Did Stephen Hawking answer the question wrong?

[Jimmy]

In the issue of Time magazine dated 15 November 2010, Stephen Hawking answers ten questions on page 8. I believe he misunderstood the second question.

The questioner from Hull, England, asked: "Does the universe end? If so, what is beyond it?"

It seems clear to me that the man was asking about an end to the universe in the sense of distance. In other words, if you traveled in a straight line would you come to the end of the universe, and what could possibly be beyond it.

Here is a summary of Mr. Hawking's answer: He speaks of the universe "expanding at an ever increasing rate." He says, "Although the universe doesn't have an end, it had a beginning in the Big Bang."

Mr. Hawking is speaking about an end of the universe in the sense of time. In other words, will the universe come to an end some day in the future. He is essentially saying it will not. Rather it will expand continually. The result will be a universe "getting emptier and darker."

I believe Mr. Hawking missed the point of the question. I would have answered the questioner this way: Yes, the universe does come to an end. Not an end like some cosmological wall. But still an end. It is expanding and getting larger at a rapid rate. If you could travel to the end, you would probably begin to circle the universe; you would not crash into anything out there. You would not know you had reached the end.

Beyond that is True Nothingness since True Infinity does not exist in the physical world. Nothing is Truly Infinite: not the stars, not any celestial bodies, and not space. That is an impossibility. While True Nothingness also seems like an impossibility, it is the only possible alternative to True Infinity, a greater impossibility.

[David]

I believe that the question, as stated, could be interpreted as a distance or a time. Either way. If you do a Google search for the words universe end, you will get results from both points of view.

In fact, there is a third interpretation--probably not intended, but yet equally valid; "is there an end in space-time coordinates?" In this third interpretation, distance and time are equivalent. Imagine a light cone that started expanding at the time of the Big Bang. The question becomes, what is beyond the edge of the light cone?

[Sasha]

It's an interesting question either way - and either way we have no answer. But you're right, Jimmy: if the universe is expanding, that implies it's expanding into something else, and by definition there must be something past its borders - even if that something is, technically speaking, Nothing.

The fun thing about these questions is that there's no way to discuss them without sounding like stoned ninth graders.

[Larry]

The outer extremity of the universe (if it has one) is also an extremity in time as well as distance. If say the universe began at point A and the end is at point B then we need to travel back in time to get to A. Or rather travelling to point A takes us back in time. And the same applies to point B, the universe's end or far boundary. So therefore hawking got it right!

[Jimmy]

We wouldn't need to travel to point A, the beginning of the universe. We want to get to point B, the outer extremity of the universe. There must be one since the universe is expanding at a rapid rate. And we want to get to that extremity without actually TRAVELING there. We just want to get there by some impossible leap to observe the end and to find out what lies beyond it. I can't see how that means an end of time. It still seems to me we are talking about distance and space. I understand there is a space-time continuum, but time does not end at that end point because that end point is continually expanding.

[Larry]

To get to B you just need to read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams-thats the real deal ;)

[Melissa]

AAAAaaaarrrr. My head is spinning . . .