Outer edge of the universe question

If you could travel faster than the universe is expanding and then ultimately go past the outer edge, what would you see? I know the concept of "Nothing" is difficult to imagine, but I assume that it wouldn't be black as then, you would effectively see something.

Any suggestions

[edit on 1-6-2005 by Monkfish]

Who knows, maybe its like with Christopher Colombus, you'll end up comming back from the other side or something.

At first they thought the earth was a flat disk too which you'd drop of if you reached the edges.

The way you put it, you would see nothing, since to see something requires light, if your beyond any physical matter, ie no stars, no light either. On the other hand you might see the universe god made when he was kid, bit wonky looking, poor perspective, primarly colors....

If you could travel faster than light(which you can't), you would never reach the edge, because there is no edge. You would problem end up back where you started, just like you can't reach the edge of the Earth because there is no edge. Gravity curves space/time there is so much matter in the universe that space is bent back on itself.

Here's a good site to check out.

Originally posted by instar
On the other hand you might see the universe god made when he was kid, bit wonky looking, poor perspective, primarly colors....

haha, brilliant, i'll have to remember that one

from the link above, it says that if space is finite, then you'll go back round on the otherside due to the curvature caused by gravity,

but if it's infinite that means that there is no end,

my personal opinion is that there is no end, although you run out of things that take up the emptyness, just your presence beyond the end moves the actual end of the universe to in front of you, therefore, making it infinite

this may sound a bit odd but say the universe is a big bubble and we are on the inside of this bubble so if we made it to the edge of this bubble we would end up were we started due to gravity matter and everything else

main downside is if u fly to fast you could go straight out the bubble and it would pop a kill a lot of things

Thanks for the responses....but it was hypothetictal. The point being..IF...you could reach the end, impossible it may be, but if you could.....what would you see.

Put a different way....can anyone define nothingness as a sensory signal.

If a person is blind from birth, they do not see anything at all, there is I presume no sensory signal for this sense....so If you CAn see....then what would you see?

I wonder what would happen if somebody blind from birth was suddenly given vision at like 50 years old.

Wow, that would be weird.

Anyways, most of that is really impossible to imagine, especially since your using IF, but just close your eyes in a pitch black room, and that should show you.. I mean most likley just black.

Heh, What if suddenly a new colour appeared, wow that would be weird.

Well I guess if anyone theoreticaly got there they would be in 'Nothingnes/Emptiness' and would just chill in Nirvana.. no seriously you would be in a 'materialistic' as well as mystic nothing! but of interest there is recent research and discussion especially within 'quantum theory'

There is actually something known as 'The Quantum Vacuum' which I figure is as close as we can actually get conceptually to the realities of what 'outside of the universe' would be like, as well mentioned above there would be no matter, light, energy, nothing....

but and im paraphrasing from old notes
"Relativistic quantum field theory makes a very clear distinction between what we would intuitively understand to be an absolute void and what we experience as the vacuum of space. Of course, even in the deepest reaches of space we will find an atom or molecule here and there, and photons of energy are flying through at the speed of light continuously, but there is also a quantum potential which exists at every point in the vacuum of our three-dimensional physical space. Under the proper conditions, matter and energy can literally be made to materialize out of what we used to think of as nothing!"

So maybe we could percieve something through our senses because everywhere even the voids have something in them!

thanks guys nice topic

Njoy
Being Mischevious

The edge of our universe exists outside of our universe. It is unobservable, undetectable, and completely independant of our universe. Our universe itself could easily be labelled as infinite, although it does have this edge. Any and all thoughts on what takes place in this plane will forever be speculation and philosophy.
Ok I know you're thinking well what if when we discover how to jump between universes, we also figure out how to slip into the "space between them." Well there's the problem... you wouldn't be in a universe. No dimensions. Portable bubble universe? Hmmmm.

Thats interesting. Something I can't really get my head round, but interesting nonetheless. I'm glad this thread has created so many responses. Some clever people on here too.