Well, beliefs are one thing, and often fly in the face of reliable, objective evidence. But the knowledge I have so far indicates that what is beyond the universe is nothing.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Some questions are not only impossible to have scientific "knowledge" about, they are not even possible to formulate in a scientifically meaningful way. This is not a "bug" in science, it is a feature. But it is also a limitation, and to deny that limitation does science no service.

Nothing is a funny word to me, because it indicates that it is something.

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What's on the menu?

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"I am happy to report that once again the universe is doing just great, thank you, purring with perfection, ever-changing same as always. Light is still cruising along at 186,000 miles per second, and the expanding universe shows no signs of contracting. At this rate, it won't be long before they'll have to let the photon belt out another notch."
Swami Beyondananda's 2007 State of the Universe address

see, i have only been studying this kinda thing for about 2 yrs at the most (since i was 12) and i beleive that all is connected, the universe cannot be just a ball, i mean imagine that, a ball, and u go out side of it, how much space could ther be in between the balls, and would it be opposite of space meaning it would be white space, and how would this look wen u get within a light year of the edge? i doubt u could look out and see the the black end, i'm not sure wats out ther but i'm pretty sure wats not.....

Buckyballs and fugu

A ball? I think you may be misunderstanding some of the analogies used to describe the possible "shapes" of the universe.

I know a lot of books use a picture of a sphere, or the Earth, to describe one of the possible "shapes" of the Universe, but you have to realize that they don't mean "The Universe is contained in a fish bowl". They're a simplification, and often times an oversimplification for the intended audience.

The one you seem to be referring to is that of the Closed Universe, which is often portrayed as a sphere. Again, this isn't meant to imply that the Universe is encased in a giant shell, and it's especially not suggesting that you can go up to that shell and look outside. Rather, the sphere shown in pictures is an analogy -- it's saying that a Closed Universe is sort of like a sphere in a certain property. That property is that there is no physical edge, but yet the total volume of the Universe is finite, just as there is no physical edge to the surface of the sphere, but that sphere has a finite and measureable surface area. The surface of the ball shown in the pictures and diagrams is meant to represent the volume of the universe; the surface of the ball has 2 dimensions, but the ball itself exists in 3 dimensions. The volume of the universe has 3 dimensions, but the hypersphere of the closed universe exists in 4 dimensions. 4 dimensions is really hard to draw on a 2D piece of paper, so they stick with ball/globe idea.

With that in mind, trying to look out beyond the edge of the Universe is a little bit like trying to walk off the edge of the Earth.

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

This over simplification might help or, it might not;
If you could imagine accelerating toward the edge of the known universe you can never reach it. As you go the edge continues to stretch out in front of you. You are part of this universe and can not ever leave that. where you go so does it.
All that is real and of time and matter is part of this universe we are in. We know not of any other. There is nothing you can do that can change that.
I would not expect all if any to agree with this wild assertion of mine. It is based on my own string of thinking which we all know is prone to be wrong.
But, at this point in time it is the conclusion I have come to, and until science puts a clearer image in front of me, will do.

Well, I agree. Which poses the thought question of what are the primordial neutrinos defining at this time?

For 10^40 or so intervals of 10^-43 seconds after the big bang the universe is believed to have been largely photonic. Many of these photons must have been at or near the expansion horizon. When they reach it do they stick there or get reflected back; or are they the source of the continuing expansion?

Many posit that the expansion horizon is everywhere, including where we are-wherever that is, while avoiding tackling the problem of the scale at which expansion is nullified by the binding of bound objects and what causes that to be so. Are we into "hyper-epicycling"?

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

Riding up a steep hill on a push bike. ?
" Hyper - Epicycling " ?
No - This is not what you said.
I think I understand this thought and, like it.
The universe is expanding except the gravity bound clumps of matter.
Gourdhead. Is that what you are saying.?

The 4-sphere or hypersphere (with 6-7 bound up dimensions at every point in space) a nice "simple" mathermatical model that can easily be used to explain expansion, inflation, cooling and collapse. Each slice in the 4-sphere a snap-shot of space, but not quite. This is of course a simplification of the bounded model of our universe.

Outside of it there could be an older expanding universe and inside of it a younger expanding universe. We would never know unless one of them due to some lack of uniformity in its expansion (or ours) intersected with ours.

I think the game Asteroids can explain the finite closed nature of our universe. If you go over one edge of the screen with your ship you come out at the opposite end heading the same direction. And if you just let your ship carry on flying it will end up at the point you started out. There is no inside or outside in this Asteroid universe. To go outside you would have to load up a different game with different rules and possibly boundaries that you cannot cross.

I've read through this entire thread and I must say I've enjoyed reading it.
This is more or less my first post here so hi to all of you.

My idea's:

I think it could be very possible that this universe (I don't mean everything
and everywhere there is, but specifically this dimensionset and register of
physics laws) could very well be one of multiple.

The outer boundary of this universe might very well be very similar to the
idea of an event horizon of a black hole. Once space gets bent enough,
and being on the outer boundary would count as a very profound curve,
dimensions would be swapped with the other side, similar as going past
the event horizon would make the radius of the interior swap with the
local time arrow. I believe that effect was quoted as colliding with the
black hole would become as inevitable as next tuesday. Now suppose that
beyond this universe is no dimension at all. No space, no time, no weak nor
strong forces, etc. There would be nothing to swap with. I doubt anything
passing the outer boundary would simply cease to exist though. That would
mean loss of information and probably would violate some other conservation
laws as well, and IIRC that's not possible. I imagine if anything tries to
cross the border, its particles will meet the point where they cannot exist
and therefore be redirected in another direction. Photons and such would
either remain on this perimeter forever, get reflected somewhere else,
or remain on the edge until universal expansion moves the border.

So.. what about those other universes? dimensionally seperated perhaps,
but not by space. Thinking about bubbles moving around in something that
isn't there potentially colliding seems counterintuitive. How can they move
if there's nothing to move in, or for that matter, how can one universe have
a location relative to another one when there is no such thing as a location?
My idea is time. We can't interact with the past except perhaps observe
it's effect, and there is no way to ascertain that the future's there yet.
At any time except now there could very well be no universe as this
universe moves with the Now marker. Now compare the arrow of time as
being a stretch of rails. Our universe being a train, and another universe
being a jiffy (smallest possible unit of time) behind. This universe might
share the time dimension with our universe, but may have entirely different
dimensions, or laws of physics for that matter. There might for example
be a universe where physical laws do allow for the spontaneous creation
and destruction of energy and matter. It could be that time isn't the same
everywhere here either so at certain places some points of space would
share a point and time in our universe. It would allow for matter to be
interchanged freely, and might explain why we got matter here out of
what appears to be nowhere. A lot of the above is just my own theory
though, but it shows that the question of what lies beyond the universe
might not necessarily be limited to contemplating what lies beyond the
universe beyond spatial boundaries..

Sort of. If there be a cosmological property driving expansion which observation (or its interpretation from our perspective) seems to support, I wonder about its quantization, if any. We seem to be cobbling up patchwork explanations for what we think we are observing leaving me more focused on the patchwork structure than comprehending what is being posited.

This thread gives meaning to: a semantical klein bottle.

It seems more likely that spacetime is quantized at or below the planck scales of distance and time and "interstitched" with spacetimes of similar scales thus allowing for various levels of weak coupling between
several "existence domains".

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

a pig that wants itself to be eaten!

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There is no dark side of the moon really, as a matter of fact it's all dark - Pink Floyd, The Dark Side Of The Moon

It all depends on your concept of nothing.

I read this thread and i thought to myself.. what is nothing?

Someone mentioned that nothing doesnt exist because we cant see it. That sparked a thought that you cannot see something that doesnt exist. It is very well possible that this nothing is all around us.

Picture this. Your in a empty room with a table. Nothing is on the table. You cant see nothing. The word nothing cant explain what this universe "nothing" is. We would have to use some other word to understand.

If it is true that 'nothing' is at the end of the universe it means that you wont be able to see the end. I think of it as being in an empty room, but nothing being able to see any walls and when you look in any direction you only see your back.

Perhaps what lies "underneath" our universe is what we call dark matter, and the effects we see is the result of a one-way effect from the higher/lower dimension to our universe.

ther is no "underneath" or "over" or "on the sides, ther is no gravity in deep space alone which means ther is no direction or feeling of as u say "underneath",........ dark matter is also beleived to be said as a black hole

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SAO <3's S.C.W.