• Question: into what is the universe expanding?

    Asked by dumhead456 to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      hmmm, can’t say I really get that one either… I think it is hard for us humans to understand this abstract concept because we have to let go of our perceived view of the world with boundaries and limits and an end…

      When searching for an answer to give you, I found this great site which helped me understand it better.

      Hope it helps you too! 😉

    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,

      Funnily enough, this has always been one of my questions too – I have no clue. I’ve asked many people about that, never got a satisfactory answer…If you get a good answer to this, let me know 😉

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      The universe is expanding into obesity, a bit like most of it’s inhabitants, and the only way to stop it is to send it on the Atkins diet……

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      That’s a tough question!
      The universe is said to be infinitely big, so then the answer is simply that it isn’t expanding into anything; instead, what is happening is that every region of the universe is being “stretched”, but the overall size of the universe was infinitely big to begin with and continues to remain infinitely big as time goes on, so the universe’s size doesn’t change, and therefore it doesn’t expand into anything.
      However if the universe does have a finite size, it can expand but we don’t know into what!

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Oh a very good question. How about if we change our view point slightly. Consider the universe to be infinitly big. If this is the case then perhaps we are not seeing the universe expand, but in fact we are seing the universe stretch. As it is infinitly large the universe is merely stretching the stars apart to fill the infinitly stretching universe which is in fact not expanding into anything. Thats how I comprehend this but thats not to say that is what is happening.

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