How big is the universe?

Well since, there are many galaxies, not just our Milkyway galaxy, i believe it is finite, but i wonder..so many planets, why not just wonder, if theres like life on ours there must be atleast life on all those other planets?, not just ours?

 

we can never actually prove that it is infinite, as well never be able to find an end if it is. we can only prove that it is fnitite

 

To throw my 2 cents in I have heard and I believe that it expands and is growing bigger everyday. Where is the end right now as we speak? I dont know and I don't think us humans will know until we can contribute to something that will do our work for us because if we were to travel to one end seemlessly of course we would die(short life spands) thats why we need a machine to do it and update us. I know my post is kinda obvious but I wanna see it happen and not just discussed on a runescape cheating forum board.

 

In Reality, There is probly Multiple Universe's So in reality i think its indefinitly large

 

I believe that many people look at the universe as a flat area, just as explorers did in the old days, thinking that if they went too far they would fall right off the edge of the earth, but to their suprise if they stayed sailing strait they would end up right where they started, proving the earth was round. the same I believe is true for the universe if you keep going strait far enough you would end up right where you started, how many light years that would be, I dont know.

I believe, in the start of "time" there was a giant explosion which actualy created a new dimention which our universe is now sitting. this explosion is even now moving away from its original area, creating a sphere of starts, planets, galaxys. its really hard to explain, perhaps ill try once I wake up, but you should be able to see what im getting at.

 

Sure there probably is multiple Universe's but think about this. What if Our universe is just like our planet? 1 outta many millions of other planets. What would we call what holds different universes? If their is something that does this.

 

No idea. But this topic is like...Any other life bearing planets?

 

There seems to be an exception in the case of the universe's expansion. Shortly after the Big Bang, the universe underwent a period of massive expansion that was far, far faster than light.

 

I'm sure it's finite, but what's after that, white space..no one knows 0.o

 

ahh i love it when this happens... usually it occurs from too much thought and not enough research(no offense to you, but that is generally the case)
the answer:
if you look at einsteins equation:
e=mc^2, you will find that as you move closer to the speed of light, weight increases exponentially.
so that as you are approaching the speed of light(calculus anyone?) energy is converted into matter.
now, this equation is only true for Matter and Energy(m and e) with C being a constant(the speed of light), and please, no arguements about the speed of light not being constant, its been done a thousand times.
the known universe is seen to be about 97 billion lightyears wide, the reason for this, when the universe itself is about 13-15 billion years old, is that space itself can expand faster then the speed of light.
easy way of seeing this:
put dots on oppisite sides of a balloon with no air in it. the dots are about 1mm apart(if you press them together) however if you blow up the balloon, the SPACE between the dots expand.

this SPACE in the universe does not contain matter, however it has the potential to contain it.

 

Einstein's theory in this matter is irrelevant.

However, as you approach the speed of light, energy is not converted into matter. You simply gain mass.

Basically, you rambled on about Einstein's theory for a bit, then came to the exact same conclusion that I had earlier.

 

err?
energy is not converted into matter?
you cannot honestly believe that... do you understand the science behind the big bang?
i may have come to the same conclusion, but i explained it properly
you talked about exceptions... there are no exceptions in physics, only theories which have withstood criticism

 

larger then large =/

 

I do understand the science behind the Big Bang theory.

The closer you approach to the speed of light, the more mass you have. What energy is there that would be converted into matter? Do extra atoms appear as you travel faster?

But you didn't need to talk about Einstein's theory. The universe simply expanded at a speed faster than light.

Also, there are exceptions to Einstein's rule. For example, in quantum mechanics, two entangled particles can "communicate" at a speed roughly 10,000 faster than light.

 

quantum mechanics is FAR from a proven theory, there are several differring theories in relation to it... (M theory, string theory etc etc) none of which are really concrete. it is concidered poor form to cite any quantum physics theory in a debate because of the lack of knowledge we have on the subject.
im sorry, i misread your post(E ->M one) as that you thought that energy "coud not" be converted into matter.
i was only using that as a basis on which to argue, and ill agree now that it was a rather poor way of putting it.

 

That's fair enough.

 

i would go with an infintive side i mean there must be no endin it just keeps going and going and probally theres a parralel universe if u reach the end but we wont know for a hell of a long time

 

It has to be infinite, because if we could actually "reach" the end, what would we hit? There has to be something, there won't be a huge brick wall blocking us.

 

Wow I can't believe I haven't posted in this thread yet, especially since its been alive this long. This is a very "out-there" subject as far as I'm concerned. We don't know about anything outside our universe, since its supposed to be everything there is just by the term "universe". Since we don't know about anything outside the universe, how then, can we measure it or even guess at it's size? If space has an end, then what is there outside of it? If there is an end, what is the boundary between our universe and whatever contains it? Theres just too many questions to be answered before we can truly know how big the universe is. I am skeptical on the universe being infinite since it is expanding. If it is expanding, does it not have to have something to expand into? If it expands into something, that means that it can't be infinitely large. Because of this, I tend to think that the universe is finite, but very large.

 

the universe is finite, but as it is growing exponentially( y=k^x)
it seems infinite to us.
you can mesure it using parallax movements of faraway galaxies.