Universe expanding?

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Odell

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If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? Also Einstein believed the further you go out into space slower time is. He used the example if you leave earth for like a hundred years you would age slower then everyone on earth. Could there possibly be no time beyond our universe? Has anyone ever thought of this before?
 
According to the theory of relativity, time doesn’t slow down because you’re going further out into space, it slows down as you increase your speed. The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower your clock will run (to observers outside your frame of reference). For the person increasing their speed, however, time will appear to be functioning as normal. Likewise, your mass will also increase, and your dimensions will become elongated and stretched out. This is why one can never hit the speed of light, because at that speed, your mass would become infinite, and there isn’t enough energy in the universe to accelerate something with an infinite mass. (Note on shows like “Star Trek” that when they go to warp speed, they portray the Enterprise as actually stretching for a moment as it accelerates to speed.)

So, in answer to your question, the universe is simply expanding into nothing. However, you are correct on one point. Time is integrally related to space. In other words, they are part of the same thing. So, beyond our universe, there is no time. As our universe expands, it brings time along with it, because you can’t have one without the other.
 
Odell, how does the Universe expanding involve your faith? Interesting question and a great answer from Rolltide.
God is beyond all the Heavens… because he created them.
In our futuristic world “Faith” is ever more important. “Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see.” Hebrews 11:1
Still so many miracles occur that science cannot explain. It’s all the more reason to have faith.
 
Rolltide said:
According to the theory of relativity, time doesn’t slow down because you’re going further out into space, it slows down as you increase your speed. The closer you get to the speed of light, the slower your clock will run (to observers outside your frame of reference). For the person increasing their speed, however, time will appear to be functioning as normal. Likewise, your mass will also increase, and your dimensions will become elongated and stretched out. This is why one can never hit the speed of light, because at that speed, your mass would become infinite, and there isn’t enough energy in the universe to accelerate something with an infinite mass. (Note on shows like “Star Trek” that when they go to warp speed, they portray the Enterprise as actually stretching for a moment as it accelerates to speed.)

So, in answer to your question, the universe is simply expanding into nothing. However, you are correct on one point. Time is integrally related to space. In other words, they are part of the same thing. So, beyond our universe, there is no time. As our universe expands, it brings time along with it, because you can’t have one without the other.
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Correct.
 
thistle said:
What does any of this have to do with our faith or salvation?
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It actually came to mind when I was reding the thread what did God do before he created the universe.

And I think Science and Faith go hand in hand. If you dont have anything productive to say dont say it. 👍
 
Odell said:
It actually came to mind when I was reding the thread what did God do before he created the universe.

And I think Science and Faith go hand in hand. If you dont have anything productive to say dont say it. 👍
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You started a thread in the Apologetics forum (Defense of the Faith, doctrines & dogma, historical controversies) yet your thread has absolutely zero to do with faith. Therefore, sad to say, but you are the one with nothing productive to say in this thread regarding the Catholic Faith.
 
The vast majority of astronomists/cosmolosits do not believe in God. Steven Hawkings in his latest book that I have not read claims that we are close to discovering once and for all that there is no need for God in creation.

Clearly you don’t need an intelligent Being to create all this random chance. It was just a bunch of luck. There are billions and billions of parrallel universes and in the billions and bilions and trillions and gazillons of universes, ours just got lucky and happend to be capable of supporing life.

The universe is forever expanding and will die from expansion. The universe is 13.996 billion years old. The last stars will die at 100 trillion years and all life will end at that point. Proton decay will occurr at 10 35 power and at that point there will be practically nothing left in this universe as it just continually expands into extinction.

Through wormholes and blackholes, the genetics of this universe will be passed down again and therefore by random chance after billions of more tries, there will be another suitable universe for life. This is an ongoing process that does not need God.

In conclusion, I think this has every bit to deal with apologetics and if you can’t explain how God fits into the picture, then the atheists might as well claim victory and that there is no God. Debating the existence of God most certainly is apologetics.
 
And I counter all these atheistic approaches with one statement:

God made the universe ever so complex, random, ongoing, etc. to satisfy man’s own curiosity.

God gave us this wonderful intellect to discover His greatness and have an eternity in Heaven with Him but also an eternity or however much time God grants us, to explore His vast creation.

Although a myth, I do believe that the Tower of Babel is a good lesson for why the universe is the way it is. We must all choose with our free will whether to believe in or reject God. Until a time that God decides, it is not for us to discover His existence through our human intellect. God had to know that we would be capable of learning so much and likewise travel through space and therefore, had to create a universe as complex as it is; forever satisfying our curiosity and desire for knowledge.
 
thistle said:
You started a thread in the Apologetics forum (Defense of the Faith, doctrines & dogma, historical controversies) yet your thread has absolutely zero to do with faith. Therefore, sad to say, but you are the one with nothing productive to say in this thread regarding the Catholic Faith.
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Really then, stop posting. I dont understand why people dont just mind there own business. Last I checked you are not an aministrator! The other post have been productive to me and happens to strengthen my faith. Understanding the universe like the human body with all the things that have to be so perfect and line up just right amase me. And has everything to do with God and my Catholic faith.
 
Odell said:
Really then, stop posting. I dont understand why people dont just mind there own business. Last I checked you are not an aministrator! The other post have been productive to me and happens to strengthen my faith. Understanding the universe like the human body with all the things that have to be so perfect and line up just right amase me. And has everything to do with God and my Catholic faith.
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An expanding universe might be interesting to people from a scientific viewpoint or even curiousity but it has NOTHING to do with faith or salvation.

Are you really trying to tell all of us that some posters telling you the universe is expanding has strengthened your faith. That is simply ridiculous. Give us a break!!
 
What’s the big deal? God’s making it bigger to solve our ‘over population’ crisis. 😃
 
AntiTheist said:
As it expands, the universe “creates” space, for lack of a better term.
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Yes, it is the space which is expanding. Imagine a balloon which is being filled with air. The balloon continues to expand. If there are little dots marked all over the surface of the balloon, equidistant from each other, they will get further apart as the balloon expands.

Our universe is comparable to the surface of the balloon, in several ways. As it expands, galaxies get more distant from each other. And, just like on the balloon, if a balloon surface-dweller sets out in a straight line in any direction, he will eventually circumnavigate the balloon and return to his starting point. The same would happen to us: we would circumnavigate the universe by striking out in a straight line in any direction, although it would take many billions of years.
 
JimG said:
Yes, it is the space which is expanding. Imagine a balloon which is being filled with air. The balloon continues to expand. If there are little dots marked all over the surface of the balloon, equidistant from each other, they will get further apart as the balloon expands.

Our universe is comparable to the surface of the balloon, in several ways. As it expands, galaxies get more distant from each other. And, just like on the balloon, if a balloon surface-dweller sets out in a straight line in any direction, he will eventually circumnavigate the balloon and return to his starting point. The same would happen to us: we would circumnavigate the universe by striking out in a straight line in any direction, although it would take many billions of years.
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Why is space curved like a balloon? If I shot a laser from earth, won’t the beam basically go straight (except when it nears something heavy) eventually reaching the other side of universe and then just keep going in that straight direction into deep space never to return? 🤷 I don’t get it…
 
John7 said:
Why is space curved like a balloon? If I shot a laser from earth, won’t the beam basically go straight (except when it nears something heavy) eventually reaching the other side of universe and then just keep going in that straight direction into deep space never to return? 🤷 I don’t get it…
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It would just keep going in an infinite straight line if the universe were flat. But if the cosmologists are right, and I think they are, there is enough matter in the universe to result in a positive curvature of space. Space is curved into a sphere, and the sphere expands with the passage of time. The observable universe exists on the surface of that sphere, althogh the “surface” in this example is a three-dimensional surface.

So, just as on the earth, if you travel any direction in a straight line, you eventually return to the beginning point. That’s because the surface on which we travel is curved, though we don’t notice it while traveling.
 
thistle said:
An expanding universe might be interesting to people from a scientific viewpoint or even curiousity but it has NOTHING to do with faith or salvation.
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It might affect one’s views on Creation. If the universe were contracting, then one might suppose it would eventually reform into a singularity, which might go “bang” again, giving rise to a new universe, and such events would continue for eternity, giving rise to an infinite number of universes in a never-ending cycle. Some believe this would take God out of the process of Creation (though they fail to account for the “unmoved mover” that got it all going in the first place, preferring to speculate that it has “always” been this way, and that an infinite number of universes have preceded our own - no God required).

Even though we know the universe is expanding, there are those who believe that gravity will eventually overcome inertia, and eventually things will stop and begin to contract. The force of gravity is reduced by the square of the distance, so the force of gravity becomes exponentially weaker as the distance becomes linearly greater (and the stuff is moving at great speed and has lots of inertia), so eventual contraction seems unlikely, and the idea of contraction is not supported by many in the scientific community (though at one time it had a fair number of proponents). However, new discoveries (such as dark matter) add additional mass to the universe (assuming dark matter plays by the law of gravity - and we presume it does, because it affects the path of light (in fact, we can detect dark matter only by the gravitational lensing of light)), so you could argue it either way without being considered a nut.
 
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