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Can someone help me understand - point me toward some reading or ELI5 - what is the universe expanding into? (Or probably, why is that question not formulated
by dbtc 3y ago
Can someone help me understand - point me toward some reading or ELI5 - what is the universe expanding into? (Or probably, why is that question not formulated well?)
- digging 3y agoThe universe is not expanding into anything. It is infinite. However, new space is being created in the voids between objects. It isn't super intuitive or particularly easy to grasp, things are just getting farther apart.
- andreareina 3y agoOne of the quantities described by Einstein's equations of General Relativity is the metric tensor—a matrix of matrices—that describes how "far" things are in space and time given the stuff in the local environment. One of the things that the equation tells us is that objects that are not gravitationally bound will tend to get farther away from each other as time passes. We call this the expansion of space. As far as we can tell, there isn't anything "outside" the universe is expanding "into"; distances just become larger somehow.