Quandary
So here's a scientific quandary from a guy with only a high school understanding of the scientific world, and an even poorer understanding of large-scale physics.
"They" say that the universe is probably about 12-15 billion years old. "They" also say that there's no way of determining how big the universe is; it might even be infinite.
But "they" also say that the speed of light is some kind of ultimate limit for matter, that nothing can go faster than light.
So shouldn't that mean that the universe can only be as far across as twice the universe's age? Assuming the big bang theory is correct, matter must have flown away from the initial point of its birth at - at the very fastest - the speed of light. If two chunks of matter fly in the opposite direction at the speed of light for twelve billion years, then they can't be farther apart than 24 billion light years. Meanwhile, we haven't detected any matter shooting through the universe that fast, which means that the universe is probably less than 24 billion light years across.
And if, somehow, matter did shoot out at faster than the speed of light, then won't the amount of light generated by the big bang eventually reach us? And wouldn't that blind everything on the earth?
Your thoughts.
"They" say that the universe is probably about 12-15 billion years old. "They" also say that there's no way of determining how big the universe is; it might even be infinite.
But "they" also say that the speed of light is some kind of ultimate limit for matter, that nothing can go faster than light.
So shouldn't that mean that the universe can only be as far across as twice the universe's age? Assuming the big bang theory is correct, matter must have flown away from the initial point of its birth at - at the very fastest - the speed of light. If two chunks of matter fly in the opposite direction at the speed of light for twelve billion years, then they can't be farther apart than 24 billion light years. Meanwhile, we haven't detected any matter shooting through the universe that fast, which means that the universe is probably less than 24 billion light years across.
And if, somehow, matter did shoot out at faster than the speed of light, then won't the amount of light generated by the big bang eventually reach us? And wouldn't that blind everything on the earth?
Your thoughts.