What is outside our own universe?

Originally posted by choos
reply to post by Jordan River

 

if something was outside of the universe, wouldnt it automatically become part of our universe given the definition?

edit on 13-3-2012 by choos because: (no reason given)

excellent...

Uni means one... so if there are multiple universes they should be called 'verses'. Or something else.

What if we are just fish, and the universe is our pond?, but theres a world of ponds?

maybe universe isnt the correct term, infinity is hard to imagine so we assume our universe ends and then imagine what could be beyond.
what if it somehow loops and at the end of the universe we find ourselves back where we started. if it's looped then it wouldn't be infinite.
i beleive that we will never know what is outside our universe or if it even ends at all.

Originally posted by schuyler
Aren't we just getting ourselves tripped up on our own definitions here? Is there really a problem? If the Universe is multi-dimensional and contains a lot of "chunks" that we have heretofore thought of as "universes," then can we not say that the "Universe" is multi-dimensional?

The Universe includes everything by definition. There was a time when people conceived of the Universe as earth-centric with the planets, moon, and sun floating around this great dome where the stars were painted on. In time we were able to work past that limited definition to a greater understanding of a heliocentric solar system where we understood that the stars were actually very much like our own sun and very far away. We were able to expand the definition of universe.

It seems to me that of it turns out that this membrane multi-verse theory holds up, we can simply expand the definition of universe again--just like we managed to do before. The problem is not with the universe itself, but with our conception of what it contains.

This, this, a thousand times, this.
You can't use a closed-cosmology when you still don't see any "final border", and if you knew it, it wouldn't be a "final border". It is a contradiction that arises from a limited perception...
S&F for a really cool subject

reply to post by Jordan River


That's a great question. One we've all asked at some point and for some (such as myself) been met with a response by the ones we look to for answers (physics teachers, parents etc) going something like "the universe is like a video game, if you travel far enough in one direction, you'll eventually end up where you started. (Old video games that is)" or "nothing exists outside the universe, at least as far as physics is concerned. The known laws of physics don't exist outside of our universe so that's that."

My personal view STRONGLY leans toward the "universe as a black hole" theory. There are just far too many similarities between the two. The answer to the question then would be that another universe exists outside ours but one which is totally inaccessible in every way to our own. According to current physics, the escape velocity of a black hole exceeds light speed. Since c is unattainable by anything exhibiting mass, and even light cannot exceed the escape velocity of a black hole, our universe is totally sealed. Said "higher" universe may reside in another higher universe ad infinitum.

Sorry, I don't know what infinity plus one equals.