posted on May, 17 2007 @ 05:44 PM
I believe when you reach the extents of this Universe there is simply more Universe ad infitum, i.e., there is no end to our known Universe, thus
there is no "Inside" nor "Outside".
The Universe is expanding and continues to expand. Ultimately the forces driving the expansion will weaken, at which point the collective mass of the
Universe will reverse course and begin to collapse back in upon itself. When critical mass is reached, another Big Bang type event will occur and the
cycle will repeat itself.
My guess each cycle takes about 100 Billion years, though I'm probably off by a factor of 10e9 or more.
What do we find at the outer limits of the expansion? My hypothesis is there we find simply a vacuum in the utter darkness (in this case, I mean
"darkness" to mean an absolute absence of light) at least darkness to the space/time limits of the oldest (most distant) galaxies. No light, no
mass.
I guess one could argue that "nothingness" is something - but that's beyond the scope of my thought experiment for today!
Interesting exercise - thanks for posting it!