• Question: What is beyond the universe?

    Asked by Jasmine Y to Anna, Hayley, Iain, Rebecca on 25 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Iain Bethune

      Iain Bethune answered on 25 Jun 2015:

      Hi Jasmine, I really don’t know. Some scientists have theories that predict there being multiple universes (see /ytterbiumj15-zone/2015/06/24/are-there-other-universes/), but I’m not sure how we’d even define what ‘beyond the universe means’ since the universe comprises all the space that we can ever observe or visit.

      You can think of the universe like the surface of a Balloon (which is a 3D object), and we live on the surface like Ants (in 2D since we can only walk on the surface, not go into the inside of the balloon). The Balloon has a particular size i.e. it can expand, just like our universe does – but that doesn’t mean that the universe has an edge. To the ants they can still walk all around the universe and never find an edge – they just come back to where they started. Our universe seems to be like that, except that we are 3D creatures, living in a (possibly) 11-dimensional universe. That boggles my mind…

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