Minor point, we can actually see more than 14 billion light years away (more distance than you would expect given the age of things). I don't fully understand it, but people smarter than me say it's due to expansion.
This comic sort of describes it. http://xkcd.com/482/
Yeah, but Chalkie, due to the Expanding Universe, things are 'way beyond what we can see, even if we were at the center of the 'Verse. Which we are not.
I have a theory that the only thing faster than the speed of light is the expansion rate of the universe, or else light would pass beyond it, which would mean there was something else beyond the confines of our universe, and that would mean that our universe is bigger than estimated, or there's an adjoining universe. But if there was an adjoining universe, would the light from that universe reach us and what would it look like? If not, what happens to light escapes our universe's confines if it isn't traveling faster than the speed of light? Oh, my head hurts...
Okay, that is damn cool.
ReplyDeleteHeady stuff. Bravo.
ReplyDeleteMinor point, we can actually see more than 14 billion light years away (more distance than you would expect given the age of things). I don't fully understand it, but people smarter than me say it's due to expansion.
ReplyDeleteThis comic sort of describes it. http://xkcd.com/482/
Yeah, but Chalkie, due to the Expanding Universe, things are 'way beyond what we can see, even if we were at the center of the 'Verse. Which we are not.
ReplyDeleteThat'll be house arrest for you, then, Mr. Gallileo. ;)
ReplyDeleteEven cooler was the difference between the small side of the scale was larger than the difference between a meter and the top end.
ReplyDeleteYup.
ReplyDeleteOne of the hardest things to wrap my head around is that "solid" matter has not all that much more "stuff" in it than does empty vacuum...
I wonder how they came up with 50nm for UV? Odd.
ReplyDeleteAll kinds of neat-o, that aside.
Jim
I have a theory that the only thing faster than the speed of light is the expansion rate of the universe, or else light would pass beyond it, which would mean there was something else beyond the confines of our universe, and that would mean that our universe is bigger than estimated, or there's an adjoining universe. But if there was an adjoining universe, would the light from that universe reach us and what would it look like? If not, what happens to light escapes our universe's confines if it isn't traveling faster than the speed of light? Oh, my head hurts...
ReplyDeleteAnd, surfing out from it lead to Roy Batty's final words, which I hadn't heard since I saw the movie way back then.
ReplyDelete"I've seen things you peole would never believe....".
"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain".