Looking Into Deep Space & Back In Time. How does it work?
Discussion
Something about viewing the Universe has been bugging me for years. Something that seems to be accepted knowledge that baffles me and I've finally decided to ask for an answer to my pretty basic question.
Let me try to explain what I mean
We hear time and time again that more powerful telescopes are able to look deeper into space and that by doing so, they are able to see back to the origins of the universe. In other words, back in time.
The light coming from the more distant constellations has travelled for billions of years to reach us. That we are now able to see light which was formed just after the Big Bang.
Now, my Janet & John knowledge of the Big Bang is that everything started from a 'singularity'. So - please bear with me without tittering - everything was really close to everything else as the Universe was formed.
Now, here's where I get totally confused. Why would the light from the furthest constellations take billions of years to reach us when all of those billions of years ago, we were sort of next to each other rather than far apart? Surely, we should have 'seen' this light ages ago, when we were close to the distant galaxies.
Does my question make sense?
If not, lock this thread now!
Let me try to explain what I mean
We hear time and time again that more powerful telescopes are able to look deeper into space and that by doing so, they are able to see back to the origins of the universe. In other words, back in time.
The light coming from the more distant constellations has travelled for billions of years to reach us. That we are now able to see light which was formed just after the Big Bang.
Now, my Janet & John knowledge of the Big Bang is that everything started from a 'singularity'. So - please bear with me without tittering - everything was really close to everything else as the Universe was formed.
Now, here's where I get totally confused. Why would the light from the furthest constellations take billions of years to reach us when all of those billions of years ago, we were sort of next to each other rather than far apart? Surely, we should have 'seen' this light ages ago, when we were close to the distant galaxies.
Does my question make sense?
If not, lock this thread now!
I watched a recent programme on Discovery channel about the beginning of time and the big bang.
The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
Ray Luxury-Yacht said:
I watched a recent programme on Discovery channel about the beginning of time and the big bang.
The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
They don't really know what was there before, and there are a lot of theories about it - the multiverse, singularities, loads of things. It could even be that since time is a dimension that can be bent and folded like all of the others that there wasn't actually ever a "before" - if all mass and matter was compressed into a singularity in three dimensions, it may have been compressed in four as well.The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
Ray Luxury-Yacht said:
I watched a recent programme on Discovery channel about the beginning of time and the big bang.
The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
Look at the background colour of space, it's black, I guess that's what they mean by nothing.The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
Terminator X said:
^^ Isn't another theory that time is like a pendulum swinging back & forth ... you go from Big Bang to everything expanding then slowing to a stop then it runs backwards to the Big Bang where it all begings again 
TX.
That WAS a theory until the expansion was found to be speeding up. Stop and collapse is no more.TX.
Circa 300,000 years after the big bang, when the rapid expansion is said to have happened, and after the plasma had cooled enough to form matter, things started to expand outward faster and faster.
We consider light a universal constant, but in relative terms, it still is even when space is expanded.
The observable universe is about 50^9 light years across, and considering it's only 13.7^9 years old...
You follow?
Blib said:
Now, here's where I get totally confused. Why would the light from the furthest constellations take billions of years to reach us when all of those billions of years ago, we were sort of next to each other rather than far apart? Surely, we should have 'seen' this light ages ago, when we were close to the distant galaxies.
Does my question make sense?
Space is expanding in all directions not just outwardly at the edge, the bits inbetween are also expanding so the distance between objects gets larger.Does my question make sense?
The distance of objects is calculated using redshift, that is the further away an object is the higher its "light" is stretched in the spectrum. The speed at which objects are moving away is proportional to their distance or the things that are furthest away are moving the fastest.
Now we know what the speed of light is and if we calculate the degree of redshift we can determine how far away the object was when the light was emitted.
If we imagine that the light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach us what we are seeing actually happened 8 minutes ago so we are looking back in time, the sun could of exploded in those 8 minutes but we'd not know about it.
scorp said:
Ray Luxury-Yacht said:
I watched a recent programme on Discovery channel about the beginning of time and the big bang.
The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
Look at the background colour of space, it's black, I guess that's what they mean by nothing.The most mental thing I could not (and still can't) get my head around, is that most scientists say that, before the 'big bang', there was 'nothing'!
Now to me, to have 'nothing' means that you must have 'something' for that 'nothing to be contained within, right?
But no - they say that we have to clear our minds from the accepted sense of 'nothing', and think about 'true nothing' - i.e., absoloutely nothing at all existing, anywhere, ever before...
I still cant imagine that! :/
As said above, our definition of something and nothing needs to be reviewed. Since spacetime had no meaning before the big bang, to think of there being something/nothing/Tom Cruise/clowns, is off the mark. There simply was no meaning of anything. At our current level of understanding anyhow.
The quantum conditions were right, it happened.
This may sound weird, but it's the best explanation we can fathom at this time.
Suggest you make a coffee, get some biscuits and watch this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo&lis...
I can see the problem the OP has got.
If all matter was once close together, the objects that are now at the edge of the known universe are now 13.7 billion light years away. That means the light we see from those objects must show them as they were 13.7 billion years ago.
The OP's problem is that it must have taken those objects x billion years to get to that position in time and space so they will have evolved and changed over that 13.7 billion years of existence.
As we have raced away from those objects, has the universe existed long enough for the light from objects that far away to actually reach us?
If all matter was once close together, the objects that are now at the edge of the known universe are now 13.7 billion light years away. That means the light we see from those objects must show them as they were 13.7 billion years ago.
The OP's problem is that it must have taken those objects x billion years to get to that position in time and space so they will have evolved and changed over that 13.7 billion years of existence.
As we have raced away from those objects, has the universe existed long enough for the light from objects that far away to actually reach us?
Eric Mc said:
I can see the problem the OP has got.
If all matter was once close together, the objects that are now at the edge of the known universe are now 13.7 billion light years away. That means the light we see from those objects must show them as they were 13.7 billion years ago.
The OP's problem is that it must have taken those objects x billion years to get to that position in time and space so they will have evolved and changed over that 13.7 billion years of existence.
As we have raced away from those objects, has the universe existed long enough for the light from objects that far away to actually reach us?
Further than that Eric. Expansion is speeding up. The observable universe is circa 50^9 light years.If all matter was once close together, the objects that are now at the edge of the known universe are now 13.7 billion light years away. That means the light we see from those objects must show them as they were 13.7 billion years ago.
The OP's problem is that it must have taken those objects x billion years to get to that position in time and space so they will have evolved and changed over that 13.7 billion years of existence.
As we have raced away from those objects, has the universe existed long enough for the light from objects that far away to actually reach us?
50 to the power of 9 
Is that the diameter? If so, that'd mean that the outer reaches of the universe are 25^9 light years from the centre, presumably where it all started.
That would also suggest that it's expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light, or have I grossly oversimplified?
Is that the diameter? If so, that'd mean that the outer reaches of the universe are 25^9 light years from the centre, presumably where it all started.
That would also suggest that it's expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light, or have I grossly oversimplified?
I can't believe the amount of non believers that inhabit this place - I thought that we were supposed to be a god fearing and Christian nation.
Everything was created 4000 years ago by the Lord. One the first day he created the heaven and the earth
It's all in the bible people - open your hearts to the Lord instead of this nonsense peddled by so called scientists. What has science ever done for anyone?
Everything was created 4000 years ago by the Lord. One the first day he created the heaven and the earth
It's all in the bible people - open your hearts to the Lord instead of this nonsense peddled by so called scientists. What has science ever done for anyone?
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