TalkBack: The Edge of the Universe

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From:	Phillip Todd White	2001-08-11 07:08:21
Subject:	Universe Size
Comment:	I have no idea what lies at the end of the Universe. It's cool to think of the size. All I know is that light would take 14,000,000,000 (14 billion years) to travel to 'Remotest Quasars' (discovered in 1998) and according to the infomation that I was given light would take 15,000,000,000 (15 billion years) to travel to the edge of the Universe (whatever that might be). Hope that's helpful! Tight web page dude! Keep up the cool work! -Phillip Todd White
From:	stephanie	2002-12-15 01:36:04
Subject:	end to the universe?
Comment:	From: Phillip Todd White 20010811070821 Subject: Universe Size Comment: I have no idea what lies at the end of the Universe. It's cool to think of the size. All I know is that light would take 14,000,000,000 (14 billion years) to travel to 'Remotest Quasars' (discovered in 1998) and according to the infomation that I was given light would take 15,000,000,000 (15 billion years) to travel to the edge of the Universe (whatever that might be). Hope that's helpful! Tight web page dude! Keep up the cool work! -Phillip Todd White In response to that: I personally don't agree with you and I don't think that there is an end to the universe. Although I do respect you for having knowledge on the subject. But the thing is, is that there is no end to the universe, therefore your theory of it taking 15 billion years to reach the end is faulty. Let's say that 'man' does reach a dead 'end' to the universe. What is on the other side? What do you expect to see there? A brick wall? I don't think so. please E-mail me back if you want to discus this further. with love Stephanie.
From:	Eduardo Chang	2003-02-02 02:34:49
Subject:	X, Y and Z Axis
Comment:	But in Space, can't a ship travel on all 3 axis's (X, Y and Z)? If the universe is a bubble then then it would have a surface and a 'surface' means a vertical brick wall... That means not just traveling at a infinite looping horizontal distance but vertical also (because there is no floor/brick wall in space) ...I'm confused Also may you please explain to my how humans found out the universe is 15 billion years old? If it is 15 billion years old then that means it must of had been produced... Hey thats a pretty good idea! start a new philosophical arguement on how the universe came to be. :)
From:	Eduardo Chang	2003-02-02 02:38:37
Subject:	X, Y and Z Axis
Comment:	I believe that there is no form to the universe. It's not a bubble but it spreads out infinitely on all axis's (X,Y and Z).
From:	Eduardo Chang	2003-02-02 02:41:22
Subject:	X, Y and Z Axis
Comment:	Analogy: Just look at a graph with Axis's there is positives and negatives. I.E: '...-5Y, -4Y, -3Y, -2Y, -1y, 0, 1Y, 2Y, 3Y, 4Y, 5Y...'
From:	Daniel	2003-03-23 19:26:57
Subject:	just wondering
Comment:	Does anything (galaxies, clusters, whatever) exist near the 'edge' of the universe (the furthest light has travelled)? I've read some of your mails guys and girls, your both very smart and you helped clear some stuff up. :)
From:	Evo	2003-08-19 23:36:35
Subject:	Do you believe the big bang happened?
Comment:	Well. I think its as silly as saying 'do you believe water is wet?' Since we can look back in time with a telescope to the early universe and all the time in between, I think it is a given. it's not a hypothetical question at all. it's just a scientific fact. Plain and simple. I think a more philisophical question would be. Do you believe in multiuniverses? or Do you believe black holes could be a gateway to other universes? etc....
From:	Net	2003-08-31 08:59:45
Subject:	Big Bang
Comment:	I certainly believe this all could have happened this way, but just like the original belief that the earth was flat, there could be more but it just hasn't been figured out yet. Science is never quite figured out. There's always more to learn. One question regarding the Big Bang Theory is where did the expanding matter come from in the first place? How did *that* come to be? Where did it come from? A collision with a parrallel universe? Where did that universe come from? Why? How long? Did it really start from something? And how did that 'something' come to be? Or is it beyond our comprehension of space/time, laws of physics, anything we even remotely can begin to understand?
From:	Clayton Carter	2003-11-07 12:55:33
Subject:	Try this on for size
Comment:	OK, so I'm driving to Santa Barbara Last weekend, and I'm... well stoned. So I'm thinking about time-space curvature, absolute Zero, the speed of light, time travel, the big bang, suba-atomics, and the edge of the bubble we call the universe. And I'm thinking to myself: 'If I was in a space ship, and I go skinny dipping into space then I freeze, all the heat in my body is sucked into the void. But it isn't every last drop of energy, at the atomic level I am still alive. There must always be some movement in atoms (on the sub-atomic scale) other wise Absolute Zero is reached. But for something to take absolutely no movement through some part of space is to remove itself from time as well. To not exist temporally is to simply not exist at all. So perhaps there is an absolute zero, but it isn't actually a real thing, because it's nothing at all. So the Universe is only as large as the space that the energy (mass) can occupy because out side of this energy there can be no motion through space, and therefor no time- only absolute zero (NOTHING!) So then how can the universe expand into this nothing if it isn't actually there to begin with, there isn't anywhere for the matter to go because the energy can never cross the edge. Which begs the question, if something were to travel backwards through time then it would need to occupy a space that was not available. So what caused the big bang? Ah ha. In the very very distant past some catastrophic event occurs, and a large bit of matter is temporally displaced, creating a vacuous space that sucks in matter(an actual black 'hole'). As this matter is devoured the edge of the universe shrinks.
From:	Clayton Carter	2003-11-07 12:57:05
Subject:	...cont'd
Comment:	This continues on for eons until finally there is only matter and space is 'squeezed' out. Itis so super condensed it becomes without space between atoms. The constant collision of seriously high speed particles (realize the universe is pretty small at this point and to us would it would be like planets whizzing by at the speed of light and crashing) so an incredible amount of frictic energy is collected and a seemingly small amount of matter is thrown back through time (yes, it happens regularly on the sub-atomic level) KABOOM!!! but then if the universe explodes before the particle could have been thrown back in time then how could it have done it all. Well, technically all of this happened at the same time, but it didn't. I wish I had the vocabulary to describe that more clearly but I don't fully understand it yet. So there it is, it's the eventuality of this universe as well. The universe expands at the big bang, the constant action and reaction of the universe coupled with gravitational and atomic forces demands that the universe will colapse upon itself, distorting time beyond imagination and then will explode due to this spatial(?)-time distortion.' Or I'm wrong.
From:	Clayton Carter	2003-12-07 16:52:07
Subject:	Space-time curvature
Comment:	The shape of the universe has nothing to do with the curvature of space-time. Space-time curvature is a result of mass in space time. think of it this way, if you had a bowl of wax and put in a few dissolving marbles, the wax cools and the marbles dissolve leaving the wax looking a little like swiss cheese. The marbles are planets, and the wax is space-time. It has to bend to avoid the mass, when as two masses approach eachother they fall into a 'rolling down hill' effect. This causes the illusion of a force to everyday life known as gravity. Which makes me wonder, space time isn't really anything we can see, taste, smell, and yet we experience it. So does nothing really end?
From:	Chris	2004-02-23 15:55:26
Subject:	The edge of the universe.
Comment:	I believe that the universe has always been here in some form, i believe that it expands and contracts (as with all things in nature it seems to follow some sort of season, rotation, birth, death E.T.C) i feel that it would be impossible for nothing to ever have exsisted as we do (exsist that is!). But i do believe the big bang happened, and feel that not only did our universe begin but that simultaneous second (if you can call it that as it would have all happened in one simultaneous moment)the last universe imploded. Plus if space is expanding then how can the universe be infinite, infinity cannot expand... Durr!! But this still leaves the dreaded question, what is on the edge of the universe? Maybe the fact it might never be possible to find out is relavent, maybe it doesn't exsist, maybe if we ever do find out we wont need to know anymore.
From:	Polo Salinas	2004-03-04 14:14:41
Subject:	Re: The edge of the universe.
Comment:	From: Chris 20040223155526 Subject: The edge of the universe. Plus if space is expanding then how can the universe be infinite, infinity cannot expand... Durr!! But this still leaves the dreaded question, what is on the edge of the universe? Maybe the fact it might never be possible to find out is relavent, maybe it doesn't exsist, maybe if we ever do find out we wont need to know anymore. In response to this comment- Chris, the universe can be infinite AND expanding, but in a fourth dimmension as well. Since we can only think in 3D, the only way to picture this is going back to 2D. A good example is thinking of an inflating balloon. We would be dots (2D) marked in the balloon. For us any straight line would end up eventually in the same place...so it would be infinite (no brick walls). And yet it would be expanding, every dot getting farther away from each other. To us, there would be no 'center' of expansion, as it is in truth. Hope this helps! Polo
From:	Jim Eadon	2004-03-06 03:43:31
Subject:	Can Infinity Expand
Comment:	(I'm the author of the page) Our Universe, assuming it conforms to known mathematics, can both expand and be infinite. Even though our observable universe is finite, due to the limited speed of light, there may be an infinity of observable universes side by side, contiguously. If you have an infinite elastic band, that elastic may still stretch. What is really interesting, though, about infinity, is that no matter how much the infinite elastic band stretches, it will not get longer. Infinity disobeys human common sense. There are as many points on a line the width of a finger nail, as are contained in a line between you and me, or between here and the edge of the Universe. (Infinitely many, or the Infinity of the continuum, as it is called, which is a larger infinity than the number of natural numbers, 1,2,3,...). A brilliant mathematician, Cantor, proved that the number of points on a line is also equal to the number of points in any volume. So the number of points on a line the width of an atom is equal to the number of points in the entire Universe. Hope this helps :)
From:	Chris	2004-03-13 08:49:55
Subject:	Stretching infinity
Comment:	In reply to Jim Eadon... If this 'elastic band' was truly infinite then how could it be expanding. If it had an infinite mass it simply could not get any bigger. An interesting experiment would be to draw 2 dots on this elastic band and measure. If the whole elastic band is expanding then there must be a force outside of the universe, if there is a force outside of the known universe there must be an edge which to me implies the universe (that we know at least!) is finite. ------ With that said though, my edge of the universe theory is one the many oxy-moron explanations. There must either... (A)Be an edge to our universe. (B)Be no edge to our universe. (C)The universe has always been here in some form. (D)The universe spontaneously appeared from nothing.
From:	Chris	2004-03-13 09:18:49
Subject:	Stretching infinty (continued)
Comment:	I have just had an afterthought, if the universe is both infinite and expanding, i can't see why outside of infinity a force could be that simply can't be measured because it does not exsist in linear terms. This would be called God by a fool and 'a force' by someone slightly less foolish.
From:	Jim Eadon	2004-03-13 09:36:49
Subject:	Infinity can have an edge
Comment:	Something can be infinite and still have an edge. For example a fractal curve can fit onto a piece of paper, yet be of infinite length (think about the boundary of the Mandelbrot set, for example). You can 'stretch' a fractal by plotting it on larger scales. Likewise, there is no mathematical reason I know of why you can't strech an infinite object. There are many different ways of thinking about infinity, yet we must not fall into the trap of applying our 'common sense' to infinity, because the mathematics of infinity is counter-intuitive. Regarding the elastic band theory, an infinite elastic band would be infinitely heavy, but because the speed of light is finite, and gravity travels at that speed, it would take infinitely long for the infinite mass to register on a particular point. When I say that the elastic band is infinitely long, though, then you can never reach both ends of the elastic band. Proof: if you reach both ends, you can measure its length, and it is not, by definition, infinitely long. So therefore it goes on forever. If our universe extends to infinity, you can never reach the 'edge' of the universe, because it does not exist in our 3 dimensional space, (or at best it is always an infinite distance away).
From:	Chris	2004-03-15 10:29:32
Subject:	Infinity cont...
Comment:	In reply to the above, i here what your saying but i am still struggling with a few points. A mandlebrot set does not make a curved line it only appears to, as for the patterns created in chaos they are nothing more than a complicated way of doing this computer program... 10 run 20 goto 10
From:	Sir avalos van-dinkel	2004-04-13 19:40:51
Subject:	The unified field theory
Comment:	I have done it, finally in our lifetimes i have balanced the unified field theory, physics is complete. It all happened late one night when i was eating a piece of fine english cheddar, suddenly it occured to me this cheese is carbon based, i'm carbon based, the very chair upon which i am sat is carbon based, EVERYTHING is carbon based !!! I set to work. number crunching through the night with only the howling wind and the glistening of the moon as my companion. So the one thing that unifies all matter other than it's exsistance is cheese, then a cold sweat enveloped my soul. Damn there is more than one form of cheese is this a mathmatical anomilie to degenarate my work, i flew into a rage with the cheese in my tightening grip. I went in to the kitchen to destroy the very item that created this child like joy in my heart. I took the grater in my grasp and with power beyond my limits, some may say trancendental i savaged the creamy delight in a flourish of golden proportions. It landed on my naked, sweaty, hungry body and as it worked it's way into places that probably already smelt quite cheesy. At that point all theorys unified.
From:	Vikki	2004-04-16 20:15:43
Subject:	infinty in more than one form
Comment:	To be able to tell if the elastic is streching you have to find the ends, but as this piece of elastic is infinte not only will it not have an end but it would have no sides, it is infinte, it takes up all the recordable, known mass there is. The only way infinte could possibly go against these 'rules' would be if it could exsist in more than one form, e.g a multiverse, then infinite could have a shape as it would not be the be all and end all. Ironically the multiverse would (presumably) go on for infinte, once (if) we discovered it's exsistance wouldn't we be back to square one. F*ck infinty is well harsh.
From:	Chris	2004-06-03 12:25:49
Subject:	Infinity, again!
Comment:	Someone said something very interesting to me the other day. Imagine an ant had some sort of mutation which made it unusually inqusitive, this ant chooses to leave the ant hill and walks for a lifetime, it begins to think that the arrid plain is all there is, he has come across strange cactus and other objects he had never seen before but soon begins to regard them as standard. Suddenly he is before the ocean, which he recognises as water, the ant could not travel any further and pondered on this. I think it is possible that we have (humans) done something unprecedented, we have questioned the impossible. Maybe infinity exists out of our grasps. In other words we simply cannot and never will be able to do anything other than view it as a riddle, I think if we ever do crack it, it will be soon...
From:	eric	2004-06-12 01:11:56
Subject:	Less space toward the edge
Comment:	I base this on nothing, want to use in in a sci-fi story, but here goes: I'm gonna say the universe has an edge, sorta. If you start to travel out from the center of the universe, the Big Bang source, I guess, you could describe yourself traveling point to point in even, equal intervals. Toward the edge the space between points might become greater. But that sounds wrong, because what I mean is this: the amount of space between these equally spaced points accounts for more. That there is actually less tangible space toward the limits of the “sphere of the universe.” Ha, tangible space, sounds dumb, I know. If you traveled outward and started to approach the edge, stop and take a left (to ease my explaining, lets travel along a plane, no z movements.) Now you are traveling 90 degrees to the left, but you’d actually be arcing (along the arc drawn by the edge of the universe.) Mind you, you’ve not approached the edge yet, but you are close. You’d still be traveling between equally spaced points relative to your ship, but in the universe the space you are traversing is bigger. Not that there is more space, but that the space covers more area (maybe area in 5th dimension, if you need to relate it to something else).
From:	eric	2004-06-12 01:13:38
Subject:	less space toward the edge -2
Comment:	Let me try again. My idea rests mostly on this, the edge of the universe is really only one point. You couldn’t reach it, you couldn’t fit. As you traveled out, you’d reach a point in space were there just isn’t enough space to hold you. What would happen then? I dunno, but you’d be spread out until you didn’t fit. Maybe you loop back into the center of the universe, contributing to a bang that keeps feeding itself. <p>But until you are limited toward the single point edge, you put yourself in an intereseting position. If you travel left and right toward the edge you cover a great deal more space, or at least you’ll notice it on the way back in. Man, I need to draw a picture some how. Damn, I just realized another problem with this, but it’ll have to do.
From:	Flappy Jane	2004-08-27 09:56:45
Subject:	HoobaLooba
Comment:	Me and �ric do the hoobalooba, d4nce er!c you worthless septile worm, wormy little �ric thinks he knows the univ�rse, he don't know shit, dilly little shitty pops. �ric is an @sshole.
From:	Martyn	2004-09-10 15:59:48
Subject:	Collapsing Universe
Comment:	You say that the furthest light they have discovered is 15Billion Light Years away.The life span of a star is said to be 10 billion years approx. If this is the case then we are looking at a dead light source. If they haven't found light further than 15 blyears, could this mean that the universe has already started to collapse????.
From:	m. britton**	2004-09-27 14:35:58
Subject:	the infinite universe
Comment:	the universe is definitely infinite. the universe is a dimension. when your time has come to walk a spiritual path you will come to realise, come to KNOW, that everything existing is infinite. when the time has come you will realise things that only you can know, because they have no words. there beyond words. you may tell yourself ' thats rubbish!' but think like this- if the universe can go on forever which seems impossible but it is...then why cant that be possible. nothing is impossible. theres an amazing path awaiting you all. REMEMBER THIS- THE HEART IS THE KEY. you will hear from me again.
From:	Clayton Carter	2004-11-19 21:08:14
Subject:	be a littlemore precise
Comment:	For those that believe you can prove anything is possible by stating 'the universe is infinate' you may want to rethink your beliefs, because it's a fallacy. I think many refer to the limitless universe thinking that space is something. But that's just the thing space is nothing, of course it continues on forever, it's nothing at all, so consider, does nothing really exist. And the material universe is only a few thousand light-years across (diameter). A dimension is simply a form of differencial catagorization, time is different then hight and width and bredth, her-go it is a different dimension. So our infinate universe is not infact as infinate as one would like to believe, you could always travel through space, but there is only so much to be seen.
From:	Thomas	2005-03-06 04:38:19
Subject:	wet and wrinkled...
Comment:	Cool page. I hope one day we do have the vision/perception to say with certainty that the Universe is one way or another. The ultimate uncertainty comes from our relativistic physics (not to mention the limits of our wet and wrinkled brains!) Cheers!
From:	Taz	2005-07-20 15:57:19
Subject:	The Big Bang!
Comment:	By the way, (and i hope you'll take my comment in mind!) Untill about a few hundred year's ago, people thought that if you sailed to the edge of the sea, you'd fall of the edge! But the Bible has alway's said, for TWO-THOUSAND YEARS, that the earth is a sphere! But back then, i guess people just wouldn't listen. And the bible also say's that man was produced in God's image. To prove this, like the Bible say's, 'EVERY SEED PRODUCES AFTER IT'S OWN SEED'. So my point is, that yes you can cross-breed certain kind's of dog's, and cat's etc... But you can't cross a dog with a donkey, or a horse with a rat, or a lion with a bear. So my point is, man obviously comes from man, man doesn't come from monkey's, that's just rediculous, like you can't cross an apple with an orange, and get an apple-orange, or a turnip with a grape? See my point!!! The Bible has also been prophisying that in the book of Revelation, it explain's times of War's, and two-thousand year's ago, if you had a vision of a helicopter, like described in the bible, it would look like one of those beetle's with a curved tail, but i'm not goanna ramble on, but the point is it also reveal's that there would be a one-world system-which is Europe, and also it describes that there will be ten countries joined, and three that for some-reason will not join, and one of them i know is Holland, i think, but read up on it, and be warned for Christ's secound coming!!!
From:	Taz	2005-07-20 15:58:38
Subject:	The Big Bang!
Comment:	By the way, (and i hope you'll take my comment in mind!) Untill about a few hundred year's ago, people thought that if you sailed to the edge of the sea, you'd fall of the edge! But the Bible has alway's said, for TWO-THOUSAND YEARS, that the earth is a sphere! But back then, i guess people just wouldn't listen. And the bible also say's that man was produced in God's image. To prove this, like the Bible say's, 'EVERY SEED PRODUCES AFTER IT'S OWN SEED'. So my point is, that yes you can cross-breed certain kind's of dog's, and cat's etc... But you can't cross a dog with a donkey, or a horse with a rat, or a lion with a bear. So my point is, man obviously comes from man, man doesn't come from monkey's, that's just rediculous, like you can't cross an apple with an orange, and get an apple-orange, or a turnip with a grape? See my point!!! The Bible has also been prophisying that in the book of Revelation, it explain's times of War's, and two-thousand year's ago, if you had a vision of a helicopter, like described in the bible, it would look like one of those beetle's with a curved tail, but i'm not goanna ramble on, but the point is it also reveal's that there would be a one-world system-which is Europe, and also it describes that there will be ten countries joined, and three that for some-reason will not join, and one of them i know is Holland, i think, but read up on it, and be warned for Christ's secound coming!!!
From:	Taz	2005-07-20 15:59:01
Subject:	The Big Bang!
Comment:	By the way, (and i hope you'll take my comment in mind!) Untill about a few hundred year's ago, people thought that if you sailed to the edge of the sea, you'd fall of the edge! But the Bible has alway's said, for TWO-THOUSAND YEARS, that the earth is a sphere! But back then, i guess people just wouldn't listen. And the bible also say's that man was produced in God's image. To prove this, like the Bible say's, 'EVERY SEED PRODUCES AFTER IT'S OWN SEED'. So my point is, that yes you can cross-breed certain kind's of dog's, and cat's etc... But you can't cross a dog with a donkey, or a horse with a rat, or a lion with a bear. So my point is, man obviously comes from man, man doesn't come from monkey's, that's just rediculous, like you can't cross an apple with an orange, and get an apple-orange, or a turnip with a grape? See my point!!! The Bible has also been prophisying that in the book of Revelation, it explain's times of War's, and two-thousand year's ago, if you had a vision of a helicopter, like described in the bible, it would look like one of those beetle's with a curved tail, but i'm not goanna ramble on, but the point is it also reveal's that there would be a one-world system-which is Europe, and also it describes that there will be ten countries joined, and three that for some-reason will not join, and one of them i know is Holland, i think, but read up on it, and be warned for Christ's secound coming!!!
From:	Terry McCreath	2006-06-30 11:39:06
Subject:	Understanding the universe
Comment:	To try and explain this from a totaly scientific point of view is wrong. Science alone cannot and never will explain the whole picture. WE are just like platos shadows and in that respest we can never know the real truth.
From:	colin beecroft	2006-08-20 11:18:54
Subject:	hey
Comment:	hey nasa have just found out that pluto could be a double planet. Alos they have recently discoverd another double planet so what does this mean that there are more strange objects out there. PS: I BELEIVE THAT PLTO AND SHARON ARE DOUBLE PLANETS
From:	dr burke	2006-12-18 21:57:41
Subject:	1st law interdimensional thermodynamics
Comment:	A singularity that draws energy from the mega-universe and transforms it into Newtonian matter and energy. Mass gives birth to a whitehole; a rift in our Newtonian universe. (Def2; [Blackholes do the opposite. Take matter and transforms it back into energy, that permeates the mega-univese on the 10th dimension].) Thereby obeying the 'first law of inter-dimensional energy thermodynamics. Time=0 is a new rift in the mega-space time continuum; where a new universe is created on the string vine that holds them together and connects each one. Like a new bud bursting out on a vine, to grow a universe; instead of a grape. Our universe in composed of 'dark matter' and 'dark energy'. Outside of our newtonian universe is what I would refer to as 'white energy'. This white energy permeates the mega-universe that other forming newtonian universes exist. Black holes in a newtonian universe converts dark matter and dark energy, breaking it down into quantum foam, that is then converted into white energy, but not white matter. For energy can only exist in a higher dimensional universe, not matter as we know it. The birth of a universe comes into existence when a dimensional rift in the mega-universe happens and white energy pours in, but becomes dark energy and dark matter; gravitational pull and dark energy push, causing the universe to expand and push outwards against the white energy of a higher dimensional universe. The laws of nature must be observed, even in a higher dimensionality, be it 10th or 25th. This is rather simplistic explanation. I'm no mathematician, but the logic seems to hold up. dr burke/06
From:	freewebs.com/acrazynerd*Ryan R.	2007-03-28 02:20:49
Subject:	God made it happen!
Comment:	I'm sure that you have all heard this many times before, but I think that God created the .... well...Everything! Everything from non-existence, to the tiniest sub-nuclear particle that has ever existed. True, I am not a Christ Fanatic (even though I should be), but I do most definetly believe that God caused the Big-Bang, or whatever other way that anyone thinks it may be made. Just look at it like this. The big bang might have happened after all. As even scientists say though, it is near impossible that it did. Well maybe another unlikely event happened. Before non-existence did not non-exist, and before the non-existence of non-existence did not even think of not existing, maybe the almighty (AND REAL!!!!!) God had an uncomprehendable(And non-existing) thought that set everything that has and will ever exist into motion. So, maybe God sent some type of miracle meteor flying towards Earth, that caused it somehow to super-evolve in just seven days. Of course, all of this is irrelevant to any thing dealing with Christ and God, because when you get down to it, it is: B= h+g and N= e+h, where the first is:Believing= Heaven and glory, where the second: Not Believing= eternity of burning in hell. Sorry to end that on an extremely negative note, but true is true. Sincerely, Timothy Ryan Rayfield 13 years old,NC P.S. Thanks for reading please visit my small site anytime, at freewebs.com/acrazynerd.
From:	Dave Downey	2007-10-05 03:30:19
Subject:	edge of space
Comment:	You say the universe is expanding. That it's infinit. My feelings are that , it's expanding into what? There has to be some outer realm beyond the 'Black' space that we see. If there is an outer realm beyond what we see, what's is beyond that realm ? I know you don't know . Just to imagine how enormous our universe is and if there is an outer realm, how big is it? What are we in on resting on ?
From:	wikibuddha	2008-05-20 23:10:02
Subject:	Flat Universe?
Comment:	I'm failing to conceive this flat universe analogy likened to the surface of a bubble. I have heard of some research suggesting that there is a certain 'flatness' to the universe, though. I'm stumbling on this concept particularly due to the fact that I can see stars in all directions from the earth. I also haven't seen any definite research indicating that there is an edge in any given direction. By edge, I envision no edge like a brick wall. I imagine the edge like the 'edge' of a forest, which can be difficult to define, but there are clearly points when a forest thins out and could lead into say a desert. Here we're getting into an idea of a more definite vision of an edge. While the balloon theory has some practical illustration of the expansive properties of the universe, I still fail to understand how the universe could be represented by such a form, particularly if we can't find any edge of it. Here's where I'm falling short of understanding-- I understand how the balloon concept illustrates both expansion and the curvature of space, however, I fail to connect how looking say inward toward the center of the balloon, how I could see the stars on the other side of the balloon (or could I?) because of their distortion through time-space... I have envisioned the universe to have the shape of a donut (isn't there a more mathematically accurate name for this shape?), which I think is a sort of a parallel to the balloon concept, except with a thicker wall of the balloon.