expanding universe que..

[Grant]

hi

my question is , i know the universe is expanding but by this does that mean that the material the universe or space is made out of (sorry if its sounds stupid im learning) is it actually being streached or is new stuff being made and if it being streached would this not but pressure on the space which is being streached like if you where pulling a elastic band.

sorry agian if it sounds stupid its hard for me to explain my question.

Thanks

[Grant]

anyone

[5614]

is it actually being streached or is new stuff being made and if it being streached would this not but pressure on the space which is being streached like if you where pulling a elastic band.

Think of the universe as an infinite amount of space... what we call 'the edge' is the furthest part of space which has mass or energy in. Because the universe is expanding that furthest bit of mass or energy is getting further away every second, hence the universe is expanding.

 

Because of this the volume of space is increaseing, hence the pressure is decreasing.

 

However, you don't mean it in that sense, you mean like an elastic band... ok, basically it depends!

 

Mass causes gravity.

 

If there's enough mass in the universe, then the gravity will slow down the expansion and there will be the "big crush".

 

If there isn't enough mass, and hence not enough gravity then we will keep expanding 'forever', or so the theories say... now I'm just thinking this for the first time, perpetual motion is not possible, therefore we cannot expand forever, eventually we must slow down, I assume at this point graivty would kick in and then we'd have the big crush anyway???

[Grant]

thanks 5614 i prety much understand now