...how...curved!..lmao

my whole point is to say that there is a creator, not a giant human but a sort of powerful energy throught the universe that is in charge of all the circles of life..........circle of life meaning life and death, moon sun cycle, all living

According to the new issue of Newsweek Magazine, the universe will expand into nothingness. Each solar system and galaxy will continue to depart forever. Granted there are no other universes to run into.

"In charge" who put it incharge? Why did this great entity decide to "look after" the universe and its inhabitants? Who created the creator? What's the purpouse of the creator and why?

Then over an infinite period of time the universe will eventually become "nothing" since the distance two particles are appart will be completely meaningless to the other since there is absolutely no way to connect the two. UNLESS there is another way particles are connected which i think is suggested by quantum mechanics. If so then there is another dimension in which everything or atleast the two particles are one. Then the apparant expansion of the universe is an illusion.

My size would be irrelevant viewed from this dimension because it would be a constant. Along with everything else. Mass becomes a constant when travelling at infinite speed I would think. So too would my size at "no-size." I'll still have a size but its a constant rellative to everything else. It won't mean anything viewed from this reality, that's the illusion.

A crazy idea I have is that the universe is a cell, a huge cell (by our standards), that come together with other cells to form something.
Ofcouse, I don't necessarily believe that, but that would be cool.

How would either of these events cause the universe to end? These events would effect our galaxy and neighboring ones but the universe consist of a whole lot more than us and our neighbors. And it is already known our sun is going to die out and heavily speculated the Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision course billions of years in the future.

the creator created time, so it lives outside of time, thus, it has always been here. the creator has always been and well always be in charge of all the cycles asnd life ,death, etc.

I believe the Universe doesn't have an end I think the Universe is just one out of a gigantic cluster of Universes (like a cluster of galaxies) and beyond that is a larger object containing all of those Universes etc. to me the Universe is just one big intergalactic galaxy with meny other galaxies with it.

How could you "live" without time? Why would something that has no need for time create it? How do you "create" time?

You cant. The universe is just here and nobody knows why and discussing anything wont change anything. Its still good to discuss though

So basically after 3 pages of discussion we still do not have any clue...

I think there are some mysteries that we will not solve until we have reached the proper maturity (advancement in technology etc) then maybe we will know 'what' exactly is out there...

I've thought about this before....


I think that if you left earth and went in a stragiht line (forget about objects in your way...or how fast you need to go)


You just keep going straight you'll eventually wind up back at earth



like if the equator on earth was a road......you start drving.....you drive in a straight line and eventually wind up where you started from

Its still good to know though The universe is there (from observation) but humans like a form of control over things.. We get a kick out of saying "I know what happened at such and such time of the universe."

ive tried coming up with theories about this but i think youll need to think of how the universe is growing compare it to something that can expand like the universe but in my theory its foam but foam usualy needs a chemical reaction for it to expand which in my ttheory is time but if you notice that foam stops growing and i beleive that the universe has this thing in the centre that sucks everything into it but when the universe stops growing i think that it would collaps on its self and all the time particles will escape and some people say that the universe used to be the size of an atom and thats what i think will happen again so the universe is basicly recycled in my theory