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[quote]The big question, though, is what caused the big bang.[/quote]

You would be considered the greatest mind of all time, if you came up with the most logical theory for that Carac!

The universe is/has been expanding since time began, and the further away galaxies get from eachother, the less gravity keeps them together, and they speed up.

Since deep space is mostly a vacuum, what's to slow the expansion down?

One theory is that if the expansion of the universe does start to slow down, it will eventually stop expanding. If it's destined to stop expanding, over billions of years, the faintest, faintest gravitational pull from other galaxies will pull things slowly back together. Again......since space is a vacuum, the speed at which the universe will start to contract will get faster and faster -faster even than the original expansion due to gravitational forces getting stronger on the contraction, while were getting fainter on the expansion.

The gravitational force would get so strong that a super-duper-wooper black hole would mass at the heaviest point of the universe, sucking in everything until the universe finished where it started. It would be the weight of the whole universe, but smaller than a single atomic nucleus. Could so much energy, and so much mass, in such a tiny space explode, creating another universe?

The universe is said to be over 20 billion years old, but how many universes have there been before this one?

It's only one theory amongst many, but we know everything we've ever learnt about has a cycle of some sort.

Yeah cool D,

I knew you weren't disagreeing, but I did know you was going to give me a migraine! !laugh!

It seems as though you beet me to the universe big-bang/contraction cycle!

I made a decision long ago. At the age of 11 or 12, I thought seriously about how great a distance a million miles was. Then I tried to imagine the distances between planets, and star systems---and managed to shut my mind off just before my head exploded.

We are only beings that have evolved to navigate 3 dimensional space Carac. Some things are beyond our ability to understand them.

Why do I feel like I'm a Gumby compared with you guys?

Sam Slater wrote:

> The universe is said to be over 20 billion years old,

I did read that it was currently about 6 billion years old and it's predicted life expectancy was 20 billion years.

Well you shouldn't.

I feel like a......gumby all the time, especially when it comes to political history & the like.

you aint, it's just i've a couple of science degrees so i'm in my comfort zone. try me on music or cinema history and i'm buggered

Yeah, you're right Trumpton. Around 6 billion years.

I had another tab open on my browser about some of the faintest stars being 20 million light years away. I must have converted 20 million light years, to 20 billion years while typing.

Reading one thing, while typing out something else isn't recommended! !doh!

you might be thinking of the life/age of the solar system.
Age of the universe is a bit disputed but 20 billion would be correct for the top end of the theories