A question of Astronomical proportions

Nathan

Nathan

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High Desert- Calif.
Always been interested in science and Astronomy, which of course draws me to TV show like How the Universe Works. Recently I've become aware that at present the known Universe is about 93 Billion light years across. And, the Universe is estimated to be 13 Billion years old. Maybe I'm just making a mound-out-of-a-mole hill but...If the speed of Light is the ultimate speed barrier, how did all the Universe's stuff get spread out over 93 Billion light years in distance?
 

Nathan said:
Always been interested in science and Astronomy, which of course draws me to TV show like How the Universe Works. Recently I've become aware that at present the known Universe is about 93 Billion light years across. And, the Universe is estimated to be 13 Billion years old. Maybe I'm just making a mound-out-of-a-mole hill but...If the speed of Light is the ultimate speed barrier, how did all the Universe's stuff get spread out over 93 Billion light years in distance?
Click to expand...
I was puzzled for a time as well, but it's because I was understanding it wrong. I was thinking that things (Matter) in the universe was "traveling" and therefore was bound by the speed of light, but that's not the case here. It's the universe that is expanding, and it is not bound by the speed of light because it's not matter.

Picture it this way: You and I are standing on a highly elastic treadmill facing each other. The treadmill (The universe) is stretching at an incredible rate, faster than the speed of light even though you and I aren't actually moving. In a short time, we can be an enormous distance apart, more than is allowed by the speed of light. I hope that helps. It did for me.
 

Yeah, has to do with unknown yet to science of "dark energy". I never trusted dark energy hypotheses on the phenomenon and recently those scientists so sure about such for years, are now puking.


What is space expansion?
  • The universe is not expanding into anything; it is the space between objects that is stretching.
    • This is like points on a balloon's surface moving further apart as the balloon inflates, with each point seeing others recede from it, according to Medium.
    • This stretching of space is driven by dark energy, a mysterious force causing the accelerated expansion of the universe
 
I should add that I was also perplexed that even though galaxies are being carried away by the expansion, there is still some motion within the expanding universe due to gravity. For instance, Andromeda is being pulled toward the Milky Way because of gravity, but not faster than light.
 
bobcat said:
I was puzzled for a time as well, but it's because I was understanding it wrong. I was thinking that things (Matter) in the universe was "traveling" and therefore was bound by the speed of light, but that's not the case here. It's the universe that is expanding, and it is not bound by the speed of light because it's not matter.

Picture it this way: You and I are standing on a highly elastic treadmill facing each other. The treadmill (The universe) is stretching at an incredible rate, faster than the speed of light even though you and I aren't actually moving. In a short time, we can be an enormous distance apart, more than is allowed by the speed of light. I hope that helps. It did for me.
Click to expand...
brain_gears_processing_md_nwm_v2.gif
 
David777 said:
Yeah, has to do with unknown yet to science of "dark energy". I never trusted dark energy hypotheses on the phenomenon and recently those scientists so sure about such for years, are now puking.
http://youtube]_j3yBGHgvXc
Youtube

What is space expansion?
The universe is not expanding into anything; it is the space between objects that is stretching.
This is like points on a balloon's surface moving further apart as the balloon inflates, with each point seeing others recede from it.
This stretching of space is driven by dark energy, a mysterious force causing the accelerated expansion of the universe
Click to expand...
Interesting video, it certainly explains why theoretical physicists drink to excess. I get that the terms dark matter and dark energy are 'placeholders' to account for forces not yet understood. I sometimes wonder if Einstein had unknowingly broken his chalk at a critical point in formulating his thoughts on the blackboard, leaving an unwritten value that physicists are still pondering 100 years later.
 
One summer when I was just over 11 years old and my girlfriend was 12 and 1/2, we debated about the Infinity of Space.

I maintained that there was no end of space while she insisted that there was an end, that there was some sort of boundary. I just couldn't buy that.

So, we wrote a letter to the Hayden Planetarium in New York City asking about this issue. Months later we got an answer stating that there was indeed an end to space. I could not agree and I still don't.
 
RadishRose said:
One summer when I was just over 11 years old and my girlfriend was 12 and 1/2, we debated about the Infinity of Space.

I maintained that there was no end of space while she insisted that there was an end, that there was some sort of boundary. I just couldn't buy that.

So, we wrote a letter to the Hayden Planetarium in New York City asking about this issue. Months later we got an answer stating that there was indeed an end to space. I could not agree and I still don't.
Click to expand...

Hard to imagine there is any way for us to know this for sure - since we can't exactly go there, right? I'm with you! ;)
 
CaliS said:
Hard to imagine there is any way for us to know this for sure - since we can't exactly go there, right? I'm with you! ;)
Click to expand...
... and even if you could go there, how would you know when you reached that boundary. Would there be some sort of invisible wall flying out into nothing, and would it continue on forever?
 
Edwin Hubble discovered through the red shift theory, that the universe is expanding and the further out, the faster it is. That's like saying we can't see the edge of the universe because the light hasn't reached us yet.
If it's expanding, what is it expanding into?
 
Well, here's what totally blows my mind and leaves it in a pile of ashes. Many physicists and cosmologists believe the universe to be infinite, meaning there is no edge or boundary. It just extends to infinity. However, there is considerable evidence that there was a Big Bang, which seems to counter the infinite space concept, and besides, how could we know that the universe is 93 billion light years in size if it is infinite.

Well, apparently in some bizarre physics I don't understand, those concepts can coexist. Imagine a Slinky that extends to infinity. Now also imagine that you could compress any part of the Slinky into nearly infinite density. It doesn't change that it's infinite, it just changes the density at a certain point. Now imagine that it's not a Slinky, but a universal expanse in all directions that goes on forever, but it can be compressed to nearly infinite density. If that point explodes, it explodes into itself that has no boundary.

My mind turns to mush just trying to grasp that, but from what I understand, when cosmologists speak of the size of the universe, they are just referring to the size of the observable universe. They look at a galaxy that is 13.8 billion light years away, and then calculate how far it has traveled since the photons left there on their journey to earth, and estimate where it would be, based on the red shift which indicates the speed it is traveling.

It's like being in a rowboat in the middle of an ocean that extends forever, but the fog is so dense that we can only see for a hundred feet. What is beyond that is an infinite ocean, but we will never know beyond what we can see. Then what about multiverses (If they exist). How could ours be infinite, if there are others? In addition, what would happen if another collided with ours, or has it already, or how would we know? That gets into the Brane model, and my brain is out to lunch.
 
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I'm an avid astronomy fan. While the experts certainly know more than me, they falsely portray themselves as having all the answers.

I think in observing the universe we are missing a large part of the picture we can't even realize exists.
We still don't know enough to ask the right questions or even imagine what is possible.

I have no idea what the real answers are, but I strongly suspect scientists are wrong about a lot of things astronomy related. Don't get me wrong, they know a lot of things. But this probably gives them a false confidence about their actual understanding.

The Earth is round for sure :ROFLMAO:, but I'm not convinced about the Big Bang. How can the universe exist in a single point without forming an almost infinite black hole where nothing can escape? I don't think we've observed any black holes expanding rapidly, Einstein's mathematics says not. And Hawking radiation may cause evaporation of black holes eventually, but not a big bang.

We don't know what we don't know;)
 
There are things that are unknowable. We can make theories. But, without data, that's all they are.

What are electrons? We've learned how to use them to make smart phones. But, what are they really? Are they particles or waves, or both? Are they made of quarks, and the quarks made of multidimensional strings? Are they wrinkles in space time ( whatever that is )? Why do like charges repel and opposite charges attract? That's just the way it is.

We are like a protozoa in a drop of water. All we can know is what's in that drop and what our senses can tell us about it.
 
I've come to understand that infinity in physics is often a sign that our models are incomplete. It’s not always literal—it can mean “unbounded” or “immeasurable.” So when a physicist says the universe is infinite, it could mean it's simply not measurable.

We may know that energy can neither be created or destroyed in a closed system, but we really have no way of knowing that the universe is a closed system. The energy that created our matter (Stars, planets, and galaxies) might have come from anywhere. We just don't know.
 
One thing I've always wondered about is how long is "now". We have "before" and "after", but what exactly is "now". Is 'now' like a movie film-just one pic/event per time, or is it continuous and unbroken? How long is "now" or does "now' even exist? :unsure:
 

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