# What's beyond The Universe?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 26, 1999, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015 "1999-11-26T21:57:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bruschu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bruschu)
#### Post date: [November 26, 1999, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/1 "1999-11-26T21:57:00Z")
Ok, I’ve been pondering this for months…
We all assume that the Earth exists within outer space (The Universe). And that The Universe is ever
expanding.
My question (in three wordings) is:
What is the universe expanding into?
What lies beyond the boundaries of the universe?
Within what does the universe exist?
Everything has some form of existence, everything has some form of environment it is within, what it
belongs to.
So what’s the deal?
## What’s really out there?
Peter Eric Bruner
> **[Team Messenger & Online Collaboration Platform – Flock](https://www.flock.com/)**
>
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### Author:  [@MrKnowItAll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrKnowItAll)
#### Post date: [November 26, 1999, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/2 "1999-11-26T22:05:00Z")
Who knows? My guess: foam peanuts.
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [November 26, 1999, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/3 "1999-11-26T22:24:00Z")
Overflow parking for the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Jim)
#### Post date: [November 26, 1999, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/4 "1999-11-26T23:00:00Z")
I don’t think any of us will run up on it and point at it, saying “What the hell is that???”
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### Author:  [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)
#### Post date: [November 26, 1999, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/5 "1999-11-26T23:19:00Z")
Somewhere in the early months there was a thread about “is there such a thing as infinity?” Maybe there isn’t.
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### Author:  [@Squee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squee)
#### Post date: [November 26, 1999, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/6 "1999-11-26T23:40:00Z")
I dunno?.. SPACE?! That seems reasonable. Isn’t that what ‘space’ is?.. The area that no matter occupies? Maybe I’m simplifying it too much, but then again, how can anybody know? =)
* * *
I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him…
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/7 "1999-11-27T00:07:00Z")
I imagine something I call the metaverse, the framework within which universes spring into being via big bangs.
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### Author:  [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/8 "1999-11-27T00:30:00Z")
But then of course revtim’s statement begs the question…" what is beyond the metaverse?" Wait I am starting to get dizzy…
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Jim)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/9 "1999-11-27T00:42:00Z")
Go out there and get some of it and bring it back for analysis, we’ll figure out what it is, eventually.
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### Author:  [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/10 "1999-11-27T01:09:00Z")
Hope that answers your question bruschu. All those months of pondering have finally paid off.
Try to think of something else to worry about.
P.S.: I would have said a super-giant mirror myself. Shows you how much **I** know…
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/11 "1999-11-27T03:35:00Z")
1. Non-universe space.
2. Nothing.
3. God.
Peace.
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### Author:  [@bantmof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bantmof)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/12 "1999-11-27T04:50:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> everything has some form of environment it is within, what it belongs to.
Says who? Maybe the universe is the whole enchellada. For Ned Wright’s take on it:
[http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology\_faq.html#XIN](http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#XIN)
Anyway, nothing outside your light-cone can be known by, have any effect on, or be affected by you, so one way to look at it is, “what difference does it make?”. You’re not causally connected to it, so you might as well make up a pleasing answer and go with that. It’ll be as good as any other answer.
–
peas on earth
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### Author:  [@Whammo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whammo)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/13 "1999-11-27T05:05:00Z")
The universe is the first matter created in the big bang… the first star that formed… at a point where the farthest most matter from the big bang is moving away is the edge of the universe… where it is moving into? it is moving into nothing… it is starting to fill a void of nothingness.
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### Author:  [@Squee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squee)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/14 "1999-11-27T07:13:00Z")
I dunno, I like my answer better!! Very simple!
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### Author:  [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/15 "1999-11-27T07:24:00Z")
Well, what we have here is really an infinite set of Russian dolls.
I could be wrong, because they only told me it was “turtles all the way down”; they never told me what it was up.
Ray (over the edge)
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/16 "1999-11-27T15:16:00Z")
I forgot to mention, I imagine the multiverse framework (which is made out of literally nothing, not even space-time) to go on forever.
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### Author:  [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/17 "1999-11-27T16:37:00Z")
Some scientists theorize our universe in just a virtual particle springing into existence from the vacuum and just as quickly disappearing although from a human perspective it will take billions of years. If other bubble universes exist we would be living in a “multiverse”.
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### Author:  [@Lord\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Jim)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/18 "1999-11-27T16:52:00Z")
I personally like the idea of “something else”. “Nothing” has always been so hard for me to grasp. I remember a kid’s movie and few years back (I don’t remember the title) where “the nothing” was taking over. I had a lot more trouble with that concept than the Luck Dragon
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### Author:  [@Ennius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ennius)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/19 "1999-11-27T17:22:00Z")
That was “The Never Ending Story.” Great flick. But the answer to the original question is, the question has no valid meaning. The definition of the universe is everything that we can perceive. If we can perceive it, it’s in the universe. Therefore, there is no perceivable matter/void/anything which could possibly exist outside the universe. Weird, I know, but it’s one of those things (like the universe being a 4-dimensional “hypersphere”) that is tough to conceive but just has to be believed (by us laypersons, that is. SOMEONE has to know why all this is, or else physics turns into religion…).
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### Author:  [@Ennius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ennius)
#### Post date: [November 27, 1999, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-beyond-the-universe/5015/20 "1999-11-27T17:25:00Z")
Will someone please remind me to look at the news before I post? Turns out the universe ISN’T a hypersphere, it’s flat. At least this shows, yet again, why science is better than religion: scientists can be proven wrong and accept that fact!
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