The universe is expanding into...?

[Independent voter]

1. You can't travel faster than light.

2. Unless you're standing on a planet on a different galaxy that's moving away from our galaxy.

It doesn't make intuitive sense, why isn't this limited to the speed of light as well?

[Turalon]

1. You can't travel faster than light.

2. Unless you're standing on a planet on a different galaxy that's moving away from our galaxy.

It doesn't make intuitive sense, why isn't this limited to the speed of light as well?

Everything is indeed limited to the speed of light. The universe "expanding faster than light" is in a sense on a technicality. When it comes to the expansion of space, it's best not to view space as one single thing. Trying to describe it as best I'm able, think of space as having a grid overlaid on top of it. Each square on the grid is a "point" in space. Every single point in space is expanding simultaneously at x speed. Each point individually is no where near to expanding at the speed of light, but when adding the speed of every single point together, the sum total of each points expansion comes out to be greater than the speed of light.

Even with space technically expanding faster than light, that does not mean that whatever galaxy that is traveling away from us is doing so at the speed of light or greater. Yes random galaxy X is moving away from us due to the expansion of space, but being that a galaxies gravity completely wins out against expansion happening within itself, and so none of the stars or planets positions are affected whatsoever, you could picture the space expanding within the galaxy as just actually expanding outward from the galaxy, essentially putting more space between that galaxy and another without the galaxy itself moving and so not breaking the rule of not being able to travel faster than light.

This is likely a massive over simplification and I'm sure someone could probably find something wrong with it, but that is generally the idea of how that all works out.

[StayTuned]

This question is not valid. I know it defies common sense, but the Universe is everything there is. It doesn't expand into anything, everything in existence is simply getting larger.

At least for now nobody can be 100% sure.

[Malfecto]

If you want to hear actual science talk, and not "feelings of how thing work" explanations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwwIFcdUFrE

I enjoyed his explanation. His other videos are worth watching along with this one.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

Are you saying the universe circles around itself, thus not actually expanding into anything?

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We really can't rule out anything. We could be in a simulation for all we know. It's such a mystery...

yah, the "we caught you, now you're going into eternal rape lotus eating machine" mystery, lol

The universe expands (or other form of locomotion or ambulation depending on the latter part of this statement) into whatever we want it to expand into. Since we're it, controlling it.

If you want to make the two points in space chase each other instead of lead each other though, then you'll be forced to believe the shape the universe turns into is the one you wanted it to be. But that makes it the same exact answer: Its shape will be what you want it to expand into. It's just that the other way you get that answer by seeing it first, then getting retroactively brainraped into knowing that's the shape you wanted it to be.

But simply put, its expanding into what we want it to expand into.

This question is not valid. I know it defies common sense, but the Universe is everything there is. It doesn't expand into anything, everything in existence is simply getting larger.

At least for now nobody can be 100% sure.

And if this is what you want the answer to be, then this will be the answer.

It's not just a macromeme, it's literally the simplest meme too. It's what you want to believe it to be.

It only gets tricky when you want to be thwarted, so you thwart yourself with that want, and then you can claim it isn't what we want it to be and I'm wrong, because that's what you wanted to be able to claim, that I'm wrong. Which would mean that by thwarting you, it was what you wanted it to be.

[Tandi]

The universe acts somewhat similar as our brains, ever expanding with knowledge and memories, but on a way larger scale.

Doubt we'll ever know the real answer, might as well be something crazy like this.

[Azadina]

I feel bad for that random future civilization that will look at the night sky and think they are completely alone in a sea of nothingness. They will never be able to tell the history of the universe

Now I wonder how far in the future such an event would be, where we can't see anything in the sky anymore.

[Kelathos]

That... is not what quantum entanglement says.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george...b_9703656.html

"Spooky action at a distance" infers that there remains a connection no matter where the two particles are in space.
There is a physical property or law of physics that transcends distance. That has incredible implications down the road.

[Adam Jensen]

If you want to hear actual science talk, and not "feelings of how thing work" explanations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwwIFcdUFrE

I enjoyed his explanation. His other videos are worth watching along with this one.

PBS Space Time makes my head heart. It's not that I don't like the channel, it's just that I usually end up watching each show more than once to try to figure out what's going on.

[Deleted]

our universe is a matter/energy fart in an already expanding multiverse, same as every other universe.

the universes will never meet because the multiverse space in between them is expanding so fast, this begs the question what is the multiverse expanding into... logical fallacy moving the goalposts.

[HumbleDuck]

What do you mean by expand into?

[Malfecto]

PBS Space Time makes my head heart. It's not that I don't like the channel, it's just that I usually end up watching each show more than once to try to figure out what's going on.

I mean yea, I get that. I do the same thing, and I have a heavy science background. The concepts are fundamentally easy to understand, like you can't get to point A, ever, if point A is always moving away from you faster than you can go. But the math (which they mercifully only show flashes of) is mind bending. Top that off with the fact that we can't even really fathom distances like that and it is no wonder you have to make a couple passes to get it to make some sense.

It is great to think about though. I have a love hate relationship with cosmology. In a lot of ways, its impractical, but it goes hand in hand with the big picture of research. Without really curious and really smart people studying things like fusion in stars we'd never have flash memory (quantum tunneling).

[Deleted]

One of the most interesting questions is what the universe is actually expanding into. Scientists tend to agree it does expand. But, into what?

What is your best guess?

If space and time began after the Big Bang, then there is nothing for the universe to expand into. Think about it!

Into nothing.

[Dys]

We're all living in a giant's heart. The universe's expansion is half of a single heartbeat. We're in for one hell of a ride once it's time for contraction.

No one knows, so you may as well get crazy & creative with the possibilities.

[Adam Jensen]

I mean yea, I get that. I do the same thing, and I have a heavy science background. The concepts are fundamentally easy to understand, like you can't get to point A, ever, if point A is always moving away from you faster than you can go. But the math (which they mercifully only show flashes of) is mind bending. Top that off with the fact that we can't even really fathom distances like that and it is no wonder you have to make a couple passes to get it to make some sense.

It is great to think about though. I have a love hate relationship with cosmology. In a lot of ways, its impractical, but it goes hand in hand with the big picture of research. Without really curious and really smart people studying things like fusion in stars we'd never have flash memory (quantum tunneling).

It's always the math. I love the concepts, I choke on the math.

If it weren't for the math, I'd be an astrophysicist.

[Ahovv]

Why assume it's expanding into anything in the first place? For us who live in space surrounded by more space, the idea that a volume must expand inside of some greater volume seems self-evident, but if the universe is simply existence, then it would seem incoherent to suggest that there's some nonexistence outside of it that it expands into, as opposed to simply expanding.

Either way, it's not something science can currently explain with any degree of certainty.

[Gaaz]

Personally, I am opposed to the idea of a single universe or a single reality as we know it currently. There are very many vague areas yet that are very much open to interpretation, and some of the more popular theories simply do not make sense to me.
1. The idea that there is only one Big Bang in existance is wierd at best. There is no data available to extrapolate that. It may well be that there are multiple Big Bangs around us that can not be detected because we can not even observe our own explosion fully, let alone more distant objects. My perception is that Universe is like a bubble wrap. Each bubble is a separate Big Bang.
2. Impossibility of a faster than light travel. Gravity and magnetic fields (effects) seem to travel faster than light. Otherwise things like black holes would not be possible.
3. The idea that there was no space and time before Big Bang. I mean why?
4. As gravity increases, time slows down. Again, why? Perceptopn of time may be slower, sure, as well as enthropy forces. But taking the most quoted example of an astranaut falling into a black hole, he may appear frozen to us only because there is no further light that reaches us, not because he did not fall. To use an analogy, what we see is a recording of past events. If our video camera starts to run slower, it does not mean that a running dog we are filming runs any slower as well. We only percieve it that way. If we see a stuck astranaut on the edge of event horizon, we see a recording. He may very well be inside it already.
I can probably go on and on. Science has so many holes on these macro levels that you can spend hours just listing them.

[Garnier Fructis]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george...b_9703656.html

"Spooky action at a distance" infers that there remains a connection no matter where the two particles are in space.
There is a physical property or law of physics that transcends distance. That has incredible implications down the road.

Yeah, I'm really not interested in hand-wavy quantum woo articles. The mathematical statement of quantum entanglement is incredibly mundane. In fact it almost makes the existence of quantum entanglement obvious.

[Nihilist74]

It's a question that doesn't have an answer. It's like asking "what does silence sound like?" or "what's the opposite of a banana?"

Its a question we are not capable of answering right now and probably wont be able to for a long long time.

[Deleted]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george...b_9703656.html

"Spooky action at a distance" infers that there remains a connection no matter where the two particles are in space.
There is a physical property or law of physics that transcends distance. That has incredible implications down the road.

Say you have a pair of shoes.
You put each in a box, randomly choosing which one goes into which, and you don't look which one is which.
You send one box a few kilometers away, and keep the other.
You open your box to find a left shoe.
Immediately you know the other shoe to be the right one. Without even going to check it.

That's what so spooky about it.