How could the universe expand faster than the speed of light? That seems impossible!
- asks Paul
Joshua J Romero • July 9, 2007
![[CREDIT: NASA/L.BEWLEY]](https://scienceline.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/timespace.jpg)
[CREDIT: NASA/L.BEWLEY]
In science fiction universes, traveling the galaxy is a snap – just engage the “warp” or “hyperspeed” drive, and off you go, cruising the cosmos at several times the speed of light. But back in reality, we’ve all been taught that the speed of light is a strict traffic law that can’t be broken. This is true, but slightly misleading.
Einstein’s theory of special relativity, first published in 1905, asserted that the speed of light is a constant (300 million meters per second), no matter who measures it. It’s always the same whether you are in motion or at rest. This line of thinking is a lot different than we’re used to experiencing. For example, if you try to measure the speed of an oncoming car from a moving vehicle, you end up getting the combined speed of both cars. This is why cops have to stay parked. Light is different, because no matter what you’re doing it always goes the same speed.
The speed of light affects us more than we realize – it helps us understand the difference between cause and effect. If things could move faster than the light we see them by, we’d be in for weird experiences. If you were a catcher trying to catch a superluminal fastball, you might feel the ball hit your glove even before the pitcher starts his wind-up: The effect before the cause. That’s because the image of object would be traveling at the speed of light, trailing the faster baseball like the slower sound of thunder trails after the image of lightning.
Now that we have a taste for Einstein’s theory, we know that baseballs don’t go faster than the speed of light. But is there anything that can? It turns out that the speed of light is only a limit on objects – like baseballs – as they move through space. The movement of space itself, however, can make the speed of light seem slow.
Right after the Big Bang, the universe had a monstrous growth-spurt called inflation. The whole thing was over in less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second, but the universe grew exponentially in that brief blip, repeatedly doubling in size. At the end of inflation, although the universe was still smaller than a car, the outer edge had traveled many times faster than the speed of light. Since then, the universe has continued its expansion, but at a more reasonable, steady pace.
This ultra-fast growth seems to contradict what we’ve just discussed, but it makes sense if you understand the distinction between expansion and motion. When astronomers say that the universe is expanding, they’re talking about the rather abstract concept of space-time. Basically, space-time is the three physical dimensions of our existence-length, breadth and depth-combined with the additional dimension of time; think of it as a wire grid that connects every part of the universe to every other part. When we say an object has motion, we’re referring to its change in position relative to the space-time grid. The speed of light is only a constraint for objects that exist within space-time, not for space-time itself.
To better visualize the theory, astronomers often illustrate the expanding universe as a loaf of raisin bread rising in the oven. The raisins are galaxies and the rising dough represents space-time. As the dough expands, the raisin galaxies find themselves farther apart from each other, even though they are not moving relative to the dough between them.
Now let’s imagine that there’s a beetle in the loaf and it starts crawling toward a faraway raisin (don’t worry- we’re not going to eat it anyway). The beetle represents anything within space, such as baseballs, spaceships or photons. When the beetle burrows through the bread, he is moving relative to the dough, and all the other raisins. The speed of light limits how fast the beetle can travel, but not how quickly the bread can rise. Just because the expansion of space can break the speed limit, it doesn’t mean that we can go faster than Einstein said we could.
So, while the speed of light remains an unbreakable barrier for those of us within the universe, it can’t limit the expansion of space-time itself. The universe keeps right on expanding, but the speed of light limits how much of it we can see, and how fast we can move. It may not be fair, but that’s physics.
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About the Author
Joshua J Romero
Josh comes to science writing in New York City after studying astronomy and physics in Arizona. While he misses never wearing real shoes, Josh relishes the opportunity to read about science, politics, arts and culture on his daily subway rides. A former college-radio DJ, he is often found late at night in a half-empty, downtown bar listening to a noisy, experimental band with no record deal. He is fascinated with the boundaries of science, where it must intersect with politics, art, religion, or human nature.
198 Comments
I’ll start by saying! I have a Hugh imagination! I’am referring back to magic man up the top some where! I have answer that may create debate.If we can think back to the past while we are moving forward our memory’s & creations are the only thing that reminds us of the past! So there for we came before the dinosaur & just a reminder of what youesn’t to be! That we are traveling though time in reverse from being sucked through that’s allows time to travel. Like sending a text message! We are living a new creation that once was! That’s why sometimes say there be here before & time passers us instead of moving with us & we are clones created from highly advanced computers & knowing they where approaching a black hole & on the prink of there existents they left a footprint of what once lived here! Has anyone wonder why dinosaur fossils are found higher & minerals that has created advanced technology beneith! We are going recreate what once lived! They have already traveled further then us there started then us & all we are doing is what we had be design for! Why are we compatible with computers. I tell ya we where designed to be. Hahaha I’am joking or was I always going to tell this joke! Don’t think to hard now! Bahahahaha it’s time to get sleep or have already & that’s why I dream!!!! ;)
Sorry missed some spelling! But hay think about really why don’t we calculate our light speed but light speed has slow somewhat there we are so far behind we should still be traveling as the previous speed for at lest the closest star & 6000years away so why aren’t we gaining ground just because the edges have slowed does mean we should for a very long time! Why do our watchs move forward to record time that goes backwards my the watch need to be reverses because keeping track of time that pass should easy the recording something that hasn’t happen yet! Why does the sun rise in the east & set behind us if where moving forward! Why does it feel like when we walk time passers us by! Why do we even feel like time passers when we are sir post to be moving forward! Why do we start of young and grow old if we are moving forward! Why in recent study’s they have proven we can sense things perverse generations have felt should they sense us if we are moving forward! There seems to be to many common points to totally disregard how we feel! Feeling are things that are relate with our past! Shouldn’t it be our future moving forward! The did all the great people from the past leave so many cues about the future! When were moving forward it feels like bread crumbs have been laid out for us to follow! How can that be when were moving forward! We shouldn’t need the past to move forward there seems way to many possibilities that could suggest some kind of reverse travel! It seems like gravity holds us down when moving forward would be so! It’s like almost everything we do is backwards! But allows us to feel as if we are moving forward when time only passes us bye!
It’s funny how people say the government is holding back truth on unknow events! That people can’t handle truth! But maybe where running a one horse race with blinkers on! Because we just face the truth that could be starring us in eyes! But to afraide to admit what we all already fear & know! That we are becoming more dependant on something that really doesn’t need us! What computer virus haven’t you ever heard the saying you should never bite the hand that feeds it! Tooses your fights carefully! If somebody was making me perpously sick! I wouldn’t be to happy about it! How about you. We went from Jurassic park to clone animals so never discard a theory! Never be afraid to ask a question because there’s never a stupid question & create perocative debate! May the force be with you!
The universe expands in the same fashion as baking a loaf of bread with raisins in it in an oven. How it grows is dependent to the degrees the oven is heating and the substance of the loaf a bread. The growth of the loaf a bread cooking is constant relative to the degrees temperature it is cooking at. The raisins rise to the top they are the galaxies in the universe. They surround the bread crest. As the loaf a bread expands it gets larger and larger. Using a microwave instead of an oven the bread cooks from the middle outwards with the center of the bread heated the most. When the bread reaches its potential maturity the heat is turned off or the bread will burn to a crisp.
IN Quanta Physics Theory the raisins grow to the top of the bread in the same way as the galaxies in the universe are pushed to its outer edge. Because the loaf a bread is determent and cooks only to a specific ripeness the raisins which are the raisins at the universes edge can no longer expand further than the loaf’s cooking degree of ripeness so as they continually expand being pushed from the loafs inner temperature setting they scrabble around each other at an extremely great speed and faster than the loaf a breads growth in the oven. Because the expansion velocity of the closer galaxies at the universes center is measured at light speed the galaxies being physically pushed against at its edge scrabble pushing against the universes outer edge that divides it from the detailed pure vacuum outside the bubble which as a specific length of the universe at its edge – the expansion velocity increases to a greater velocity than the more subtle space near its center. Because of the increase in the cosmologic pressure where the universe seems to be independent as a bubble realm as it pushes against its outer edge barrier as in Hubble Observation the galaxies scatter sideways around one another – a definite increase in the galaxies speed at this location though increased cannot be specifically determined. It is only that the change in the galaxies speed at this point and time is greater than light speed. It seems to me that something is procurable is causing the galaxies to expand the universe and make it grow larger and larger. Quanta Physics puts a erupting dark star partly closed at its surface due to the cold vapor in the space atmosphere that is measured to be infinite in mass. The amount of the spacious mass and its vacuum ice cold vapors in the beginning preyed on the emerged star celestial when it emerged rendering it with its ice cold and multitude of cold vapor making the dark star’s crest surface partly sealed with icy sheets and ice cold terrain. It seems most likely that over the billions of years eruptions continue to explode at the dark stars surface as it continually fights against the empty space cold vapor atmosphere where gigantic chunks of matter are pushed out from its surface and beyond the dark stars density field. As time passes these eruptions make enough galaxies that they cause the outer realm the raisins close top the universes outer edge to scramble at speeds faster than light and expand the universe as a whole itself. The gigantic dark star that lays at the center of the universe balances and stabilizes an orbital track that allows it to continually cycle and expand. The Universe Dark Star is so gigantic in size that the total of eruptions large enough that they form galaxies filling the space and expanding the universe that it seems to measure a constant expansion rate when measured.
Universe is not a one-way and endless street,we are in orbit around the center of universe.Interested to hear more,send me a message over my Facebook.
Here’s the proverbial “fly in the ointment”. What if time simply did not exist? What if time is an artificial concept derived into being simply as a means for a linear being (man) to describe linear travel through linear space as a direct result of senses and abilities of understanding that are limited to only linear thought and understanding? We naturally and intuitively think it takes x minutes to move y distance. Remove time from that equation and suddenly, one of two things happens: x and y cease to exist (which is not possible) or travel between x and y is no longer necessary and therefore, x and y must occupy the same space at the same time; also not possible. The theory of the Einstein Rosen bridge says otherwise. If time is removed from any equation that says travel faster than light is impossible, these equations fail and therefore, travel faster than light is more than possible; it’s becomes necessary. This would explain how it’s possible for black holes and other singularities to exist and get away with breaking all the known rules. Einstein theorized that a wormhole is possible. In effect, the theory works because time(and distance)is removed from the equation. In short, it’s the “point A and point B’ on a piece of paper explanation. If the paper represents time and space, the shortest linear distance between the two is a straight line. Velocity and distance determines how long it will take to travel between the two points. Fold the paper so that point A and Point B are touching, and, in essence, A and B are actually occupying the same space. Distance and speed is no longer a factor and collaterally, the calculation of the time it takes to move from A to B is irrelevant. Just step through from A to B and let the paper return to it’s normal shape and presto, travel from A to B is instantaneous regardless of distance. When distance over time is removed from the mix, the equations in this scenario work and the Rosen Bridge theory is plausible. If the distance between A and B is a million light years and someone was watching this happen from point C, the object moving from point A to point B through the bridge would presumably disappear from point A and appear at point B. To the person watching both points from point C, would it not be true the object just moved from A to B instantaneously? To the person watching this happen from point C, the object just moved a distance faster than the speed of light. Einstein said acceleration beyond the speed of light was impossible in his theory of Special Relativity. He never said we couldn’t get around it.
Is it not long overdue that we as human beings be grateful of the earth that we have, and discontinue on wasting trillions of dollars of commercial and geological resource on searching for the answer of where did we come from – are we in not in danger of conducting the world’s most expensive search into something that we cannot change or indeed begin to influence.
Should we not admit – that even after our millions of years of evolution, we do not have the capacity to understand the causation of gravity, even though we know and can predict the effect of such force.
Maybe there is better time and energy to be expended on learning how to communicate with each other and with other species, and just maybe, we could enjoy this earth and the universe for the wonderment that it is without wasting the precious buried sunshine that by some miracle of physics we have been blessed with.
@ Willy Gauche, I too suspect it is us who are moving relative to light which is not. Think about what it would be like to be a photon (to borrow Einstein’s trick): From a photon’s perspective, nothing is moving or moving infinitely slow. @ Nissam, “According to Special relativity information cannot be sent faster than light.” Please refer to quantum entanglement/spooky action at a distance.
Certainly there be answers to questions yet to calculate.I think N.A.S.A. is close to exact as a corner of the universe is expanding exceeding the speed of light or 5.5trillion approx.miles per year.
@Timbo
you said
Is it not long overdue that we as human beings be grateful of the earth that we have, and discontinue on wasting trillions of dollars of commercial and geological resource on searching for the answer of where did we come from – are we in not in danger of conducting the world’s most expensive search into something that we cannot change or indeed begin to influence.
Should we not admit – that even after our millions of years of evolution, we do not have the capacity to understand the causation of gravity, even though we know and can predict the effect of such force.
Maybe there is better time and energy to be expended on learning how to communicate with each other and with other species, and just maybe, we could enjoy this earth and the universe for the wonderment that it is without wasting the precious buried sunshine that by some miracle of physics we have been blessed with.
i disagree with you,
Reaching out to the stars and space would ultimately unite Humans with a single cause that we are all one there are no brits and americans or germans.and wars would not happen with feloow humans.
Basically for all scientists know, it was Gods doing. They just don’t want to admit that
Reading # 20 makes me thought of this:
what if the space/universe is like a piece of gel?
Different “thickness”/folding across different area, making the speed of light to us observers as constant because we are at relatively the same point on that gel.
What if actual speed of light is different across different area of the universe depending on its fold/”thickness”?
It would explain why the origin of the light source does not affect how long light takes to get from point A to B.
It doesn’t mean we can go beyond speed of light since that is the limit within that particular area of the gel, but if there is something outside of the gel, what that something would observe between different sections of the expanding gel would be different right?
There is no such thing as space in its own right.you can only create the distance between two objects by using energy and time to move them apart. You cannot create or destroy energy.so where does the energy come from for the universe to expand indefinately?
I still say everything happens in reverse.in the begining after the bigbang every thing was moving at the same speed in all directions(includind photons) at the speed of light. The photons for some or other reason slow down to a standstill relative to other matter having converted all their movement energy to light energy.so when a photon becomes visable it is standing dead still in relation to something else that is still moving at the so called speed of light.
Willy Gauche’
8 September 2014 18h00
Wait a minute… Einstein “did not assert or hypothesize that the speed of light is a constant”? That doesn’t make any sense to me. In E=mc2 “C” represents the speed of light and stands for “constant,” does it not? If he didn’t regard the speed of light as a constant, why employ the term? or for that matter, if it doesn’t represent a constant, why does the designation exist at all?
Also, if the speed of light is changeable over time, then doesn’t that mean the acceleration barrier also changes? Six billion years ago we couldn’t accelerate faster than, say, 400 million meters per second, but today, we can’t accelerate faster than 300 million meters per second because light has slowed down. How can that be?
It makes it seem like there’s some law or process that governs the speed of objects, whether wave or particle, but not gravity or space-time, and when that process slows, it’s time to change the speed limit signs again. Is that the case?
If all photons travel at a constant speed, how can there be “redshift”?
I’m sorry but I don’t believe that light travels at the same speed no matter what your frame of reference is. I think that if I’m traveling from point A to point B at half the speed of light, and someone at point A shines a light towards point B, that the light would pass me on route from A to B, at a slower rate than if I were at a standstill. I just think that light is so fast that its impossible to make an accurate measurement to prove or disprove this. The only way that light would have the same speed no matter what your point of reference was, is if light was infinitely fast. ie – It moved from source to endpoint, no matter how far away, even from one side of the universe to another, instantaneously. or in other words, it doesn’t have a speed, its something that is everywhere at all times and is either switched on or off. The fact that light even has a speed, indicates that it would be traveling slower from your point of reference if you were traveling at 99% the speed of light in the exact same direction of the lights direction of travel.
First to clear up a misconception in the article.
The big bang was a singularity in time, where black holes are a singularity in space. The author is thinking of the universe like a black hole.
It is generally accepted in the scientific community that the universe was infinite in size at the instance of the big bang, with a large but finite mass an energy per unit of space.
When the big bang happened, space itself expanded, and the universe got less dense and cooler (less energy)as the result.
The raisin bread analogy is good, however the raisin bread is infinite in size, even at the time of the big bang. The universe was never smaller than a car.
You ask how could something infinite in size, can get infinitely bigger. Well all infinities are not created equal. Do a google search on “transfinite numbers”, but a warning; this is not light reading.
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@Richard Sept 17
The big thing your missing is that it says everyone “Measures” light as the same speed. Which would be in a form of distance/time.
The strange thing about traveling at near light speeds is there distances compress. So if an inertial observer measured your stationary spaceship as 1km, the observer would measure your 0.9c spaceship are less than 1km. Because you are compressed even if the light is moving past you at C, and you are moving at 0.9c, you would measure that it would pass your ship at C because to an inertial observer your meter stick would be shorter than a meter.
Sorry for awful explanation. The speed of light, time dilation, and spacial compression are all interconnected. You cannot have one without the others. The connection is why everyone would “measure” the speed of light as C.
I have not read all the above yet, but from what I’ve seen so far, most of the “commentators”/ respondents are certainly more savvy than I am. Just a thought though: As everything is related to time, isn’t our “measure” or perception thereof what srews us? I mean, Second = 1/60 of a minute. Minute = 1/60 of an hour. Hour = 1/24 of one rotation of a planet etc?
There we go again. 300 million meters per 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/24th of a rotation of a planet.
Assuming there is a multiverse, are there any thoughts on how fast our universe is moving?
For Mark Biddle. My understanding is that C remains constant for all observers but the frequency of the waves can vary, giving us an electromagnetic spectrum that has very short waves at one end and very light waves at the other. All parts of the EM spectrum are affected by the expansion of the universe and the movement of source of the waves away from the observer at speeds that accord with Hubble’s Law.
It occurs to me that if it were possible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light, then light itself probably would. Since it doesn’t, what is limiting it ?
For all those confused about the logical “impossibilities,” I highly recommend Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. It is about string theory, but also has a highly detailed explanation of classical and quantum physics.
Why are there no more comments? Last one was two months ago???
If the universe expands at speeds greater than light, then doesn’t that make it impossible to determine the objective age of the universe? Naturally, we can determine it from our relative vantage point (where light speed is a “constant”), but doesn’t this prevent an objective assessment of its age from outside our vantage point? If this is true, could the universe be simultaneously “thousands” of years old and “billions” of years old?
Honestly confused about this issue here.
The law of cause and effect worries me.if God created the universe where does God come from?
Somewhere allong the line the law of cause and effect breaks down which means that all effects do not have to have a cause! Scary.
Shifting reference points with different time measurements
Measurements assume uniform motion. The Big Bang theories predict a point of inflation so that otherwise good formulas can be perpetuated as gospel, where the speed of light was exceeded, though the speed of light is constant. Inflation was not uniform motion if it occurred. The age of the earth is 4.6 billion years old. The BB was 13.7B+ years ago. The measurements are made from the earth’s point of reference, assuming uniform motion of the bodies, which if we are honest we know weren’t uniform. We know now that the universe expansion is accelerating and getting bigger from red shifting. We can estimate what that rate of acceleration is now from our point of reference, but we don’t know what it was eons ago. We can only make semi-educated guesses. If Einstein was right, and the speed of light is maximum, from the point of view of the point of singularity, the universe cannot be older than the speed of light emanating from it, even with an inexplicable very temporary inflated start. The laws of physics either functional everywhere or not. Yet, we are convinced the universe is triple the diameter the speed of light could have traveled from the BB boom. We are sure of it, not just that it looks that way from our point of reference.
If science keeps on trying to explain everything from the point of view of the earth, continued ignorance is assured.
The fact that C is relative to a vantage point would make measuring distances with no known point of reference to galaxies moving away from us impossible.
Time is a measurement, as is gravity (My guess is that gravity is the effect of large mass/speed on the medium of space. They can be used in equations, but we should not expect them to behave as objects when they are out of our local environment.
Therefore we have no way to predict how they will influence our equations of galaxies on the other side of the universe.
Dark energy is only a prop to validate lifetimes worth of work based on faulty assumptions.
Any theory that does not make verifiable predictions should be put aside.
The entire astrophysicist community is “shocked” every time they make a new measurement. You would think they would eventually realize they are on the wrong track. One or more of our assumed “known” variables is wrong, at least on a universal scale.
I do not believe in faith.
Willy. This argument for a creator always drives me nuts. Of course it’s far less ridiculous that nature was created by chance than an omnipotent being was. No sense taking people’s comfort from them unnecessarily however, unless you have an answer for them.
Science can preach to you about the beginning of the universe, yet they have no theory to explain where all that mass and/or energy originated.
Then there’s life, which we cannot define. We can’t even bring a blade of grass back to life once it’s gone. Where does it go?
I get the feeling the answer is very simple, yet we cannot comprehend it at present.
The only thing certain is that we are probably way off base. I wouldn’t worry about it. I feel like having an open mind is the key. It’s amazing to me how many people cannot even entertain the thought that they may be wrong.
Our knowledge is finite, while our ignorance, by definition, is infinite. In a way, that comforts me.
most of the comments are intelligent and i welcome them all, how ever most miss the point of einsteins theory. c is constant. period. time is not. take two trains travelling at 100mph. train a. and train b. train a is relative to us but train b is relative to time b. time b moves half as fast relative to us. train a in one hour travels 100 miles in one hour, meanwhile train b will travel 200 miles in one hour. strange as it seems, and as hard to grasp for most people to comprehend i know. but train b is going the same speed as train a relative to each other, but not to time. this fundamental charataristic chaused shock waves and helped give birth to modern quantum mechanics. you also have to bear in mind that the early universe was very,very,very,very hot. it was also a very,very,very,very high energy place. high energy+heat=bizzare, no truly bizzare outcomes. the laws of physics at high energy values breakdown and you end up at either 0 or infinty. which is what einstein wanted to remove from his work (quantum mechanics handles this very well, string theory even better). you see the problem isn’t that it can’t happen, the problem is WHY it happened. which gives birth to yet more questions. another issue most of you have is most think all the ellements existed back then too. they did not. only one or two existed at that point, and it was only after the cooling proccess that what we take for granted as matter appeared. as particles collided annd coelessed into larger denser particles. also try not to think of the big bang as that, but more accuarately a singularity in reverse.
the only problem in science i have is God particle. I find it insulting to my faith in science as well demeaning others faith in religion to bellitle ones thought of who or what they are to one particle. if you was the pope and someone told you your master god was fleck of sand you would feel rather disturbed at this and call it blasphemy. like wise as a man of science i find it insulting that a fundamental particle could have a thought, a thought that could make everything out of nothing. but alas, we live in a time when one of the more modern popes favourit film was 2001, who could blame him though, its a very pretty film to watch!!. please don’t miss my point though, i am not for or against religion, or science. but faith is down to us all, not science, nor god. oh and this God particle, well that is the early universe and only by finding it can we really figure it out. you see faster than light travel isn’t possible, but slower than time at high velocities, well that is exciting, maybe with a god particle or two a device that warps space time without breaking light speed? yeah i am not talking time travel, but bending physics to our will, we know it’s possible, we can see it, it has been observed in the CBR (chosmic background radiation) its been seen in the huge red shifts. it is possible not in my lifetime though.
another point most people don’t get either, is what the centre is, or whether we are on a bubble a ring or a bloody donut. we were all once at the centre. the furthest object seen by hubble, the crab nebula, andromeda. for all intense and purposes they are all the centre. you, me. the food in my stomache and the atoms in my urine ALL THE CENTRE. the device you are looking at reading this, everything around you is the centre of the universe. yeah i know its crazy right? we orbit the sun, so the sun is the centre of the universe right? yeah, it’s the centre of the universe. so the sun flings off a particle and whilst it takes on average 8 minutes for light to travel to earth, it arrives here and its still at the centre of the universe. you get in a space ship that breaks all laws of physics, you travel for 200,000,000,000 years at light speed and you arrive again at the centre of the universe. now that is crazy.
my head hurts now, must sleep.
My juxtaposition as a mathematician is that the speed of light is only a theory by Newton , Aristotle , and various other members off the great science of astrophysics Including Stephen Hawking, if all around us is travelling at a faster speed then it is possible to do the same, hope the technology catches up, and then we will grow younger than getting older, Einstein’s relativity law.
In the earth’s atmosphere it is the gravity force that entangles how fast an object might travel yet in space an expanding space of 45 miles a second per 3 million light years distance is also limited by the speed of this light. The calculations earlier illustrate the difference in speeds a ship might travel having the ability to do so – based on light speed in space due to the expansion of the field an affect that for all reason affects everything existing in the realm of space as a whole.
We research further in this theory about light speed and its components (₠²)
We research farther observing the state of the universe and its expanding space pressure and outline a more valuable direction to correct the arithmetic in special relativity and review how the universe’s expansion has barrier to how fast a mass will travel through space also. If gravity space is expanding accelerating faster than light or at 2.8 times light velocity this is what allows for gravity acceleration that which allows a moving vessel to travel at speeds close to twice light speed without preciseness. Einstein special relativity (SR) is able to prove based on its premises that nothing can propagate faster than the speed of light in forward time. Is our result for the speed of gravity an experimental falsification of SR? Because light retains chemistry speed limit does not have to define the result velocity of the space it is traveling in unless it has a positive energy. Whereas space propagates at a velocity faster than light does not make a object travel faster it only allows for as greater universal speed limit.
In the arithmetic below we direct the value of the Hubble Recession approximately 45 miles per second per 3 million light years divide it with the full diameter of the universe at its event horizon or highest edge on the outside of the bubble divide this with 3 million light years and multiple that sum with 45 miles a second. Discovery of that sum of 450,000 miles per second in seconds with the speed of light and discover how fast space is at expansion its extreme and outside edge = 372,000 m/s plus 78,000 m/second. (2.8 ₠/v²) v=q
We observe the swell of the space expansion is equal to just over twice light speed as shown in the other assignments also listed to be ‘The Swell’ meaning the pushing outwards of pressure of the bubble where the galaxies lay on the outer side of the bubble fabric surface.
The fastest a ship can be accelerated or pushed at is 186,000 miles a second. Due to all other remedies acquired like the physical expansion of space the lack of energy in the vacuum and lack of mass increasing due to such energies in the space compartment theory add to the ships ability to forego its journey. Space itself is pulling apart at the seams, expanding at a rate of 74.3 plus or minus 2.1 kilometers (46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles) per second per megaparsec (a megaparsec is roughly 3 million light-years). What this means is that the galaxies are expanding away from each other at 450,000 miles a second per second. I have divided these miles of expansion with the speed of light and discover that the universe expansion rate allows a vessel top travel at speeds faster than light equaling about 2.8 thousand miles a second. Of course implies that the ship has the capacity to travel at that speed.
This theory does not violate the theory of relativity which asserts the speed of light constant. Though relativity does include an expansion theory it is directed towards matter expanding relativity with its force with gravity. In Quanta Physics Theory the universe is expanding and since we reside in the Milky Way at the event horizon’s crest outside the expanding balloon we do not feel the affect of the expansion which allows us to experience the journey which in turn is what makes space a flatland and the universe without limit.. Galactic matter as such grows deeper and deeper into the vacuum of that space. It is essential that we travel at a velocity that would otherwise keep us from getting away from a condition of space that at its wits gets farther and farther away from us.
We look at space with a zero point ground inflationary state and a maximum acceleration state of 2.8 c.v2. Traveling close these faster than light galaxy positions are crew ventures traveling at the same speed except to land in some inserted planet within one of these galaxies where upon landing velocity equals zero…..Rod Kawecki 2015.02.20
The Universe is round like a balloon. Its diameter is 93 billion light years across measuring as a balloon 229,000 mil light years. A ship travels in any direction will travel rite back to the place it launched. A ship traveling at the speed of light can accelerate up to close to 450,000 miles a second if it had the engine capacity to do it. This does not violate relativity – its based on the universe’s length as a balloon (450,000 miles a second) which allows it. Space is warp not the celestial matter in it that doesn’t change. But a ships speed can zoom to close that 2.7 light speed. Space is warp meaning that it was stretched, curved, bent and blown up creating a dark black hole that releases pressure from somewhere in the cosmos dark matter element. Matter survived without diminishing and lays on top of the warp space. What makes the matter in the universe to expand is the pressure from the hole in it. Space has been warp and as consisting as a empty expanding vacuum has a zero point vacuum ground density but since it doesn’t consist as a close compartment as relativity insist it does – means that there exist no real limit to a ship velocity traveling on this expanding bubble. THe galaxies orbit spreading at 2.7 miles a second per second away from each other at the edge of the universe. Physicists think that faster than light speeds in such a condition would illustrate a un-balance in the galactic orbitration speed meaning that the distance because of the expansion and its speed between galaxies is too much. We measure the distance between the galaxies and think how much they spread a part at 450,000 miles a second each second as way fast and way far a part. Its all happening at the edge of the universe. The room between celestial sphere at the edge is the oldest area of the balloon. As the balloon gets bigger and bigger more and more room is available making the velocity the sphere’s orbitrate giving them the velocity under the open pressurizing realm more freedom. We don’t feel this change in the realm pressure because we reside in its grip but we can measure it from a distance. The space it resides in – is warp from the beginning but retains as a emptyness. The speed a ship can travel through this warp ship can be measured a sum Quanta Physics Theory by this author Rod Kawecki has deciphered. We have measured the the speed between the galaxies and the velocity they expand at at the universe’s edge and divide that distance and separation velocity by the speed of light which equals 278,000 miles a second..divide this sum by the speed of light equals 2.7 thousand miles a second. This is how we decipher the available universal speed limit in the equation sum’s. Albert Einstein deciphered the universal speed limit saying it was the speed of light because light measures at both levels a mass scale and a non mass scale which fits well with measuring particle masses but does nothing for the universe’s speed limit. He deciphered these barriers with gravity and assume empty space as static electricity. He also assumed his speed limit with a close universe compartment or as a bubble that has a limited realm equilibrium of space. And its not – we reside outside the balloon or bubble surface. Reading The Quanta Physics theory you can discover the equations that prove this and why. Einstein also considered the zero point vacuum energy of open space possibly by adding a zero to his light made of ship. He never looked at squaring the velocity as in his equations but others have like Star Trek engine propulsion possibilities. The difference between general relativity and special relativity using time travel as a barrier traveling pass light speed you will time travel – is beyond the real truth. I have written five books using these deciphered changes found in relativity and my sixth will include the realm of the universe as I have mentioned in short length here but more are shown. All my books decipher as theory with faster than light hypothesis deciphered equations and explain the differences and why. I think we have to acknowledge a new beginning in a commercial space environment future from earth. I always wondered if god made a cat animal heaven like us – what do you think?
Wow, does this thing ever have legs.
First post in 2007, and still going strong 8 years later.
The problem arises from the fallacy of referring to c as the speed of light. It is NOT the speed of light, it is a constant of proportionality, derived from e/m. That proportionality is constant, not the speed of light. it is entirely coincidental that the speed of light approximates this value. There is no necessity for it.
As for the problem of causality, this was once used as the reason why things could never travel faster than the speed of sound. If they did, they could hit us before we herd them. Of course, things CAN travel faster than the speed of sound. Just like sound waves, the light waves/particles would all bunch up in front of the object, and would hit us at exactly the same time the object hit us. No problems with causality. We just can’t see/hear it BEFORE it hits us.
What IS a problem is the notion that the speed of light is the same, no matter what speed you are traveling. Thus, by this logic, if you were on a particle traveling at the speed of light, and projected a beam of light, that beam would be traveling at the speed of light relative to you, already traveling at the speed of light. Therefore, it would project ahead of you, even though you were traveling at the speed of light.
This is not really a conundrum, because nothing says how FAR and how LONG it has to travel at the speed of light, relative to the object. Just that, AT THE QUANTUM TIME OF OBSERVATION, it has to be traveling at the speed of light relative to you. In the next quantum unit of time, it no longer has to be traveling at the speed of light relative to you, because it is no longer relative to you. Thus, it bunches up in front of you only during that one quantum of time.
If space is expanding, then the measuring stick we use to measure the distance between two points is also expanding at the same rate. Thus, two objects one meter apart at time 0 will still be one meter apart at time 2. The measuring stick ‘expands’ at the same rate as ‘space’ (and the distance between the objects) is expanding.
Space expands, along with everything in it.
Thus, if distance is still the same, then speed being distance over time is the same, even though everything is going faster due to expansion.
Did God create the speed of light?
Who decided this?
I have a few problems¡¡ if an engineer desighns a bridge and the the bridge collapses and some people get killed the engineer has to take resposibility for his faulty desighn and is in big trouble!!
God is said to be allmighty ,allknowing and omnipotent.
When he desighned Adam and Eve being allknowing he knew that his desighn was faulty,
And being allmighty he was quite capable of rectifying his mistake.So why did he go ahead and create misery???
Perhaps what we call God is a collection of all the physical laws that exist in tha universe and that God is bound by those laws and therefore is not capable of performing any miracles?
turtles, turtles all the way down. great maths too. i am not a mathematician, proffesor or hold any qualifications, but i do know that science asks more questions than it answers. sometimes, though it comes down too a choice, the obvious choice here is between answer a; spacetime at high energy equates to faster than light expansion. or… b; God appeared last thursday and said “let there be stuff”! there could be other explanations though, but personally for me it’s a. one other thing i would like to ask though is what happens to string theory at the point of a singularity or other high energy state?
one other point comes to mind though. a music proffessor once explained to me that music is down to knowing it and not necessarily understanding it. theoretical physics is the same. what we observe and what we know doesn’t mean we understand it or indeed that we will.
all evidences points to a transcendent cause to the universe. According to the bible Isaiah 40 vs 22: “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” even thousands of years before hubble discoveries of the expanding and stretching space, the bible has already said it. While the discovery of the expanding and stretching universe is a big news to scientists, it is an old news to the religious people.
My take on the universe being created from nothing is this. Now there is no sensible and coherent way of explaining how the universe might have been created from nothing. Lawrence Krauss (author of “a universe from nothing”) the top most proponent of “Nothing” believes that the universe was created from nothing by the laws of quantum mechanics. Now, when asked how the laws of quantum mechanics was created, he said the laws come into existence when universe come into existence. In order words, the laws of quantum mechanics created a universe then as the universe is been created the same laws was created along side the Universe.
Since atheist and evolutionist liked someone who believe in a transcendent cause (God) as hallucination, or as a delusion, as Richard Dawkin often potray, trying to convince that same person that the universe is created by nothing is like curing someone that believed in a creator God from delusion and hallucination just to give him/her a different set of delusional or hallucinogenic pills.
Suppose the distance between two galaxies is increasing at twice the speed of light due to the expanding universe.
Suppose we name these galaxies G1 and G2. Suppose that the original distance separating them is 1000 light years when measured in any reference frame. This is possible since distance can be measured independent of time.
The time measured in G1 is not the same as the time measured in G2. So we have Time1 and Time2.
Supposed G1 experiences a supernova and the light from that event travels away from G1 at the speed of light as measured from G1. In 1000 years of Time1 the light will have travelled 1000 light years. Time1=Distance/C. but would not have reached G2 as In the realm of time as defined by Time1, G2 would have moved to 2000 light years away . A stupid question then would be so how long will it take for the light to reach G2?
let T1 = time taken to reach G2 as measured by Time1 for the signal to reach G2
Initial separation distance = 1000 light years
Separation distance = 1000 light years + 2*C*T1 ( where T1 is the time for the light to reach G2)
How long will it take light to reach G2 as measured from G1
T1 = Separation Distance /C
T1=(1000 light years + 2*C*T1)/C
T1*C= 1000 light years +2*C*T1
-T1*c=1000 light years
T1 = -1000/C
Conclusion if you are looking out from G1 the light will never each G2.
In the reference frame of G2 light is travelling towards it from G1 at the speed of light. Since the distance is 1000 light years from the supernova event …. in 1000 years of Time2 the light will have reached it and G2 would be aware of the event . T2=Distance/C.
From the viewpoint of G2 the light will have reached it in 1000 years as measured in T2.
The overall conclusion is that if the distance between two objects is increasing at more than the speed of light then information will flow out to an observer but according to the source the observer will never get the information.
It is possible therefore for two simultaneous supernova events to occur in both G1 and G2 with both G1 and G2 Receiving the information on these events in 1000 years of their own time and yet paradoxically in their own time the information of the events will never reach the other galaxies.
Gravity would have been intense at point of big bang. Everybody talking about speed alone in universe expanding after point of big bang. But remember general relativity? Special relativity isn’t only thing involved. Gravity would slow time also. Even at point of big bang hydrogen and helium atoms would have mass. Gravity be much stronger force on them earlier in birth of big bang when they were more condense than now.
Another question would be what affect would all this motion have on time? If universe expanded near speed of light early on, if Einstein was right…had to be instantaneously.
I don’t understand why the article states that the raisins are not moving relative to the dough between them. As the dough expands surely the raisins will move away from each other?
Can someone explain or do I have to bake a cake !
Perhaps we are not thinking properly when we blame God for all our miseries, perhaps God has a tremendous problem to keep the universe going. God has to conitinually create space otherwise if the universe does not expand it will collapse and that will be the end of us. Do any of us know what this entails?
We are destroying this beautiful world at an ever increasing rate and some humans are behaving despicably.
Perhaps we should be careful what we say about God because He/She may get completely fed up with us and call it a day and return everything back to nothing.
So in conclusion, the expansion happened at a speed faster than light. But if so then the expansion has decelerated because universe expansion now is not at that speed not even by a fraction. Which means that the notion that the universe is expanding now at an acceleration rate is incorrect.
Something is not adding up at all.
“The speed of light affects us more than we realize – it helps us understand the difference between cause and effect. If things could move faster than the light we see them by, we’d be in for weird experiences. If you were a catcher trying to catch a superluminal fastball, you might feel the ball hit your glove even before the pitcher starts his wind-up: The effect before the cause. That’s because the image of object would be traveling at the speed of light, trailing the faster baseball like the slower sound of thunder trails after the image of lightning”
The above comment was by the moderator. I can’t help but noticed the logical inconsistency of his argument. I might be wrong. If I was the pitcher that wants to throw the ball That travels more than C. The catcher will feel the ball hit his gloves even before I (the pitcher) start wind-up. What about if i changed my mind about throwing the ball in the middle of the wind-up? By then the catcher has already felt the ball hit his gloves. Please explain to me what hit his gloves when i did not throw the ball.