Stop the universe, it's leaving us behind (faster-than-light expansion)

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 3/21/02 | Richard Macey

[Brandybux]

If light from 10 billion light years away has the added component of this "faster than light expansion", doesn't that skew the age to younger than 10 billion years?

I don't think he said that the universe was expanding faster than light now -- just that it might do so.

But, still -- if the "distance" we observe is determined by an assumption that is not true (i.e. constant speed of light, no expanding universe) ... well, seems to me that any correction one would make on the basis of the new evidence would have the effect of making the universe younger than Sagan's "billions and billions of years."

Now, I wonder if anyone will attempt to determine what the rate of increase in the expansion is? Or, having done that, what the result will be when the age of the universe is reckoned on the basis of this data?

[concerned about politics]

"There will be a new heaven and a new earth."

[InvisibleChurch]

I'll believe this when xlinton leaves us faster than the speed of light

[Mad Dawgg]

"While most galaxies would vanish from view, the Milky Way, and its nearest neighbours, glued together by gravity, would travel on alone."

hmmm the More important question is how does Cow Flatulence fit into this equation? I think the Cow Flatulence Theory on Global Warming is the most exciting scientific discovery since the "Chia Pet"...

[HeadOn]

Thank you. That's what I was thinking.

Another interesting question: Who says that expansion (or contraction) has not been occurring at differing speeds over the life of the universe? What was the rate a few hundred years ago before we even understood we could measure it? If this is so, then all of Sagan's bets are off.

Really throws a kink in everything, doesn't it?

[Williams]

I hope you all know that the scientists don't know what the heck they're talking about. Their ever changing assumptions about what is happening in a truly enormous universe are based on their base assumptions about what things like shifts in light spectra mean. You will note there is always some mysterious unexplained factor such as "dark energy" or "dark matter" that must exist to explain what they think their observations mean. Did you all know that beta carotene has been shown NOT to fight cancer and is now believed to enhance some cancers? How many years did scientists tell you the opposite?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up!!!

IMHO, until we arrive at a better determination of space topology it is too early to attribute the observation to speed faster than light:

A Small Spherical Universe after all?

Cosmic crystallography looks at the 3-dimensional observed distribution of high redshift sources (e.g. galaxy clusters, quasars) in order to discover repeating patterns in their distribution, much like the repeating patterns of atoms observed in crystals. They showed that "pair separation histograms" are in most cases able to detect a multi- connected topology of space, in the form of spikes clearly standing out above the noise distribution as expected in the simply-connected case. The researchers have particularly studied small universe models, which explain the billions of visible galaxies are repeating images of a smaller number of actual galaxies.

[longshadow]

So, if we're going to "boldly go where no man has gone before," we'd better go pretty fast?

Lay off the lesbian jokes, okay?

[RadioAstronomer]

Honest question: How does this relate to the apparent ages of stars, then? If light from 10 billion light years away has the added component of this "faster than light expansion", doesn't that skew the age to younger than 10 billion years?

This is probably a bad explanation but here goes:

Time (due to due to relativistic time dilation) slows down as objects speed up. Thus even though the universe is expanding, light did indeed leave the object in question 10 billion years ago.

[Mad Dawgg]

"Another interesting question: Who says that expansion (or contraction) has not been occurring at differing speeds over the life of the universe?"

I know that after drinking multiple glasses of "Midwest Screwdrivers" the Universe seems to speed up and then procede to rotate to the right at an ever increasing rate of speed...

Then I wake up the next morning and it seems the Universe is going at a high rate of speed in reverse (which would explain why my eyeballs feel like they are gonna pop out of my head)

[mlo]

It's really gonna suck, billions of years from now, when our descendents look up in the night sky and all the stars have moved away.

All the stars you see in the sky are in our own galaxy. I don't believe there are any naked eye objects outside our galactic cluster.

[week 71]

Your point does not escape me, but don't forget it was scientists who put a man on the moon, and scientists who discovered antibiotics, and scientific endeavors which have led to many improvements. There are of course many failures along the way and even some foolishness, nevertheless I'm glad they're out there.

[Alex Murphy]

If you are in a space ship traveling at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, what happens?

Ask Dr. Science! He knows! He has a master's degree in science!

I've actually seen Dr. Science perform this very experiment on a PBS special about ten years ago. Extremely funny stuff.

[dead]

While the "final answer" to all scientific inquiry might be nice, the journey towards it is just as interesting and enlightening.

[Mad Dawgg]

"I don't believe there are any naked"

I knew this thread would get around to Nudity if I hung around long enough...

BTW is there any prgress on posting the Figure Skating Nipple picture yet?

[longshadow]

I don't believe there are any naked eye objects outside our galactic cluster.

Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, M31 (Andromeda Galaxy), and others are all extra-galactic naked-eye objects.

[concerned about politics]

(which would explain why my eyeballs feel like they are gonna pop out of my head)

"Whoever pulls this sword from my head will be proclaimed king!"

[day10]

The expansion of the universe, which began about 15 billon years ago with the Big Bang

No it didn't. Sorry.

[LJLucido]

It's obvious, we need a universe-expansion tax on industrialized countries, whose emissions are contributing to the problem. Also, any new housing development must submit a universe-expansion impact statement prior to zoning approval.

[Williams]

I hope you all know that the scientists don't know what the heck they're talking about. Their ever changing assumptions about what is happening in a truly enormous universe are based on their base assumptions about what things like shifts in light spectra mean. You will note there is always some mysterious unexplained factor such as "dark energy" or "dark matter" that must exist to explain what they think their observations mean. Did you all know that beta carotene has been shown NOT to fight cancer and is now believed to enhance some cancers? How many years did scientists tell you the opposite?