What do you think would be outside the universe?

[Souper]

I have been asking myself this question for a looooong time.

[Seret]

Do you mean the observable universe, or the whole damn thing? If the former, then we'll never know, if the latter the question doesn't even make sense. There's no such thing as "outside" something that contains all of space.

[SargeRho]

I don't think "Outside" of the Universe is a thing. It's kind of like North of the North Pole.

[AngelLestat]

Do you mean the observable universe, or the whole damn thing? If the former, then we'll never know, if the latter the question doesn't even make sense. There's no such thing as "outside" something that contains all of space.

Nice pointed, but from the set theory, if we call something universe is becouse we dont really care what is out there, but this does not mean that this thing called universe is not in fact another group or element included in a big one.

[lyndonguitar]

empty space impassable by normal means(maybe with black holes and wormholes only), it is the space between other universes, all in all forming a multiverse. now what would be outside this multiverse? well maybe another empty space and all in all forms a multi multi verse...

If anything this whole everything is defined by inceptions.. just look at the moon, orbiting, earth, then it orbits the sun, then the galactic center, then the local group, etc, etc. orbit-ception. What if atoms are in fact a universe? and the atoms in that universe are another universe? and in that universe where that first atoms I said are located is just on one atom on a bigger universe... atomverseception... *mind explodes*

look at this answer from yahoo answers http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130406195806AAgrNOm

Edited February 8, 2014 by lyndonguitar

[Charzy]

As far as current science is concerned, it's impossible to know.

[Drunkrobot]

Almost by definition, everything in the Universe obey's the Laws of Nature, and those Laws are literally Universal. An apple will fall down the Earth's gravity field right here, in exactly the same way one would fall down into a Black Hole, so many billions of lightyears away. An object has to follow a different set of Laws to be considered "outside" the Universe (I use quotes here, as the very notion of changing the Laws of Nature messes with the idea of space). If there is an "outside", it has to have different Physics than ours, otherwise it would be considered part of the Universe.

Alternatively, there could be an infinite number of other Universes, each one accounting for every possible possibility (everything from Hilter winning World War II to every proton in the Milky Way instananeouly decaying at the same moment).

[Soda Popinski]

Alternatively, there could be an infinite number of other Universes, each one accounting for every possible possibility (everything from Hilter winning World War II to every proton in the Milky Way instananeouly decaying at the same moment).

I like this idea, because if true, there is a Universe where I'm Batman. Great thing about infinity.

Just to clarify to the OP, the Universe didn't Big Bang out of one point in space. It expanded AS space. Hence there is no center of the Universe. So imagine the Universe is the surface of a balloon. At the point of the Big Bang, the balloon started expanding from a point, but as far as we can tell from the surface of the balloon, there is no center (we only see the surface), and everything is expanding from everything else.

[problemecium]

There's a theory that's been around for a few years that our universe is next to another one, separated a short distance by higher-dimensional space. Since gravity, as the theory posits, exists in all dimensions, over time our universe and the other must eventually collide. And when two whole universes crash into each other, well... maybe it makes a Big Bang. And then they get pushed apart, drifting away for billions of years until the universes are both essentially empty inside, and then eventually they bump together again and start the whole process over.

[jwenting]

Do you mean the observable universe, or the whole damn thing? If the former, then we'll never know, if the latter the question doesn't even make sense. There's no such thing as "outside" something that contains all of space.

The two depending on your power to observe may well be the same thing...

And it's quite possible for their to be multiple universes. So there could be something outside of this one.

In fact there's a theory that this universe exists in its entirety inside the event horizon of a super massive black hole, and that every single one of them inside every single universe contains a complete universe, for an infinite number of nested universes.

[MrZayas1]

Instead of just blowing off this question as impossible, i am going to ponder it's meaning. Outside of the universe for me I would guess would be extremely different than what we consider normal. A place where it is infinitely cold, and no energy exists, and where no light is visible. The most paradoxal form of our universe. Even in space we believe that it is an inhospitable place where nothing exists. But energy and light are all around us, even in space. We can see things, feel things, and see the passing of time right before our eyes. In the omniverse (what i will call the paradoxal form of the universe) everything is nonexistant and cold. No life, no planets, no energy, not even the ability to see the passing of time in the most miniscule amount. It's probably like being in pitch black. If you were to trap an animal or a person in a completely black universe for 5 years. The human would not know how much time has passed. The brain cannot know about such things if there is no stimuli to respond to. So I honestly believe that we cannot fully comprehend an omniverse, and we never will, because the omniverse is what "supposedly" was the only void definition of space before the also supposed big bang.

[lajoswinkler]

If you define the universe as everything ever anywhere, then the question becomes pointless, doesn't it?

[Tex_NL]

What is there outside the universe? What was there before the big bang?

Questions like these are best left to philosophers and theoretical physicists. But it can most likely be captioned in a single word: nothing. And with nothing I mean NOTHING! No space, no time, nothing! It can never be measured or observed.

Pretty weird to think about this. We can understand 'everything' but 'nothing' transcends the human capability to comprehend.

[Headhunter09]

"Outside" is a spatial concept, and since the universe is by definition all of space, there is no such thing as "outside the universe", much like there is no such thing as "before time", because "before" is a temporal concept.

On another note, the observable universe is not necessarily smaller than the entire universe. Since there is no boundary to space (it's curved), its quite possible that some of the objects we see very far away are in fact the same objects we are seeing closer, just from a different point in time. How's that for mind-blowing?

[lajoswinkler]

We can understand 'everything' but 'nothing' transcends the human capability to comprehend.

Think again about that one.

[relin]

Since there is no boundary to space (it's curved)...

Space has been measured to be flat within a 0.4% margin of error.

[Moar Boosters]

Possibly pudding.

[Headhunter09]

Space has been measured to be flat within a 0.4% margin of error.

I hadn't heard about that, but can you explain what that means in greater detail?

[TheDataMiner]

Possibly pudding.

Ahh, now I see why Kerbals want to get into spaceflight

[DisarmingBaton5]

I like this idea, because if true, there is a Universe where I'm Batman. Great thing about infinity.

There's a universe where I am seven Batmans. Wrap your head around that.

[relin]

I hadn't heard about that, but can you explain what that means in greater detail?

Someone else might need to take that up, honestly. I just know that we're relatively certain that spatial geometry is flat, not spherical or hyperbolic. I *think* it means that space can be described using Euclidean geometry, but the implications are beyond me; I'm just a simple programmer who reads a lot of books

[mardlamock]

The universe is everything that exists, therefore if it is outside the universe then it doesnt even exist.

[Dominatus]

What is outside of the entire bubble thingy we call the universe? It is something completely inconceivable from any and all point of views, for it exists outside the realm of conscious thought, and would require extreme out of the box thinking to speculate on what is.. Outside of our box. Really, give this enough thought and you go insane. It's rather fun.

[rkman]

It actually is a topic of scientific speculation amongst cosmologists. Though it is not so much about "what is outside of all that exists?", but rather is about "what is the structure of all that exists?".

Is it homogenous and continuous, and possibly infinite in extent, filled with the same structure that we can see in the observable universe (galaxies, clusters of galaxies and super-clusters of galaxies), or is there are larger structural element that can be thought of as 'bubble universes' of which ours is only one?

http://physics.about.com/od/physicsmtop/g/multiverse.htm

http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/Projects/moderncosmo/Sean%27s%20mutliverse.html

Sean Carroll: Distant time and the hint of a multiverse

[Soda Popinski]

Melkor, who is called Morgoth.