Those aren’t stars folks.
https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01H1Q2DKR7FRQAMDGBGCDAMSPX.png
Consider the distance between our milky way galaxy and the nearest one, Andromeda galaxy which is about 2.5 million light years away, and we are looking at a LOT of space and an amazing number of galaxies.
I do believe in the next 50 years we are gonna have to come up with a bigger number for the age of the universe because the visible universe is gonna keep changing.
Nothing is moving, the forces between everything are just getting weaker.
Two things.
I never mentioned moving, but seems like everything IS moving. Certainly WE move around the sun and our solar system is in an arm of the milky way galaxy that rotates around a center.
My comment about age of the universe is based upon how far we can see distant galaxies, I don’t think we’ve seen everything yet, I think there is more out there than we can even imagine which means as a consequence the universe will be older than we currently believe.
When people say stuff like this… it makes my brain hurt.
It was more kind of a joke about relativity, a Grand Unified Forces Model, and how even atoms appear to me mostly empty space. My other standard joke is that by observing all these extended galaxies, we are collapsing the wave function and bringing about the end of the universe.
I alternate between contemplating collapsing the universe’s wave function and the Bronze Age collapse.
That and an off-color ‘double-slit’ joke I’m working on, but I can’t decide which way to go with it.
Nothing to see here.
One reason it changes is it’s expanding, so the observable universe has expanded each time we look. Is that in addition to what we may see plus expansion? I say yes. The universe may be far larger than we can observe due to the rate of expansion vs the speed of light, and all manner of other variables known and yet unknown. In theory, we are able to see more and more of the universe with the passing of time. It’s also important to note the rate of expansion is still being estimated by different methods:
https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/03/08/how-fast-is-the-universe-expanding-galaxies-provide-one-answer
Always makes me think of Frederick Pohl’s epic book “The World At The End Of Time”. One of my favorites. Would make an amazing movie.
Halton Arp may get his Nobel yet… here’s Dr Sabine Hofstadter on some of the problems with the Standard Model that have been further exacerbated by JWST observations.
[video=youtube_share;XbIuV6WjB84]https://youtu.be/XbIuV6WjB84?si=80I3cgmPUpOiNJ96[/video]
Given all the whackadoo stuff on the internet about space and the universe, I don’t think there are any more jokes. Just waiting for Flat Universe theory.
So what I was going after is the universe could be twice as big and twice as old as we currently believe and we’d never know it because that light simply hasn’t reached us yet and / or it’s too faint to be observed at that distance. I don’t think we’ve ever seen the edge of the universe and I doubt we ever will.
Well actually…
Every high school student should see that video. She explained more “science works like this” stuff in 5 minutes than some people can explain in a semester.
That’s why her channel is so popular and she’s well known in science circles these days.
I’ve kind of never understood the ‘age’ of the universe since it could be relative, right? To a photon heading out of the Big Bang at the speed of light (let’s forget about the hyper-expansion), not ‘time’ has gone by since it is traveling at the speed of light due to relativity… The only real frame of reference for the true age of the universe would a particle that was in the ‘center’ of the Big Bang and hasn’t moved since… right?
In a total side-bar, and maybe Will you could/can use it one of your books, I have a Tarantino like movie scene in my head where our middle-class, middle-aged(ahem), white-bread main-character finds himself in bad part of town and gets the attention of the local thuggery. As they start to void dire the main-character as to why he is in their neighborhood, he asks them.
“Do you know what a neutrino is? Physicists believe that they are particles moving at the speed of light that don’t interact with anything else. They just pass on through the galaxy on their merry way, trillions of them may be passing through us right now- not interacting or interfering with anything- but we can’t tell. Astrophysicists created huge experiments to try to capture one, but there is downside. Some scientists think that if you entangle one, this is what set off the Big
BANG!”
As I pull my STI 45ACP from concealment.
“Now, motherfrickers. I am the said neutrino particle. On my way through your neighborhood. Not interacting or interfering in your world. But if you try to entangle me, well, I will F up your universe at the speed of lead.”
There’s a wide range of lines of evidence as to the age, that there was a “beginning” and so forth. There’s still plenty of Qs to be answered, and unknowns too, but:
There’s several of my scfi stories where such an interaction would make sense. I actually just finished my first foray into historical fiction. Takes place in a Nazi labor camp. :neo:
I can see why. I just stumbled onto this one by accident looking for something else.
Everything is well supported, almost zero gobblygook (because absolutes probably can’t exist) and most refreshing…no hysteria, no OMG super assumptions…just clean, clear explanations provided in a way intended to help other people UNDERSTAND what she is saying rather than prove her intellectual superiority to others.
From our perspective, IF we had complete data, we could date the age of the universe.
What’s on the other side of “the edge of the universe”?
We don’t know. We’ll probably never know.
Philosophically nothing, because if anything is there (including empty space), then THAT becomes the edge of the universe. That assumes an edge of the universe even still exists at this point.
Big Bang really created a lot of problems. As difficult as it was to explain or reconcile, a “forever” and “infinite” steady state universe was a lot easier to wrap out heads around. I personally would have been more comfortable with a “forever” universe, although technically the singularity would have needed to pre exist before the creation of space or some similar model of a universe that expands, then collapses and then expands again so in a way it’s still a forever thing but with a lot of new challenges that we will never have evidence for because I don’t think anything can be observable before the creation of space itself.
I think we can just throw that on the “probably never gonna know” pile and the best we might achieve is a rough “the universe is about this old” number but even that will be relative to our perspective and will almost have to be based upon the end of the visible universe which very well could elude us forever.
Even if we as a species survive the next 500-750 million years (which is about how long we believe the planet can support animal life) we will probably never learn these things.
Surprised you have not heard of her before. She’s well known and respected among high level science/physics community. She also busts chops about various positions held by other physicists. Ridiculously smart, with common sense and grounded.