Replies

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?

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?