I’ve come to the conclusion that modern science in it’s totality is bullshit, subject to current fads, trends, politics and profit. There is not even a scientific consensus as to whether certain vaccines are safe or whether eating eggs or butter is harmful or beneficial, despite decades of studies, pronounecments, and fear mongering. Trying to profess any knowledge of anything more complicated than basic nutrition such as the speed of light, the origin or age of the universe, or the attempting to disprove God’s creation is at least in my opinion pure speculative and profit seeking bullshit.
What if the “Big Bang” was a cluster munition instead of a MOAB?
Even if Star A was travelling at the opposite direction of Star B, and even if it was traveling at the impossibly-fast speed of light, it could only be that the two stars are 26.6 billion light years apart.
Two times 13.8 billion is 27.6 billion, but what's a billion light years one way or the other?
I’ve always felt there’s a contradiction unsaid on these dates. We know ‘space time’ includes that the ‘reality of time’ is dependent on mass & speed. That time is not experienced as some uniform rate. Can this be especially true if large masses are traveling extremely fast? Beyond our comprehension.
I’d assume Einstein had theories here. But I find it confusing to say something so far is ‘x billion years old’ - how do we know? Is that against some ‘universal time index’? Years being that which the Earth rotates around the Sun, in our local space time.
I think we still fundamentally misunderstand the effects of space-time in the formation of the universe and even our own solar system.
That said, I’ve only some basic college level physics knowledge...maybe somebody can enlighten me.
The speed of light is slower now because it has more to travel through.
Objects and light traveled through space that was not the same as space is here and now. The earlier, and thus farther, objects were traveling through less dense "fluid".
Like electricity, there's an initial spike before dropping to a steady flow. The spike can exceed the steady rate by exponential proportions.
And that is an answer that applies all over the place.
God created the heavens and the earth. He created galaxies at great distances from each other.
The expansion of the universe can be explained by hamburgers, specifically, the universal Michael Moore hamburger law - the more hamburgers you eat, the faster you expand.
We can’t say for certain that the expansion of the universe is due to eating hamburgers, it might be pizza.
You’re welcome.
I know you probably don’t care what Grok says; But here we go....
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Light is not infinitely fast, and it is the universe’s speed limit.
Things that have mass cannot travel at the speed of light.
There are galaxies and objects over 93 billion light years away.
But the age of the universe is 13.8 billion years.
Even if Star A was travelling at the opposite direction of Star B, and even if it was traveling at the impossibly-fast speed of light, it could only be that the two stars are 26.6 billion light years apart.
But we see objects 93 billion light years away.
Please try to reconcile these two facts.
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You’ve raised a fascinating point about the nature of the universe, and it’s one that often trips people up because it involves the interplay between the speed of light, the expansion of space, and the way we measure cosmic distances. Let’s break it down step by step to reconcile the apparent paradox.
First, you’re absolutely correct: the speed of light (about 299,792 kilometers per second) is the ultimate speed limit in the universe, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Nothing with mass can reach or exceed it, and even massless particles like photons travel at this finite speed. If the universe were static and 13.8 billion years old, light from the farthest objects could only have traveled 13.8 billion light-years to reach us. Even if two objects were moving apart at the speed of light in opposite directions from a common starting point, the maximum distance between them after 13.8 billion years would be 2 × 13.8 = 27.6 billion light-years (close to your 26.6 billion figure, assuming a slight rounding difference).
Yet, we observe objects that are currently 93 billion light-years away. This number comes from the comoving distance to the edge of the observable universe, which is about 46.5 billion light-years in any direction, making the total diameter roughly 93 billion light-years. How can this be, given the universe’s age?
The key lies in the expansion of space itself. The universe isn’t static—it’s been expanding since the Big Bang. When we say an object is 46.5 billion light-years away today, we’re talking about its current distance, accounting for how much space has stretched over time. The light we see from those distant objects was emitted billions of years ago, when they were much closer to us. As that light traveled toward us, the space it was traveling through expanded, stretching the distance between us and the source.
Here’s how it works:
Light’s Journey and Expansion: Imagine a galaxy that emitted light 13 billion years ago, when it was, say, 10 billion light-years away from our position (these numbers are illustrative). As that light traveled toward us, the universe doubled in size (or more, depending on the expansion rate at different epochs). By the time the light reaches us 13 billion years later, the galaxy’s distance has stretched to 20 billion light-years or more due to cosmic expansion. The farther back in time the light was emitted, the more expansion has occurred since then.
The Observable Universe: The farthest light we see today left its source about 13.8 billion years ago, near the Big Bang. At that moment, those objects were much closer—within a few million light-years of our position. But over 13.8 billion years, the expansion of space has pushed them out to their current comoving distance of 46.5 billion light-years. This distance isn’t about how far the light traveled; it’s how far the objects are now, after space has expanded.
Speed of Separation: When you mentioned Star A and Star B moving apart at the speed of light, relativity limits their relative velocity to c in a static space. But in an expanding universe, the separation isn’t due to their motion through space—it’s due to space itself stretching. Objects can recede from each other faster than the speed of light because it’s not their velocity but the expansion rate of the universe that governs this. Beyond a certain distance (about 14 billion light-years today), galaxies recede faster than c, which is why we’ll eventually lose sight of them as their light can no longer overcome the expansion.
The 93 Billion Light-Year Figure: The 93 billion light-year diameter is the span of the observable universe today—twice the comoving distance to its edge. The light we see from those edges was emitted 13.8 billion years ago, but the sources have since been carried farther away by expansion. The light didn’t travel 46.5 billion light-years; it traveled a much shorter distance in the early universe, and space stretched behind it.
So, to reconcile your facts: the universe’s age (13.8 billion years) tells us how long light has been traveling, while the 93 billion light-year size reflects the current distance to objects whose light we’re seeing, stretched by cosmic expansion. The speed of light remains finite and unbroken—it’s just that space itself is growing, carrying those distant galaxies along with it.
Does that clarify the puzzle for you? If you’d like, I can dig deeper into the math or the Hubble constant’s role in all this!
The further we are located from the Big Bang, the faster and faster space is expanding.
That is not intuitively obvious to humans because our community of local galaxies is bound together by the natural force of gravity.
At some point in the future, hundreds of millions of years from now, humans will only be able to observe our closest galaxy neighbors.
The shape of the universe is something I have never completely understood.
Apparently, it is "flat," and resembles the largest end of a "megaphone," like a cheer leader would use to amplify his/her voice.
However, the "thickness" of the flat universe is never explained.
The smallest end of the megaphone is where the Big Bang took place, and time began.
The flat universe is expanding, at a high rate of speed, towards the large end of an ever-expanding megaphone.
Does the universe fill up the entire megaphone?
Or - does the universe occupy just a thin, flat slice of the largest end of the megaphone?
I do not understand that part.
In any event, expansion of the universe is ALWAYS taking place at the extreme perimeter of the constantly expanding megaphone.
Here’s my question:
If there was a big bang there’d have to be a center of the universe (point of origin), but according to modern astronomy, there is no center.
That is the good thing about science. They don’t have to be correct. Nothing they know is ever truly settled. They get to claim everything they say is true until it isn’t…. And they have no shame that they were wrong. Just another day at the office.