Quora Question
Does the universe end anywhere? If not, what lies beyond it?
My Answer
No, our universe has no boundaries. It has no beginning and no end. It's something you call infinity. Now would you believe me if I tell you that our universe is not the only one but there are millions of similar universes? The parallel universes. Have you heard about the term multi-universe or Multiverse? If not, then google it now. 'Cause after reading all this I bet you won't be able to resist yourself. You'll have an urge to know about this. But before we move on to the concept of multiverse, lemme take you 14 billion years back, where it all started. Yeah, I'm talking 'bout the big bang. When the big bang took place about 14 billion years ago, there was a massive explosion releasing an enormous amount of gases and particles. These particles cooled down for thousands of years resulting in the formation of planets, suns, moons and galaxies. This is how our universe was formed.
This big bang was so powerful that its impact remained on our universe for billions of years and surprisingly its still there. I'll tell you how. Ever since the big bang took place, it triggered the expansion of our universe. It kept expanding for years and believe it or not, it is still expanding. Our scientists and cosmologists accepted this theory of expansion but they thought that this expansion must be slowed down due to gravitation pulls from the planets, their satellites, suns and black holes. But they were very wrong about this. The expansion of our universe is not slowing down. In fact, it is speeding up. Shocking, isn't it? How could this be? What's the reason behind this rapid expansion?
The answer is, Dark Energy. The dark energy is the very reason for our existence. It is the dark energy itself which is responsible for the functioning of our universe. This dark energy is some kind of invisible force which counter-acts the gravitation forces and is pushing the galaxies apart. And as a result of this, the expansion is not slowing down but it is speeding up instead. Now can you make a guess about the strength of that energy which controls everything in our universe, which pushes the galaxies apart and which is slowly increasing the pace of expansion of our universe. It must be huge isn't it?
I'm sorry to disappoint you once again. This energy is so small that you can assume it to be zero. And yet it governs everything in our universe and other universes as well. When the cosmologists tried to measure the amount of this energy, the result that came was absurd. It was a number with 120 zeros behind a decimal and then a 1. In fact it was trillions of trillions of trillions times smaller colossal mismatch. This sounds bizarre and hard to believe but its the way it is. And that is not the only problem. If we change the amount of dark energy by a very small fraction, all what we have in space will no longer exist.
Well, now we can talk about the term, Multiverse. There is a cosmological theory based on the existence of cosmic strings called, The String Theory. This theory predicts that there are millions of universes which jointly form everything that exists. These various universes within the multiverse are called parallel universes or alternate universes.
Imagine you have a large transparent jar full of water. There are hundreds of bubbles in that jar . The water in that jar is the space and the bubbles are the universes. Now suppose that the size of each bubble is expanding with time. It is the universal expansion. Now add this also - one new bubble is being formed every hour. This may indicate the formation of a new universe due to a big bang. Yes, our big bang was not the only one. There have been similar big bangs before and there have been other big bangs after. And still new universes are being formed at a gap of millions of years. This theory that explains the formation of new universes is also called, The Bubble Theory.
So, in short there are no boundaries to the cosmos and it is beyond our reach to discover exactly how long it extends.
Does the universe end anywhere? If not, what lies beyond it?
No, our universe has no boundaries. It has no beginning and no end. It's something you call infinity. Now would you believe me if I tell you that our universe is not the only one but there are millions of similar universes? The parallel universes. Have you heard about the term multi-universe or Multiverse? If not, then google it now. 'Cause after reading all this I bet you won't be able to resist yourself. You'll have an urge to know about this. But before we move on to the concept of multiverse, lemme take you 14 billion years back, where it all started. Yeah, I'm talking 'bout the big bang. When the big bang took place about 14 billion years ago, there was a massive explosion releasing an enormous amount of gases and particles. These particles cooled down for thousands of years resulting in the formation of planets, suns, moons and galaxies. This is how our universe was formed.
This big bang was so powerful that its impact remained on our universe for billions of years and surprisingly its still there. I'll tell you how. Ever since the big bang took place, it triggered the expansion of our universe. It kept expanding for years and believe it or not, it is still expanding. Our scientists and cosmologists accepted this theory of expansion but they thought that this expansion must be slowed down due to gravitation pulls from the planets, their satellites, suns and black holes. But they were very wrong about this. The expansion of our universe is not slowing down. In fact, it is speeding up. Shocking, isn't it? How could this be? What's the reason behind this rapid expansion?
The answer is, Dark Energy. The dark energy is the very reason for our existence. It is the dark energy itself which is responsible for the functioning of our universe. This dark energy is some kind of invisible force which counter-acts the gravitation forces and is pushing the galaxies apart. And as a result of this, the expansion is not slowing down but it is speeding up instead. Now can you make a guess about the strength of that energy which controls everything in our universe, which pushes the galaxies apart and which is slowly increasing the pace of expansion of our universe. It must be huge isn't it?
I'm sorry to disappoint you once again. This energy is so small that you can assume it to be zero. And yet it governs everything in our universe and other universes as well. When the cosmologists tried to measure the amount of this energy, the result that came was absurd. It was a number with 120 zeros behind a decimal and then a 1. In fact it was trillions of trillions of trillions times smaller colossal mismatch. This sounds bizarre and hard to believe but its the way it is. And that is not the only problem. If we change the amount of dark energy by a very small fraction, all what we have in space will no longer exist.
Well, now we can talk about the term, Multiverse. There is a cosmological theory based on the existence of cosmic strings called, The String Theory. This theory predicts that there are millions of universes which jointly form everything that exists. These various universes within the multiverse are called parallel universes or alternate universes.
Imagine you have a large transparent jar full of water. There are hundreds of bubbles in that jar . The water in that jar is the space and the bubbles are the universes. Now suppose that the size of each bubble is expanding with time. It is the universal expansion. Now add this also - one new bubble is being formed every hour. This may indicate the formation of a new universe due to a big bang. Yes, our big bang was not the only one. There have been similar big bangs before and there have been other big bangs after. And still new universes are being formed at a gap of millions of years. This theory that explains the formation of new universes is also called, The Bubble Theory.
So, in short there are no boundaries to the cosmos and it is beyond our reach to discover exactly how long it extends.
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