If the universe is only 14 billion years old, how can it be 92 billion light years wide?

YouTube ^ | June 19, 2019 | Dr. Don Lincoln - Fermilab

[ETL]

If the universe is only 14 billion years old, how can it be 92 billion light years wide?

YouTube: 1,540,886 views

Fermilab
Published on Jun 19, 2019

The size and age of the universe seem to not agree with one another.

Astronomers have determined that the universe is nearly 14 billion years old and yet its diameter is 92 billion light years across.

How can both of those numbers possibly be true?

In this video, Fermilab’s Dr. Don Lincoln tells you how.

For further information, see http://www.fnal.gov

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIJTwYOZrGU

[Hot Tabasco]

Got my own ball and everything!

Sounds good but you have to be able to discuss quantum physics and string theory in an educated manner after 6 beers.........

If you can do that, then we'll accept you even if you hold a 150 average........... :)

[Texas resident]

Ask AOC. She knows everything.

[TigersEye]

How can the Rio Grande River be nearly 2000 miles long but only 5 feet deep?.............

But the mystery of the Rio Grande River is even greater than that!

How can the Rio Grande River be 5 feet deep near its headwaters in Creede CO, 5 feet deep near its mouth in Brownsville TX and yet barely 5 inches deep in the middle of its course in Albuquerque NM?

The Universe, it's crazy!

[TBP]

Very good question -- and what was there before it?

[Garth Tater]

Quantum physics and string theory? Pfhhht! Amateur hour. Once the real drinking gets going I’ll hang right in there with you guys when the real mysteries of the universe get brought out for discussion. Women and fishing! And maybe the eternal debate on small block vs big block - but I try to stay away from that one after the big dust up it caused back in ‘74.

[Empireoftheatom48]

Probably flowing into canals for irrigation along the way. Must be a lot of them in the ABQ area.

[TigersEye]

So how does it get deeper again?

[TexasTransplant]

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is what I use for a Screen Saver, at the end of the day when I am shutting down I like to look at it to understand just how insignificant I am (as well as my little problems)
One day I will know all

[ETL]

Simply put, everyone, or darn near everyone in the field, agrees, the standard Big Bang model does NOT work as is. There are at least 5 widely accepted reasons for this. In fact, it's the reason that inflation theory was introduced in the first place -- in order to make the standard BB model work.

However, although it does indeed seem to be the case that the universe is in fact expanding, the inflation explanation has plenty of detractors, several of whom are giants in the field. -ETL

Inflation Theory

In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation, or just inflation, is a theory of exponential expansion of space in the early universe.

The inflationary epoch lasted from 10^−36 [10 to the minus 36!] seconds after the conjectured Big Bang singularity to some time between 10^−33 and 10^−32 seconds after the singularity.

Following the inflationary period, the universe continues to expand, but at a [far] less rapid rate.[1]

Inflation theory was developed in the late 70's and early 80's, with notable contributions by several theoretical physicists, including Alexei Starobinsky at Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, Alan Guth at Cornell University, and Andrei Linde at Lebedev Physical Institute. Alexei Starobinsky, Alan Guth, and Andrei Linde won the 2014 Kavli Prize “for pioneering the theory of cosmic inflation.”[2].

It was developed further in the early 1980s.

It explains the origin of the large-scale structure of the cosmos.

Quantum fluctuations in the microscopic inflationary region, magnified to cosmic size, become the seeds for the growth of structure in the Universe (see galaxy formation and evolution and structure formation).[3]

Many physicists also believe that inflation explains why the universe appears to be the same in all directions (isotropic), why the cosmic microwave background radiation is distributed evenly, why the universe is flat, and why no magnetic monopoles have been observed.

The detailed particle physics mechanism responsible for inflation is unknown.

The basic inflationary paradigm is accepted by most physicists, as a number of inflation model predictions have been confirmed by observation;[4] however, a substantial minority of scientists dissent from this position.[5][6][7]

The hypothetical field thought to be responsible for inflation is called the inflaton.[8]

In 2002, three of the original architects of the theory were recognized for their major contributions; physicists Alan Guth of M.I.T., Andrei Linde of Stanford, and Paul Steinhardt of Princeton shared the prestigious Dirac Prize "for development of the concept of inflation in cosmology".[9]

In 2012, Alan Guth and Andrei Linde were awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their invention and development of inflationary cosmology.[10]

___________________________________

Criticisms

Since its introduction by Alan Guth in 1980, the inflationary paradigm has become widely accepted.

Nevertheless, many physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science have voiced criticisms, claiming untestable predictions and a lack of serious empirical support.[5]

In 1999, John Earman and Jesus Mosterin published a thorough critical review of inflationary cosmology, concluding, "we do not think that there are, as yet, good grounds for admitting any of the models of inflation into the standard core of cosmology."[6]

In order to work, and as pointed out by [Stephen Hawking mentor] Roger Penrose from 1986 on, inflation requires extremely specific initial conditions of its own, so that the problem (or pseudo-problem) of initial conditions is not solved: "There is something fundamentally misconceived about trying to explain the uniformity of the early universe as resulting from a thermalization process. [...]

For, if the thermalization is actually doing anything [...] then it represents a definite increasing of the entropy.

Thus, the universe would have been even more special before the thermalization than after."[143]

The problem of specific or "fine-tuned" initial conditions would not have been solved; it would have gotten worse.

At a conference in 2015, Penrose said that "inflation isn't falsifiable, it's falsified. [...]

BICEP did a wonderful service by bringing all the Inflation-ists out of their shell, and giving them a black eye."[7]

A recurrent criticism of inflation is that the invoked inflaton field does not correspond to any known physical field, and that its potential energy curve seems to be an ad hoc contrivance to accommodate almost any data obtainable.

Paul Steinhardt, one of the founding fathers of inflationary cosmology, has recently become one of its sharpest critics.

He calls 'bad inflation' a period of accelerated expansion whose outcome conflicts with observations, and 'good inflation' one compatible with them: "Not only is bad inflation more likely than good inflation, but no inflation is more likely than either [...]

Roger Penrose considered all the possible configurations of the inflaton and gravitational fields.

Some of these configurations lead to inflation [...]

Other configurations lead to a uniform, flat universe directly – without inflation.

Obtaining a flat universe is unlikely overall.

Penrose's shocking conclusion, though, was that obtaining a flat universe without inflation is much more likely than with inflation – by a factor of 10 to the googol (10 to the 100th) power!"[5][116]

Together with Anna Ijjas and Abraham Loeb, he wrote articles claiming that the inflationary paradigm is in trouble in view of the data from the Planck satellite.[144][145]

Counter-arguments were presented by Alan Guth, David Kaiser, and Yasunori Nomura[146] and by Andrei Linde,[147] saying that "cosmic inflation is on a stronger footing than ever before".[146]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)#Criticisms

[SkyDancer]

But no matter what theory is proposed; where did the thing that went >blooie< come from? What was it? Compressed gasses, a magic cube? What?

[ml/nj]

Space itself was expanding, NOT the stuff inside it.

Doesn't work. If we all started out from the same point n billion years ago, then the light we see from everything that started with us must be no further from us than n/2 light years. (I.e. n/2 years to get that far away from us and n/2 years for it's light to reach us.) But of course this assumes that everything that we see emerged fully formed from the Big-Bang explosion which even Big-Bang advocates do not assert.

Click on the image to go to Amazon.

ML/NJ

[SkyDancer]

Basically shaking a box of car parts in a few billion years out pops a Buick.

[SkyDancer]

Ummm: The first law of thermodynamics doesn't actually specify that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but instead that the total amount of energy in a closed system cannot be created nor destroyed (though it can be changed from one form to another). It was after nuclear physics told us that mass and energy are essentially equivalent

So the question is: are we in a closed or open system??

[SkyDancer]

The first law of thermodynamics doesn't actually specify that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but instead that the total amount of energy in a closed system cannot be created nor destroyed (though it can be changed from one form to another). It was after nuclear physics told us that mass and energy are essentially equivalent.

So are we in an open or closed system?

[dangus]

Wouldn’t the universe at the end of the inflationary period still be only very small? Surely, the inflationary theory doesn’t posit that the universe grew to billions of light years across in 10^32 seconds?

[dangus]

So the universe grew a lot slower after Jimmy Carter was gone. ;-)

[Daniel II]

The universe is approximately 13.78 billion years old and yet 930 yottameters in diameter, which translates to 9.836 x 10^10 light years in diameter or 98.36 billion light years. Taking half of that should be equal to the age of the universe, right? After all, from the moment of the big band, wherever that occurred, the universe should necessary grow at the speed of light in all directions simply because nothing we know of moves faster. It’s our universal speed limit. Now, that may be true for the energy that is contained within our universe, but whatever is outside of our bubble, it doesn’t seem to throw up the same impedance that free space within the bubble does. Free space within our bubble has an electric constant known as the “permittivity of free space.” It is the distributed capacitance of the vacuum, or the capability of the vacuum to allow electric field lines. It is measured in Farads/meter and its symbol is ε0. It has a value of: ε0 = 8.854187817...×10−12 F⋅m−1 Free space also has a magnetic constant known as the “permeability of free space.” It is derived from the production of a magnetic field by an electric field or moving electric charge. It is measured in Henries/meter and its symbol is μ0. It has a value of: μ0 = 4π×10−7 H/m Combined as such: Z0 = E/H= μ0c = 1/ ε0c = square root of μ0/ ε0, they equal the impedance of free space, which is approximately: 376.73 Ohms If you notice from the above formula, it is very much related to (c) – the speed of light. They are exactly related to c with this formula: c = 1/square root of μ0/ε0. If you know how algebraic expressions can be played with, you may notice that if either or both ε0, or μ0 drop(s) towards zero (0), c would increase to infinity. CAUTION: DO NOT DIVIDE BY ZERO! So, this structure exists within our universe, and even if you had a region of completely empty space, this field would still run through it. From this you might surmise that whatever is outside of our bubble that we are growing into, it doesn’t have the same impedance, and therefore space-time can grow ‘tachyonically,’ and it appears to have done so for roughly 3000 years after the big bang. Of course it decelerated throughout this time and went from moving at 43.4 sextillion times faster than the speed of light to just under c at 3000 years. Its greatest growth expansion happened during the inflation period which is between 10-35 - 10-32 s after the big bang. The universe grew from a micron to about 13cm in all of 10 x 10-33 seconds. Inflation is triggered by the separation of the strong force. Gravity already decoupled, and only the electro-weak force remains unified. The interesting thing is, the big bang doesn’t express itself until after inflation. One can think of it as the energy contained deep within a gravity well, like a black hole, and after the energy is released, it comes up out of the well, and when it does so, it inflates (and also evenly distributes the energy contained within). After it comes out of the well it then expresses itself. Anyway, that’s the best explanation I can give you off the top of my little pumpkin head. Freegards, Daniel II

[dila813]

good theory, I think that another simpler explaination for both this and the acceration is simply we are seeing the universe being created still in a chain reaction event.

[scrabblehack]

Right, but the light from those distant galaxies has reached us, no? How could any light reach us that was more than 14 billion light years away, if indeed the universe is only 14 billion years old?

[JimRed]

I always thought the universe went on forever...God can do ANYTHING!