Big Bang Balloons

National Geographic had an article in May 2005 about Einstein and the universe titled Beyond the Big Bang: Einstein's Evolving Universe. The article talks about an idea that Einstein had that he later rejected which may now be resurrected to explain the expanding universe. Einstein was surprised when Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding. But in the late 20th century, scientists were surprised to discover that the expansion was actually accelerating. What forces are there either within or beyond the universe that would draw the galaxies out from their point of origin - the "big bang" - at an accelerating rate?
Scientists are beginning to theorize that our universe may not be the only universe, that it may be only one ballooning mass of many, perhaps even an infinite number, of such universes. It has never made any sense to me to think that beyond the edge of our universe nothing else exists, that for an eternity of distance and time, the only matter in existence is what we can see with our telescopes and that everything that exists for an eternity emerged from one big explosion 14 billion years ago. I can grant that the big bang may have been the origin for our universe, but saying that this is all there is is like saying God only created life on earth - it makes no sense to me to be so self-focused. Now it's beginning to look like I am not the only one imagining the possibilities.
A three-page fold-out, pages 110 to 112, of this May 2005 issue of National Geographic is an artist's illustration of this concept. This picture is what really caught my eye about the article. An edited version of the picture is online at the National Geographic website for May 2005 so if you are curious, you can see it. But I think that picture belongs on the wall of every science classroom in the world. It was a real eye-opener for me.