Beyond the Universe We Never Get Back Again We Dont Disapear
Is there anything beyond the universe?
Paul 1000. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Plant, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio , and author of How to Die in Space .
It's one of the virtually compelling questions you could possibly ask, one that humanity has been request since basically the commencement of time: What's beyond the known limits? What's past the edge of our maps? The ultimate version of this question is, What lies outside the purlieus of the universe?
The answer is — well, it'south complicated.
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What is the universe?
To respond the question of what'due south exterior the universe, nosotros first need to define exactly what we mean by "universe." If you take it to mean literally all the things that could perchance exist in all of space and fourth dimension, so at that place can't be anything outside the universe. Fifty-fifty if you imagine the universe to accept some finite size, and you imagine something outside that volume, and so whatever is outside too has to exist included in the universe.
Even if the universe is a formless, shapeless, nameless void of absolutely nothing, that's still a thing and is counted on the list of "all the things" — and, hence, is, past definition, a part of the universe.
If the universe is infinite in size, you don't actually demand to worry about this conundrum. The universe, being all there is, is infinitely big and has no edge, so at that place's no outside to even talk about.
Oh, sure, at that place's an outside to our observable patch of the universe. The cosmos is only so old, and light only travels and so fast. And then, in the history of the universe, we oasis't received light from every single galaxy. The current width of the appreciable universe is nigh 90 billion light-years. And presumably, beyond that boundary, there's a bunch of other random stars and galaxies.
Only past that? It's hard to tell.
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The curvature of the cosmos
Cosmologists aren't sure if the universe is infinitely large or merely extremely large. To measure the universe, astronomers instead look at its curvature. The geometric curve on large scales of the universe tells the states about its overall shape. If the universe is perfectly geometrically flat, then it can be infinite. If information technology'due south curved, like Earth's surface, and then information technology has finite volume.
Electric current observations and measurements of the curvature of the universe signal that it is most perfectly flat. Yous might retrieve this means the universe is space. But it'southward not that simple. Fifty-fifty in the case of a flat universe, the creation doesn't have to be infinitely big. Take, for example, the surface of a cylinder. Information technology is geometrically flat, because parallel lines fatigued on the surface remain parallel (that'due south one of the definitions of "flatness"), and yet it has a finite size. The same could be truthful of the universe: It could be completely flat all the same closed in on itself.
Simply even if the universe is finite, it doesn't necessarily mean there is an border or an outside. It could exist that our three-dimensional universe is embedded in some larger, multidimensional construct. That'southward perfectly fine and is indeed a part of some exotic models of physics. Just currently, nosotros take no style of testing that, and information technology doesn't really bear upon the day-to-day operations of the cosmos.
And I know this is extremely headache-inducing, but even if the universe has a finite volume, it doesn't accept to exist embedded.
A matter of perspective
When you imagine the universe, you might think of a giant brawl that's filled with stars, galaxies and all sorts of interesting astrophysical objects. You may imagine how it looks from the outside, like an astronaut views Earth from a serene orbit above.
But the universe doesn't need that exterior perspective in order to be. The universe simply is. It is entirely mathematically cocky-consistent to define a three-dimensional universe without requiring an outside to that universe. When you imagine the universe as a ball floating in the centre of nothing, you're playing a mental play tricks on yourself that the mathematics does not require.
Granted, it sounds impossible for at that place to exist a finite universe that has nothing outside information technology. And not even "null" in the sense of an empty void — completely and totally mathematically undefined. In fact, asking "What's outside the universe?" is like request "What sound does the color regal make?" It'south a nonsense question, because you're trying to combine two unrelated concepts.
It could very well exist that our universe does indeed accept an "exterior." Merely once more, this doesn't take to be the case. At that place'southward nix in mathematics that describes the universe that demands an outside.
If all this sounds complicated and disruptive, don't worry. The entire betoken of developing sophisticated mathematics is to accept tools that give us the ability to grapple with concepts across what we tin can imagine. And that's ane of the powers of modernistic cosmology: Information technology allows the states to study the unimaginable.
Boosted Resource
My book, "Your Place in the Universe," explores our evolving conception of the cosmos and our identify within information technology, and is a bully identify to first your ain journey. And the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics maintains a FAQ about the universe, which you can find here.
Bibliography
- "Curvature of the Universe," The Ohio Land Academy. http://www.astronomy.ohio-land.edu/~ryden/ast162_9/notes40.html
- Luminet, J.P. "The Status of Cosmic Topology after Planck Data," 2016. Universe 2 (one): i–9. arXiv:1601.03884
- NASA. "Will the Universe aggrandize forever?" Jan. 24, 2014. http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html
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Paul K. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Paul received his PhD in Physics from the Academy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011, and spent three years at the Paris Constitute of Astrophysics, followed by a research fellowship in Trieste, Italy, His research focuses on many diverse topics, from the emptiest regions of the universe to the earliest moments of the Large Blindside to the hunt for the commencement stars. As an "Agent to the Stars," Paul has passionately engaged the public in science outreach for several years. He is the host of the popular "Ask a Spaceman!" podcast, author of "Your Place in the Universe" and "How to Die in Space" and he often appears on Idiot box — including on The Conditions Channel, for which he serves as Official Infinite Specialist.
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Source: https://www.space.com/whats-beyond-universe-edge
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