[Licensed-To-Carry]

So do the galaxies expand faster than the speed of light? If we all started out at the same place (the big bang), then would these young galaxies being on the other side of the balloon expand faster than the speed of light, for instance, we are going one direction at light speed and they are going the other direction at light speed, is this twice light speed?

[rightwingcrazy]

"So do the galaxies expand faster than the speed of light? If we all started out at the same place (the big bang), then would these young galaxies being on the other side of the balloon expand faster than the speed of light, for instance, we are going one direction at light speed and they are going the other direction at light speed, is this twice light speed?"

No, Einstein showed us that nothing can appear to travel faster than the speed of light from us. So if there's this galaxy (A) where they see us travelling away at 1/2 the speed of light, and they also see another galaxy (galaxy B) travelling in the opposite direction at 1/2 the speed of light, *we* would still see galaxy B travelling from *us* at something *less* than the speed of light. Not 1/2+1/2=1 times the speed of light. This is a concept that puts most people's minds in a twist.

If we tried really hard, we'd just determine that galaxy A's clocks weren't running right, and so they weren't measuring the speeds right. But the folks in galaxy A would say the same thing about us. All relative, you see.