OK, so I'm confused or I'm missing something here. According to Wikipedia, the universe is roughly 14 billion years old. It is estimated to be 93 billion light years in diameter. If nothing moves faster than light in a vacuum, how is this so?
The current "standard model" theory is that sometime during the very early universe there was a period of radical "inflation" that blew up the universe like a balloon at much faster than the speed of light.
The theory (first proposed by physicist Alan Guth) gets around the light speed barrier by proposing that nothing actually moves faster than light but that space itself expanded at a rate faster than light.
This left us with a universe estimated to be significantly larger than the visible universe because inflation is proposed to have started before the first stars turn on, during the "dark period" of the universe.
Apparently (and I am certainly no expert on this), the level and isomorphic distribution of the cosmic background radiation supports this theory.
Looking over the previous comments written since you've been back, I was impressed upon how much you had been missed.
Reading about drones and your take on Fisker, it is remarkable to me how those issues had diminished in importance in my universe without an advocate in my universe bringing them up.
The icing was with this post, realizing that despite the immensity of the outer universe, it is our own universes that matter to us....
We often get discouraged and think we are so little, and it is so much work, that we do not matter. The remarkable answer, and it struck me very strong today upon visiting your site, is that we all matter. We matter very much, for what we do has influences that have influences on influences. The subtraction of which, means something that should have happened, won't.
In that regard, we are all immortal, a strand of thread woven into the eternal fabric of time.
5 comments:
OK, so I'm confused or I'm missing something here. According to Wikipedia, the universe is roughly 14 billion years old. It is estimated to be 93 billion light years in diameter. If nothing moves faster than light in a vacuum, how is this so?
Duffy,
The current "standard model" theory is that sometime during the very early universe there was a period of radical "inflation" that blew up the universe like a balloon at much faster than the speed of light.
The theory (first proposed by physicist Alan Guth) gets around the light speed barrier by proposing that nothing actually moves faster than light but that space itself expanded at a rate faster than light.
This left us with a universe estimated to be significantly larger than the visible universe because inflation is proposed to have started before the first stars turn on, during the "dark period" of the universe.
Apparently (and I am certainly no expert on this), the level and isomorphic distribution of the cosmic background radiation supports this theory.
I am sure you are now no longer confused.
Sweet graphic though. The kids spent quite a long time with it.
Looking over the previous comments written since you've been back, I was impressed upon how much you had been missed.
Reading about drones and your take on Fisker, it is remarkable to me how those issues had diminished in importance in my universe without an advocate in my universe bringing them up.
The icing was with this post, realizing that despite the immensity of the outer universe, it is our own universes that matter to us....
We often get discouraged and think we are so little, and it is so much work, that we do not matter. The remarkable answer, and it struck me very strong today upon visiting your site, is that we all matter. We matter very much, for what we do has influences that have influences on influences. The subtraction of which, means something that should have happened, won't.
In that regard, we are all immortal, a strand of thread woven into the eternal fabric of time.
+1
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