Kool - thanks for the help Steve

I was just wondering because I always hear the universe being described as acting as if it is independent of anything from the outside. For example, when we try to decide if there is enough matter to cause its expansion to slow down and one-day possibly collapse.

Thing is, it seems just as likely to me that the big bang occurred in the middle of something that already existed - like a bubble forming in soda. If so, the displacement of whatever lies outside the big bangs event horizon, might be enough to slow down and collapse the universe independent of its own gravity.

I suppose people just dismiss things outside the universe as 'unknowable' and having little to no effect on the known universe. But in the case of the expansion of the universe - this is not necessarily the case.

Ergo - it is possible for things outside the known universe to affect us even deep inside it. In that case, it seems difficult to speculate in what other ways things outside our universe may actually shape our physical laws - but that does not preclude the possibility.

This is especially true to the extent that if there is something else out there, our universes expansion must be causing a distortion which may then change the way it affects us in response.

Anyway - it is all to complex for the feeble human mind - I give up!

• Your Speculation Might be Right - smbodenh - May 3, 2001 - 18:10 UTC