Basically the title – I have a degree in Aerospace Engineering, but I still can’t answer this question posed by my girlfriend. An infinitely expanding universe implies that there’s a “container” the universe is expanding into, kind of like how you can pour a pancake into a pan & it’ll expand to the limits of the pan. But then that also implies that said container existed before the universe / big bang, which is…wild. Anyway, please ELI5!
In: Physics
The short answer is we don’t know
Why does the universe have to expand into anything though? Space as we know it only exists within our universe so there isn’t necessarily anything outside the universe.
One working theory is that the universe is not unlike a bubble in some kind of universal fabric that has numerous other bubble universes in it.
At this point it’s nothing but speculation as we have no way to test or observe any of this.
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